I've heard of screenwriter's being obsessed but this is a little unusual. The official site for the movie adaptation of the Douglas Adams comedy/sci-fi novel has posted up an interview with screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick. Not unusual you say? It is when the guy is interviewing himself. Here's an excerpt:

"So we're six weeks into filming HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and the powers that be (PTB) thought it would be a good idea to kick it off with an interview with me, the screenwriter, since that is, after all, where this incarnation of the film started.

WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT STAYS AND WHAT GOES, YOU FORMULAIC CHICKEN WRITING BAS%*(&*!

Keep in mind, I started with Douglas’s last draft, so I not only had the new ideas and concepts he had invented specifically for the screenplay (brilliant ideas, too -- truly humbling), but also some evidence of what he was prepared to let go of (and in many cases, I thought he had been too hard on himself and put things back in). To familiarize myself with the material, I thought it best to go back and become acquainted with it in chronological order. It started as a radio play. So I was sent all of the radio plays on CD. I would listen to them in my car, and for those blissful 15 to 20 hours was actually oblivious to the deeply loathed L.A. traffic. It was while listening to those radio plays that I first heard what was actually the opening to “Restaurant at the end of the Universe” which was a guide entry that started “The story so far…” It goes on to summarize what happened in HHGG and I realized that was what the script needed. That one summary expressed some ideas and themes more clearly than the screenplay did. And suddenly, it became clearer to me what the script was missing, and I suddenly had some hope that I might be able to fill in some of the missing pieces

QUIT BEING SO VAGUE! GIVE US SPECIFICS, D#&* IT! WHAT’S IN THE MOVIE AND WHAT ISN’T?

Sorry to say I will continue to be vague. I really don’t want this to turn into a “what Karey did versus what Douglas did” situation. By Douglas’s own admission, HHGG is a story with a long beginning and then an ending. There isn’t much middle. And movies need a middle. So most of the new material comes in the middle. Douglas created much of it. I took what he did and enhanced, expanded and connected (much like a wonder bra – and this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been compared that that miraculous contraption). More has been made of the Arthur/Trillian relationship and the Arthur/Trillian/Zaphod triangle. Douglas knew, as I know, that in order to make a feature film bankrolled by an American studio that is to play on the global stage there needs to be a certain amount of attention paid to character, character relationships and emotion. The trick here is doing that while staying true to the spirit of the book, which is what I hope we’ve done. It’s fine if there’s a bit of a love story, it just can’t be sentimental and sappy. But I think people, especially die-hard HHGG fans, will be happy to see that it is very much the same story as the radio play, the book, and the TV series with all the well-known and beloved scenes, characters and concepts. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, Zaphod, Marvin, Eddie, Vogons, Slartibartfast, Deep Thought, Lunkwill & Fook, the mice, whales, petunias, dolphins, 42, even Gag Halfrunt; all present and accounted for"

The extensive interview covers about everything & can be found here.

Thanks to 'The Duke of Dunstable' & 'MJ'