Andy’s Rating: one notch above Liked It (8/13)*
After 25 years of development, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has finally made it to movie screens. It seems only appropriate, considering it has already been (among other things) a radio show, a book, and a computer game. (Incidentally, you can now play the computer game online, and interested parties can read some background info about its development.) It is also worth noting that each version has been substantially different from the others. So, with that in mind, how does this version hold up in comparison to the others?
In short, it holds up reasonably well, if not spectacularly so. The casting is better than I expected it to be, the effects suit the storyline perfectly, the narration is spot-on, and the Guide segments are done well. All of the pieces are there to assemble a top-notch adaptation of the story.
However, the film suffers from two major flaws. The first is how the story progression was adapted to the film. Imagine having the plot explained to you by someone who had read the Cliffs’ Notes version ten years earlier, and you will have a good idea of how closely the film follows the novel. Now, I understand that changes have been made in every medium that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been adapted. However, for whatever reason those changes were made, the result could at least be understood by people who were not familiar with the previous versions. With this movie, major plot points were either grotesquely summarized or completely omitted, leaving audiences who were unfamiliar with the previous works to be confused, at the least, and most likely frustrated.
I can understand if they were targeting the movie primarily (or solely) at fans of the book or radio show, but it seems like they could have left out less-significant parts of the story. By contrast, look at how The Lord of the Rings was adapted from the book to the movies: In that instance, there were entire story segments that were left out in the service of the story progression. However, most of those were either alluded to (such as the gifts given to the Fellowship when leaving the Elves), or at least obliquely shown (like the stone trolls that captured Bilbo). That way, fans of the novels could still fill in the missing segments, but novices would not notice anything missing.
But in Hitchhiker’s, we have entire pieces that are blatantly missing. We have characters who seem to act irrationally, because their motivations are not known. There are plot devices (like the Infinite Improbability Drive) that are only explained in very broad terms, and make less sense as a result. But there are also certain details (like, for example, the central plot) that are sketched out in such broad terms that the audience has little time to understand them, much less care. Only people who have read and reread the book, or listened to the radio series, will have an idea of what is going on, and why.
…which leads me to the second major flaw with this movie: the humor. Someone familiar with the other versions of the story will most likely remember many of the interesting anecdotes and throwaway jokes that seem to permeate the story. Sadly, in an attempt to streamline the progression of events, many of the genuinely funny lines were discarded. You keep hearing the setup lines, but the punch lines aren’t delivered. Imagine seeing your favorite performer play one of your favorite songs on stage, but choosing different words that don’t complete any of the rhymes. Then at the end of the second verse, he sings a different chorus that doesn’t resolve in the key of the song. Then, before the third verse, he is shot through the head, dismembered, and buried in an unmarked grave. Then the cemetery burns down. If you’ve read the book, that’s how you’ll feel after seeing the movie.
To make my point more clearly, let me provide a concrete example. Here is an exchange that occurs early in the story between Mr. L. Prosser and Arthur Dent. First, the version from the novel (paraphrased from memory):
Mr. L. Prosser: I don’t know why you’re complaining. The plans have been on display in your local planning office for six months!Arthur Dent: Yes, I eventually had to go down to the basement.
Mr. L. Prosser: That’s the display department.
Arthur Dent: With a torch.
Mr. L. Prosser: Well, the lights had gone.
Arthur Dent: So had the stairs.
Mr. L. Prosser: But you eventually found the plans, didn’t you?
Arthur Dent: Yes I did. They were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in the corner of a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, “Beware of the leopard.”
Mr. L. Prosser: Mr. Dent, do you have any idea…
It’s a humorous exchange that also shows Arthur Dent’s frustration, and would take up maybe fifteeen seconds of screen time. Now, for comparison, here is the movie version:
Mr. L. Prosser: I don’t know why you’re complaining. The plans have been on display in your local planning office for six months!Arthur Dent: Yes, I eventually had to go down to the basement.
Mr. L. Prosser: Mr. Dent, do you have any idea…
See the difference? After reading the first version, you might expect a reasonable close approximation, with at least the punchline intact. Instead, you get the argument, and the setup line…then nothing. This happens over, and over, and over again during the course of the movie. What’s the point of a comedy, when most of the humor is missing? The situational humor is there, somewhat (or as much as can be expected, when the characters’ motivations are not explained), but none of the moment-to-moment conversational humor is present. I could even understand if this was done because of time constraints…but almost the entire middle third of the movie is taken up with a tangential plot that is not part of the book, and is really not very funny. They could have cut this out, and put in every little incidental line from the book, and still fit it within the two-hour running time. Why they chose not to do this is one of the great mysteries of the movie.
Just to belabor the point even further, there is a monumentous, epic sequence in the middle of the film, which is the central plot point, and it is rushed through so quickly that its significance is almost missed completely. It’s as if the producers of 2001 had said, “Why are we spending so much time on that monolith at the start of the movie? Why don’t we rush past that, so we can get to the spaceships?” To miss the significance of this event is to miss the entire point of the movie. Say what you will about the tediousness of The Lord of the Rings, but at least they gave the epic parts of the story enough time to make an impact.
So that’s it. If you want to enjoy this story to its fullest extent, pick up the novel or the radio series. And if you don’t have time to read the novel (which is an easy read, and reasonable short), I would strongly recommend the audiobook version, which is read, unabridged, by Douglas Adams himself, and quite excellently I might add. You can also download any and all of the books from Audible.com. Either way, if you’re interested in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you owe it to yourself to experience one of the other versions either before, after, or instead of seeing the movie.
Addendum: A less-conciliatory review can be found here.
Second Addendum: I intentionally avoided reading the long version (with spoilers) of the same review that I mentioned above, so as not to unduly influence my review of the movie. I am now reading through it, and by a strange coincidence, the author of that review details the exact same comparison between the dialogue from the book, and the same sequence from the movie. Really, it’s kind of eerie.
* a more thorough explanation of my movie rating system will be provided at a later date
