So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

After leaving The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, belting the great theme song, "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" into the parking lot (I must get that for my MP3 player) Mr. Crackles remarked that he thought it seemed a bit dated, kind of '60s. "Why," I asked, "because it asks about the meaning of life, and not just who has the biggest weapons?" Instead of being all about saving the earth, the earth is destroyed in the first few minutes, exploding along with it the whole concept that 99% of all the movies around are based on. Let's go somewhere else, it insists. Further, the film is funny without all that self-conscious parody that the humor of most recent movies relies on. In fact, I think it may be devoid of any pop culture references. Hooray!

What is truly entertaining about The Hitchhiker's Guide is verbal: puns and witty language. They do a good job with the Guide itself, but that may be the only thing that is really enhanced by the medium. The Hitchhiker's Guide began as a book, and enjoyed success as a radio play, (or was it the other way around? --I'm sure someone can tell me) but in either case, those are both media that emphasize language. So while the effects are there, they aren't anything you won't see in all the other space movies: the pleasure lies in old fashioned good lines.

The folks on the ASLE list had noted the film's ecological awareness. Indeed, it portrays the earth as a wonderfully amazing planet ("this fragile earth, our island home" as the Book of Common Prayer has it) and of course England may well be the most beautiful place of all. I was reminded of the elegiac quality of The Lord of the Rings' portrayal of hobbiton, which is of course really England. And it is also similar in that while there is this desire to get back to home, he finds he enjoys travel and decides to go off in search of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, just as Frodo finally chooses to go off to the Gray Havens. Adams and Tolkien seem to share a love for their homeland that is energized by the awareness that one must ultimately leave it, and that its beauty is pointing to something even Greater. Adams idea that the Earth is a computer calculating the meaning of life is, to me a wonderful way of understanding Creation.