The pictures are better on the radio (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The)

Member Name: R_Easton

Product:	Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The
Date:	15/10/01 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Best book/radio/tv series ever

Disadvantages: poor graphics/effects, less imagination involved

The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, written by Douglas Adams, was originally a radio show, then a book and then the T.V show. Douglas Adams originally intended to write a science fiction/comedy (He practically invented the genre) radio show called The Ends of the Earth. This was going to be 6 episodes, each about an alternative destruction of the earth. He realised that he would need someone, probably an alien, to tell the reader what was happening. This is what led him to Ford Prefect (a nicely inconspicuous name). He whilst trying to work out a reason an alien would be living on earth when he remembered a field in Innsbruck, Austria. He had been lying drunk in this field ten years earlier with his copy of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to Europe by Ken Walsh. This made him joke to himself that if someone wrote a Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy he would be off to explore instantly.

He decided that Ford Prefect would be a researcher for the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and gradually became more obsessed with the idea, until deciding it would actually be the centre of his story. This was when he renamed it. He kept the first bit of the story the same, with the destruction of the earth only happening once. He wrote six episodes and they were broadcast on Radio 4 starting in March 1978. The show became immensely popular and Pan Books asked him to write a book version.

The T.V version was first broadcast in 1981 by the BBC and closely followed the plot of the radio series (Unlike the book which was the same story but rearranged and rewritten). After this came much more including another four books, a couple of games, a record version of the radio series and a towel. A film was also planned but I don’t know if this will be made now after Douglas’ death.


- The Story -
Arthur Dent wakes up one Thursday morning (he never could get the hang of Thursdays, nor could Douglas, neither can I, mysteriously) and remembers
that he had found out the night before that his house was going to be knocked down to build a new bypass. He, without even getting dressed, runs downstairs, out the door and lies down in front of the bulldozer. He is finally dragged off by a close friend, Ford Prefect, who takes him to the pub where reveals that he is an alien, researching for the HHGG, and the world is about to be destroyed by a Vogon Constructor fleet (the Vogons are one of the most evil races in the galaxy) to make room for a hyper-space bypass. The world is destroyed. Luckily Ford is an expert hitchhiker and manages to get the to of them transported up to the Vogon ship just before this. Unluckily, the Vogons hate hitchhikers. They find themselves thrown out into space with the chance of being picked up by a passing space ship are two to the power two hundred and seventy six, seven hundred and nine to one…


- The Characters -

Here are some of the main characters in the story (there are many others)

Arthur Dent
Arthur Dent is the main character; he spends the entire story in his dressing gown, as a consequence of not getting dressed on that fateful day. He never gets used to being in space, and never finds somewhere to get a satisfactory cup of tea. He only ever finds happiness in the game when he is shipwrecked on a primitive planet similar to earth. He never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Ford Prefect
Ford is a researcher for the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. He comes to the earth to update the entry for the planet, but finds himself stranded there for fifteen years, not being able to leave until the Vogons come to destroy earth. His name isn’t really Ford Prefect, it is a name that can only be pronounced by the inhabitants of Betelgeuse seven, which no longer exists.

Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a bit of a crazy drinker, and spent a long time as Galactic President (most of his time as president
was spent in jail) but became a wanted criminal when he stole the most powerful spaceship in the galaxy. He also has three arms, and two heads.

Trillian
Originally called Tricia McMillian, she changed her name when she left the earth with her date at a party, who had revealed himself to be an alien. If she hadn’t left the planet she would have become a reporter and eventually working on U.S morning T.V. One of the only two humans left in the galaxy after the destcruction of the earth.

Slartibartfast
Slatibartfast was responsible for the design of the fjords in Norway, reveals the meaning of life, the universe and everything to Arthur and tries to save the universe from destruction by a evil warlike race.

Marvin the Paranoid Android
Marvin has been programmed with G.P.P (Genuine People Personalities) but unfortunately, being a prototype, is only capable of one emotion. His one emotion is Maniac Depression. He hates everything and everyone, moans about everything and has terrible luck.


- The other versions -
Here is where I moan. As I said in the title ‘the pictures are better on the radio’. The graphics and special effects in the series looked poor even then and just look silly now. Zaphod’s spare head just hangs on his body and looks silly, and the actual Guide is the size of a Briefcase (with today’s computing power you would expect it to look like a personal organizer).

The T.V series is still good though, and I know many people who couldn’t cope with actually reading a book, or listening to tapes and only know the story through watching the T.V version. I enjoyed the book and the radio version more though and recommend those to anyone with concentration span.

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