Arthur looked up. "Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out."

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“Not nearly as good as the book.” – posted by RottenTomatoes.com user Lisa Leighton.

I have heard this exact proclamation used numerous times over when discussing the film version of Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, released by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures in 2005. What users fail to remember – or at least recognize – is that the 1979 book is itself an adaptation of the original series, a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio in 1978. Furthermore, there is an abundance of additional adaptations, such as stage shows, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 computer game, and three three-part comic books published by DC Comics between 1993 and 1996, not to mention the fact that the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy story is really six books long – five of the original “trilogy” by Adams and a sixth book written in 2009 by Eoin Colfer (which, for me, surprisingly works well within the scope of the other books, and I think Colfer did a decent job at trying to write in an Adams-esque way without sounding like a phony).

I saw the movie in 2005, at the end of the theatrical release, in a tiny, run-down theater in Campbell, California with my father, who had introduced me to the HHGTTG books. After reading the books I was excited to see the movie, even though I figured going into it that the books would be better because Adams uses such a sinuous, unfastened and comedically dull language that it would be hard to convey all the “witty erudition, great gags and lengthy digressions” (Waters 1) that make the book so entertaining. And when I left the theatre, my expectations had been met: the movie was itself entertaining, but much of the humor (or should I say humour?) was lost. The movie was good, but the book was better.

So when I read Darren Waters’s (an entertainment reporter for the BBC News) review of the film, it fit within the scope of what I expected to hear from a reviewer – and what I thought myself personally about the film. As Waters thinks, the movie is “not as bad as I had feared. Then again, it is not as good as I had hoped… a number of scarifies [were made] to get the text into cinematic form” (1-2).

Waters raises the issue in his review, stating that “a lot of effort has gone in to keeping the film as faithful to Adams’ vision as possible” (1). He uses that word “faithful” almost casually, but the deeper implications of such a word choice are almost alarmingly obvious to a student of adaptation, such as myself. John Desmond and Peter Hawkes write in their book Adaptation that reviewers of film frequently rely on the terms "faithful" or "unfaithful" when discussing adaptations, and “this degree of faithfulness is either good or bad. The problem with this language is that it tends to imply that the book is better than the movie” (41). Because being “faithful” or “unfaithful” typically applies to the normal, every-day vocabulary of conversation to the degree to which an individual is honest and virtuous to his/her spouse, there is an often unconscious association with a film being “unfaithful” as cheating the viewer out of some emotional connection or full understanding of the original text.

I should note that I personally don’t feel cheated. The visuals were stunning in the film. Getting the chance to see distant planets and alien creatures made “real” was a great treat for me. I have always liked Alan Rickman, and I thought the vocals he provided for Marvin fit perfectly with what he sounded like in my head. Additionally, I didn’t have concerns about the casting of non-English people (such as Zooey Deschanel or rapper Mos Def) because the only person who “needed” to be English was Arthur Dent (played brilliantly by Martin Freeman). And who can find fault with Stephen Fry as the voice of the Book? (Nobody, that’s who!) I eagerly bought the film when it came out on DVD, and would continue to watch future films, if any, of the series. And while a visual presentation of the book’s story cannot ever truly capture the splendor and intelligence of Adams’ unique diction and tone, it still should not be forced so quickly into the category of “bad adaptations.” Desmond and Hawkes point out that “text’s verbal language and the film’s pictorial and aural language have distinct qualities that prohibit the exact replication of a text on screen” (34).

I think the true genius of the HHGTTG story is that it’s an ever-evolving story; the characters, the plot, the adventures are dynamic rather than fixed within tight limitations. Certainly there are characters and stories that are scrutinized down to the tiniest alteration with a fanatical precision. Even the creator of HHGTTG couldn’t tie himself down to just one telling! And therefore, I don’t think that adaptations should either.

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Adams, Douglas. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. USA: Del Ray, imprint of Random House Publishing Group. 2002. Print.

Desmond, John and Peter Hawkes. Adaptation: Studying Film and Literature. McGraw-Hill Co. 2005. 34-49. Print.

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia.com, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Movie Reviews, Pictures.” Rotten Tomatoes by Flixster. RottenTomatoes.com, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.

Waters, Darren. “Review: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” BBC News. News.bbc.co.uk, 20 April 2005. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.