Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Movie Analysis

In the film adaptation of the novel, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, some of the original aspects that make the novel so timeless are not included in the movie. However, due to the vastly different medium that film is and the abstractness of the novel, it makes sense why some things would have to change in order for the story to transfer to the screen successfully. While many die-hard fans of the novel denounce the film version of their beloved story, others celebrate the presence of Adams’ wit in the movie especially through the cartoon representations of the guide entries.

First of all, the Hitchhiker’s Guide is pictured much differently in the movie than in the novel. The creators of the movie portray the guide as an

When Ford introduces Arthur to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, they observe the entry for “Vogon Constructor Fleets” (Adams 52). The Guide is revealed to “speak the entry…in a still, quiet, measured voice” which is also seen in the film adaptation quite clearly with Stephen Fry’s narrations (52). In the movie, the Vogon entry is particularly successful because it is very true to the novel due to direct quotations from the text. Fry embodies the character of Adams’ writing especially when he narrates, “[Vogons] wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers…without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters” (53). The calm demeanor that Fry possesses while reading this exaggerated description of the Vogons only adds to the humor of the situation. In both the novel and the film, the Guide entries are serious and informative in nature which increases the humor, seeing as the topics of discussion are pretty outrageous. On another note, some of the entries in the movie version are absent in the novel because of the introduction of the Humma Kavula storyline. Even though there is no written source to compare these additional entries to, Adams’ influence is still present. For