H2G2 Film Website

tplayford writes "On the third anniversary of Douglas Adams death, the makers of the 'Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy' film have released their website, with a photo of the whole crew and a blog. I'm trying not to panic, but I just can't wait for the film to come out."

Comments

Skip flash

[jfengel]

To skip the rather unnecessary Flash intro, go here

Re:Uhm?

[drdink]

Isn't the miniseries more based off the radio version? The radio was the original, then came the book.

Re: But it says...

[DaHat]

Nay, it is the fact that you seem to have never been exposed to American cartoons as a youth.

By law, according to the Uniform Cartoon Code (UCC), Chapter 4398274, section 12.432432 as publish by the ACME Corporation. "All persons, animals or other self aware beings (terrestrial or otherwise) who encounter a large red button are required to press it under penalty of anvil" it goes on to say "Should the before mentioned red button carry a notice asking all who see it not to press it, the required pusher of said button is here by required to press it as often and as many times as possible until it's final result is known."

Note: the actual notice of the button in this case is from the Hitchhikers Guide no less, something to the effect of:

Dent: "I wonder what would happen if I pressed this button."
Prefect: "I wouldn't..."
*beep*
Dent: "That's odd... a sign lit up telling me not to press this button again."

Humma Kavula

[vossman77]

At the IMDB site it shows that John Malkovich is playing Humma Kavula. My labmate had no idea who this was so a quick google search gave us this site and we learn:

Joining the cast set to start shooting the movie of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in London next month is the acclaimed actor John Malkovich. In a slight twist to the original concept, engineered by Douglas Adams in creating the initial draft script for the movie, Malkovich will play a crazed missionary, living amongst the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle Six, called Humma Kavula. The script for the film went through at least two other writers hands after Douglas's death in 2001, so only time will tell how much of his original concept will survive the trip to the silver screen.

This character doesn't appear in the books. I was wondering if anyone knows how Humma Kavula works into the story.

Re:Humma Kavula

[Cally]

It should be interesting....

Many races believe [the universe] was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI firmly believed that the entire universe was infact sneezed out of the nose of a being called teh "great Green Arkleseizure". The Jatravartids, small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each who were therefore unique in having invented the aerosol deoderant before the wheel, lived in perpetual fear of a time called "the coming of the Great White Hankerchief". However, the Great Green Arkleseizure theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI...

From the intro to the first book IIRC, and from memory so probably wrong in places.

Shit, how sad is it that I can recite this stuff verbatim? ah well that's what comes of falling asleep listening to the radio shows every night for 20 years. OK I exaggerate a little for comic effect but one grilf did give me plenty of grief over it. (The others just left...;)

Three destructions

[dinaui]

The flash intro apparently randomly chooses one of three ways to destroy the Earth:

1. A standard explosion, with chunks of planet flying by
2. A burst of light which vaporizes the planet
3. Getting hit by the cue-ball in a game of galactic billiards

Using IE 6, refreshing did work to see differing intros, but the randomizer does often go on runs of the same intro.

Re:Uhm?

[Mark Hood]

Apparently a great deal of money DID go into the arm and head of Zaphod, and they were supposed to do a great number of things that they never really could quite get to work properly.

Actually, they did work, very well.

Unfortunately owing to the budget constraints, there wasn't time to recharge the batteries between rehearsal and takes, so Zaphod's second head spent a lot of time asleep :)

I heartily recommend the DVD of the mini-series, whcih includes a short clip of the head on 'Tomorrow's World' explaining how clever it is...

Mark

INTERVIEW

[nigel_thomas]

Here's a very insightful interview with the script writers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A2257599