Reviewed by Andrew Wooding

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Director: Garth Jennings (2005)
Distributor: Buena Vista International UK  Certificate: PG

I was there at the beginning! (Well, a few months after the beginning…) In the late 1970s, relative unknown, Douglas Adams, was a scriptwriter and script editor on the long-running TV series Doctor Who. In his spare time, he wrote a six-part science fiction radio series called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which was broadcast with little fanfare on BBC Radio 4. No one expected it to be a hit, but rapidly – through word of mouth – it became a cult, so much so that Radio 4 repeated it almost immediately, and that’s when I first started listening. I was hooked and made sure I taped every episode – as did many of my schoolfriends.

There then followed a Christmas special, a second radio series, a six-part TV series, two stage plays, five multi-million selling novels, a computer game, a comic book series, and more merchandise than you can shake a towel at. Despite (or maybe because of) the very English humour of the writing, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy became a phenomenon in America as well. The only aspect of the media that Hitchhiker’s hadn’t conquered was the movies … till now. In fact, Douglas Adams died in 2001 in California while he was working on the script. A shame he didn’t get to see the finished movie as I believe he would have loved it, and the film stands as a fitting and lovingly-made tribute to his life and work.

Martin Freeman (from comedy series The Office) makes an excellent, perpetually-bewildered Arthur Dent. And Stephen Fry is just perfect as the voice of the book. Alan Rickman raises a smile as depressed robot, Marvin the Paranoid Android. Rapper Mos Def is surprisingly good as Arthur’s alien friend Ford Prefect, although at times he reminded me of Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch. And Sam Rockwell gives a manic, high-energy performance as two-headed president of the universe, Zaphod Beeblebrox. In the TV series from the early 1980s, Zaphod’s second head was unconvincing (it looked like a hurriedly-made plaster of paris creation glued to the actor’s shoulder), but here the filmmakers have come up with an ingenious way of portraying Zaphod’s second head. You’ll have to see the film to find out how they did it!

I understand that this film has received mixed reviews from Douglas Adams fans – they either love it or hate it. I suspect that this is because they already know the story inside out and may have been disappointed that their favourite scenes weren’t included. As for me, I thoroughly recommend it and I’m glad they’ve left the ending open for a sequel. Douglas Adams lives!

THROUGH THE LENS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH 

Some key themes: The meaning of life; Why were we created?

“Useless! Useless! Completely useless! Everything is useless. What do people really gain from all the hard work they do here on earth?” Marvin the Paranoid Android … actually, no, it’s from the Bible: Ecclesiastes 1 v 2-3 – the writer must have been having a bad day!

“…the scientific enlightenment … has moved the Earth and the history of mankind from the very centre of Creation to a periphery so far out in the sticks that one could not possibly conclude otherwise than that in a hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy it would be lucky to qualify for a one-word entry, and that would be only too likely to be a contemptuous putdown. … It hardly needs to be observed that underneath the jokiness this is really a rather bleak view of things.” Brian Stableford, “The Big Sellers, 1: Douglas Adams”, from Interzone magazine, July/August 1989

The plot of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has so many twists and turns (with so many colourful characters) that it is almost impossible to summarise … so I won’t even try. At the heart of the story, however, lies the quest to find the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything. Eventually the answer is given, but it doesn’t make sense until the ultimate question is found. Along the way, we meet the true creator of the earth and see a new earth being made – mountains are painted the right colour by workmen with paintbrushes, and hoses are used to fill the oceans.

Have you ever asked the question: “Why am I here?” Have you ever expected an answer? Douglas Adams was a well-known atheist (for many fascinating essays on this subject, read his final book, The Salmon of Doubt, released after he died). I suspect that for Adams, along with millions of others in this post-modern age, trying to find an answer is impossible. Douglas Adams would probably have said that there is no answer, and life is just one big joke, an accident, with no meaning whatsoever. When I first heard the radio series back in 1978, this is certainly the impression I got. One of the main themes of the story is that compared to the grand scheme of things, mankind is just an insignificant, mind-bogglingly unimportant blip. Depressing? You bet. There’s a word for this kind of thinking: nihilism.

A similar word is existentialism. As I understand it, existentialism also says that there is no ultimate meaning, but it adds that the best thing to do therefore is create your own meaning. For some, this might mean their career, children, relationships, whatever it might be. This is reflected in the movie - in a controversial departure from previous versions of Hitchhiker’s, there is a happy ending! I won’t say what it is, but I will say that during the course of the film one of the characters realises that he will never find the answer (or question) to life, the universe and everything, but it doesn’t matter because he has found something that has meaning for him: the love of someone.

Douglas Adams didn’t believe in God, but what about those who do? Are we insignificant accidents who live for a short while and then die? Jesus told us that God knows us through and through and believes we are of great worth: “God even knows how many hairs are on your head. So don’t be afraid. You are worth much more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10 v 30-31). And traditional Christian teaching says that God loves us so much that he even allowed his Son (Jesus) to die so that we would see how great his love for us is (see John 3 v 16).

I am a Christian, but I cannot pretend to know all the answers. In fact, life still seems like a massive mystery sometimes. But I do know that God knows me intimately and that I am loved. Sometimes that’s all I know … and you know what? It’s enough. How about you?

What do you think....

· Where does The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy work best: on the radio, in books, on television, in comic strip form or on the movie screen?

· If you had the chance to create the earth all over again, would you change anything? If so, what would it be?

· And here’s the biggie: What do you think is the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything … or what would you like the answer to be?

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