The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Saw the movie opening day with my wife, with Vince, Dan, Stephen, and Tony. I must say, I was a little weary after reading MJ Simpson's short spoiler-free review. He made it sound like an absolute travesty, an insult to Douglas Adams' legacy. Well, I am happy to say that this is absolute bunk; the movie rocked. Yes, it was not letter for letter the same as the book, a lot was changed, left out, or otherwise altered. This does NOT make it a bad movie, quite the contrary. H2G2 is and always will be a story constantly in flux. From the BBC Radio series to the Commodore64 video game (which is now available as a flash game on the BBC website) to the TV series (which I have not seen, but would love to) to the increasingly misnamed trilogy of 5 books, to the towel, the story varies from medium to medium. The movie more so than any other before, but it is still H2G2. Now, you may not exactly get it if you haven't experienced any of these medium, but it is still a good movie. My wife has not read the books, and she liked the movie.

I am currently reading the Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide again, and am surprised to see how many little things were in the movie that were direct homage to the book that I did not notice before. For instance, the book describes Prosser as being a direct descendant to Ghengis Kahn, and as such has unexplained visions of battle and a strange predilection for little fur hats. The movie says none of this, however I believe Prosser is wearing the fur hat. Also, the book talks about the Vogons and how the forces of evolution had given up on them but they did survive. It then mentions the "scintillating jeweled scuttling crabs" (which were in the movie), and the "elegant gazellelike creatures with silken coats and dewey eyes" which the Vogons would catch, sit on, and break their backs. There was a chair that a Vogon was sitting on in the movie that at first to me looked like the dog statue from Friends (with a broken back), but after reading the book's description I realized what it was. There are lots of little inside jokes like this that fans and dedicated diehards will love, such as Marvin from the TV series standing in line at the Vogon paperwork office.

I guess Disney is already talking about filming the sequels. They don't really need to go as far as "Mostly Harmless" or even "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (SLATFATF)", but it would pretty pretty spiffy if they did. Now that I think of it, "SLATFATF" would be hard to pull off, seeing as it deals with the Arthur's return to the Earth. At the end of the movie, they saw it fit to have the Margratheans complete Earth mk 2 but leave Arthur out of it. I guess they could work it in somehow, but they'll really have to start mucking about with the story and that would piss quite a few people off. As I understand it a lot of people are pissed about the movie anyways, but they can all eat their towels as far as I care. I liked the movie dammit, and I wanna see it again after I finish the books again.