The Hitchiker's Guide

Or: The danger of compromises.

For reasons that are too mundane to go into, the other day I went to a bookstore to buy a copy of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Now, that being my favorite book in the world it got me thinking a bit on the way there, and for some reason what it got me thinking about was... the movie.

You remember there was also a movie, right? I want to say like 2009 or so, but I can't be bothered to look it up exactly, nor does it really matter.

I saw it when it came out (perhaps even twice?) and have filed it in some area of my brain where stuff I don't really care about goes, and haven't really thought about it much since. Which might seem strange, even to me, but then I remember that I'm not really one of those "aahhh they ruined my childhood!!!" types of people that have an aneurysm every time there's a shitty rehash of something they loved when they were younger. It's simply the way capitalism operates in media and you have to accept it as a fact of life. Like plaque.

Then again, this is likely going to turn into a rant, so...

The thing with the Hitchiker's movie isn't that it was agressively bad in any particular way. In fact it got a bunch of the stuff right, so let's start there. Oh yeah, and this will contain spoilers for both the book and film, so there.

So the good stuff: some of the casting is really inspired. Martin Freeman makes a perfect Arthur Dent. Alan Rickman was born to be the voice of Marvin. Bill Nighy is always fun, and does a good Slartibartfast. The rest of the cast is a bit of a mixed bag. Sam Rockwell is not terrible as Zaphod, but doesn't quite nail the larger then life, dumber than a doorknob nature of the character. Mos Def was a bit flat for me as Ford, and Zooey Deschanel is pretty miscast as Trillian because all she knows how to do is the manic pixie girl stuff, and it's not what the role calls for. And then there's John Malkovich doing whatever that was. It's harder to judge because it's a newly created character but it just felt completely out of place.

Oh wait, I wanted to talk about the good stuff first. Right, so the production design is really good. Marvin is awesome. The Vogon ships are perfect. Most things look really good. Also, some of the new material that was written for the film is actually pretty good. The POV gun being maybe my favorite.

Point is, I don't mind them changing things. Hitchiker's is a living thing that changes plot and details from one incarnation to the next. From radio, to book, to game, and naturally, to movie. So throwing in John Malkovich to be weird for 10 minutes isn't going to really blow it up.

Were the big fuckup happened is that someone obviosly let a Hollywood producer into the room and allowed them to mess around with the spirit of the thing, and with what makes Hitchiker's Hitchiker's.

Arthur and Trillian getting together completely undermines both characters. Arthur is supposed to be the guy for who nothing ever works out. He has endless bad luck. First his house gets demolished, then his planet, then he's just thrown around the galaxy with little control over anything. He's not supposed to get the girl, that's the whole point. And when, in the books, he finally does, that rug gets pulled out from him almost immediately. Instead he's turned into a "loveable bumbling hero" with a heart of gold (heh) who wins the day and gets the girl stereotype that you've seen a million times. Trillian, on the other hand is ferciosly independent and competent, and in the film she's reduced to a quirky love interest and that's about it.

My other big sticking point is the whole "putting the Earth back where it was" bit at the end. Yes, Hitchiker's is primarily a comedic book, but it's underpinned by a sense of loss and confusion and loneliness in a universe that's just too big and weird to comprehend and does not in any way care about you. It's also about wonder and wandering, but from the point of view of character who's lost everyhting he knew, his safe little space is gone and now he has to wrestle with things he can not only barely comprehend, but has no wish to deal with. It's not meant to be a fucking hero's journey!

Instead, we get "all is well, it was a fun little adventure, nice weekend, wasn't it?" and you get to go home. It's a copout. It's an ending tacked on because a focus group somewhere didn't respond optimally to a film that ends with the Earth no longer existing. Not everything has to have Tony bloody Stark fly in to save the planet. Give us some variety. Give us some absurdity. It just seems like the more the budget goes up, the less weirdness is allowed to remain in the story. And that's a shame.

So yes, like I said, I've for the most part forgotten about this movie, because it's, let's face it, completely forgettable. It's a somewhat quirky, but pretty generic space adventure with some good jokes, but that's all it is. It's a legendary book turned into a compromise of a film that no one cares about. For the non-fans it's still too weird, and for the fans it's just trying so hard to be something it's not.

So it goes.