Thank God I know Where My Towel Is!

Do you know where your towel is? I know where mine is and it's a good thing too!

Michael dropped off the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie on Monday night and on Tuesday night I popped it in the DVD player. I was in a pleasant mood, well fed and relaxed and anticipating a decent - not great mind you - film-viewing experience. My expectations for this film were set pretty low. As you may be aware, I avoid Internet spoilers and hype of all kinds like the Black Death. ROLL FILM! ROLL FILM! After a brief narration the opening credits start. It's a swimming musical number reminiscent of the Esther Williams' swimming musicals of the 1940s and 50s, but with dolphins (fits with the book) instead of girls in swim suits. The dolphins were 'singing' a song called So Long and Thanks for all the Fish while performing various flips before shooting off into space. So long and thanks for all the fish is the dolphins’ last message to humankind, but the humans don't get it and just see it as another fancy dolphin stunt. The song and opening is over the top, unnecessary, annoying and borderline awful and comparable to Vogon poetry. Okay, I got past the credits and into the movie. Hopefully there would be no more musical numbers. The scenes with Arthur and Ford, Arthur's house and the pub are a rushed hack-job of the book. There must have been a great deal of pressure on the writers to fit the book - which is EXCELLENT and which I have read twenty plus times - into the attention span of the average American film audience. So far I am disappointed. Maybe the movie gets better once the Vogons appeared. Thaaaaaa Vogons. Guys in big fat floppy rubber suits that look exactly like big fat floppy rubber suits with guys in them. These scenes are also rushed and hacked. I began to wonder if my DVD player is running the film in fast forward. Before you know it Ford and Arthur end up in the airlock and are shot out into space. Here's where the spaceship, Heart of Gold shows up with Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin. It's sure to get better now. I watch until the Heart of Gold zips away into hyperspace to flee the pursuing Vogon Constructor Fleet and I hit the stop button. I've had enough. I love the books... LOVE THEM... but this movie I can certainly do without. This overly long in development Disney film - need I say more - left me feeling seriously betrayed and I am sure it will leave non-fans befuddled and scratching their heads. The saddest part is that along with screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick, Douglas Adams is credited with the screenplay, and that is just cruel. I would never subject Jenne to this film because I would rahter she enjoy the books and the imagery that it creates in the reader's head because that imagery is so much better than what they created for the film. Thank God I know where my towel is and had it close at hand, so I could wipe up the drivel that this film - what I could stomach of it - left behind.