The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

How good does the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie sound?

This is a book beloved by geeks everywhere: Hitchhikers is one of those franchises like Monty Python, Star Trek, and Star Wars, that attracted the nerdy and friendless like moths to the flame. The first two novels (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Restaurant at the End of the Universe) also happen to be amongst the great comic novels of the last half-century. While Restaurant is a little disheveled, narratively speaking, the first novel has a perfectly rounded story that would be perfect for a film. The only obvious difficulty would seem to be one of selection: what to put in, and what to leave out. Because it originated as a radio play, the whole script is sitting there right before you as you read (in contrast to the way that Adams’ later books became increasingly internalised, and therefore all but unfilmable).

As it happens, though, the path to a Hitchhiker’s movie has been long indeed, and the pre-pre-production of the movie outlasted Adams himself. During that time many different filmmakers came and went. Amongst them was Ivan Reitman, and one of the bonuses of the long gestation period has to be that it thwarted the Reitman version of the book, which would almost certainly have been awful. Now, however, the film seems to have fallen into loving hands, with Garth Jennings as director. Jennings is an unknown, from an unpromising music video background. (If that seems like snobbery, so be it – but the fact remains that there are very few really good directors who have emerged from the music video industry. One of the promising signs about Jennings is that he was recommended by one of the only ones who has: Spike Jonze). Yet he and the production team (who include Jay Roach, of the Austin Powers series), seem to be treating the property with due care and attention.

The early design work that we have seen is excellent, particularly the elegant, stooped design for Marvin. But it’s the casting that I’m really impressed by. While I haven’t seen the TV series in years, I recall the casting being very good, particularly for the central figures of Arthur and Ford. (Only Trillian – who even Adams admitted was underwritten and therefore hard to cast – was conspicuously wrong). But the choice of Martin Freeman (from The Office) as Arthur is perfect. Freeman should be a younger, less settled Arthur than the TV version, but there’s nothing wrong with that: Adams himself tried a more active Arthur in So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish. What Freeman’s existing work suggests he will be good at is instilling some empathy and likability in Arthur, without sacrificing his essentially put-upon nature.

This time round, Ford is to be played by Mos Def, with whom I’m not familiar. But I’m hopeful. Ford is an elastic role, capable of absorbing a range of approaches. A certain off-kilter strangeness is one aspect of the character, though, and an American rapper might have an appropriate fish-out-of-water quality to him. But Alan Rickman, as Marvin, should be perfect. As with Freeman, this is a piece of casting that eschews the obvious in favour of the inspired. The obvious approach for Marvin’s voice is that taken by the TV show: deep and droning. Rickman, however, has an intelligence and sarcasm that should be much better.

And one final note: Stephen Fry is to be the voice of the Guide. I really like Fry – I have been re-watching Blackadder Goes Forth lately, and his performance as Melchett is hilarious – but his presence is more encouraging because of his close relationship with Adams. It is, effectively, a vote of confidence in the production by someone who was very close to Adams.