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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Headscratchers (view source)

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** It's possible that asking for "the meaning of life" wouldn't yield the result they were looking for, being that it is a computer. Better to be vague on the whole matter.
** "Life: An object with the ability to perform self-sustaining biological processes"
** [[Doctor Who (TV)|The problem with computers is that they're very sophisticated idiots.]]
** Besides, they didn't want to know the meaning of life. Heck, they'd probably already figured it out, being hyper-intelligent and all. The entire point of the Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is that they didn't actually ''know'' what they really wanted to know, just that they wanted to know it. So it might as well be 42.
*** Precisely. They may be smart, but they're apparently quite stupid too. (Hey, it happens. Book smarts =/= common sense.)
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** And yes, [[Author Existence Failure]] and a [[Creator Breakdown]] may have helped, but still, that's no excuse for such a massive bridge-drop.
 
* Random...just...[[The Load|Random]]. And how Trillian somehow believes that because she got an artificial insemination that it's Arthur's responsibility to take care of her mentally handicapped, violent, and unbelievably unstable daughter. [[What the Hell, Hero?|What the hell, Trillian!]]
** Well, there's a reason Douglas Adams wanted to [[AuthorsAuthor's Saving Throw|write a follow-up to fix things...]]
*** Trillian wasn't exactly portrayed as justified in doing it.
** Because sperm donors have never been forced to pay child support in real life. Yet.
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*** And small fish tend to have short lifespans, so Ford may have had no choice but to learn English when his Babel fish died of old age.
* Having reread the series after the movie came out: How the hell could they ever possibly film a sequel? Nothing happens after the first book.
** Well, there is...but it's all talking about time travel, eating at fancy restaurants and talking with various god like entities. Not enough [[Rated "M" for Money|death for the average audience, I guess]].
*** I've often thought book three would do nicely as a movie. There's a lot more story structure to it, so there's less need to add stuff in.
*** [[Visible Silence|*Krikkit, Krikkit*]]
*** Book Three was ''originally'' written as a movie; a ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' movie. Then that didn't happen and Adams was left with this plot hanging around.
** How come? Book two catches up from where book one left, and then book three does the same even more obviously. Book four might not make it(even though it's awesome, just wouldn't make a good movie IMO), but there's plenty of material in the next ones(including the reason to the bowl of petunias' only line "Not again"). Then again, the way they ended the movie quite kills the mood for some reveals on the second and fourth books...
*** Send Arthur ''et al'' to the Restaurant At The End Of The universe, where they discover that the Krikkitmen are plotting to destroy the universe early and disrupt causality. As the gang tries to stop the plot, toss them across time and space, the B Ark, Slartibartfast, etc.
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** I thought her full name was Random McMillan Dent, or possibly McMillan-Dent. But maybe that's just me. Do we have any evidence that she ''had'' a last name before Trillian dumped her on Arthur?
*** I've always thought that her middle name should be Axi. Think about it.
*** [[TV Tropes Made of Win Archive|You Win]]. Her name would be {{spoiler|Random Axi Dent (Random Accident)}} in case you missed it.
**** I was thinking the above writer meant axi as in axis of probability (the parenthesized part was unnecessary). That's just... brilliant.
** It's worse than you think. Random explicitly calls herself Random Frequent Flyer Dent, meaning that Trillian is such a huge bitch that she gave her only daughter a name that insults both Random ''and'' Arthur in one go. It's entirely possible that Random is making that part up, but she seems to be too busy being moody to summon any great snarking ability.
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** It's a jab at the [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] tendencies in English government. They will simultaneously claim that plans were "on display" while taking every step they can to obstruct and confuse anybody who could do anything to stop the plans going forward.
 
* The bad reception the film got and the fact that people will say that it's rubbish compared to the Radio version. The thing is as with [[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]] and [[James Bond]] there is no "Best version of H2G2" There is really only Your version, meaning the one that got you into the series. Plus all the complaints about the changes the film made to the story, even though most of them were made by Douglas Adams himself and that No two incarnations of the first part of the series are the same.
** This Troper couldn't have said it better. [[Unpleasable Fanbase|First they complained how different the books are compared to the radio series, then they complained how the TV series was rubbish compared to the books, and now they're bashing the film, as well.]] [[Love It or Hate It|Either love it all or hate it all; make your pick.]]
*** You're assuming a Close To The Original/Not Close To The Original, without considering there is another axis; good/not good. I didn't think the film was all bad but I disliked it because all the goods had already been done three times (in film/tv/book) and all the new additions just didn't work. Whether or not the new additions were done by Adams or not is irrelevant.
**** "New additions didn't work?" Seriously??? There is a gun that, instead of harming the person you shoot, ''makes them see things from your perspective.'' At seven years old, in the back row at AMC Theater, my mind was blown by the profundity.
**** In the words of M.J. Simpson: "[httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20050410043910/http://www.planetmagrathea.com/longreview1.html Douglas was not the best arbiter of what did or did not work in various versions of Hitchhiker's Guide: much of what we love in the story was created by other people or at least by Douglas in collaboration with other people, and some of his own ideas were wisely dropped from earlier versions. So 'but Douglas came up with that bit himself' is not a valid rejoinder to any criticism of changes made from previous versions...In other words, from the audience’s point of view, it matters not a jot whether Douglas Adams wrote any particular part of this movie; it only matters that it should sound like he wrote it."] In the opinion of Simpson, myself, and various assorted others, this was not the case. Plot changes are irrelevant, all versions have them. What matters is primarily that it's funny, and on a lesser note that character motivations are consistent across versions and a few key elements are still around. The movie, in my opinion, failed at this. (I don't agree with his entire review, incidentally, and a lot of it is nitpicking, but I agree with the major points of his argument.
** I had considered the Good/Not good opinion and have no quarrel with people who view the film as good or not good, the thing that bugs me is those who view it purely in the terms of Close To The Original/Not Close To The Original.
*** This happens with every book to film translation though. And I don't like changing "Ford saving Arthur's house by convincing the foreman to lie in front of the bulldozer via logical argument" to "Ford saving Arthur's house by distracting the crew with beer" because I think the former is Holy Writ. I think it's a bad change simply because the former is funny and the latter isn't.
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* So in the original series Zaphod Beeblebrox arrives on Ursa Minor and enters the artificial universe Zarniwoop has created inside his office, where he's sent to the Total Perspective Vortex, escapes, and later travels back in time in the ''Heart Of Gold'' to get Arthur and Ford back from Earth two million years in the past. I can accept his story of how he got the ship back ("I got lucky") but how could he have gotten to Messrs. Dent and Prefect if they were in the real universe, and how did ''they'' get into the artificial universe in the first place?
 
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