Eric Gunnerson isn’t impressed with the film version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  I think there’s an important lesson to be learned here.  It’s okay to take a little creative license when adapting a book to a screenplay.  Peter Jackson’s version of Lord of the Rings is an excellent example.  He shifted around quite a bit of detail and made some fairly significant changes to Tolkien’s work.  But his movie was still loved (in general) by the Tolkien fans.  Why?  It kept the spirit of the book, and the most important pieces he left alone.  He was able to do this, and to know just what he could get away with touching and what he couldn’t for one simple reason and one reason only.

Peter Jackson is a huge fan of Lord of the Rings in specific and Tolkien in general.  He was able to look at the movie from the perspective of a fan of the books and judge what worked and what didn’t.

I don’t know much about Garth Jennings, but it sounds like to me he was chosen for director of this movie based on his anticipated talents alone.  It doesn’t appear that he has any idea what the dolphin’s final message to the people of Earth was, or what God’s last message to all his creatures was.  This was a job for him, and I’m sure one he enjoyed, but it wasn’t a passion for him.

Producers, if you’re going hire a person to direct the movie version of a very popular book, even if it’s a whimsical book like Hitchhiker’s he/she better be a fan.  Or you’ll see reviews like this.