dimensional bridge

Radio How Stuff Works has a pretty good primer for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy even if it utilises photos from the rubbish film throughout instead of the BBC series even when considering the BBC series. As ever, there's the odd reminder of just how awful the film is and why:

"Adams wrote the latest version of the screenplay himself, but Garth Jennings and Karey Kirkpatrick revised the script after Adams' death."

Which it seems as MJ Simpson's blistering review back in the day led to:

Hitchhiker's Guide always had a strong opening. It was beginnings that Douglas Adams was good at, middles and especially ends being a bit trickier. The dialogue between Arthur and Prosser, which was written for a sketch in a Cambridge Footlights revue in October 1973, is a terrific example of Douglas' clever way with - and love of - language:

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the Display Department."
"With a torch."
"The lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But you found the plans, didn't you?"
"Oh yes, they were 'on display' in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard.'"

Or, as the movie version has it:

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"But you found the plans, didn't you?"

Can you spot what has been removed from this scene, gentle reader, in order to shorten it? That's right. The jokes. The jokes have gone. The funny bits, the wit, the humour. The clever stuff that made it worth including in the first place.

More damaging for a lot of people, the film's their first introduction to Hitchhikers now and I wonder how many of them will seek out the rest? At least it has my favourite Trillian and I'd decided that before I really knew who Zooey was. So nyer.