I had a chance to see the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in a preview screening tonight. Having enjoyed the book(s) very much years ago, I tried hard to keep expectations sufficiently low. I think it’s generally accepted that most books are better than their movie-derivatives – and this time was no exception.
Having read the book both helped and hindered the experience; on the other hand, a lot of the stuff is not explained very well in the movie so the book provided good background information and a better context. Yet on the other hand, one always has his or her own mental image of the characters and when those and the ones presented in the movie are not quite aligned it’s annoying. And of course this happens. Marvin was good as a depressed robot, but his appearance wasn’t quite what I had imagined. Somehow Zaphod Beeblebrox also felt wrong. But that’s just the preconceptions from the books talking, of course.
It’s always difficult to judge whether the movie itself was good in cases like this. The book(s) I loved. The movie I didn’t – it was an okay piece of work, but that’s all. Not terrible but not great either. How much this diagnosis is hampered or helped by the fact that I’ve read the books, I can’t say.
