Douglas Adams' 1980 book, the sequel to THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, is a delightful romp through the absurdities of space and time, and, at the risk of nerd heresy, might actually be better than its famous originator. To me, it's kind of the Jay-Z to HITCHHIKER's Jaz-O. Who's Jaz-O, you ask? Exactly.
I'm not confused about the lack of a sequel because the first film had compelling characters, whose ongoing adventures would make for rollicking entertainment. It clearly didn't. I'm not upset about seeing Sam Rockwell in movies without a shoddy CGI chin-head. I can watch MEN IN BLACK II if I really need to see something like that. It's not even that the story of the HITCHHIKER's movie felt incomplete. It's quite the opposite, in fact. A film of THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE would be entirely superfluous, an unnecessary continuation on a product that no one particularly enjoyed the first time around.
This brings me to the iPad 2, and THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, the movie.
My confusion is rooted in the clear demand for one of these products, and the complete lack of interest in the other. It's clear that society wants derivative, unnecessary versions of what we've seen before (I'm looking at you, UNKNOWN, or as I like to call you, TAKEN 2: MORE TAKEN), so why can't Touchstone pony up another $50 million or so to send Mos Def back into space? I think it may have something to do with any one, and potentially some combination of, these three factors:
The Singing-Dolphins Paradigm
"So long, and thanks for all the fish" was a funny line in the original book. It is a considerably-less amusing three-minute song that opens the film. For some reason, the script for THHGTTG (which, to be fair, was written by Mr. Adams, a much smarter man than any of us) chooses to expand certain sections of the narrative while rushing through things like the destruction of the Earth and our introduction to major characters. It may be that Mr. Adams and Co. were functioning on a higher narrative level, but it ends up feeling like they don't trust us to pick up on the jokes.
The Zooey Deschanel Uncertainty Principle
This is a law of movie-making that any Zooey Deschanel performance rests on the razor's edge of quality. Will she make our hearts flutter like in 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, or stare dead-eyed into the camera, like in THE HAPPENING? There's simply no way to tell. Rumours that Werner Heisenberg's grandson is working on a formula to help determine this mystery of quantum movie-mechanics have only been answering by loud banging from Mr. Heisenberg's garage and the faint sound of sobbing.
The "Jesus Christ, I Just Saw 16 BLOCKS And Have No Interest In Seeing Mos Def Ever Again, Much Less Funding A Movie He Is In" Reaction
This one pretty much explains itself. Mos Def, the rapper? Awesome. Mos Def, the political activist? Charming, if perhaps a little naive. Mos Def, the anything-else? Uh, I've got a thing, so...
It could be some combination of these factors, but I think the real reason is that while THHGTTG, the object, looks very much like an iPad, the spirit of THHGTTG is anything but. It's cheekily subversive and original. And when we see something new conveyed to us through something derivative, we don't know what to do with it.
What I do know is that if we got each one of the 15 million people who bought an iPad to donate $3, we could send Mos Def back into space. And really, isn't that where he should be? At least until he promises not to do that 16 BLOCKS voice again?
