I'll say it here just for posterity, if you ever want to check out the Hitchhiker's guide series but don't feel like reading, check out the entire series on audiobook read by Douglas Adams himself, great listen, and as an added bonus he knows how to pronounce everything and listening to the master in action is a beautiful beautiful thing.

I've listened to about a half our of the episode so far, which mean about 10 minutes of the movie I won't actually have a copy until Netflix sends one hopefully Wednesday so I may not finish it today, but I have to say it's interesting to listen to you four talk about the actors when none of you are comparing them to the originals. It's just... well, a foreign concept, as I started with the radio show when it first aired on the local public radio station around 1980 and always heard those voices when reading the books (and the same actors, apart from a new Ford and Trillian, did the TV series). It's like a reviewer of the new Trek movie who has never seen Shatner playing Kirk. I'm getting a kick out of it, but at least one member of the panel should have been familiar with the original (which is Trey's usual role with you kids). Then again, at least all your arguments about the film are different then the ones I would raise!

(and, from the sound of it, Stephen Fry in the audio book is imitating the original Eddie. It wasn't a case where he had to come up with original ways these characters would sound)

For a connection between Douglas Adams and Terry Gilliam, there are some as Python as a whole were fans. The original Arthur for example shows up in The Meaning of Life when Death interrupts a dinner party, as well as in Brazil (he delivers the papers to the family when the solders break into the wrong apartment at the beginning).

Re Douglas Adams / Python crossover, Adams wrote a sketch for the last series of Monty Python (the "stabbing nurse" one) and actually starts in another sketch as a surgeon. He also co-wrote pretty extensively with Graham Chapman after Python finished.

Cheers Teague

Also welcome Tobias.

The history of the original radio show is interesting. An original idea for a series in which the Earth is destroyed in each show turned into 6 episodes with a definite ending from which there can be no sequel. Then they had to come up with a way to get the characters together again, minus Trillian, and end it with an open ending leaving room for an expected sequel... and Adams was never asked to do more The gymnastics they had to do to try and match the end of the radio show to the start of the 3rd book for the new radio adaptations is rather extensive.

Also interesting is there were changes to the first series when it was released on records. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe episode was changed/expanded somewhat. Not sure which version is now available when you buy the show.

It's well worth checking out Neil Gaimans "Don't Panic" a biography of Adams and Hitchhikers.

edit: you mentioned several times that Edgar Wright would have been a better choice to direct. He's actually in the film.