Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy continues

[miriam_e]

You all know about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series created by Douglas Adams and that it subsequently became a best-selling series of books, and then a TV series.

Now the BBC is producing the last 3 books for radio: Life, The Universe And Everything, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish and Mostly Harmless. If you go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/index_new.shtml you can read more and download audio and video.

By the way Douglas Adams will be playing the part of Agrajag... posthumously. He had planned this project before he died and already taped himself in the part.

Comments

[guyminuslife.livejournal.com]

Hm. I wonder if there's any good way for American audiences to get it.

[guyminuslife.livejournal.com]

...and then I discovered that there's a Hitchhiker's Guide movie coming out of Hollywood next year.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I want to simultaneously say "Yippee!" and "Uh oh."
It could be great to see it redone with Hollywood resources... but they often seem to totally miss the point of British humor.

Like I hope they continue to make Arthur, the lead character, an ordinary, mild-mannered, slightly whiney person, caught up in crazy events. At least they haven't yielded to the temptation to make him an all-American hero, big on independence, strong and square-jawed, who tries to make lemonade out of lemons. That alone would ruin much of the point behind the tale -- the last man in HHGG is not supposed to be a truly worthy specimen, just a normal person. They have cast an Englishman named Martin Freeman, who I haven't heard of, in the main role. Here (http://imdb.com/gallery/ss/0314331/Ss/0314331/5573-5604.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Freeman,%20Martin%20(II)) is a pic of him on IMDB, though not from HHGG.

Ford Prefect is a black American guy... which, oddly, could work. Marvin the paranoid android is Warwick Davis -- an English dwarf with an enormous list of films to his credit. John Malkovich plays Humma Kavula... I just did a search of my HHGG ebooks and that name doesn't seem to appear anywhere... odd. Bill Nighy (another Englishman) plays Slartybartfast... could be interesting. Zooey Deschanel plays Tricia MacMillain (Trillian) and she looks just right for the part. I hope her US accent doesn't clang, though it could actually work to advantage as she is supposed to be one of the smartest characters in the story. US actor Sam Rockwell looks perfect for the part as Zaphod Beeblebrox -- being American he will certainly speak with a more convincing accent than the original character.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

The BBC have a wonderful habit of posting many of their shows online as mp3 -- you may be able to pick it up there.

If you want to hear the original shows email me your postal address and I'll send you a CD with almost 6 hours of mp3 to you. (Free of course.) I've never seen them available for sale, and certainly not as mp3s. It is the perfect technology for such content.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Looks like LJ is still having some problems (or maybe they're repairing their earlier probs). I just now got your post, more than a week later.

Cool. :)
I'll write a CD and send it off.
Hmmm... I'll include some surprises too. Should take about a week to get to you.

[guyminuslife.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thanks!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Just a little delay at the moment. The CD writer in one of my computers seems to be in the process of dying, the CD writer in my most reliable computer has become borderline, and the DVD/CD writer on my most recent computer has problems reading some of my CDs. I'm having trouble networking this computer with the others, though I'll crack that eventually.

Do you have a DVD reader on your computer? -- not a standalone DVD player. If you do then I can put the files on a single DVD. If not it is no big problem. I'll still send this stuff soon.

[guyminuslife.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have a DVD reader.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Cool! I'll put them on a DVDROM.