When Douglas Adams passed away in May of 2001, I found, unexpectedly, that I'd never left his strange little universe of books and readings and radio productions - I'd just forgotten it for awhile. All the intervening "important"-book-reading years fell away, and visions of neurotic, fate-tossed earthlings and compulsive-depressive robots were renewed - and I opened my copy of Hitchhiker's and read, with a small, sad smile:
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun."
I'd met him, once, when I was 12 - my Dad took me to see him at a Kroch's & Brentano's in Evanston, where he was signing copies of "Last Chance to See," a collection of essays about endangered animals he'd traveled the world over to observe, and hopefully, enlighten the rest of us about. The book was that rarest of accomplishments - a charming mix of wit and sympathy - and in the wee hours of the morning, as I closed the back cover, I stopped being a fan of Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin, and thought that I wanted, more than anything, to carve cleverness out of the air like this man - this brilliant, funny bastard.
He'd been trying to bring the movie to the big screen for years, and his frustration with Hollywood was well-known. The project was attached to Ivan Reitman's production company for a time, where it languished, wandering in production limbo, along with the prequels to Star Wars for many years.
And now, here we are, with the last of Lucas' craptaculars ready to hit the big screen - and finally, Douglas has his grand vision. He would've been pleased to see most of his original screenplay brought to bear - and perhaps appreciated the luck of the delay - a script so strange and funny and epic that only digital special effects and Sam Rockwell could have made it possible.
I like to think that, in some alternate universe, Douglas never had a heart attack, but was, now, fretting over the reworking of the original eyeless green logo that the original book and sequels bore, wondering how the hell he got talked into allowing the casting of Mos Def as Ford, and, looking up at night, wondering about an alternate universe of his own, where he never got piss drunk under a tree so many years ago and boozily wished into the world a brilliant, funny universe - and instead, pursued chicken farming.
I'd exchange the greatest cinematic adaptation in the history of film for more stories, more laughter from our Douglas. I wish he was here to see all this.
And all this, too.
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