Expedition 42 ISS Crew Embraces Douglas Adams

SchrodingerZ writes: In November of this year, the 42nd Expedition to the International Space Station will launch, and the crew has decided to embrace their infamous number. NASA has released an image of the crew mimicking the movie poster for The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a film released in 2005, based on a book with the same name by Douglas Adams. Commander Butch Wilmore stands in the center as protagonist Arthur Dent, flight engineer Elena Serova as hitchhiker Ford Prefect, flight engineer Alexander Samokutyayev as antagonist Humma Kavula, astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti as Trillian, and flight engineers Terry Virts and Anton Shkaplerov as two-headed galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox. The robotic "Robonaut 2" also stands in the picture as Marvin the depressed android. Cristoforetti, ecstatic to be part of this mission stated, "Enjoy, don't panic and always know where your towel is!" Wilmore, Serova and Samokutyayev blasted off September 25th for Expedition 41, the rest of Expedition 42 will launch November 23rd.

Comments

Ugh that awful disney movie

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF disney, why do you hate scifi?!?

Re:The film sucked; the miniseries before it was g

[fibonacci8]

The books did a decent job portraying the original radio broadcast as well.

Re:Who the hell is Humma Kavula?

[Nemyst]

According to Wikipedia, the character was specifically written by Adams for the movie. It did not appear in the books at all.

Re:The film sucked; the miniseries before it was g

[houghi]

Each mediam was made with the author who was well aware that they are different mediums, so the stories were adapted to each medium.

So the books did not portray the radio broadcast. The movie did not portray the books. If anything, it is a 'based on' movie and book.

I have the audiobook which is read by Adams himself, which is not a standard for audiobooks. Great for listening while in traffic instead of the mindless radio stations.

Re:The film sucked; the miniseries before it was g

[RussR42]

Each medium was made with the author

Except for the movie. They had to wait for Adams to die so he would no longer be able to stop them from mutilating it.
Some fun quotes from various points it the movie's development:

Reitman thinking that forty two is NOT a good answer, and that instead the movie needs a big finish, Douglas understands that he is trapped.

"It's the worst script I've ever read. Unfortunately, it has my name on it... whereas I did not contribute a single comma to it.... I'm appalled to think how much harm that script have done my reputation over the years."

And after Adams died:

Jay Roach has hired Karey Kirkpatrick, the guy who wrote or re-wrote the screenplays of "Chicken Run", "James and the Giant Peach" and "The Little Vampire" to rewrite douglas adams draft.

Re:The film sucked; the miniseries before it was g

[Inzkeeper]

Each mediam was made with the author who was well aware that they are different mediums, so the stories were adapted to each medium.

Bah! You are all wrong! For the REAL die-hard fan, get a hold of the radio scripts. They add a lot of commentary on how different things came about, how he was busy scribbling details right until air time, how he grabbed the janitor at the last second to play a part he just added in. The commentary is almost as funny as the script itself.
It describes how, at the end of one episode, he threw our heros out of a space lock and had the floating in open space with seconds to live.
He then goes on the discuss how he struggled for that next week trying to decide how to free them. Anything he came up with seemed to highly improbable.
So... he came up with the Improbability Drive (tm Sirius Cybernetics).

BTW: I agree, each medium was adapted as necessary. I enjoyed all of them. At first, the movie seemed a little too slapstick for my tastes, but it quickly grew on me. I think Douglas would have approved.