Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

HHGTTG was my Star Wars. As a child, I spent hours on end reading, rereading, re-rereading the books, and even longer listening to my crappy tapes made from when the local NPR played the radio series. I wore out my video tape of the TV series after about a year of ownership. Hell, I even played the video game non-stop, despite it being pretty far over my head, as a 6 or 7 year old. I never made it past getting onto the Heart of Gold, and even that was a feat. This world, this creative vision of one genius man is responsible for a good amount of who I am. My sense of humor, my love of Sci-Fi, and my love of the absurd is pretty solidly wrested from that body of work. So the movie... well, I woke up last week realizing that, in a way, this is the movie I've been waiting for all my life. And, well, it's quite good. It's not genius. It's not the radio series or books, but it's on par with the TV Show, and it brings some interesting new concepts to the universe. The biggest sticking points are Zaphod's low IQ (which while explained, doesn't really jive with me, especially as there's seemingly no conspiracy or anything to put him in charge, at least not in this film,) and the ending, which just doesn't jive with the characters.

I suppose when any piece of art has such a massive meaning to you, any reiteration of it will ultimately fail. The movie is probably about the best it can be.