About 35 years ago, far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy, in Austria, to be precise, a man was lying drunkenly in a field suffering from a mild inability to stand up.
As he gazed fuzzily at the stars, the idea occurred to him that it would probably be a pretty good idea for someone to write a guide to the galaxy, particularly for hitchhikers.
Without much further discussion he passed out and forgot about the idea for the next six years.
Once he remembered it, this man hooked up with a BBC radio producer by the name of Simon Brett. Not long afterwards, BBC broadcasted the first episode of a radio show aptly named The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The show was a wonderfully unforeseen success, and about a year later Douglas Adams, the drunken stargazer, published a wholly remarkable book that was destined to be even more fascinating than a digital watch.
This past April, the Guide at long last appeared in movie form.
This is its story.
This past spring when the Guide made its theatrical debut, I found myself in the theater excited, afraid and just a little bleary-eyed from too many Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters the night before. I managed, however, to face my fears and what I saw has become one of my more pleasantly surprising experiences.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy tells the story of Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman, Love Actually), the English everyman who happens to be friends with a man named Ford Prefect (Mos Def, The Italian Job).
When Ford, whom Dent believes is an unemployed actor, reveals that not only is he actually an alien from a planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse but also that the world will be ending in about 15 minutes, Dent consequently finds himself far from London, far from Earth, and much too far away from the nearest cup of tea.
The adventures that follow range from the enthralling to the absurd, and the two hitchhikers get to see first-hand what life, the universe, and everything is really all about.
The idea of the movie was born long before the film was actually made.
In fact Douglas Adams himself did much of the groundwork on the screenplay.
When he died in May of 2001, the idea was shelved until Karey Kirkpatrick, the screenwriter responsible for James and the Giant Peach, worked up the fortitude to follow in Adams’ footsteps.
The film version of the Guide is an interesting amalgamation of pieces from several of the novels (there are actually five books in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers trilogy) as well as bits from the BBC radio show (which, since the success of the film, been put back into production).
As a result the movie’s storyline is reminiscent of the novels and yet altogether unique and freestanding.
Despite this creative independence, the movie version is still unmistakably both the work of Douglas Adams as well as the offspring of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novels.
There are whales, dolphins, mice, petunias, some amazing puppetry, and entire sections of the actual Guide recited verbatim during the appropriate sections of the film.
Basically, chiefly, funda-mentally, and I daresay most importantly, the film version of the Guide maintains the proper tone and attitude that should be expected of it, and this is the quality of the film that holds everything together against all improbability.
In short, the Guide is something related to an ecstatic seizure of sardonic wit sneezed onto film and smoothed over with some breezy British humor, some suave one-liners, and a couple of big yellow bulldozers.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, rated PG for some mild language, big explosions, and bad poetry, comes out on DVD Sept. 13th.
There will also be a free showing of the film on Friday, Sept. 16th, at 7 p.m. in the Culp Center Auditorium, sponsored by Buctainment.
So don’t panic, grab your towel and get a nice seat for the end of the world.

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