MovieChat Forums > The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1982) Discussion > Question . . .

Question . . .

posted 22 years ago by werd75
16 replies | jump to latest

Hey, I don't suspect that this question will be answered any time soon since this isn't a new movie by any stretch and any hype that may have been around a twenty year old TV movie is pretty much gone, but I'm still hoping. I was just wondering: is this movie based on the first three novels? The first one? The first and second? I haven't been able to find out. The first book isn't that long and I heard that this movie was several hours long. Anyway, if anyone could get back to me on that I would really appreciate it. I haven't finished reading the fourth or fifth book in the series and I don't suspect I will for a while because I have several other books that need reading first, so I won't actually watch the movie for quite a while yet.

I'm actually a new fan of this series. I was at school about a year ago and I passed "So long and thanks for all the fish in the library" and the title intrigued me so much that I had to read it. Then this summer I ended up buying all five of the books and now I'm reading them from the start.

I think they should remake this movie as an animated film in the tradition of something like "Titan AE" or "Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within". Anyway, I just thought I'd throw some topics up in the air for discussion if anyones interested.

Peace out.

P.S. Just an interesting fact: the actor who played Arthur Dent (Simon Jones) has a small part in the movie "The Devils Own" with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt. Fairly good movie, but nothing to start a fan site over. He played Harry Sloan: British Inteligence (Insert lame sixties theme song here). I'm sure he looked a lot different than he would in "Hitch Hiker" (15 years apart), but still kinda cool to know.

[–] ruwehond 22 years ago

read the books first...

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[–] werd75 22 years ago

Uhm . . . 'preciate the reply but that doesn't help me . . . at all. I already said I was reading the books first.

[–] WhoDub 21 years ago

I've got my copy of the DVD on loan and the book is at my old place, but I can tell you the movie contains several portions of the book. Specifically, it has these two

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

but I'm not sure which bits of the others are there. It may be that there are some pieces from a couple of the other books. Wish I could be more specific, but I hope helps a little...

[–] dispeptic 21 years ago

The movie was made in 1981, as it says in the title, so it only contains the books The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe because the third book wasn't written until the next year.

[–] smeth 21 years ago

Just a little bit more info...
Originally the story was a BBC radio series of 12 half-hour programs that ran in England in 1978(availabe on cd from amazon.co.uk). The episodes were written, recorded and edited week by week, finished just in time for broadcast. The shows were very popular, and Adams was asked to write a novel version, then got a tiny bit of funding to make the very low budget tv version which used some of the original radio cast. The radio programs were broadcast here in the US on public radio before the first book was published. The radio programs had some story lines which were dropped or rearranged for the novels. Maybe it's because I first heard it on radio, but the old radio shows will always be my favorite version of H2G2. If you want to find out even more, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/metaguide/index.shtml

[–] dispeptic 21 years ago

Bit more info from the book Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide...[quote] "This [mini-series] was based, more or less, on the first 6 episodes of the radio series. In other words, it incorporated most of the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the second half of the book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Therefore, though it followed the basic structure of the radio series, it incorporated revisions from the books, which didn't." [unquote].

[–] themightymartin 21 years ago

Just a little bit of trivia I thought you might be interested in:

The corridors in the Vogon spaceship are the same corridors used in the film Alien.

The guy who plays Ford contracted food poisoning from eating the "Hagra Biscuit" at the end of the first episode.

Hotblack's bodyguard (when they go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe) is the guy who played Darth Vader.

The guy inside Marvin is David Learner, also famous for playing Pickle the elf in the award winning kids gameshow Knightmare.

Simon Jones appears in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

Simon Jones (Arthur Dent) and Peter Jones (The Book) are NOT related.

The THEORY for the Improbability Drive, although absurd, is scientifically correct.

Alpha Centari actually exists.

[–] 21 years ago

[deleted]

[–] IMDBer_of_mystery 21 years ago

The Dish of the Day at Milliway's is played by Peter Davison (aka the fifth Dr. Who and the (then) husband of Sandra Dickinson, who played Trillian).

[–] Ashles 21 years ago

Added trivia: Simon Jones (Arthur Dent) was also in Twelve Monkeys (directed by Terry Gilliam, one of the Monty Python team with whom Douglas Adams worked occasionally). (Bruce Willis was also in Twelve Monkeys and he was in The Player with Julia Roberts who was in Flatliners with Kevin Bacon and I claim my ten pounds)

Added, added trivia: The movie of this radio series/book/tv series/play/musical etc. will suck. I wish that were not the case, but suck it will.

Love to you all.

[–] radioactiveand 19 years ago

The THEORY for the Improbability Drive, although absurd, is scientifically correct.

Since I don't want to hurt my brain trying to understand Adams' explanation of the Improbabailty Drive, I'm just going to assume you're telling the thruth.
Strange how he can make any occurence in his book completely incomprehensible by adding the words "infinite" and "finite" (remember the population of the Universe from the Guide's glossary?).

[–] srramos 19 years ago

Both Titan AE and the Final Fantasy movie should never have been made. The first is one of the stupidist movies I have ever seen and the second incorperates no elements at all from the games.

"28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds that is when the world will end." Frank, Donnie Darko

[–] themightymartin 19 years ago

...And that has WHAT to do with the subject?

"The Ultimate Experience in Gruelling Terror"

[–] Startanew 19 years ago

first and part of the second.
And hype is STILL there for this show! There are diehard fans, and there are new people being brought to hitchhiker's all the time. Not MASS hype, granted, but new people are always getting brought to it.

www.notebookinhand.com - hang out for writers, artists, actors, musicians, etc.

[–] werd75 12 years ago

Okaaaaaaay almost ten years since I first posted. lets get it going again!!!! and thanks to all the people who commented for another three years while I was still busy jerking off to the bra and panties section of the sears catalogue (what too much information? Too late).

So what did everyone think of the movie that came out in '05? I didn't think it was that bad. certainly doesn't need a reboot. just a redeeming sequeal. sooooo much story left.

I can think of a thousand things I'd rather be doing . . . and they all involve HER

[–] weird_beard 10 years ago

Short answer: the TV series is closest to the LPs, which themselves are closest to the first six radio episodes with significant changes to episodes 5 and 6.