The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (1981) on Netflix
NR19813h 19mAdventureComedySci-Fi
Arthur Dent is an average Englishman whose life is spared by his friend when Earth is destroyed. The friend is an alien who tells him about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
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- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb8.0/1012,523 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
When the planet Earth is destroyed, the life of Arthur Dent, an average Englishman, is spared by his friend, who turns out to be an alien. The friend tells him about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which holds anything a person ever needed or wanted to know. Arthur and his friend travel across the galaxy, meeting characters who are friendly and characters who are not.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Zaphod Beeblebrox's second head was a radio-controlled animatronic with twelve servo motors and two receivers, but it was so unreliable that in many scenes it just sat inanimate. When the third arm was needed, designer Mike Kelt hid behind Mark Wing-Davey and slipped his own arm into the sleeve.
- A second series was planned from Douglas Adams's abandoned Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen project rather than a TV version of the second radio series, but after disputes with the BBC over budget, scripts and personnel it was never made; the material became the third novel, Life, the Universe and Everything.
- Two radio cast members were replaced for television: David Dixon took over as Ford Prefect from Geoffrey McGivern, who did not suit the role visually, and Sandra Dickinson replaced Susan Sheridan as Trillian because Sheridan was unavailable.
- The gap in production between the pilot and the remaining episodes caused continuity problems: Simon Jones had cut his hair short for another role, so Arthur Dent wears a noticeable hairpiece in later episodes, while David Dixon's Ford Prefect has visibly longer hair.
- The Guide's 'computer graphics' were hand-drawn: Rod Lord of Pearce Animation Studios made a 50-second hand-animated pilot for the Babel Fish speech that pleased Douglas Adams and Alan J. W. Bell, who then had him animate the whole series.
- Tim Souster's arrangement of the Journey of the Sorcerer theme, used over the titles, was released as a UK single in January 1981, with a B-side featuring Douglas Adams playing rhythm guitar.
- To get the timing of spoken lines right on set, Douglas Adams himself read the parts of Eddie the Computer and Deep Thought; the lines were later redubbed by David Tate and Valentine Dyall.
