The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Aug 13th, 2005 | Movie Rating: 
FADE IN:
EXT. EARTH - MARTIN FREEMAN’S HOUSE
In the beginning the film adaptation of THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY was financed. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
MARTIN FREEMAN wakes up to see that his house is about to be DEMOLISHED.
MARTIN FREEMAN
I’m alarmed and whiny about this! I’m going to lay in front of this bulldozer to stop it, thus setting up a joke from the book that is actually dropped from the film.
MOS DEF arrives.
MOS DEF
Hey Martin. Would you care to go with me on an exciting adventure through the film version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
MARTIN FREEMAN
The Douglas Adams book? I suppose so.
MOS DEF
Great, it will be a family-friendly Disney-sponsored space romp, full of thrills and slapstick comedy!
MARTIN FREEMAN
Wait, Disney? The same company that tried to stop Fahrenheit 911 from being released, has produced a film version of Hitchhiker? A book where God destroys himself in the sixth chapter with logic?
MOS DEF
What’s this about God?
MARTIN FREEMAN
This film is going to be dreadful.
MOS DEF
Dreadful and zany!
They hitchhike aboard a VOGON SHIP. A VOGON awkwardly reads awful poetry to MOS and MARTIN.
MARTIN FREEMAN
I’m sure the fans of the books are squirming as this gag is destroyed. I just hope the enjoyment by audience members who didn’t read the book is worth the alienation of the fans.
AUDIENCE
I don’t get it. Why is he reading poetry?
They are jettisoned and, improbably, are picked up by SAM ROCKWELL and ZOOEY DESCHANEL, whose name is ZOOEY.
SAM ROCKWELL
Welcome to my ship. Please take notice of the fact that I am not just arrogant like in the book, but I am now a complete and utter imbecile.
ZOOEY DESCHANEL
One who will, thanks to a plot device later, become even stupider.
MARTIN FREEMAN
Zooey? I met you on earth a while back and become obsessively in love with you. We should fall for each other over the course of the film.
FANS OF THE BOOKS begin frothing at the mouth at this development, until their lower intestines reach up and throttle their brains.
FANS OF BOOK IN AUDIENCE
If they fall in love, they can never make a film version of the fourth book!
REST OF AUDIENCE
What happens in the fourth book?
FANS OF BOOK IN AUDIENCE
Arthur falls in love with someone else. And he teaches her how to fly. And they fly. A lot. Until the book ends, pretty much.
REST OF AUDIENCE
(blinking)
FANS OF BOOK IN AUDIENCE
I see your point, but I’ll still react incredulously to this difference from the book!
ZOOEY DESCHANEL
You seem like a nice guy, Martin, but you’re not just a confused and alarmed fish-out-of-water like in the books. You’re a complete coward; I mean, your cowardice is actually a plot point.
Suddenly, the VOGONS abduct ZOOEY. MARTIN, MOS, and SAM try to rescue her. They mug for the camera and get INJURED a few times. This is HILARIOUS. They eventually rescue ZOOEY and meet up with BILL NIGHY.
BILL NIGHY
So your zany adventure has led you to me. Let me take you to a second Earth, which looks exactly like the real earth because it saved us a ton of money on special effects.
MARTIN FREEMAN
Wow, my old house. But you know what, I don’t need to live here. I’d rather go back out into the galaxy.
ZOOEY DESCHANEL
Martin! You overcame your shockingly over-the-top anxiety!
MARTIN FREEMAN
Well, not really. I mean, everyone I ever knew on Earth is still totally and completely dead. I pretty much have no choice about this.
ZOOEY DESCHANEL
Good enough for me!
They EMBRACE. The film ends in much the same way that the book doesn’t.
END
Beautiful! As an avid fan of all the different versions of the Hitchhikers story (radioplay, tv series, books etc) you have captured the feeling of the film perfectly.
And yet I enjoyed the movie anyway - it was apparently pretty close to how Douglas Adams wanted it anyway. Love your work Rod!
July 11th, 2007 at 12:46 amThe only good thing about that movie was Marvin. Nothing else. At all.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:18 pm“The film ends in much the same way that the book doesn’t.”
Clever. Almost irritatingly so. Great work.
March 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pm“In the beginning the film adaptation of THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY was financed. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move…”
Actual real vision-blurring tears at that. So very very true.
April 20th, 2008 at 8:37 amThat abridged script actually emulates the writing style of Douglas Adams pretty well. As a fan of the books, radio plays and so on it wasn’t the difference from the books that annoyed me about the film adaptation (you can’t really fit a 300 page novel into a 2 hour movie* anyway) - it was the fact that the *style* of the humour was just so different. As your ‘Mos Def’ (Who really was terrible, I thought) points out;
‘MOS DEF
Great, it will be a family-friendly Disney-sponsored space romp, full of thrills and slapstick comedy!’
I mean, that’s fine I suppose - if you don’t slap the HHGttG name on it…
Very good work on this site, by the way - I’m a huge fan already and I discovered it only a few short hours ago! ;-)
(* Page length and hour count are averages.)
April 21st, 2008 at 1:42 amI walked out of that movie with some of my friends enamored with the IDEA of the movie so much that I was afraid to voice my disgust because they kept singing “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” for hours after.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:47 pm