The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I discovered Douglas Adams at around the end of high school. Probably the perfect time to read his highly imaginative and wildly funny Hitchhiker “trilogy”, which actually consists of five novels starting with the Hitchhiker’s Guide in 1979 and ending with Mostly Harmless is 1992. I loved, absolutely loved, the books. When I saw Douglas speak in Sydney just before the Millennium (he was here to promote his excellent PC game Starship Titanic) he spoke about the forthcoming movie and I remember being a little doubtful about how well the books would translate to film.

Fortunately, thanks to CGI nothing is unfilmable and the movie is by no means a disappointment. It is very well cast. Martin Freeman is perfect as the bemused Arthur Dent, whose house is bulldozed to build a bypass just minutes before his entire planet is demolished to make way for an intergalactic express way. The delightfully cute and quirky Zooey Deschanel is great as Trillion and no one could have done the Guide voiceover as much justice as Stephen Fry. Some of the visuals are quite strikingly beautiful and awe inspiring such as the scenes in the planet factory with Slartibartfast, well played by Bill Nighy. It’s such a shame that Douglas Adams died before this movie was released. I think he would have liked it.