I cannot address any of those issues, and I would rather plead ignorance than pretend to knowledge. If you're familiar with the Adams material, I suggest you stop reading right now before I disappoint or even anger you. All I can do is speak to others like myself, who will be arriving at the movie innocent of Hitchhiker knowledge. To such a person, two things are possible if you see the movie:
1. You will become intrigued by its whimsical and quirky sense of humor, understand that a familiarity with the books is necessary, read one of more of the Hitchhiker books, return to the movie, appreciate it more, and eventually be absorbed into the legion of Adams admirers.
2. You will find the movie tiresomely twee, and notice that it obviously thinks it is being funny at times when you do not have the slightest clue why that should be. You will sense a certain desperation as actors try to sustain a tone that belongs on the page and not on the screen. And you will hear dialogue that preserves the content of written humor at the cost of sounding as if the characters are holding a Douglas Adams reading.
I take the second choice. The movie does not inspire me to learn lots more about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, The Salmon of Doubt, and so on. Like "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," but with much less visual charm, it is a conceit with little to be conceited about.
The story involves Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), for whom one day there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that Earth is being destroyed to build an intergalactic freeway, which will run right through his house. The good news is that his best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def) is an alien temporarily visiting Earth to do research for a series of Hitchhiker's Guides, and can use his magic ring to beam both of them up to a vast spaceship operated by the Vogons, an alien race that looks like a cross between Jabba the Hutt and Harold Bloom. The Vogons are not a cruel race, apart from the fact that they insist on reading their poetry, which is so bad it has driven people to catatonia.
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