My Favorite Movies: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Science fiction is probably one of my favorite genres of movies. Considering all sorts of my favorites fall into the category (Star Wars, The Wrath of Kahn, etc.) I can’t complain about anything to do with sci-fi. I’ll probably always find a way to enjoy sci-fi even if it’s a boat load of shit.

Comedies are probably one of my least favorite genres of movies. Apart from a few favorites (Hot Fuzz, the original Vacation), I’ll probably complain about anything to do with a comedy. I’ll probably always find a way to hate a comedy, even if it has one of my favorite actors…but most of them are boat loads of shit.

So, what exactly happens when you take sci-fi and comedy? You get Spaceballs. But you also get The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Yes, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, born a fantastic novel by Douglas Adams (it’s my favorite book ever, seriously, read that shit), morphed into a radio show, then to a TV show, and finally to a 2005 movie, and it was a story that deserved that movie. It had a fantastic, out-of-this-world story (figuratively and literally), great characters, and a great sense of humor about it. This is something that if done well could be transferred to the silver screen in a beautiful way.

Well…they didn’t do it well. In fact, according to the general public, it was horrible. But, you know me, I usually ignore the general public.

The first time I saw Hitchhiker’s was in 2005, the year of its release. I’d never read the book, watched any of the show, heard any of the radio stuff. I was completely null to the whole thing, and honestly, when I watched it for the first time, I didn’t like it. No, not at all. In fact, I think the most prevalent /good/ thing that I remember thinking of is the fact that Revenge of the Sith’s trailer aired before it. But, then I read the books, and I took a second look at the movie.

What this second look brought forth to my eyes is something I’ll have to go in depth on. Right after I explain. You might need to grab a towel for this.

Hitchhiker’s follows the story of Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), an English man who’s been rudely awakened by the sound of bulldozers approaching to demolish his home to make way for a highway bypass. However, as he protests the demolition, his good friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def) shows up, blathering on about how the world will end in only a few minutes. He takes Arthur to a nearby pub to drink to the end, while Arthur is actually quite displeased due to losing a girl he met at a party recently, Tricia McMillan (Zooey Deschanel) to some guy blathering on about his spaceship.

After the drinks, Arthur goes back to find his house completely destroyed, but is quickly interrupted as large, skyscraper-like buildings begin to hover in the Earth’s atmosphere. Ford grabs him and sticks his thumb in the air as the ship’s inhabitants, the Vogons, announce that Earth is scheduled to be destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass in a hilarious parallel to the same thing that’s happening to Arthur’s house. Ford and Arthur manage to hitch a ride on the Vogon ship just as Earth is reduced to millions of subatomic particles, making Arthur the last known Earthman in the universe.  The two get captured by the Vogons, and the leader, Vogonic Jeltz, reads them some of his poetry (Vogonic poetry is deemed the third worst in the known galaxy). Arthur attempts to please Jeltz by coming up with some rubbish about how the poetry was heartfelt and such, but Jeltz isn’t moved and sentences them to death by airlock. As the pair is sent into space, they’re picked up in the last split second by an unknown spaceship.

The ship turns out to be the Heart of Gold, lead by Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), the President of the Galaxy and the man who took Tricia from Arthur. He turns out to be a bit of a dolt, a beauty queen if you will, but the pleasantries are stopped as Tricia sees Arthur and they reconcile. This is also where we meet the fan favorite: Marvin the Paranoid Android, a depressed robot played by Alan Rickman. As everyone catches up, the Vogonic war ships approach the Heart of Gold, and it turns out Zaphod kidnapped himself and stole the ship for his own use, and the Vogons are here to take it back and bring Zaphod back. The ship quickly zooms off into hyperspace. While this is going on, Zaphod explains his quest to Magrathea, where the supercomputer Deep Thought is stationed, so he can find out the ultimate question for life, the universe, and everything. So, he smashes the Improbability Drive (a device that quickly zaps the ship to some point within the galaxy) and they end up orbiting Viltvottle VI, where Zaphod lands to settle a score with his Presidential arch nemesis Hamma Kavula (John Malkovich).

On the planet, we find that Kavula is the leader of a cult that worships a being believed to have sneezed the entirety of the universe out of its nose. Zaphod confronts Kavula about his slandering campaign run, calling Zaphod stupid, but they also hint to the fact that they are trying to find their way to Magrathea. Kavula brushes off the slandering campaign but also brings up the fact that he has the correct coordinates for Magrathea, and offers them to Zaphod, under one condition: Zaphod brings him back a gun. Zaphod agrees and Kavula takes Zaphod’s second head as collateral for them to return. As they leave Kavula’s temple, they’re met by hundreds of Vogon soldiers, who fire upon the group and take Tricia as prisoner.

Zaphod, Arthur, Ford, and Marvin fly out to the Vogon homeworld, Vogsphere to rescue Tricia. After a hilarious scene with some things that sprout out of the ground to slap anyone in the face with an idea, we get another hilarious scene where our heroes have to queue in a line in order to release Tricia from imprisonment. Meanwhile, Tricia finds out the true fate of the Earth, and that Zaphod signed the orders to have it destroyed, thinking it was an autograph opportunity. She’s sentenced to death and we get some real anticipating scenes as the heroes get into more trouble trying to sign the release forms to get her out while she’s being slowly lowed into the cage of the Great Bugblatter Beast of Traal. However, they finally get it all done and she is released, which is when we see her absolutely go off on Zaphod for giving the orders to destroy Earth. Meanwhile, the Vogons vow to follow them immediately to their next destination, where they will finally make the arrest.

Their next destination is finally Magrathea, and the group stumbles upon a group of portals. Zaphod, Ford, and Tricia throw themselves into one while Arthur has second thoughts about its safety and where it might leave them. He finally gains the strength to do it, but it’s too far too late, as the portal shuts down right as he jumps through. The other three, meanwhile, fall onto the ground directly in front of Deep Thought, the supercomputer that summed up the answer to the ultimate question as, “42.” They ask the computer about the ultimate question, but she states that she designed another computer to sort that out, and it turns out to be Earth. They also find out that Earth was merely five minutes from finding out the question when the Vogons destroyed it. This leaves Zaphod distraught, but the group goes ahead to find the gun that Kavula mentioned: a Point of View gun…which inflicts the thoughts of the firer upon the target.

Meanwhile, back at the portals, an elder Magrathean named Slartibartfast (played by Bill Nighy) takes Arthur to a place where they build planets. He and Marvin ride out to the factory floor, where Slartibartfast reveals that they’re just finishing up the touches on Earth Mark 2. He also reveals to Arthur that Earth was completely commissioned and sought over by mice, who were the original people who built Deep Thought millions of years ago. They land in front of Arthur’s old house and it’s revealed the mice commissioned this Earth to be built at the same moment as when it was destroyed, giving them only five minutes to finally find out the ultimate question. Arthur goes inside to find his friends at a feast run by the mice, before he’s strapped to a chair, the other three are drugged, and the mice attempt to cut open his head and scavenge his brain to find the question. Arthur struggles a bit, confesses his love for Tricia, and eventually breaks free and crushes the mice to death. They go outside to find the Vogons who immediately fire upon them. Marvin eventually takes a bullet for the team and dies for a short while, only to come back and fire the point of view gun upon the Vogons, giving them depressed thoughts and forcing them to give up.

The movie ends with Arthur claiming that he’s ready to leave the Earth and live in the Galaxy with Tricia, and the group goes on to have a feast at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe while Earth’s life cycle begins.

So, you know, I can’t really explain why this movie tanked so bad and why it left so many people cold and why so many different Hitchhiker’s fans hated it. Yes, there’s some definite changes to the source materials, but those were brought upon by Douglas Adams himself, because they’d probably work better on a big screen than the original. Yeah, there’s some parts where it kinda falls apart, but it doesn’t suffer for those reasons. It’s a really well put together piece of sci-fi comedy, something that doesn’t come along often, really.

The casting comes off weird at first glance, but it really kind of works as the movie goes on. The directing is beautifully done and all that, and the screenplay is funny yet complexing. But I can only suppose that some diehard fan people just don’t like when something is changed, no matter who changes it. The moment that they find their favorite character is taken out, some kind of absurd plot point is added, or something, they go crazy. It’s not really fair, even if the movie in question turns out really goddamn good.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy finishes out my top 10 movie list at number 10, and it’s probably the only movie that’s stayed on that list for so long. Whenever I’m down, this movie never fails to make me happy on all sorts of levels, and even with its small issues, so many other things make it all worth it. It’s getting a 5 out of 5, and simply deserves said 5 stars.

I think I might delve into some more British comedy with the Cornetto trilogy soon, so stay tuned for that.