This production had a major challenge from the outset: "Hitchhiker" was a six (or was it seven) hour BBC radio serial, morphed into three books and a multi-hour BBC TV serial. Some things had to get dropped to produce a 110-minute film. If you have never heard the original radio serial, buy/rent it and listen. You owe it to yourself - if you liked the movie - to hear the original. A concurrent challenge is that this moved from an almost exclusively written work (radio, book) to one where words share the stage with images. Some purists of the original series will have problems with all of this, and my feelings about the film were mixed for these reasons.
Entire subplots and characters were dropped along with some classic bits that, again, will be pretty disappointing to purists. A couple of new subplots were added which was also frustrating since original material was dropped to make way for it. The film includes only the first two-thirds (my estimate) of the original radio series and has a much happier ending.
There are lots of things the film does very well. Most of the visuals, sets, creatures and costumes are pretty wonderful. The Vogons and Magrathea deserve particular mention. The cast is a delight, with special mention to Zooey Deschanel (who's always a delight) in an expanded version of Trillian. The original "Marvin" from the BBC TV series has a cameo, along with Simon Jones (the original Arthur).
I will certainly be renting the eventual DVD just to see if there lots of "deleted scenes." I'll be interested to read the views of folks who never heard the original.
Entire subplots and characters were dropped along with some classic bits that, again, will be pretty disappointing to purists. A couple of new subplots were added which was also frustrating since original material was dropped to make way for it. The film includes only the first two-thirds (my estimate) of the original radio series and has a much happier ending.
There are lots of things the film does very well. Most of the visuals, sets, creatures and costumes are pretty wonderful. The Vogons and Magrathea deserve particular mention. The cast is a delight, with special mention to Zooey Deschanel (who's always a delight) in an expanded version of Trillian. The original "Marvin" from the BBC TV series has a cameo, along with Simon Jones (the original Arthur).
I will certainly be renting the eventual DVD just to see if there lots of "deleted scenes." I'll be interested to read the views of folks who never heard the original.