No Hitchhiking

I'm worried about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. Very worried. So worried that I don't think I'll even be seeing it.

Before I get into this, long experience has shown me that I must make myself very, very clear. So:

• I have not seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• It might be a good movie. I don't know. I haven't seen it.
• Even if the things I'm worried about come to pass, it's entirely possible that other people might enjoy the movie.

Okay? We all clear on this? It hasn't even come out yet as I write this. If you like the movie, please don't email me telling me I'm an idiot. I'm not saying it's a bad movie. I'm saying I'm worried that it might be.

Okay, enough covering myself. My point is this: I've seen the trailers and commercials and it just doesn't look like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Normally, I try not to care about this sort of thing. Accuracy to source material is irrelevant to whether a movie is any good or not. I enjoyed The X-Men on its own merits and didn't obsess over the way they changed Rogue's character by giving her Kitty Pryde's personality. That didn't matter, largely because they got the tone right.

But it turns out that I care a lot more about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than I thought. I look at the commercials, which are full of people falling over and getting hit in the face. And shouting. I'd feel a lot better if they showed, say, a thirty-second Marvin monologue. Because let's face it, Hitchhiker's shouldn't be an action movie. The comedy comes from turns of phrase and wry narration, not from slapstick.

It's not that I want the movie to be exactly the book, or exactly the tv show, or the radio show, or even the text adventure. But it doesn't look like this adaptation carries with it the essential Hitchhikeriness that has always gone along with the title. And that makes me so sad that I don't think I'm even going to see the movie, because I don't think I can stand to see something I care this much for (and it really surprises me to find out just how much I do care for it) made into a travesty.

I've read a review or two, and now I'm going to get into a couple of spoilers.

Again, spoilers.

I'm not kidding. I'm about to list a few things that are not in the movie, and if you want to keep from knowing these things, you really shouldn't keep reading.

Okay? Here we go. This is from Planet Magrathea, the Douglas Adams site run by M.J. Simpson, who's written articles and books on Douglas Adams for years and has recently decided to stop because of the massive negative backlash he got for his (extremely) negative review of the movie. I am hoping to avoid any such negative backlash by reminding you that I haven't seen the movie yet, so I could be entirely wrong.

Specifically, the following bits are not in the movie:

• "They were 'on display' in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard.'"

  Okay, I realize that not every line is going to be in there. But this is one of my favorites. I think it was the line that hooked me. I'll be sad to see the Arthur-Prosser scene not include it. But I can get past that.

• Most of the Vogon poetry scene, including most of the poem itself

  Really? Really? They've got the book narration covering up the Vogon poetry? That's rough. Not just because the poem is entertaining (especially if they somehow decided to include the line "Why not then? Moose." from the Infocom game) but because the structure of the scene does seem like it needs to demonstrate how bad the poetry really is.

• Most of the Deep Thought scenes, including Vroomfondel and Majikthise

  Apparently there are plot changes (according to this) which change the whole Deep Thought setup. So this is more "I'm sad they cut my pet lines" than "They've destroyed the source material!" Even so, I can accept only so much pet-line cutting before I give up, you know?

• The Guide Entry on Earth

  What? Are you kidding? Are you kidding? The bit about "Harmless" and "Mostly Harmless" are just . . . not in the movie?

• The Guide Entry on Towels

  Ooookay.

  The towels are essential to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Absolutely essential. You can't do the movie without that scene. If there isn't "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? Now there's a frood who really knows where his towel is," then . . . it ain't Hitchhiker's. It's just not.

Now, some of the above could be wrong. I hope it is. Because it suggests to me that the filmmakers just don't get Hitchhiker's at all. And that, as previously established, makes me sad.