I made it to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy this morning, accompanied by my two sisters. I hadn’t read the books in at least a year (though I did read the first 20 or so pages of the first book last week, I loaned the book to someone at work before I got any farther), my youngest sister had read all five multiple times in the last month or two, and my other sister had never read any of the books. Between us, we had a pretty good spectrum of potential viewers.

There were, no doubt, a few jokes that the sister who hadn’t read the books didn’t get. As far as I saw, the exact reasoning for the towel (for example), wasn’t ever really spelled out. On the other hand, not having read the books, she didn’t have the same issues that my other sister and I had when parts of the book that we particularly enjoyed were cut or changed.

The general consensus, when we left the theater, was that we all liked it fairly well (though I was immensely disappointed not to see the Serenity trailer on the big screen). I never expected it to be a perfect adaptation. Heck, the forward to my copy of the book is pretty upfront about the fact that the Hitchhiker’s Guide has never been faithfully transferred from one media to the next. The books, the radio show, the television miniseries, and now, the movie, are all different… and that’s okay. The tone of the movie was pretty much perfect, and given that most modern “comedies” are humorous only in the loosest, most sophomoric sense of the word, I was very happy with this one.

Don’t expect a perfect adaptation, keep your mind open, and sit back and enjoy. The movie’s definitely worth the price of the ticket.