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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) More at IMDbPro »

Technically it is never stated if the character of Ford Prefect is white, black or any other color. It is generally assumed that he appears to be white. Though his only real physical description says that he has ginger hair and smiles a bit too wide. However, we can assume he is white because having ginger hair is more commonly associated with fair skin. Being an alien, his Earthbound nationality is neither established or relevant.

Taste is highly subjective. Though it seems that people who are already fans of Douglas Adams seem to enjoy the movie more than those who have no previous exposure to this series. On the other hand, many of the movie's jokes are taken directly from the books, so they do not necessarily work on the big screen when you already read the punchlines.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels...

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

This is a joke for those who know the books. The Vogons are described as a race that follows bureaucratic rules into extreme absurdity (as indicated by the example that a Vogon would not even try to save its mother from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without following several mandatory procedures). One of the few pleasures they allow themselves is smashing jewel-backed scuttling crabs in pieces with a hammer. In the books they actually eat the crabs, but first of all they smash them as well before digesting the crab meat.

(On the origin of the crabs:)

The detailed description in the book also indicates that the jewel backed scuttling crabs (and the beautiful gazelle-like creatures) are part of the forces of evolution attempting to create an antipole to the Vogons (since they didn't allow them evolve any further from their primeval state, simply out of disgust.). The Vogons in return smash & eat the crabs and ride the gazelles, but kill them as their backs would snap under the Vogons' body weight.

The gazelle-like creature has a cameo in the film as well: The seat of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz on the Vogon ship has the shape of a gazelle whose back has just been snapped (as a direct result of a Vogon sitting on it).