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| Review Summary |
As movies go, this one is waaaay out there on the weird meter. In fact, it pegged the needle. It opens with Ford Prefect meeting friend Arthur Dent and hitchhiking them both aboard a passing spacecraft – just as the Earth is destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass. The Vogon construction team (hired for the demolition of that pesky planet Earth) discovers the two hitchhikers on board. The captain first reads them poetry, then throws them overboard.
They are immediately picked up by another spacecraft, “The Heart of Gold”, recently stolen by Galactic President Zaphod Bebblebrox. The Heart of Gold uses a new experimental propulsion system, the Improbability Drive. A side effect of this drive is anything highly improbable becomes almost certain to occur. For instance, Zaphod and Ford know each other. In fact, they're best friends. Zaphod's co-pilot, Trillian is a human who once dumped Arthur at a party back on Earth (“But that's impossible,” yells Zaphod. “No… just very, very improbable,” corrects Trillian).
Through the course of the movie you get to see a mythical planet, whales falling from space, a landscape which slaps you in the face for thinking and a huge computer built specifically to give the answer to the ultimate question about Life, the Universe and Everything. The answer, by the way, is 42. If that doesn't make sense, perhaps you don't actually know the question. Oh, and you discover the Earth was originally tailor built under contract – by mice. Absolutely inspired lunacy!
Dave Wilke, Resident Scholar
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Arthur Dent (Freeman) is having a bad day: his house is about to be plowed over, his new friend, Ford Perfect (Mod Def), turns out to be an alien, and Earth is scheduled for demolition. Luckily, Ford is a galactic hitchhiker and the pair stow away on an alien vessel. Unluckily, they are soon caught and are jettisoned into space.
Dent and Ford are serendipitously picked up by a passing ship which is home to Ford's friend, Beeblebrox (Rockwell) who is the President of the Galaxy and Trillian (Deschanel) a girl Dent knew in England. Beeblebrox has "kidnapped" himself and hijacked a spaceship so that he can travel the galaxy to find the supreme question of the Universe to which he already knows the answer (the number 42).
Along the way Trillian is captured and suspected of kidnapping the President and Dent must fill out numerous forms to earn her release (he is English and well used to bureaucracy he says). Trillian discovers that it was Beeblebrox who ordered Earth destroyed and in doing so destroyed the computer that housed the supreme question for which he was searching.
P Cohen, Resident Scholar
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Arthur Dent hates Thursdays. He's never quite gotten the hang of them. Just as well, because this particular Thursday his planet comes to an end. Literally. While the bulldozers threaten to tumble down his house to make way for a highway, his best friend, Ford Prefect tells him he's an alien and hitches a ride for the two of them aboard one of the Vogon ships who are there to demolish Earth to prepare the way for an intergalactic highway. Unfortunately, the Vogons don't like hitchikers so when the captain discovers the two, he throws them into space. Not bad for the first ten minutes of the movie! Lucky for Arthur and Ford, a ship with the brand new improbability drive picks them up. Highly improbable, but that's how the ship works. Also highly improbable is the fact that the ship is piloted by an Earth woman Arthur met recently and fell in love . Also aboarde is the two-headed alien Zaphod Beeblebrox who spirited her away with the promise of alien adventures. Oh, and Zaphod is president of the galaxy and has stolen the ship. Throughout the movie they are chased by the vice-president and the Vogons, while Zaphod searches for the infamous planet Magrathea to find out, not the answer to "life, the universe and everything" (which everyone knows is 42) but to discover the question.
Elizabeth Batten-Carew, Resident Scholar
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Movie
Actual chase scenes or violence - 30%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzle - 23.3%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 46.7%
Parody movie?
Yes
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- brunette (Brown)
Hair type
- (man) short/medium wavy
Body type
- average (man)
Ethnicity/Nationality
- English/British
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Hair color
- brunette (Black)
Body type
- very skinny (man)
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Black
Main Adversary
Identity:
- an entire race
Eccentric:
Yes
- obsessed
Body type
- fat (man)
Intelligence
- Ordinary Dumb
How sensitive is this character?
- mean, arrogant
Setting
Spaceship setting:
- alien spaceship
A substantial portion of this movie takes place on a non-Earth planetary body:
- inhabited by friendly aliens
- unfriendly aliens
- neutral aliens
- empty, or nearly empty world
- very controlled society
Planet outside our solar system?
Yes
Takes place in spaceship?
Yes
Misc settings
- prison
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Tone of movie
- funny
Comedy or somewhat funny movie?
Yes
Kinds of F/X
- exotic spaceships
- exotic aliens
- exotic big cities
- exotic alien landscape
Is this movie based on a
- book
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