Don't Panic

For someone of my age and background, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is pretty much a sacred text, all the revisions and reworkings of it over the years only adding to its mythological status. It was, therefore, with some apprehension that I approached the Disney-funded big screen adaptation.

Well, it's certainly different. The tone and texture of the original(s) were evidently untenable for a blockbuster flick, and I guess I can understand that. There are a lot of things wrong with the result, no doubt about it; and even some things that aren't wrong are still rather discomfiting -- the opening number, for example, comes as a bit of surprise.

Still, there are moments throughout -- and especially at the end -- which, despite being radically altered, do connect with the essential ethos of the source material in a way that you can't quite imagine from the saccharine, conservative, offense-averse empire of Mickey Mouse. That immense respect and awe for the sheer, stupid beauty of life.

So, even though it's a bit ropey in places, and even though it pretty much dispenses with the existential bleakness that was DNA's most abiding message to his creation, it is, for me, a movie that gets better the more I think about it. I found myself laughing retrospectively as I walked down the street today. Laughing and, just a tiny bit, crying.

I hope to see you all at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. And as for you, Douglas: thank you so much, for everything. Not just the fish.
Posted by matt at May 4, 2005 11:00 PM