h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hitchhikers' fans, here's something you may not have seen before.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHli4MivcvmrM1udCyuyw2rSwj2BmXzmM

These videos were created for a game based on the books, which was being developed by Canadian software house Hothead Games in 2009. The game was cancelled for commercial reasons and these sequences sat in the archives. They have just been shared via Youtube.

For more information on why they decided to can the game, see this blog post:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MikeInglehart/20161018/282771/The_5_Stages_of_Greenlight_How_to_Know_When_Its_Time_to_Launch_Your_Game.php

Hmm... After watching the vids, and reading the blog, I think they really weren't going to bring anything new and worthwhile Hitchhikers.

I don't exactly know that it means to "retrofit a paywall-based economy" but I can imagine being rather frustrated that someone did that to Hitchhikers.

It's sad that they changed the description of the Guide from "definitively inaccurate" to "definitely inaccurate". Agod joke is turned into a bland tautology.

Yes, that 'definitely inaccurate' thing grated with me, too. Overall, they've confused guide definitions with jokes from the book. A pity, as they clearly invested in the production of these clips - Simon Jones voiceovers and all.

I was amused about the notion that the improbability drive was created out of thin air, as if fat air was impossible rather than improbable.

I would like to visit a place that has fat air. Maybe some nice stuff could be found floating there.

Come to the Gulf Coast. We have obese air. In the summer the air actually sweats on YOU!*




*not even a joke.

If Brownsville or Galveston ever get more snow than Amarillo, we'll know something strange is going on.

The summer air in Boston is bad enough, so I'm not going to tempt fate by visiting the Gulf coast. But how is the climate there in winter? Do they have palm trees and/or Bougainvillea?

Plenty of both. Well, the palm trees are a variation called Mexican Fans, but yes.

It has snowed here, but not in ages. It snowed at my house in '72 just enough for me and my sister to make a small snowman in the yard. There were dustings of snow in more recent years, the last being around a decade ago (I was in New Orleans and we got maybe an inch of snow on Xmas day and a dusting back home on Galveston Bay).

It used to actually freeze when I was a kid. And I mean a REAL freeze. Now they use the phrase "hard freeze warning" if it drops into the 20°s for a couple of hours. It's to warn you about your flowers and vegetables. When I was a kid we expected a few of these light freezes and we'd get proper warnings only when it dropped down in the single digits or was going to be in the 20°s or below for more than 24 hours. When that happened there were real consequences because none of our plumbing is adequately protected and so you'd get burst pipes and destroyed kitchens and baths.

I don't believe we've even had a brief freeze here in 3 years.


But there's no global warming.

To put things in perspective, there's no observable cooling. If every winter was colder than the one before, don't you think people would be raising the alarm about it?

In the sixties and seventies, there were Chicken Littles everywhere who thought we were headed for another Ice Age. In southern Texas or Florida, hot is normal. Hotter is still hot. Cooler is still hot. What do people know of variations?

Rather than start a new thread, I'll just drop these here.

An animator named Nick Page has taken the original HHGG Radio Series and animated the first Fit in two parts and posted them to YouTube.

https://youtu.be/E9J5h53gawI
https://youtu.be/5qWjTkrzVk4

He's asking for Patreon donations.


I don't expect these will remain on YT for very much longer.

Damn it, I know better.

http://youtu.be/E9J5h53gawI
http://youtu.be/5qWjTkrzVk4

Oh, and to be honest I think these are fine. Because of Disney Corp. and their army of high priced lawyers and lobbyists, copyright law has been stretched way beyond its original intent. I think after a certain reasonable period, works of art should enter the public domain.

And so they do enter the public domain. Would Anthony Trollope's descendants, if any, care much about people using his chronicles of Barsetshire without paying royalties? I doubt it.

But politics and nationalism can get mixed up in bad ways. Mckey Mouse earns a lot for Disney, which is good for the American economy. Hence, politicians bend the rules to keep Mickey and his pals under copyright protection a bit longer.

Sometimes a writer's heirs cause problems even when would-be adapters try to be reasonable. Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt tried to write a musical based on Thornton Wilder's "Our town," only to have the heirs so no. The standard copyright period is life plus 70 years. Wilder died in 1975, so public domain won't happen until 1945. Jones and Schmidt were born in 1928 and 1929 respectively, so they'll be almost 120 years old by the time their musical can be mounted. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

Robert Frost's heirs are very strict, too. I wrote a setting of "Stopping by the woods," and I can try to take it public in 2033, 70 years after frost's death. I will be 85.

I'll let my spirit animal, Adam Connover, explain how I feel about Copyright.

http://youtu.be/SiEXgpp37No

I noticed this in the suggested videos bar when watching the above linked animations.

http://youtu.be/2dwid0171bw

The Making of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 1981 TV Show

I'll have to check my DVD set when I get home and see if this was an extra feature. I'm not sure I've seen it before.

Thanks for that, BG. I think it's an astonishing achievement. I'm sure it won't last long on YT as you say, but I'd love to think it could be shared officially. The radio shows were always the best rendition of these stories, and it would be great to introduce them to a new audience. You never know, they might want a website.

I remember the shortlived phenomenon of the Hampster Dance. I loved those silly little guys.

WARNING: Don't go looking for Hamster Dance now. Most of the hits lead to malware sites.

That's probably true, but I was just sayin'.

Sometimes a good time can be had.