16. The Narrator describes Vogon poetry and why, like Vogons, it too is best avoided.
17. INT. BRIDGE, VOGON CONSTRUCTOR SHIP
Ford and Arthur are strapped into chairs, with electrodes attached to their heads.
ARTHUR: Ford, are they going to torture us?
FORD: Yes, with poetry. Very bad poetry.
ARTHUR: What is all this stuff?
FORD: These are Poetry Appreciation chairs - imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers - all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet's thought is lost.
ARTHUR: Is that a good thing?
FORD: No! Vogons suffer no illusions as to how bad their poetry is, so they use all this stuff just to make it worse!
Ford and Arthur quiver in fear. The Vogon captain turns to face them, holding a poem in his hands, and he begins to read.
VOGON CAPTAIN: Oh freddled gruntbuggly ...
Experienced from the point of view of Ford and Arthur, psychadelic imagery appears accompanied by the sounds of frying and popping electronics, and they scream in pain.
VOGON CAPTAIN: ... thy micturations are to me, as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a turgid bee.
More psychadelics, more screaming.
VOGON CAPTAIN: Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes.
Still more psychadelics, more screaming.
VOGON CAPTAIN: And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!
Yet more psychadelics, and yet more screaming. Gasping and exhausted, Ford and Arthur finally stop screaming as the imagery and etc. stops.
VOGON CAPTAIN: Now, Earthlings, I present you with a simple choice: Either die in the vacuum of space, or [Dramatic Pause] tell me how good you thought my poem was.
Ford gasps and moans.
ARTHUR: Actually I quite liked it.
Ford looks at Arthur as if he were a crazy frog.
VOGON CAPTAIN (Confused at this turn of events): Oh, yes? ...
ARTHUR: I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.
FORD: Arthur, what are you doing?
Arthur frantically gestures with his head to Ford to just go with it.
FORD: Oh. Oh, right!
VOGON CAPTAIN: Yes, do continue.
ARTHUR: Oh, and, er, interesting rhythmic devices too, which seemed to counterpoint the ... er ... er ... (Floundering)
FORD (Leaping in): ... counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the ... er ... (Also floundering)
ARTHUR: ... humanity of the ...
FORD: Vogonity!
ARTHUR: Oh yes, Vogonity - sorry - of the poet's compassionate soul, which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other [Getting excited at his own creativity] and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into ... into ... er ... (Floundering again - so much for creativity)
FORD: ... into whatever it was the poem was about! (To Arthur:) Well done, Arthur, that was very good!
VOGON CAPTAIN: So what you’re saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean, callous, heartless exterior, I really just want to be loved. Is that right?
FORD: Er, well... I mean yes, yes, don’t we all, deep down… you know..?
VOGON CAPTAIN: No, well, you’re completely wrong. I just write poetry to throw my mean, callous, heartless exterior into sharp relief. I’m going to throw you off the ship anyway! Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out.
VOGON GUARD (Played by Vogon Guard, reprising his role from the Touchstone Pictures film): Okay Captain.
FORD: You can’t throw us off into deep space, we’re trying to write a book!
VOGON GUARD: Resistance is useless!
ARTHUR: I don’t want to die now, I’ve still got a headache. I don’t want to go to heaven with a headache, I’ll be all cross and wouldn’t enjoy it.
VOGON GUARD: Come on.
The Vogon guard grabs Arthur and Ford around the necks, and drags them out into the hallway. As the door closes, the Vogon captain mutters to himself:
VOGON CAPTAIN: "... counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor ..." Hmph. Death's too good for them.
18. INT. HALLWAY, VOGON CONSTRUCTOR SHIP
The Vogon guard drags Arthur and Ford down the hallway.
VOGON GUARD (Shouting): Resistance is useless!
ARTHUR: Let go of me you brute!
FORD: Don't worry. I'll think of something.
VOGON GUARD: Resistance is useless!
FORD (To VOGON GUARD): Don't say things like that! How can anyone maintain a positive mental attitude when you're saying things like that?
ARTHUR: Ford, you're talking about a positive attitude and you haven't even had your planet demolished today!
FORD: All right, just stop panicking!
ARTHUR: I'm not panicking! This is just the culture shock. You wait till I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings. Then I'll start panicking!
VOGON GUARD: Resistance is useless!
FORD: Oh, give it a rest! I mean, do you really enjoy this sort of thing?
VOGON GUARD: Resistance is……what d’ ya mean?
FORD: I mean does it give you a full satisfying life? Stomping around, shouting, throwing people out of spaceships?
VOGON GUARD (Confused): The hours are good.
FORD: They’d have to be.
VOGON GUARD: But now that you’ve come to mention it, I suppose much of the actual minutes are pretty lousy. Er, er. Except some of the shouting I quite like. Resistance is use-
FORD: Yeah, sure, yes... You’re good at that I can tell… but if it’s mostly lousy, then why do you do it? What is it? The girls? The leather? The machismo?
VOGON GUARD: I-I-I dunno … I-I-I ... I think I, just sort of, do it really.
FORD: There Arthur, you think you’ve got problems.
ARTHUR: Yes, this guy’s still half throttling me!
FORD: Yeah!, but try an’ understand his problem.
VOGON GUARD: Right, so, what’s the alternative?
FORD: Well, stop doing it, of course.
VOGON GUARD: Hmmm…. Hmm…. Er... well... doesn’t sound that great to me.
FORD: Well, wait a minute, that’s just the start! There’s more to it than that, you see?
VOGON GUARD: Er… no. I, I think that if it’s all the same to you, I better just get you both shoved into this airlock and then go and get on with some other bits of shoutin’ I’ve got to do. Thanks for takin’ an interest. Bye now.
ARTHUR: Stop! Don’t do it!
FORD: No, listen, listen! There’s a, there’s a whole world you don’t know anything about. I mean here… how about this? [Singing the melody to 'Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony'] Da da da dum! I mean, doesn’t that stir anything in you?
Airlock opens, Arthur and Ford are shoved in, and the airlock closes as the guard says:
VOGON GUARD: I’ll mention what you said to my aunt.
19. INT. AIRLOCK, VOGON CONSTRUCTOR SHIP
FORD: Potentially bright lad, I thought.
ARTHUR: We’re trapped now, aren’t we?
FORD: Er… Yes, we’re trapped.
ARTHUR: Well didn’t you think of anything?
FORD: Oh Yes.
ARTHUR: Yes?
FORD: But, unfortunately, it rather involved being on the other side of the airtight hatchway they’ve just sealed behind us.
ARTHUR: So, what happens next?
FORD: The hatchway in front of us will open automatically in a moment and we’ll shoot out into deep space and asphyxiate in about … thirty seconds.
ARTHUR: So this is it?!? We’re going to die!
FORD: Yes…. except.. No! Wait a minute! What’s this switch?
ARTHUR: What?! Where?
FORD (Reaching for switch): No, it's nothing. We are going to die.
ARTHUR: You know, it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock, with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young!
FORD: Why, what did she tell you?
ARTHUR: I don’t know, I didn’t listen!
Airlock door opens and Ford and Arthur are shot out into the vacuum of space.
20. EXT. SPACE -- CONTINUOUS
Ford and Arthur spin away from the ship, holding their breath. The Guide slips out of Arthur's pocket.
NARRATOR: 'The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ is truly a remarkable book. "Space..." says the introduction, "...is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the market, but that's just peanuts compared to space..." and so on.
The weightless Guide twirls away. Arthur reaches for it. The words "Don't Panic" light up.
NARRATOR: It also says that if you hold a lung full of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds -- but with space being really big and all, the chances of being picked up within that time are 2 to the power of 2,076,775,949 to 1 against ...
Something else falls out of his pocket -- his digital phone showing the photo of Tricia at the fancy dress party.
NARRATOR: ...which, by a staggering coincidence, is also the telephone number of the Islington flat where Arthur once went to a fancy dress party and met a very nice girl whom he totally failed to connect with.
Arthur reaches for the phone, it's just beyond his fingertips. He frets as the phone tumbles away.
Then -- WOOMPH -- space seems to stretch and bend. A tiny hole appears, then opens wide. Paper hats and party balloons fall out, then drift away. The hole flips inside out. Arthur and Ford are enveloped, then replaced by a stunning, sleek starship, the HEART OF GOLD.
No comments:
Post a Comment