The movie was bad. Basicly, they'd start one of Douglas Adams's bits and then cut it off mid-stream, at a minor punch line, totally ignoring the real punch line, which was at the end of the bit. I hated that. And I didn't think that any of the actors were really right for their parts, with maybe--maybe--the exception of Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. I could make a case for her, but it's a pretty weak case, to be honest. (She'd be better in another love story, rather than this one.) Oddly, I did like the Muppets. They actually added something at the end. And John Malkovich was fine, given what he was allowed to do. (I thought that character was an unnecessary addition.) The most interesting thing was the difference in the voice of Deep Thought. On radio (and in the television series), Deep Thought had a very loud, very authoritative, very deep, very masculine voice. In the movie, the voice was that of Helen Mirren, who was soft, feminine, and comforting. I'd almost like to have split the difference; use the very male voice for the first scene, but by the end, when Deep Thought has the answer, use the softer, feminine voice. Overall, though, I realized from the movie that the time for those books has passed. The first two were excellent, a sort of very British version of Mel Brooks in space. The third book was quite different, quieter, almost reflective. If the first two did build up an audience (and that is somewhat dubious), the third would probably confuse them and you'd lose that audience. (Besides, American audiences won't care about the origins of the game of cricket.) The fourth book was almost a love story, and showed that Douglas Adams was out of ideas. (He did have a few--God's Last Message To His Creation is a classic, to be sure.) The last book was more angry than funny. The series did not improve. And frankly, time has passed the series by. What was rather innovative and funny in its day is now fairly passe, having been replaced with other works which have copied at least the style if not the exact material. Better to leave it as books than to make them into movies. We can enjoy the books whenever we want. P.S. The radio series only covered the first two books. The latter three had to become radio shows many years later to complete the series. As I recall, they aired about the time that production on the movie began.