The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
starring Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Bill Nighy and John Malkivoch and the voices of alan Rickman, Helen Mirren, Ian McNeice, Bill Bailey, Richard Griffiths, Mak Wilson and Stephen Fry
written by Douglas Adams and Karey Kirkpatrick
directed by Gareth Jennings
Based on the book of the same title by Douglas Adams, many people (myself included) have waited for years and years for a proper, big screen version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to replace the old cheapo BBC television series. The BBC series was highly popular and quickly became a cult favorite, like Doctor Who. But I never cared for either Doctor Who, or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, although I loved the book and the others that followed it in the series. I wanted to see a production with higher production values. British television has a knack for taking a perfectly reasonable story of a two-headed Galactic President and turning it into something ridiculous! Of course, Douglas Adams’ entire premise was tongue-in-cheek, so maybe a cheap and cheap-looking production probably lends itself to his purposes. But still, I wanted something more.
If you don’t know the story of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, here it is: The Earth is destroyed to make way for an intergalactic expressway. Arthur Dent, the only human survivor, hitches a ride on the President of the Galactic Council’s ship, powered by Improbability Drive. (This means that the ship always travels to the most improbable places, fueling the wackiness of Arthur’s adventures.) The Galactic President’s name is Zaphod Beeblebrox (from which I take my own E-mail address).
It turns out that humans are not the smartest creatures on the face of the planet as we like to think. We are the third smartest, behind Mice and Dolphins. We learn that all the while we thought we were using mice for science lab experiments they were actually using us.