The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005) – Hidden Meaning and Explanation of the Film
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: humans as experimental rats. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was based on the first book of the Douglas Adams series of novels of the same name, and if you liked it, then you will certainly enjoy reading these novels too. Douglas Adams took part in writing the script for the film, but unfortunately he could not complete this work and see its embodiment on a wide screen.
The series “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” was originally created in the format of a script for a radio show, and only later was transformed into full-fledged books that are now very popular all over the world. The author of these works himself was a very interesting and peculiar person: Douglas Adams was interested in various branches of science (which, later, he used to create his science fiction), was an ardent defender of animals, actively mastered computer technology, which was just appearing in his youth, and he was the owner of two meters in height and a wide smile.
At the end of the film, the main character has to fight with two white mice
Much to the regret of a huge number of fans, the writer died at the age of 49 from a heart attack (this happened on May 11, 2001). He didn’t have time to finish his novel The Salmon of Doubt, which was to be the third book in a series about Dirk Gently’s holistic detective agency. By the way, this series was also filmed, and twice, and both times in the format of serials.
How many paths should a person go?
This is exactly how one of the versions of “The main question of life, the Universe and everything else” sounds, which in the first novel the mice themselves come up with when they fail to get their way from Arthur Dent. Naturally, there is no sense as such in this and should not be – both the question and the answer “42”, which the Thinker gave to it, are meaningless a priori. This is one of the classic Douglas Adams tricks, and if it amuses you, then you are on the right wavelength to understand the movie “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and the books in the series.
The Most Important Thing in Galaxy Travel is the Towel
Everything that is important is not important, everything that is abstruse is funny. The picture turns the familiar world upside down, and does it with such grace and a slight effect of negligence that you would rather laugh, slap yourself on the knee and go for a walk in the rain and jump through puddles with a smile, than stare at one point with a sad face, reflecting on the futility of being.
Yes, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy teaches that everything that we gave almost the rank of holiness, that we enthroned and around which we danced in round dances, does not matter. But all this is presented in the spirit of the phrase “So what?” After all, in fact, what’s the difference? Who gets worse from this? What is stopping you from living the way you want? In a word, this is a film from the category of those that expand the framework of your consciousness, urge you to see the whole picture, reject conventions and stop acting, thinking and feeling according to templates that were developed by someone who knows who and why (and certainly do not make any sense). The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is like blowing fresh air on a sultry hot day.
What if humanity is just a means to an end?
Perhaps the moment when the viewer realizes that in the concept of this film, mice used people as a kind of experimental animals, is the culmination of both the picture itself and the whole humor of Douglas Adams in general. This is the most fundamental turn of the situation upside down, and it is served with the filling of the same humor and comic challenge: they say, how do you like that, two-legged creatures who consider themselves the crown of nature’s creation? Maybe you are not that kind of higher creatures, in fact?
It turns out that this or that world can be made to order.
Of course, if in such a film the Earth finally ceased to exist, it might still be funny, but still a little tragic. But the construction of exactly the same planet by order of the same mice is a completely different matter. Here you can already speculate about our passion to consider ourselves the one and only, our world is unique, which appeared due to an exceptional coincidence, and that this is in the spirit of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”: to break such beliefs into pieces with fervent laughter , at least within the framework of what is happening on the screen.
Movie characters as spots of bright colors
Perhaps, more than one hundred words could be written about each hero of this film. This is one of those cases when absolutely everyone is interesting. And Arthur Dent, a tea lover walking around in pajamas and a dressing gown, played by Martin Freeman in his best manner, which later so harmoniously blended into the atmosphere of “Sherlock” and “The Hobbit”. And the eccentric Zaford Bilbrox performed by Sam Rockwell, demanding increased attention to himself, characterized by unkillable narcissism and indifference to others, combined with quite powerful charisma.
In different versions of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” Bilbrox has a different number of heads and hands
And charming, slightly frivolous, but very smart Tricia McMillan performed by everyone’s favorite Zooey Deschanel. And the hapless Ford Prefect, played by Mos Def, stuck on our planet for fifteen years instead of two weeks and possessing a great store of knowledge about hitchhiking around the Galaxy. And the depressed, always depressed and sad Marvin, who in the original voice acting speaks in the voice of Alan Rickman. And Humma Kavula with his meaningful “Apchhi!” instead of “Amen!” By the way, this character is not in the book – Douglas Adams invented him specifically for the film (moreover, especially for John Malkovich).
Humma Kavula has an impressive number of followers of his religion
And these are just a few of the main characters, although in this picture every minor character has no less charisma. Here, perhaps, there are no pronounced “villains” and “heroes” – only infinitely peculiar, unique and vivid types interacting with each other. Actually, the same Arthur Dent in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is considered both a protagonist and an antihero – and this, in fact, can be applied to almost every character in the picture.
Continuation of the adventure
Many of the actors who participated in the creation of this film spoke very warmly both about the picture itself and about the filming process. The same Martin Freeman has repeatedly stated that he is proud of the role of Arthur Dent and really hopes that he will be associated not only with Bilbo Baggins, but also with his character from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, the actor himself admitted that this story is not very popular outside the UK.
To build a new Earth instead of the destroyed old one is a completely feasible task.
That is why the continuation of the picture was never filmed, although almost all the actors agreed to participate in it. The director of the film, Garth Jennings, explained that he would love to work on the second part, but it is not economically feasible, so he simply does not have the opportunity to start new filming. Of course, part of the problem may lie in the untimely death of Douglas Adams, without which any script would lose its special style and the atmosphere that only he knew how to create.
However, if you are wondering what happened to the characters next, you have several books from the series at your disposal. However, the first of them (the one based on which the film was filmed) in this case will also have to be read, because in the film there are still some discrepancies with the events described in the novel.
