The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Intro - Review

The intro credits to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy entails the dolphins' goodbye message, taken from the book, read by the narrator, Stephen Fry. The intro is effective as it, from the start, links the film to the book and establishes the overall tone. The scene also includes the message re-purposed as a a song. This is what establishes the tone as it takes the seriousness of the opening lines and creates a contrast, using the stupidity of the song, showing that this film is not going to be serious whatsoever. The opening camera shots are in a small format, only taking up a portion of the screen. This gives the impression that the footage was filmed on a camera phone which makes sense as the footage is of dolphins in a water park show. When the song sung by the dolphins begins, the shots finally fill the screen. This also makes sense in the context of the film as the dolphins in the film, as stated in the opening lines, are more intelligent than humans. The contrast of the humans' small shots with the dolphins' larger counterparts imply the message that the dolphins, being smarter, are getting a bigger picture than the humans.