Arthur Dent wakes up on a Thursday to find a bulldozer outside his house. His friend Ford Prefect, who turns out to be from a planet near Betelgeuse, takes him to the pub, and twelve minutes later the Earth is destroyed by a Vogon constructor fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had been a radio series, a novel, a TV series and a computer game before anyone managed to make the film, and Douglas Adams did not live to see it.
What Happens After The Earth Is Demolished
Arthur and Ford are picked up by the Heart of Gold, a ship stolen by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed President of the Galaxy played by Sam Rockwell, and his passenger Trillian, played by Zooey Deschanel, who Arthur met once at a party in Islington. The ship has a depressed robot, Marvin, voiced by Alan Rickman, and an Improbability Drive that turns missiles into whales. They go looking for the Question to the Ultimate Answer, which is 42, by way of Magrathea, the planet that builds planets, where Bill Nighy plays Slartibartfast and shows Arthur the factory floor.
What The Film Gets Right
The Guide entries are animated and narrated by Stephen Fry. The Vogons are Jim Henson Creature Shop puppets. Martin Freeman plays Arthur as the only sane man in the universe, which is the part. Adams wrote the screenplay before he died in 2001 and much of it survived into the film.
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