― DG, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
now = somewhat dud, with flashes of hilarity. every book has at least ten good jokes and two or three BRILLIANT ideas.
― ethan, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The books much more classic than the TV series, IMHO, although they did trail off a bit towards the end. Was Mostly Harmless even *meant* to be funny?
― Dave M., Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Mike Hanley, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― gareth, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Omar, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthony, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The 80s TV style didn't bother me either; it was clear that everyone on the team had made a real effort and the fact that you could see it was in a studio just added to the effect for me.
I was going to go out and buy the books this morning, but as people tell me the TV series is the worst incarnation, I think I'll enjoy that and then get even more out of the books and the radio version.
― John Davey, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― kevan, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sam, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Also see: every garden scene (apart from those in the chicken coop, or suchlike) in The Good Life. My (American) better half thinks this jarring leap from video to film that features in every BBC show up until the mid-80s is hilarious and bizarre - right up there with wall-to-wall carpeting and our licensing laws as Crazy Limey Nonsense.
― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Best bits: The aforementioned alien whose mission is to curse the entire universe; Zaphod's secret plot; the mid-air sex scene (complete with authorial asides); the fairy-cake machine; Marvin; Slartibartfast; Krikkit.
― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Geoff, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Classic,Classic,Classic,Classic,Classic,Classic,Classic,Classic,Classi c,Classic,Classic,Classic etc.
― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
A sidenote: One Foot In The Grave continued to use film and video together right up until the last series, in 2000 (or 2001, can't remember).
― Croooooow, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
"Gentlemen! This room is surrounded by film!"
When I was a fresher at college and the fifth book was coming out, I outed this long dormant fandom as part of a scattershot 'thing's we have in common' technique, and I was cringing about it within hours. So I suppose I assumed that if I ever retunred to it since then I would find it to be not only a dud, but a humiliating critique on my pre to early teen years.
So last night I watched it with this loaded prejudice. But it was good, I think, looking past the dated production values grafted onto another medium.
'The ships hung in the air in exactly the way that bricks don't.'
If it has a stigma, its our own fault. If we hadn't liked it so much, Adams may have spread his wings a little further in twenty five years.
― He's Not Here, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
1. CONCEPT vs EXCECUTION. I mean, the Idea and the ideas are very good indeed - and the way they're actually delivered is not. I DON'T just mean 'bad effects' (often reminiscent of old Dr Who) - I mean Very Bad Acting. Can't recall when I last heard so many awful American accents on TV. And we say acting's got worse?
2. ORIGINALITY: seems greater now than first time around. When I was a child everything seemed to have been done: now I'm grateful for a smidgen of difference, or something. It feels like it was genuinely original and unusual - though also
3. PARODY - of Dr Who / Blakes'7 / other BBC? - but also Star Wars (occasionally overtly) and other things like documentaries, Open University. But beyond that,
4. MELANCHOLY. We watch things like this as adults and cope with them no problem. But when I was a child, programmes like this *mattered* - I took them very seriously, 'misread' the tone, got the music stuck in my head, thought about the end of the world. One day cultural study (or ILM?) ought to talk seriously about How Children Perceive Adult (or even Children's) Culture - which is (in my dim memory, at least) not much to do with simplicity and silliness, much more to do with profound emotions, sadness, fear, hope, love; feeling everything more seriously and intensely. (See also: The Young Ones. !)
5. SOUNDTRACK: so *that's* who this 'Paddy Kingsland' character is...
6. PARANOID ANDROID: it was nice to be reminded what the phrase really means. But then it struck me, that Radiohead must have picked it up as a joke on their own 'depressiveness' - ? The first 'person' I ever heard talk about 'depression'?
7. COMPUTER / HH GUIDE itself - magic of Peter Jones / good graphics / presentation - tremendous wit. A sense of contingency and of leads not followed - a universe of details we don't need to know more about. Proto-internet factor? Nearly forgot -
8. 'ANTHROPOMORPHISM' - I mean, the big joke is frequently a projection of the Human onto the non-Human (Space), so space has bypasses, restaurants, etc. So the world has ended (see MELANCHOLY), yet 'our world' goes on for ever in all directions. And we find that both cheering and saddening; like this programme.
― Ally C, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― sundar subramanian, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
indeed, he had written for doctor who previously. douglas adam's city of death is my favourite tom baker story, featuring a monster with a face like a bowl of pasta, and a plot that was later recycled for one of the dirk gently books.
― kevan, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Pinefox is bang on about the execution of the TV series. I thought some of the acting was shocking on last nights episodes, and the directing wasn't that great either. Too many shots of several people standing around failing to react to what someone else had said. Does anyone know to what extent the radio scripts were recycled for the TV? If they were carried over near verbatim it might go some way to explaining the clunkiness of the telly version; stuff written for one medium (pretty obviously) doesn't necessarily play that well in the other.
― Richard Tunnicliffe, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Chris, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― kevan, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― carsmilesteve, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sam, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Chris, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― mark s, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Dan Perry, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Richard Tunnicliffe, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― DG, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
BOOKS : Classic (Though I only remembered some of the best parts by readin the other reviews)
Radio Series (1): A lot like the book but funnier because my imagination can't do accents that well.
Radio Series (2): Definetly worse and more confusing,maybe even too confusing with Lentila and Alitnel, though that was one of the good bits.
― Matthew Pluzhnikov, Wednesday, 24 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 18:04 (twenty-one years ago) link
Anyway, classic, got the radio series on CD, need to get the 'eh okay' TV show on DVD, love the books...
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 18:24 (twenty-one years ago) link
― robin (robin), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:24 (twenty-one years ago) link
Dan must agree with me on this -- couldn't you see somebody sampling the bit where the Dolmansaxlil Footwarrior says this in response to a query from Arthur Dent:
"PERVERTS! SUBVERSIVES! ALL PERVERTS, SUBVERSIVES AND TRESPASSERS ARE TO BE SHOT!"
...and then creating a perfect bit of 1991-era industrial rave a la Lords of Acid (though you'd have to cut off the 'shot' part for maximum perv impact).
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
didn't start from the beginning however, so I'll give it another shot.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
BRAINS!!!!!!!
― Zombie Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris P (Chris P), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 20:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dave Fischer, Tuesday, 11 March 2003 23:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Karen, Wednesday, 12 March 2003 05:15 (twenty-one years ago) link
*And yes I know that in Mostly Harmless all the characters and everything they stand for are wiped out with utter and absolute finality, but I managed to get around that one somehow.
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 09:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 09:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 11:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 11:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 12:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 12:11 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 18:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 19:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
― zappi (joni), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 08:16 (nineteen years ago) link
i assume this will be listen again able for the rest of the week also.
― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 08:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 08:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― hobart paving (hobart paving), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:00 (nineteen years ago) link
(don't normally get home until about 6.45)
― caitlin (caitlin), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:09 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/
― Peter Watts (peterw), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 11:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:13 (nineteen years ago) link
Sometime in the mid-80s, I think, a friend got me a many-times-dubbed copy of the BBC radio version on cassette. The quality was wretched, but I listened to it so many times I literally wore it out, laughing every time. Now I wish I had a copy for my teen-age daughter to hear, since she's discovered the books within the past two years and fallen in love.
Saw the BBC TV version once on PBS several years ago, but I don't really have much memory of it, as it was during a difficult time for me.
Anyway, total CLASSIC vote here. All hail the late Douglas Adams. And 42!
― Hey Jude, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:30 (nineteen years ago) link
???????????
― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 16:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 17:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 17:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 18:44 (nineteen years ago) link
I am lookign forward to Sam Rockwell's Zaphod I must say.
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 23 September 2004 11:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Thursday, 23 September 2004 11:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 23 September 2004 12:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 September 2004 12:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ganbare Goemon (ex machina), Monday, 3 January 2005 18:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 3 January 2005 19:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― Emilymv (Emilymv), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ian John50n (orion), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Emilymv (Emilymv), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Emilymv (Emilymv), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:25 (nineteen years ago) link
characters: british, robot and aliensetting: space
― Ian John50n (orion), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:25 (nineteen years ago) link
The basic plot: A man wakes up one morning and finds himself thrust into an intergalactic cosmic headfuck farce that starts with the destruction of the world and then proceeds to get weird.
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Emilymv (Emilymv), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:30 (nineteen years ago) link
the story also involves bad poetry, tea and an extremely cool dude with two headaches
the humor is not particularly monty python-esque, but not totally unrelated
just read it
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link
Emily -- the time it will take you to read all the books will be enough to see you through the birth of yer wee one.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Emilymv (Emilymv), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― Emilymv (Emilymv), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― Adam Bruneau (oliver8bit), Monday, 3 January 2005 21:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 3 January 2005 21:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 3 January 2005 21:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― teeny (teeny), Monday, 3 January 2005 21:23 (nineteen years ago) link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7619828.stm
Children's author Eoin Colfer has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series.
Mostly Harmless, the last Hitchhiker book, was written by its creator, the late Douglas Adams, 16 years ago.
Now Adams's widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval to bring back the hapless Arthur Dent in a new book entitled And Another Thing...
Eoin Colfer, 43, is best known for the best-selling Artemis Fowl novels.
― the usual olfactory abuse (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 17 September 2008 08:10 (fifteen years ago) link
"My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series," he said.
"But on reflection I realised that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding on to the spirit of Douglas Adams."
Clearly I am also at first reaction stage.
― the usual olfactory abuse (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 17 September 2008 08:11 (fifteen years ago) link
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45024000/jpg/_45024052_721e5eb3-cc4b-4642-8d44-734f8fbba5aa.jpg
l-r: shit-eating grin, douglas adams
― the usual olfactory abuse (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 17 September 2008 08:15 (fifteen years ago) link
what
no
― Assault! Assault! (King Boy Pato), Wednesday, 17 September 2008 09:06 (fifteen years ago) link
> Now Adams's widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval to bring back the hapless Arthur Dent in a new book entitled And Another Thing...
she also said, according to radio4 this mornig, that she thought dna would hate the idea.
(pat nevin was great immediately afterwards though, comparing ronaldo to zaphod)
― koogs, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 10:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Mice: Now, to business!Humans: TO BUSINESS!!!Mice: What are you doing??Zaphod: Oh sorry, we thought you were proposing a toast.
― moley, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 10:38 (fifteen years ago) link
RIP to Stephen Moore aka Marvin the Paranoid Android. Forever indelible (and as I muttered on another HHG thread a couple of months back, the audiobook recordings he did are kinda definitive in my mind).
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 12 October 2019 18:12 (four years ago) link