REAL Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to be published

Coming off the "early movie review" thread, this is excellent news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4447885.stm


Hitchhiker's guide in your pocket
Still from TV series of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, BBC
Now you can have a guide all of your own
Soon you will be able to carry around a real version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The mobile edition has been made by the BBC rather than "the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor" who, in Douglas Adams' book, created the original.

Owners of smartphones and handheld computers will be able to access the guide while they are out and about.

The portable edition contains 7,000 articles from the H2G2 site covering life, the Universe and everything.

The original idea for Earth's very own version of the guide put together by anyone who had time to contribute came from Adams himself.

Mostly harmless

Mr Adams' own company managed the project in its early days but in 2001 the BBC took over and moved it to its current website.

In some respects the way that the H2G2 website was put together pre-figures the idea of the wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, that is also written, edited and checked by ordinary web users.

Phone and PDA users can get access to the mobile version of the guide by sending "H2G2" in a text message to 81010 or simply visiting http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/h2g2.


Visitors can browse the entries, search for specific topics or hit a Surprise Me! button that takes them to a random database entry.

"Douglas Adams was years before his time," said Tony Ageh, BBC controller, Internet. "But thanks to modern mobile technology, what was once only a harebrained idea has now become a startling reality."

Mr Ageh said that the entries picked for this edition were the most relevant and useful for mobile users.

"We cannot take for granted what any of the mobile interfaces are," he said, "but its a reasonably pleasant experience on most mobiles."

"We're quite pleased that we have delivered the vision that Douglas had in the first place," he said.

In Douglas Adams' first book the Earth only merited a single short entry in the guide but the phone edition holds information about a huge variety of subjects; everything from how to hypnotise a chicken to hangover cures.

Entries under "Life" cover animals, plants and humans. Those under "Universe" concern geography and space, and "Everything" deals with everything else.

The mobile edition of the guide has been timed to coincide with the release of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film.

Also being updated is the Radio 4 Hitchhiker's website that is offering new versions of the game of the book and radio series.

The BBC is also planning to broadcast the last ever radio instalment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on 3 May at 1830BST.

WOOT! I want me a copy!

Oh, and just to balance things out a bit on the "hideously awful" review posted earlier, check out this review at Aint it Cool News.

<' '>

I dread to ask, but who are the main actors in this?

Alexa

What is this about? i saw it on a preview on the theaters i went to the site.. it was stupid.. i dont even know what it is! ROFL

Google likes the hitchhikers guide too. answer to life the universe and everything gallons in pints

Mos Def as Ford Prefect (the rapper?) I haven't heard any music he's done, but I rather liked his presence in Italian Job, even though it was an awful movie. He seems to have an ability to be nicely eccentric, with added style.

Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, which I think is quite an inspired choice. If you don't remember him, he was the other con guy in Matchstick Men opposite Nicolas Cage. He was also the villian in Charlie's Angels the first. If anyone else is a fan of Galaxy Quest, which I loved, he played Guy.

Arthur Dent is played by Martin Freeman. I don't know anything about Martin Freeman. I recognize him from Love Actually, as the porn star stand-in. It was my least favorite part of the movie, though I didn't find anything wrong with him as an actor. I'm just happy they've got an English guy instead of making Arthur American, which would just be all wrong.

Zoey Deschanel plays Trillian. I don't know anything about that girl. I think she was the female lead in Elf opposite Will Farrell, who basically ate the whole movie. She's American.

There you go. I might sound like a film critic but I am just so excited about this movie that I've gobbled up every bit of information I can get about it.

It's based off the book (and series) of the same name. Basically, a writer named Douglas Adams noticed back in the 1970's that there seemed to be an awful lot of pocket tourguides floating around. For a couple of pounds, they claimed to be able to tell a traveller anything and everything they wanted to know about travelling through a particular part of the world, including customs, destinations, points of interest and tips on stretching a meager budget in order to make the most of it. He thought it would be silly-funny if this idea were extended to a galactic scale in a sci-fi story. What would such a hitchiker's guide be like? Who would use it? What would the rest of the galaxy think of a backwater planet like Earth? (as it turns out, not much.) Adams (I think along with some other writers) wrote up the story as a radio comedy for the BBC, and the series was successful enough that he turned it into a book, eventually to be followed by about 4-5 sequels. The books, especially the first two, are absolutely hilarious....that is, if you appreciate that wierd British style of humor. If you like Monty Python, Blackadder, Red Dwarf or Fawlty Towers, you'd love the book for Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The series has over the years spawned the radio drama, the books, a BBC TV mini series, a text-only videogame (Which you COULD NOT beat unless you read the books, I mean really, who would have thought to lay down in the mud in order to stop the bulldozers, or stick a babelfish in your ear?), and now the movie. As with many much-loved franchises, longtime fans are looking forward to this movie with a mixture of anticipation and nervousness; we all want to love it but will probably chaffe at every little bit from the book that gets changed.

Here's hoping that it's good.....