Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and Arthur dash onto the bridge of the starship Heart of Gold and throw themselves into chairs. Marvin the Paranoid Android, having watched them dash by without so much as a 'Hello' shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head, and trudges away down the hall. They begin to frantically operate the controls.
FORD: Let's get out of here, quick!
TRILLIAN: Right, where are we going?
ZAPHOD: I'm still starving! Let's go somewhere where we can get some food, yeah?
ARTHUR: What? What about this whole Ultimate Question thing?
ZAPHOD: Who cares? Everybody, hold tight! We'll take in a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Zaphod presses several buttons and pulls a lever. Then he hits the Infinite Improbability Drive button, and the universe turns itself inside-out. The Heart of Gold vanishes from the surface of Magrathea.
50. NARRATOR: There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another which states that this has already happened. There is yet another which states that, In the beginning the Universe was created, and that this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Much later, a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. After seven and a half million years of calculating, Deep Thought gave the answer as Forty-two. This was, of course, unacceptable therefore another, even bigger computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was. This computer, called the Earth, was so large that it was frequently mistaken for a planet -- especially by the strange apelike beings who roamed its surface, totally unaware that they were simply a part of a gigantic computer program. Sadly, however, just before the critial moment of readout, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished by the Vogons to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and so all hope of discovering a meaning for life was lost forever. Or so it would seem. Two of those strange apelike creatures survived, and they are all that remain of the greatest experiment ever conducted -- to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything. At the moment, they are both arguing with a man with two heads, one very hungry stomache, and absolutely no idea where he was was or what he was doing there.
49 Cont. INT. BRIDGE, HEART OF GOLD
ZAPHOD: Hey, it's not my fault we're locked in the ship! I put in the right coordinates, we just seem to be in some sort of holding pattern.
ARTHUR: What do you mean, a holding pattern?
ZAPHOD: The ship is making us wait to disembark. I don't know why.
TRILLIAN: But where are we?
FORD: If I'm reading these sensors right, we're in a parking garage waiting to be assigned a berth so that we can park.
ARTHUR: So what do we do now?
FORD: Wait, I guess. Hey, Zaphod old mate, since we seem to have the time to think about it, I've got a question for you.
ZAPHOD: Lay it on me!
FORD: That whole story about why you became President of the Galaxy, it has several enormous holes in it, you know?
ZAPHOD: I know! Or rather, I don't know. I seem to have forgotten a lot of really important things since, or even before I became President.
TRILLIAN: What do you mean, forgotten?
ZAPHOD: Yeah, of course I forgot! I had to forget. They screen your brain when you get the job, you know. If they'd found out my head was full of tricksy ideas I'd have been right out on the street again with nothing to show for it but a fat pension, secretarial staff, a fleet of ships and a couple of slit throats.
ARTHUR: Sheesh!
ZAPHOD: The worst part is that if I am meant to be doing some great thing or other, it looks to me as if I was not supposed to know. And I resent that, right? The old me did this to me because the old me knew and cared. Fine, so far so good. Except that the old me cared so much that he actually got inside his own brain -- my own brain! -- and locked off the bits that knew and cared, because if I knew and cared I wouldn't be able to do it. I wouldn't be able to go and be President, and I wouldn't be able to steal this ship, which must be the important thing. But this former self of mine killed himself off, didn't he, by changing my brain? Okay, that was his choice. This new me has his own choices to make, and by a strange coincidence those choices involve not knowing and not caring about this big number, whatever it is. That's what he wanted, that's what he got. Except this old self of mine tried to leave himself in control, leaving orders for me in the bit of the brain he locked off. Well, I don't want to know, and I don't want to hear them. That's my choice. I'm not going to be anyone's puppet, particularly not my own.
FORD: Do you mean that you have absolutely no idea why you did what you did to yourself?
ZAPHOD: Right.
FORD: That can't be right. It has to make some kind of sense, doesn't it?
TRILLIAN: Maybe it's like a puzzle, or a riddle. Maybe if we all put our heads together we can sort it all out.
FORD: Zaphod, you knew when you were President of the Galaxy, as did Yooden Vranx before you, that the President is nothing. A cipher. Somewhere in the shadows behind is another man, being, something, with ultimate power.
ZAPHOD: It could be a computer for all I know. What difference does it make?
TRILLIAN: Well, if they've gone to so much effort to hide the reality of where ultimate power comes from, that's got to mean something, doesn't it? Who does hold ultimate power? Why are they being hidden from the Universe? What does it all mean?
ZAPHOD: Who knows? Who cares? I already told you that I don't. What difference does it make?
ARTHUR: It makes every difference, because whether you like it or not you seem to be stuck on this quest to find the ultimate whatsit, and we're stuck following you around while you're onto it, is all. You may not care, but we do because we don't know what's going to happen to us next because of it!
FORD and TRILLIAN: Right!
At that moment the Computer came to life, and said (ticker tape, ticker tape):
EDDIE: Hi, guys! I have just been informed by the parking authority that we have finally been assigned a berth. I'm bringing the ship in to land. Welcome to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe!
51. INT. FOYER, THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE
As Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and Arthur enter the foyer of the restaurant, they look around in amazement. The place is all crystal chandeliers, glass walls and glowing neon. One particularly large fixture features the name of the restaurant, Milliways, in large pink neon lights.
TRILLIAN: We should have brought Marvin along. He looked awfully put out that we left him on the ship.
ZAPHOD: This is a restaurant! He doesn't have a stomache. Who cares?
ARTHUR: That's your answer to everything, isn't it?
ZAPHOD: Yeah. Get used to me kid, there's a lot of me to go around. (Laughs.) Now, where's the food?
The maître d' approaches the group.
MAITRE D' (Played by Sam the Eagle): How many?
ZAPHOD: How many what?
MAITRE D': In your party?
TRILLIAN: Four, s'il vous plaît.
MAITRE D': Follow me, please.
The maître d' leads the party into the restaurant, and to a table with a view of the band rostrum. The ballroom floor is covered with dancers enjoying the light music that the band plays.
MAITRE D': Your waiter will be with you shortly.
FORD: Thank you.
ARTHUR: What is this place?
ZAPHOD: Only the greatest restaurant in the whole of everything! Milliways! The restaurant at the end of the universe!
ARTHUR: The what?
FORD: This is the most exclusive restaurant in the universe, and very hard to get into. If Zaphod here weren't President of the Galaxy, we probably couldn't get past the front door!
TRILLIAN: Really? Why?
ZAPHOD: Listen, this is the coolest, most wild and wonderful eating establishment in the universe! How many restaurants at the end of the universe are there?
ARTHUR: End of what?
ZAPHOD: The universe.
ARTHUR: When did that end?
WAITER (Played by Grover, reprising his role from the restaurant sketch on Sesame Street): In just a few minutes, sir. Would you care to start with a few drinks?
ZAPHOD and FORD: Would we!
TRILLIAN: Ooh! Thank you!
ARTHUR: But look Ford, surely if the universe is about to end here and now, don’t we go with it?
FORD: Ah, no, no, no, look, I mean, as soon as you come into this dive I think you get held in this sort of amazing force-shielded temporal warp thing. Now imagine this napkin, right? …as the temporal universe, right? And imagine this spoon as the, as the transductional mode in the matter curve - no, no, better still, this fork --
ARTHUR: What?
FORD: Yeah, well, forget that. I mean, do you know how the universe began for a kick off?
ARTHUR: Well, probably not.
FORD: Alright imagine this: you get a large round bath made of ebony.
ARTHUR: Where from? Harrod’s was destroyed by the Vogons.
FORD: Well it doesn’t matter --
ARTHUR: So you keep saying!
FORD: No, No listen. Just imagine that you’ve got this ebony bath, right? And it’s conical.
ARTHUR: Conical? What kind of bath is --
FORD: No, no, shh, shhh, it’s, it’s, it’s conical okay? So what you do, you fill it with fine white sand right? Or sugar, or anything like that. And when it’s full, you pull the plug out and it all just twirls down out of the plug hole … but the thing is …
ARTHUR: Why?
FORD: No, the clever thing is that you film it happening. You get a movie camera from somewhere and actually film it. But then you thread the film in the projector backwards.
ARTHUR: Backwards?
FORD: Yeah, neat you see. So what happens is you sit and you watch it and then everything appears to swirl upwards, out of the plug hole and fill the bath… amazing.
ARTHUR: And that’s how the universe began?
FORD: No. But it’s a marvellous way to relax.
TRILLIAN: Funny man.
FORD: Well it broke the ice didn’t it? Zaphod, you're pretty silent all the sudden. Are you okay?
ZAPHOD: Shhh! We're being watched.
ARTHUR (Looking around): What? By whom?
ZAPHOD: Don't look! He's over there, by the bar. Oh, no, he's coming over here. Be cool.
ZARNIWOOP (Played by either Link Hogthrob or a Celebrity Special Guest Star) (To Zaphod): You took your time coming, Beeblebrox. I was beginning to think you weren't coming. Did you bring it?
ZAPHOD (Very cool): It's you. You're looking very you, you are. Who are you, again?
ZARNIWOOP: The Heart of Gold. You did bring it, didn't you?
ZAPHOD: Maybe. Maybe you just think I brought it.
FORD (Under his breathe): Zaphod, who is this guy?
ZAPHOD (With one head): Beats me. (With the other head): First, tell my friends here who you are and what you're doing here.
ZARNIWOOP: My name is Zarniwoop and you were supposed to come alone.
ZAPHOD: Listen, this is my crew and they need to know what's going on. So tell them already!
ZARNIWOOP: You forget, Beeblebrox, you're not the one giving orders here. We had a plan, and it doesn't include them.
FORD: Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but we have what you want, and if you want to get it, you need to clue us in to what's going on and why we need to give it to you.
ZARNIWOOP: Ask Zaphod, it was his plan; he's the one giving the orders. Oh, wait, you can't. (Laughs.) That Zaphod is gone. He left me in charge, and he left the plan with me as well.
ZAPHOD (Angrily): That's it! You can count me out, from here on in you can count me out. I've had all I want of this. You play your own games.
ZARNIWOOP: I'm afraid you cannot avoid it. Once you stole that ship, you were entwined in the Improbability Field. You cannot escape your fate. Now, for the last time, take me to the ship!
ARTHUR: And I haven't even had my tea yet.
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