Poll of the Day > I dont think there was a time ever where I thought to myself

(+) Yeah! (+)

What a wonderful world.

No matter how green or red things are.
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But what if the skies are blue and the clouds are white?
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Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Whenever I hear that, all I ever think of is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyYPO34yJyc


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I have to assume that video is the closing credits to the BBC version of H2G2 without even looking at it.
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That actually looks like it would be good, was it?
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its probably the most faithful version short of the radio plays, but its also low budget and has production values typical of BBC stuff when it was made.

its worth a watch, but don't expect fancy special effects or anything.
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WhiskeyDisk posted...

I have to assume that video is the closing credits to the BBC version of H2G2 without even looking at it.

;-P



WhiskeyDisk posted...

its probably the most faithful version short of the radio plays

More specifically, the radio play is probably the purest version of the story, because it's the first one he wrote (and honestly, part of me tends to feel like they're still the best - at least the original ones, not so much the later revival ones). Then he expanded on those stories (and shuffled the chronology around a bit) when writing the novels (which was the basis for the first two books, and which may be a large part of the reason why the later books keep getting progressively worse and worse).

By the time of the TV show, they basically used the chronology of the radio plays, but with some of the added elements and revisions that were added to the books, so it's sort of like a cross between the two. Taking both the radio show and the books as a whole, the TV show is faithful as fuck.

Certainly more so than the eventual mehtacular movie was (though even there, most of the differences were themselves written by Douglas Adams himself, because he's never had a problem with constantly rewriting the story to add whatever he finds funny at any given time - and, in fact, at one point acted somewhat proud that literally no version of the story was exactly like any other version of the story).



WhiskeyDisk posted...

but its also low budget and has production values typical of BBC stuff when it was made.

its worth a watch, but don't expect fancy special effects or anything.

It's honestly not really a huge problem most of the time (especially if, like you say, you go into it aware that you're going to be seeing early 1980s-era BBC TV level special effects, on part with Tom Baker/Peter Davison/Colin Baker Doctor Who or, say, The Tomorrow People). The only parts that really sort of grate for me is the terrible way in which they implement Zaphod's second head (which wasn't supposed to look that bad - the head was supposed to be more animatronic, but it also broke down while filming, so it basically just sort of sits there), and maybe some of the alien designs.

If anything, the parts that really annoyed me more were the casting of Sandra Dickinson (who is annoying as fuck) as Trillian (which was a huge mischaracterization) and David Dixon as Ford (because he low-keys everything so much he just seems so lame compared to David Dixon Geoffrey McGivern - but there may be bias here because I feel like everyone and anyone who has ever played Ford sort of pales compared to Geoffrey McGivern). Those almost sort of balance out with the fact that they actually cast Simon Jones and Mark Wing-Davey in the same roles they played in the radio show (and they fit them pretty well), along with keeping Peter Jones as "the book" and Stephen Moore as Marvin (along with Deep Thought, Slartibartfast, and a few others also having the same actors). A large part of why the movie fell so flat for me was because having completely different voices and faces for EVERY character just made the whole thing feel so wrong, somehow (and the much shittier ending didn't help, either).

Though, since I'm running out of characters, I'm just going to leave this link here - to the other thing I literally only associate with HHGTTG now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbhAf62wfgE


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's honestly not really a huge problem most of the time (especially if, like you say, you go into it aware that you're going to be seeing early 1980s-era BBC TV level special effects, on part with Tom Baker/Peter Davison/Colin Baker Doctor Who or, say, The Tomorrow People). The only parts that really sort of grate for me is the terrible way in which they implement Zaphod's second head (which wasn't supposed to look that bad - the head was supposed to be more animatronic, but it also broke down while filming, so it basically just sort of sits there), and maybe some of the alien designs.

The one part in the TV series that really makes my eye twitch everytime I see it is when Arthur and Ford first come to on the Vogon ship and Ford strikes a match looking for a light switch and the pin spot that is supposed to be the light from the match is hitting Ford in the back of the head for a solid 3 seconds. I'm not sure if it was gross incompetence on the part of the guy on that light of if the actor missed his mark considerably in that shot, but my background in stage lighting makes that gaffe impossible to unsee.
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Yeah, I think that's one of those things that the average viewer would never even notice, though (I'm pretty sure I never did).

It's kind of like how a lot of those "10 massive film goofs!" videos you see on YouTube always seem to wind up being bullshit that you would never have noticed unless you were actively scanning the movie for mistakes, or someone pointed it out to you. A lot of film goofs are mostly minor stuff you completely miss first time around, especially if you're actually into the story.


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