The Hitch Hiker's Guide

Read the following in a British accent, it should enhance it to the point of being bearable:
As I'm sure that most of you know, a cinematic version of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been made and is due for release at some point this spring. Finding this out, I recalled that I had listened to the books (all five of them) on tape about 4 years ago while working in the lab of a very small museum, where I employed a power drill to remove troublesome rock. Consequentially, I remembered fairly little. To refresh my memory before I went out to criticize the movie, I bought the books, all five of them. By buying an omnibus edition of all 5 in one, I saved about $15 over buying them individually.
Printing on the cover called the series a trilogy in five parts, though it might have been better to call it a quatralogy in five parts since the first plot is a rather long one, taking up two books, and there are three other plots distinct from it. The third plot in there too, i.e. the fourth book, perhaps doesn't count since its kind of boring and was probably meant to prevent the existence of a fifth book.
I got the distinct impression that Douglas Adams (who I think wrote him self in in the form of Arthur Dent, simply choosing a name with reversed initials and about the same number of letters) wanted very much to end the series at book two, and get on with other projects that he thought would be more interesting. No such luck. In each successive book, he tried his hardest to write in something to prevent Arthur Dent from appearing in another novel. Three times he tried relatively happy endings, the third (ie fourth book) was excessively happy for Dent and simultaneously managed to kill of everyone's favorite character (which is not Arthur). Then finally struck on the idea to have an unhappy one. That did the trick, quite thoroughly too. This kept the publishers, who hadn't yet thought of prequals, from being able to throw money at him till he agreed to write a sixth book.
I have to say that I don't look forward to the movie. There are a lot of ways that the movie producers can go wrong with the Hitch Hiker's Guide series. If the precisely follow the book, then they end up with a first movie that doesn't really resolve anything satisfactorily, a fourth one that's pretty dull, and a fifth (no doubt with a new cast, director and generation of audience too young to have seen, and been tired by the first four) with a really unhappy, though thorough ending. If they don't follow the books, then they clearly can't be as funny, ironic or mind bending as the books. I may recommend though, that before going to see the movie one takes some kind of psychedelic drug. That, I think, should enhance things to about the point that Adam's had in mind. Furthermore, an important quality of the book is that it takes numerous asides and follows bizarre tangents, the way Family Guy does, giving the reader insight into Douglas Adam's unusual universe. I find it unlikely that the movies will be able to achieve this. Adams is also fairly clever with his narrative style, and conveyed a lot of humor that way. Since narrative style is obviated by cinematography, the humor just won't come across.