I’ve been looking forever for something similar to the world in Nausicaa. Finally found it here! And so many references to Nausicaa too it clearly was a big influence. I haven’t been so happy with the world of a show in a long time
So glad we actually got to see the second season, since it originally got canceled after the first one despite it apparently already being completed at the time.
I did try it but tapped out pretty early in the first episode. Not in a “this is bad” way, but more in that I felt really uncomfortably out of the target audience. That kind of school experience was pretty alien to me even when I was a kid and as an adult it’s only gotten less relatable.
I never saw them as “friends”. Arthur and Ford just met on the side of the road by accident, and then Arthur’s world was destroyed, and Ford happened to be there to save him. He was thrust into the universe at large and never regained his footing. Ford was there, but there was no real friendship. They were strangers in a situation together.
Hitchhiker’s Guide is more like a sci-fi fairy tale, though without any sort of moral teachings or any life lessons outside of “Don’t Panic”. It’s just characters going from one improbable situation or interesting conversation to another. Outside of maybe Marvin the paranoid android and Zaphod, none of the other characters are particularly interesting, they’re just sort of blank vehicles to keep the story going or Arthur as the cabbagehead/Watson-esque character to ask questions for the reader.
Douglas Adams would probably agree with you about Fenchurch. He is on the record about regretting how he wrote that book. Apparently he was struggling with depression when he wrote Mostly Harmless, and sort of took it out in his writing.
I guess if you want to just sort of vaguely gesture toward things that were very obviously the point and focus of the novels, and things that they do better than the vast majority of books, and instead lament the nominal failure to expand on side issues that aren’t even relevant to anything else, then you’re free to do so. I really don’t see the point though.
To me, it’s as if you’re looking at Van Gogh’s Starry Night and saying, “Well yeah, the colors and texture and movement and composition are all great and all, but I’m just disappointed that there aren’t any people in Victorian dress in it. And not even one madonna and child!”
I think you are expecting too much from these stories. This crux of HHGTTG is situational humor. Arthur is set up to have no clue and bumble through. Zafod is a narcissist. Ford is Ford. Having them grow takes away from their ability to contribute to the type of humor that is the objective. It’s like saying Mr Bean skills have gotten smarter.
I think these are all valid. I’ve enjoyed the bood, but the overarching plot felt a lot like the Star Wars sequel trilogy. I didn’t feel like it was planned ahead of time.
That being said I highly recommend the first book. There’s an audiobook on YouTube.and if you love it, then check out the rest. But if you stop after the first one, it’s completely fine.
It would be way more sense to film a wet wall drying. or the grass growing. This “show” not just makes an unbearable joke out of Asimov’s legacy, but the even the message got lost… this whole thing is nothing more than an other disgusting cash-grab. I read the book multiple times, I had to drop after ep 4… It’s a trashy romantic space-turd packaged with Asimov’s name to anyone who have no idea who Asimov was or anything what he was doing / creating… for anyone with iq over 45 and have experienced the original works realize there’s nothing to watch here… “An other one bites the dust”… :(
The show writers add a lot of additional content that isn’t in the books, especially pertaining to characters. Almost none of the character stories are from Asimov, because the books are focused on events over thousands of years, not on characters. The content the show writers add isn’t very compelling or interesting.
The books themselves aren’t all that great. They’re okay. They were probably pretty revolutionary in their time, but they’re just okay now. I think they’re worth reading as important pieces of sci-fi history, but don’t expect anything mind blowing.
Basically I’m saying it doesn’t matter if you read the books or watch the show. Both are okay, but the show is a lot more boring than the books. Some people probably love the content, I could take it or leave it. For the books I took it to the end, for the show I left it after a couple of episodes.
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