but she's a girl...

Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I've had Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2) on my list at Lovefilm for quite a while, and have been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading its arrival. I've heard some people rave (in a good way) about it, and others hate it, so I wasn't quite sure what I was going to make of it. I watched it this weekend¹ and you'll know which camp I fall into when I say that I'm still thinking to myself, "...and another thing I hated about it was...". I don't think I've seen a film that I've disliked so much in a long time.

I am, of course, a huge fan of the original BBC radio series, the book, the BBC TV series and the new Tertiary Phase radio recordings (featuring most of the cast of the original radio series). I think that I'd have to say that I preferred the book and the radio series, but the TV adaptation was also pretty good, despite mostly dire special effects. So the film had a lot to live up to, but I'm not pathologically averse to Hollywood adaptations of books---the Lord of the Rings trilogy being an excellent example of an adaptation made with skill and respect. I read the books (twice) before seeing the films, and of course there were bits that got left out or cut down that were regrettable, but on the whole, it kept very closely to the _spirit_ of the books, and provided a different but fully compatible experience of the story. So while I understand that some things must be cut for pacing and to fit within the different limitations of the feature film format, I don't buy the argument that it's impossible to render a book faithfully on film.

Warning: the rest contains spoilers

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