Films

Stephen Fry, who inherited the role of the Guide from the late Peter Jones, was a close friend of the late Douglas Adams. They were also both graduates of Cambridge University, although Fry was five years younger.

Several minutes into the credits, a final Guide entry is shown. This is the “careless words/problem of scale” entry, well known to fans of other incarnations of the Guide.

The passage of 10 October 2010 (10/10/10) publicized the fact that, 101010, a binary equivalent of the number 42, is the number that received considerable attention in popular culture because of its appearance in Douglas Adams’ ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ as the answer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”.

When the Heart of Gold heads for Magrathea the Infinite Improbability Drive changes it into a bell, some cherries, a melon and a lemon – all common features on a slot-machine, emphasising the randomness of the process.

As the Heart of Gold Spaceship travels through “improbability” it quickly transforms into many strange shapes (including a rubber duck) in the very final transformation at the end of the film it quickly transforms into the face of author/creator Douglas Adams.