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by Charles Carreon
The BBC production of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
is filled with humorous dialogue, dealt with Adams’ trademark
understated style, probably because Adams, a longtime BBC writer, was
substantially involved with the production. The recently-released
Hollywood knockoff didn’t have the benefit of Adams’ input, since he
died at the young age of forty-eight shortly after signing the movie
deal and moving to Santa Barbara. The BBC production is thus the one to
watch, and if you haven’t read the book, the two-minute summary below
will show you why you must. Fear not that the story will be given away
-- it’s far too improbable for that. The notably passive central
character, Arthur Dent, the only “earthman” in the entire story, never
gets out of his bathrobe on one very long day that begins with trying to
prevent a work crew from razing his home to make way for a bypass, a
matter that becomes rather moot when the entire earth is suddenly
annihilated by an alien species who are engaged in constructing a
galactic hyperspace bypass.
Arthur would
have perished with the rest of humanity but for the timely intervention
of his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to
the Galaxy, who is doing an update on planet Earth, which so far has a
short entry: “harmless.” Ironically, just before the destruction of
Earth, a young woman had just realized the truth that would turn our
lives here from hell to heaven, but sound as her understanding was, and
beautiful as its unfoldment would have been for all humanity, the Vogons
put an end to that precious potential. Arthur and Ford escape instants
before the interstellar Armageddon descends from the skies, thanks to
Ford’s possession of a clever little device. Thus, after fortifying
themselves with three pints of beer each and stashing as many peanuts as
possible on their persons, the two teleport themselves into the storage
hold of the very same Vogon spaceship that has arrived with the mission
of destroying earth. Naturally, they are discovered for stowaways and
ejected from the airlock by a rather loutish Vogon underling, after
being forced to listen to the Vogon Captain’s truly atrocious poetry.
Improbably, but not completely impossibly, Arthur and Ford do not
decompress in outer space but find themselves aboard the extraordinary
spacecraft recently christened The Heart of Gold, powered by the utterly
unique Improbability Drive, and stolen before her maiden voyage by a
two-headed celebrity by the name of Zaphod Beeblebrox, who has somehow
picked up the lovely Trillian to serve as his navigator and source of
feminine distraction. In what is truly improbable, Arthur realizes that
he had met Trillian some months before at a party, and they had seemed
close to hitting it off when this guy named Phil, actually Zaphod in a
one-head form, came up and stole her away with a line of nonsense about
being from another planet.
After various
narrow escapes from death, Arthur, Ford, Zaphod and Trillian are leaving
the hollow planet of Magrathea, where some very advanced white mice have
expressed an interest in swapping Arthur’s brain for a computer, as a
way to extract the information they had hoped to glean from the whole
experiment called planet Earth, which was actually a complex experiment
the mice had set up to learn the meaning of life, the universe and
everything. Despite being the experimenters, in the context of the
experiment, the mice had ironically appeared as small, white creatures
content to run mazes in human laboratories. Unfortunately, in a cockup
of astronomical proportions, the Vogons stupidly destroyed Earth just as
the answer was about to be produced. Now the only way to get the total
gestalt of the answer, and thus avoid having to recreate Earth anew and
run the very long experiment again, would be to dice and analyze
Arthur’s brain. None of which is relevant to the fact that the cops are
hot on Zaphod’s trail, and cops being cops, they are going to shoot some
sense into the situation.
First Cop:
OK, Beeblebrox, hold it right there, we got you
covered!
Zaphod’s
Extra Head: Cops!
Zaphod:
Anyone else want a guess?
Ford:
Yeah ... this way!
Second Cop:
We don’t wanna shoot you, Beeblebrox.
Zaphod:
Suits me fine!
Trillian:
Back to the lift?
Zaphod:
Back to the lift!
(Cops open fire)
Arthur:
Hey, I thought they said they didn’t want to shoot at
us!
Ford:
I thought so!
Zaphod:
You said you didn’t wanna shoot us!
First Cop:
It isn’t easy being a cop!
Ford:
What did he say?
Zaphod:
It isn’t easy being a cop.
Ford:
That’s his
problem!
Zaphod:
I think so!
Ford:
Listen, we’ve enough problems of our own having you
there shooting at us! If you’d like to avoid laying your personal
problems on us, I think we’d all find it easier to cope!
Second Cop:
Now, look, buddy, you’re not dealing with any dumb, two-bit,
trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines, little piggy eyes and no
conversation! We’re a couple of caring, intelligent guys you’d probably
really like if you met us socially. I don’t go around gratuitously
shooting people and then brag about it in seedy space rangers bars. I go
around gratuitously shooting people, then I agonise about it afterwards
to my girlfriend!
First Cop:
And I write novels!
Second Cop:
Yeah, he writes them in crayon.
First Cop:
Though I haven’t had any published yet, so I’d better warn ya, I’m in a
mean mood!
Ford:
Who are these guys?
Trillian:
I preferred them shooting.
Second Cop:
So are you gonna come quietly or you
gonna let us blast ya out?
Ford:
Which would you prefer?
(Another fusillade ensues)
Second Cop:
You still there?
All:
Yeah!
First Cop:
We didn’t enjoy that at all.
Ford:
We could tell!
Second Cop:
Now, listen to this, Beeblebrox. And you’d better listen good!
Zaphod:
Why?
Second Cop:
Er ... because it’s gonna be very intelligent, and quite interesting ...
and humane.
Zaphod:
OK, shoot. I mean, fire away! No, no, I mean ...!
(another round of shooting)
First Cop:
Sorry, misunderstanding there.
Second Cop:
Beeblebrox, either you all give
yourselves up, and let us beat you up a little, though not too much
because we are firmly opposed to needless violence, or ... er ... or we
blow up this entire planet! And one or two others we noticed on the way
over!
Trillian:
That’s crazy! You wouldn’t do that!
Second Cop:
Yes, we would! I think we would, wouldn’t we?
First Cop:
Yes, we’d have to. No question.
Trillian:
But why?
First Cop:
Tell her.
Second Cop:
You tell her!
First Cop:
You tell her!
Trillian:
Will one of you tell her!
Both Cops:
It isn’t easy being a cop!
Ford:
Listen ... if we keep them talking, maybe their brains will seize up.
First Cop:
Shall we ... shoot them up again for a while?
Second Cop:
Why not?
First Cop:
Yeah.
Ford:
Wait ...
Zaphod:
Well, that just about wraps it up for this lifetime, I guess.
Ford:
Well ... it’s really been nice running into you again, Zaphod.
Zaphod and
Ford
(singing loudly):
Zaglabor astragard, Hootrimansion Bambriar ...
Arthur:
What the hell are you doing?!
Ford:
A Betelgeuse death anthem. It means, “After this, things can only get
better.”
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