The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

—Overview
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—About pdf
—Spiritual Connections

So long and thanks for all the fish.
So sad that it should come to this.
We tried to warn you all but, oh dear.

You may not share our intellect,
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that grow around you.

To this fateful tune, the dolphins exit planet Earth and the movie, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, begins. Once again, I am faced with reviewing a movie whose source material I am intimately acquainted with, having read all five books of the Hitchhiker Trilogy and being a fan of the BBC television mini-series. I was afraid of two possible reactions: 1) that this movie would come off, especially to the uninitiated, as a trite exercise in faux-philosophy masquerading as British humor; or 2) the knee-jerk geek reaction of “they screwed up this book� (leaving me with making the a spiritual connection along the lines of “just as Jesus was betrayed by Judas, so the book was betrayed by this movie�). Luckily, for the most part (and as a further exercise in pleasing no one completely), I was spared this fate.

For the uninitiated, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is “... a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?� It is slightly cheaper than the Encyclopedia Galactica and it has the words “Don’t Panic� inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

If that bit annoyed you, you might as well skip this movie. The movie veers between being clever and being impressed with how clever it is being. That is, half the time, you (hopefully) get caught up in its sense of whimsy, and the other times you are left wondering what’s going on and why the things happening on screen are supposed to be funny.

As the book puts it, the story begins on a “Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change.� That story, such as it is, is not nearly as important as seeing our heroes travel about the universe in their improbability drive powered ship.

“Things are not always what they seem.� The voice of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy seems to make the take home point of the movie. The movie, like the book, is flippant, indulging its quirky sense of humor, as it wrestles with the larger existential questions of reality: It is easy to get distracted by its irreverent attitude toward God, creation, and life’s purpose, but then you’d miss the point. It is attempting to come to terms with many of life’s questions, namely the question “why?� Why are we here? The conclusions that it comes to aren’t as important as the questions themselves. After all, when faced with the possibility that the world is about to be destroyed, what do you do? What’s really important? How would you live your life in light of this? Like Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), we don’t know our destiny and, for all our troubles, we could find out that the world was commissioned and paid for by pan-dimensional mega-beings that appear to us as mice.

“I’d much rather be happy than right any day.� Slartibartfast

This movie is all about questions, the big questions. The thing about questions is that they are fine to ask, but we have to be prepared to accept the answers. If you ask a question like “what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?� you may get an answer like “42.� It’s only when you understand the question that you will be able to understand the answer. “Who am I?� “Why am I here?� Why do we want to know the answer to these ultimate question? Like Zaphod Beeblebrox, is it out of curiosity and a sense of adventure (which translates to fame, money, and women)? Like the sperm whale that suddenly pops into existence (long story, don’t ask*) those are some of the first questions that we ask.

Why? Because we want to know if there’s something more to life.

If there’s not, we end up like Marvin, the manically depressed robot. Like Qohelet, the writer of the book of Ecclesiates, he concludes that, without hope, all efforts are futile at best or bring only pain at worst. This, in turn, begs the question, what hope is there?

“Love is far too complicated to explain.� The Encyclopedia Galactica
“Love is dangerous. Avoid if possible.� The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“My head is full of questions I’d like to have the answer to and non of the answers to any of them ever brought me one iota of happiness,� Arthur says. Except the answer to this question: “Is she the one?�, which is “yes.� Life is meant to be simple, us living in harmony with creation. That’s why dolphins are the second most intelligent species (after the mice, but ahead of man), because they get this. We are created at relational beings, and as such, we are caught up in the great story of a Creator wooing us back to Him. The answer is love.

The movie is full of the absurdist humor that made the book great, unfortunately, it is one of those “either you get the joke or you don’t� sort of experiences. It is not a “faithful� adaptation of the book, no movie could be, since the book was more a collection of funny asides more than straight narrative. However, it does capture the spirit of the work, and that is as much as a movie goer can ask of an adaptation from a novel. Maybe seeing the movie will create in you the need to get more familiar with the material and you will be drawn to the books. That is the reaction all good adaptations should provoke. Or, you will walk out feeling that you’ve already experienced far too much of this “I don’t see why it’s so funny� phenomenon and go see if XXX: State of the Union is still playing.

Me? Judging from the opening and closing song, “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish�, I eagerly await the Broadway musical version.

*It is one of my favorite bits from the novel preserved in the film. My other favorite–the intergalactic armies that unite to invade Earth but due to a miscalculation in size get eaten by a dog–is also preserved, but you have to sit through the credits to see it.

—Overview
—Photos
—About pdf
—Spiritual Connections