The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981)
a TV movie review by Chris Casino
My ratings scale
**** - Excellent *** - Good ** - Fair, but don't go out of your way * - Don't say I didn't warn you
*** out of ****
Written by Douglas Adams, produced and directed by Alan Bell, Executive producer John Lloyd, Music by Paddy Kingsland.
Cast: Simon Jones (Arthur Dent), David Dixon (Ford Prefect), Mark Wing-Davey (Zaphod Beeblebrox), Sandra Dickinson (Trillian), Martin Benson (Vogon Captain), Stephen Moore (voice of Marvin), Richard Vernon (Slartibartfast), David Learner (Marvin), David Prowse (Bodyguard).
This started out as a radio series, then it became two novels, then this six episode TV series came out, then it became three more books, a play, a computer game, (appropriately) a bath towel, all of which was done by creator Adams, and now a film version will be out in 2000 (and you can all bet your bottom dollar that I will be the first one to post a review on this newsgroup of that movie), and the plot will follow in a second.
When I was thirteen, I went over to my aunt Beth's house, and she had a copy of this book. She suggested I might enjoy it. I doubted it, but out of curiousity I picked it up and read it. Five years later, I'm hooked on this quirky but lovable British piece, and I've become quite a fan of creator Douglas Adams. In fact, find me one novel of his I haven't read five thousand times, I will find a medal for you.
Arthur Dent, a perfectly ordinary Earth man (played quite well by Simon Jones, whom this role was written for) discovers after his home is demolished to make way for a bypass, that his best friend Ford Prefect (Dixon, who has the right look for Ford) is not from Earth, and together they hitchhike aboard a Vogon ship shortly before the green, slimy Vogons destroy the planet Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Anyway, after they are read some awful poetry, they are thrown off into deep space and rescued by Ford's semicousin, Zaphod Beeblebrox (an appealing Wing-Davey), the two-headed, three armed hippy President of the galaxy, his human girlfriend, Tricia "Trillian" McMillan (Dickinson, who is appealing to look at, but has a voice worse than Fran Drescher, which is why I wish Adams had stuck with his instincts and let her do English Rose), and the depressed, hilarious cyborg, Marvin the Paranoid Android ("Life, don't talk to me about life!"). All five of them meet Slartibartfast (A funny role for the late Vernon), a planet maker on the planet of Magreathea (forgive the spelling), and stop by the Restaurant at the End of the Universe for dinner as they try to find the question to the ultimate answer, which is 42. This has something for everyone. It's sci-fi, and if you don't like that (which I do), it's funny, and it even has amusing little jokes about stuff like digital watches, towels, inteligent supercomputers, etc., that Adams has said to've picked up from personal experiences. The miniseries rates lower than four stars simply because the movie version in 2000 will obviously have so much more computer generated technology to make it look more realistic (which this, sadly, does not most of the time) and it will make the effects here look like absolute rubbish, which they weren't at the time. This is going to look like crap compaired to the film. But that's okay, I'll still love it anyway.
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