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Vogon Poetry

Entry 146, on 2005-03-18 at 16:02:20 (Rating 1, Comments)

I was listening to a podcast the other day (I think it was a Slacker Astronomy cast) and at the end of the program they had some Vogon poetry! If you don't know anything about this you have probably never heard, read, or watched the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, an old science fiction comedy, by Douglas Adams, about the adventures of Arthur Dent, after the destruction of the Earth (to make way for a hyperspace bypass).

Arthur, with his friend Ford Prefect (he thought that would be an inconspicuous name to use on Earth) find themselves on a Vogon ship, because Ford isn't from Earth (Ford: What would you say if I told you I wasn't from Earth at all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Beetlejuice? Arthur: I don't know - is that the sort of thing you are likely to say?). Note that there is a star called Betelgeuse - its a red supergiant in Orion.

Anyway, they find themselves held prisoner on the Vogon ship. Vogons aren't really known for their more sensitive side, but the Vogon captain feels its necessary to recite some of his poetry, which is so truly horrendous that Arthur and Ford are reduced to pleading for mercy at the very sound of it!

So they played some of this poetry and I was just wandering through town listening to the podcast and I just cracked up. Everyone probably thought I was crazy. Here's some of the poetry:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously dranle me with crinkly brindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my
blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!

Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy (HG2G) was originally a radio play, then a book, then a BBC TV series. Now its going to be a movie. Many computer geeks already know about HG2G, of course, but if you don't maybe you should see the movie. I don't know how good it will be, but apparently Adams had some input into the script before his death, so we have some hope it will be good. There's a trailer available on the Internet, of course.

Comment 1 (20) by HB on 2005-03-19 at 17:02:38:

Huge fan of H2G2 here. My parents were friends with Adams, and were in the stage show of Hitchhiker. The movie... hmm - I'm leaning towards the "it will suck" side of things. I worked on the post-production for one of the companies doing the special effects, and I was in charge of the script. It was a rewrite of Adams' final script, and I was not too impressed to tell the truth. A lot of good jokes from the original had been totally taken out - most of them unnecessarily so, I thought.

The casting and the design also don't really make me feel very good about it either; but I shall go to see it, and judge accordingly then. If it's bad, I'll still be grateful for the BBC Radio series, books and TV series for being so wonderful.

Did you ever play the game that was available on home computers in the 80s? It's earned the title of being the hardest text-based game ever! I'll see if I can find the link to the version someone ported to java.

Comment 2 (21) by OJB on 2005-03-19 at 17:04:03:

I'm trying to be optimistic, but I also think the movie might not be as good as it could be. Its got to the point where I automatically assume movies will be inferior now.

Guess I'll just buy the TV series on DVD instead.

I have played the game on an Apple II. Didn't like it much - too hard!

Comment 3 (73) by OJB on 2005-08-21 at 22:57:16:

After watching the movie (a month or two back now) I'm pleased to report it wasn't too bad. A lot of the original humour was gone, but I still quite enjoyed it. And the rest of my family did too, even though they knew nothing about Hitchhikers' Guide before seeing the movie.

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