BOOK“. The history of every major galactic civilisation
passes through three distinct and recognizable phases.
Those of survival, inquiry and sophistication.
For instance, the first phase is characterised by the question
"How can we eat?"
The second by the question, "Why do we eat?"
The third by the question, "Where shall we have lunch?"
Though it will usually take a large civilisation many thousands of years
to pass through the "How?", "Why?" and "Where?" phases,
small social groupings, under stressful conditions
can pass through these phases with extreme rapidity, thus...
- How are we doing? - Badly.
- Where are we going? - I don't know.
- Why not? - Shut up.
Excitement and adventure and really wild things...
Excitement and adventure and really wild things have been dogging
Arthur Dent now for some days.
He has, for instance, had his planet demolished
to make way for a new hyperspace bypass,
and has thereafter been confronted with the disconcerting knowledge that
the Earth was, in any case, not what it appeared,
but was in fact a gigantic supercomputer designed
to calculate the ultimate question of ”life, the Universe and Everything. ”
The answer to which is now known to be 42.
He and his companions have, furthermore, been blasted far forward in time
to the ”Restaurant at the End of the Universe, ”
from whidl they are almntly returning in a ship
which could not, in all honesty, be said to belong to them.
Can they now relax for a while and take stock?
No. The ship does in fact belong to Disaster Area,
a plutonium rock band whose stage act traditionally ends
with a black stunt ship on automatic pilot
crashing into the heart of a nearby sun.
Of this, however, Arthur Dent and his companions are totally unaware.
They decide to relax for a while and take stock.
Listen, Earthman, you've got a job to do, right?
The question to the ultimate answer, right?
There's a lot of loot tied up in that, uh, head thing of yours.
Yes, but where do we start? The ultimate answer's 42.
What's the question? How should I know?
Could be anything. I mean, what's six times seven?
42.
- 42. - Well, yes, I know that!
I'm just saying it could be anything.
- Why ask me? - Cause you were the last one.
You were there when your planet did the big firework.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Jimmy. - Ah, shut up, Marvin.
This is organism talk.
It's printed in the Earthman's brain-wave patterns,
but I don't suppose you'll be very interested in knowing that.
Non man you can see “to my “find? - Yes.
And?
It amazes me how you manage to live in anything that small.
- Ha. Abuse! - Yes.
Ignore him. He's only making it up.
Making it up? Why should I want to make anything up?
Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.
Marvin, if you knew all along, why didn't you tell us?
You didn't ask.
Well, we're asking you now, metal-man. What's the question?
- The ultimate question? - Yea h.
- 0flife, the universe and emyflting? - Yes!
- T 0 which the answer is 42? - Yes! Come on!
I can tell you're not really interested.
Will you just tell us, you motorised maniac!
- What happened? - I don't know.
I think this ship has a far better idea of where it's going than we do.
I could tell you weren't really interested.
- I wonder who this ship belongs to. - Me.
- No, who it really belongs to. - Really me.
Property is theft, right? Therefore, theft is property,
therefore this ship is mine.
Yeah? Tell the ship that.
Ship? This is your new owner speaking to you.
Ah, God!
Okay. Okay, easy boy.
Okay, channel nine on power. Testing channel 75.
Channel 75, A-Okay.
The black ship is now in pre-sundive position.
Put it under control of central stage coordination.
Ship looked into stage computer, A-Okay.
Stand by for sundive.
Tu rn it off.
Sundive? What does sundive mean?
It means the ship is going to dive into the sun. Sun... Dive.
It's very simple to understand.
What do you expect if you steal Disaster Area 's stunt ship?
Hey, hey, Marvin. What makes you think this is Disaster Area's stunt ship?
Simple.
I parked it for them.
Then... Then why?
Why didn't you tell us?
You said you wanted excitement and adventure and really wild things.
This is awful!
That's what I said.
Hi there, galactic rock fans.
Fine weather for the concert this afternoon.
I'm standing here in the middle of the stage in the Kakrafoon Desert.
And, with the aid of hyperbinoptic glasses,
I can just about make out the huge audience
cowering there on the horizon all around us.
Behind me, the huge speaker-stacks rise like a sheer cliff face,
and high above me the sun is shining away and
doesn't know what's gonna hit it.
The environmentalists' lobby, however, do know what's going to hit it,
and claim the concert will cause earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes,
irreparable damage to the atmosphere, and all the usual things
environmentalists usually go on about.
But I've just had a report that a representative of Disaster Area
met with the environmentalists this morning and had them all shot.
So, now nothing stands in the way of the concert going ahead this afternoon
on this beautiful sunny day.
- You know what I'm thinking? - I think so.
Tell me what you think I'm thinking.
I think you're thinking it's time we got off this ship.
- I think you're right. - I think you're right.
H ow?
Quiet. We're thinking.
So, this is it? We're going to die?
I wish you'd stop saying that.
One of the things that Ford Prefect
had always found hardest to understand about human beings,
was their habit of continually stating and restating the very, very obvious,
as in, ”lt's a nice day. ”
Or, ”You're very tall. ”
Or, ”50 this is it, we 're going to die. ”
At first, Ford had formed a theory
to account for this rather strange behaviour.
”If human beings don 't keep exercising their lips, ”
he thought, ”T heir mouths probably seize up. ”
After a while, he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one.
"If they don't keep exercising their lips," he thought,
”T heir brains start working. ”
In fact, this second theory is more literally true
of the Belcerebon people of Kakrafoon Kappa.
The Belcerebons used to cause great resentment and insecurity
amongst neighbouring races
by being one of the most enlightened, accomplished
and, above all, quiet civilisations in the galaxy.
As a punishment for this behaviour, which was held to be offensively
self-righteous and provocative, a galactic tribunal inflicted
on them that most cruel of all social diseases, telepathy.
Now, in order to prevent themselves broadcasting every slightest thought
that crosses their minds to anyone within a five-mile radius,
they have to talk loudly and continuously about the weather,
their little aches and pains, the match this afternoon,
and what a noisy place Kakrafoon has suddenly become.
Another method of temporarily blotting out their minds
is to play host to a Disaster Area concert.
This is it. We're starting to dive! We're heading straight into the sun!
Hey, Ford, how many escape capsules are there?
- None. - You counted them?
Twice. Raise the stage crew on the radio?
Yeah. I said there was a whole bunch of people on board.
And they said?
- Hl, there. - Dld you tell them who you were?
Yeah. They said it was a great honor.
What does teleport mean?
What did you say?
- Probably the wrong moment... - Where does it say teleport?
Well here, under this sign that says "Out of order". There.
Those donkeys!
It seems okay. It's just the, it's just the automatic guidance.
Wherever it is we're going, it seems somebody's cocked up.
Who cares where we go, let'sjust go!
No, someone'll have to stay behind and operate it manually.
Whoever it was would...
- Wouldn't, uh... - Escape.
Hey, Marvin, kid!
How you doin'?
Very badly, I suspect.
How would you like to, uh...
Lay down my life selflessly for you?
- Make the ultimate sacrifice? - Yea h.
Consign my brain, which is the size of a planet,
to death in the heart of a blazing sun,
so that you can all pursue your futile little lives?
Uh, yeah. Nothing personal.
You don't really count as a person, do you? lid.
All right.
- Come on, guys! - You 'a' better all get into the teleport.
Hey, come on, Marvin, you stupid tin can, shift it!
We really appreciate this.
I suppose some people might have expected better treatment
after having waited for 576,000 million years
in a car park, but not me.
I ma y just be a menial robot,
but I 'm far too intelligent to expect anyone to think of me for a moment.
Far too intelligent. In fact, I 'm so intelligent,
I've probably got time to go through the five...
Ford?
Arthur!
- Arthur! - Ah, Ford!
- Zaph? - Trillia n?
- Wonder where they've got to. - I don't know.
Well, there's no reason why we should all end up in the same place.
- Ah, well. - Trillia n?
They could be anywhere. So could we, for that matter.
Zaphod?
What's that?
Feet. Let's move.
- That's the way they're coming from. - No, that's the way they're coming from.
You're right.
This way.
Joggers.
- A funeral parlour? - Wild.
What's so great about dead people?
I don't know, what is so great about dead people?
- Hey look, a plaque. - What's it say?
And a serial number.
Telephone sanitiser? A dead telephone sanitiser?
- Best kind. - What's he doing here?
Not a lot.
Oh, this one's a hairdresser.
And this one's an advertising account executive.
Here's a second-hand car salesman, third class.
Oh! Are you sure these are coffins? They're terribly cold...
All right! Put your hands up and turn around slowly.
Why isn't anyone ever pleased to see us?
You're my prisoners.
- All right. - Move! Move!
- Move? - Move!
Left, right. Left, right. Left, right. Keep in line!
Left, right. Left, right. One, two. One, two.
Left, right, left, right, left, right one, two three, one, two, one, two...
- Uh, Captain? - Yes, Number Three?
I've just had a, sort of, report thingy from Number One.
Oh, dear.
He was shouting something or other about having found some prisoners.
Oh, well perhaps it'll keep him happy for a bit. He's always wanted some.
Captain, sir!
Oh, hello, Number One! Having a nice day?
I've brought you the prisoners I located in freezer bay seven, sir.
- Hello. - Hello!
Excuse me not getting up. Just having a quick bath.
Oh, well, gin and tonics all round then.
- I.ook In the fridge there, Number Three. - Certelnly, sir.
Don't you want to interrogate the prisoners, sir?
Why in Golgafrincham should I want to do that?
To get information out of them, sir. Find out why they came here, sir.
No, no, no, I expect theyjust dropped in for a quick gin and tonic, don't you?
Sir, they're my prisoners. Can't I just interrogate them a little bit?
Oh, very well! Ask them what they want to drink.
Thank you, sir.
All right...
You scum!
- You vermin. - Steady on, Number One.
What do you want to drink?
Well, gin and tonic sounds very nice to me. Arthur?
Hmm? Yes.
With ice? Or without?
With, please.
Lemon?
Um... Yeah. Oh, and do you have any of those little biscuits?
You know, the cheesy ones?
I'm asking the questions.
Number One, push off, will you, there's a good fellow?
I'm trying to take a relaxing bath.
May I respectfully remind you
that you have now been in that bath for over three years?
Yes. Well, one needs to relax a lot in a job like mine.
Oh, yes, can I just...
Could I ask you what yourjob is, actually?
- Your drinks. - Oh, oh, thanks.
Uh, because I couldn't help but noticing, you know. Uh, the bodies.
Bodies?
Yeah, all those dead telephone sanitisers and account executives.
You know. In the hold.
They're not dead. Good Lord, no. They're just frozen.
Yes, they're going to be revived.
You mean you've got a hold full of frozen hairdressers?
Oh yes, millions of them! Hairdressers, tired TV producers,
insurance salesmen, personnel officers...
Security guards, public relations executives...
Management consultants. We're going to colonise another planet.
- What? - Exciting, isn't it?
- With that lot? - Don't misunderstand me.
We're just one of the ships of the Ark Fleet. We're the B Ark, you see?
Excuse me, I wonder. Do you think you would be kind enough
to run a little bit more hot water for me?
- Oh yeah, sure. - Thanks.
Whew.
Um... What's a B Ark?
A B Ark? Well, you see, what happened was that our planet was doomed.
- Doomed? - Yes. 50 everybody said,
"Let's pack the whole population into some giant spaceships"
"and settle on another planet."
You mean, a less doomed one?
Precisely. So it was decided to build three gigantic ships,
three gigantic arks, in space.
Of course, the idea was that into the first ship, the A Ship,
would go all the brilliant leaders,
the scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers.
And then into the third ship, the C Ship,
would go all the people who do the actual work,
who make things and do things.
And then into the B Ship, that's ours of course, would go everyone else,
you know, the middlemen and, of course we were sent off first.
- Um, what was wrong with your planet? - Well, it was doomed, as I said.
Apparently, it was going to blow up or crash into the sun, or some such thing.
That's not what I was told.
My commanding officer swore blind that the entire planet
was about to be eaten by an enormous mutant star goat.
- Oh really? - Yes.
He said how lucky I was to be going off on the first ship.
But they made sure they sent all of you lot off first, anyway.
Oh, yes! And everyone said, and very nicely, I thought,
how important it was for morale to feel that they were arriving
on another planet where you could be sure of getting a good haircut
and where the phones were clean.
Yes, well I can see that that would be very important.
- Can you? - Shh.
And the rest of the ships followed on after you, didn't they?
It's funny that you should mention that.
Because, curiously enough, we haven't heard a peep out of them
since we left five years ago.
Yet, they must be behind us somewhere.
Yes. Unless, of course, they're all eaten by the goat.
The goat!
Funny, now that I come to tell this story to someone else...
Don't you find it's a bit odd, Number Three?
Well...
Yes, it is a bit odd though, isn't it?
Yes, it's odd.
Yes, well.
I can see you've all got a lot you want to talk about, so, uh,
thanks for the drink, and if you could, sort of, drop us off
at the nearest convenient planet...
Oh, I'm afraid that's a little difficult, you see.
Our trajectory thingy was pre-set before we left Golgafrincham.
I think, actually, it was partly due to the fact that I...
I'm not really very good at figures.
You mean... We're stuck here on this ship?
When are you going to arrive at this planet you're meant to be colonising?
We're nearly there. Nearly there.
I should be out of this bath, in fact...
Oh, I don't know though, why stopjust when I'm enjoying it?
We are about to land, then?
Well, not exactly land, no.
I think, as far as I remember, we were programmed to crash on it.
Crash?
Yes, there was some reason for it,
but for the life of me I can't remember what it was now...
You're all a load of useless bloody loonies!
Yes, that was it. That was the reason. Yes...
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy has this to say
about the planet of Golgafrincham.
Meanwhile, the remaining, useless third have crash-landed
into the prehistoric dawn of a small, blue-green planet
at the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy.
It's odd, isn't it?
With them are Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect.
They too have been traveling widely in distant lands.
Something is bothering them.
It is very, very odd.
There is one way to find out, of course.
- What, you mean by going to... - Yes.
All right.
Well, I said it was odd.
Yes. I remember you saying how odd you thought it was.
I can hardly believe it.
I find it very easy to believe things.
I wonder how the Golgafrinchans are doing?
Do you?
Oh, Mr Chairman, I wonder if you could call the meeting
to some sort of order. If we could just get started.
- I'm sure we'd all like to start... - All right. All right!
All right, I'd like to call this meeting to some sort of order!
If that's at all possible.
- Fancy a light trim, sir? - Not now. I'm in the bath!
Anyone else like one?
Uh, please. We're trying to have a meeting.
Now, if you'd all care to look at the agenda...
- Hello? - What? Hello, what, who?
Hello!
Who's that?
Remember me? I, uh...
I've made a discovery I, uh, I'd like to tell you about.
Is it on the agenda?
- Agenda? - I'm sorry, but speaking
as a fully-trained management consultant,
I must insist on the importance of the committee structure.
- On a prehistoric planet? - Uh-uh, address the chair.
There isn't a chair, there's only a rock.
Well, call it a chair.
Why not call it a rock?
Will you two shut up? I want to table a motion.
Boulder a motion, you mean.
Thank you, I made that point.
- Order, order. - Look, if I could just say...
Order, order.
I would like to call to order the 573rd meeting
of the Colonisation Committee of the planet
of Fintlewoodlewix.
Ah, this is futile!
573 committee meetings, you haven't even discovered fire yet!
If you would care to look at the agenda, you will see that we're having a report
from the Hairdressers' Fire Development Subcommittee today.
That's me.
That's you? What have you done?
Well... They gave me a couple of sticks.
Yes? And?
Curling tongs? You're going to die out. You know that, don't you?
You are obviously being totally naive about it.
Look, when you've been in marketing as long as I have, you'll know that
before any new product can be developed, it... It has to be properly researched.
I mean, we've got to find out
what people want from fire. You know, how they relate to it, the image...
Stick it up your nose.
Which is precisely the kind of thing we need to know, I mean,
do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?
And the wheel. What about this wheel thing?
They say it's a fascinating project.
Yeah, well we are having a little, uh, difficulty there.
Difficulty? It's the single simplest machine in the entire universe!
All right, Mr Wise Guy!
You're so clever, you tell us what colour it should be!
Almighty Zarquon!
- Has no one done anything yet? - Yes.
I have declared war on the next continent.
Declared war? There's no-one even living there.
Yes, but there will be one day,
so we've left a sort of open-ended ultimatum.
What?
And blown up a few military installations.
Military installations, Number Two?
Yes, sir. Well, potential military installations.
All right. Trees.
And we interrogated a gazelle.
Yes. And, and one of our surviving film producers
rescued a camera from the wreckage.
He wants to make a, erm, documentary about you, Captain.
That's awfully nice.
Yeah, he's got a really strong angle on It.
You know, the burden of responsibility.
The loneliness of command.
Oh, I wouldn't overstress that angle.
After all, one's never alone with a rubber duck. Whee!
Uh, if we could, for a moment, move on to the subject of fiscal policy.
Fiscal policy?
How can you have money if none of you actually produces anything?
Doesn't grow on trees, you know.
Ah, but since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf
as legal tender, we have all, of course, become immensely rich.
But we have run into a small inflation problem,
owing to the high level of, uh, leaf availability.
Which means that, I gather, the current going rate is something like
three major deciduous forests buying one ship's peanut.
So, in order to obviate this problem
and effectively revalue the leaf,
uh, we've decided on an extensive campaign of defoliation
and burn down all the forests.
I think that's a sensible move, don't you?
You're mad! You know that, don't you?
Is it perhaps appropriate to enquire what you have been doing all this time?
I mean, you and that other interloper have been missing for months.
We've been traveling.
We've, uh, been trying to find out something about this world.
That does not sound very productive to me.
- No?
Well, have I got news for you!
It doesn't matter a pair of foetid dingo's kidneys what you do from now on.
Burn down the forests, anything. It won't make a scrap of difference.
You see, I've seen your future.
Two million years you've got, and that's it.
At the end of that time, your race will be dead and gone. And good riddance.
Remember that. Two million years.
Strange chap. Look, what about this documentary thing?
Just time for another bath. Sponge, somebody!
No, no, no. No, honestly, no.
Y scores five, you see, and it's on a triple word score.
I'm sorry. I explained the rules.
No, no, please, please. Put down the jawbone.
All right, we'll start again. Only please, try and concentrate this time.
Hi, Arthur. What you doing?
I'm trying to teach the cavemen to play Scrabble. It's uphill work.
The only word they know is "uh", and they don't know how to spell it.
What's the point in that?
We've got to make them evolve.
Can you imagine what a world would be like
descended from those cretins over there?
Imagine? We don't have to. We've seen it.
Oh, but honestly!
We've seen it, there's no escape.
But, did you tell them what we discovered?
What?
Norway. Slartibartfast's signature on the glacier.
What's the point? What will it mean to them?
Mean? It means that this is the Earth. My home. It's where I was born.
- Was. - All right, will be.
In two million years' time.
You tell them that, see what they say.
They'll chase you up a tree and set fire to it. Listen, Arthur, face it.
Those zeebs over there are your ancestors, not the cavemen.
Put the Scrabble boa rd away, it's not going to save the human race,
'cause this isn't it.
The human race is currently standing around a bath over there
making documentaries about themselves.
But surely we can do something?
No, nothing, it's all been done. We've seen it.
You know the history of the earth, you know that in two million years' time
it gets demolished by the Vogons to make way
for a hyperspace bypass. You can't change anything.
And all because the Golgafrinchans arrived here on their B Ark.
Ah, well.
Hmm.
Poor bloody caveman.
It's all been a bit of a waste of time for you, hasn't it?
Out-evolved by a telephone sanitiser.
He's pointing at the Scrabble board.
Oh, he's probably spelt library again with one "R."
No, he hasn't.
No, look!
The experiment! 42.
Deep Thought's answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and...
- Whatever it was. - Everything.
- 42.
Of course! The experiment. To find a question with that answer.
Is going on all around us. Here.
The earth.
The ground.
The trees.
The water.
The rocks. The cavemen.
- Terrific. - What?
- We've cocked it up. - What do you mean?
The Golgafrinchans. Us. Just by arriving here.
The caveman is part of the programme.
And they're dying out because of us, therefore no question.
What about my brain?
What about your brain?
Marvin said the question was printed in my brain-wave patterns.
All right, wrong question. It's still cocked up.
Well, it might give us a clue.
Well, if it's in your brain, how are we going to get at it?
Uh, well how about...
If it's in my brain and I don't know how to reach it,
suppose we introduce some random element
which could be shaped by the brain-wave pattern?
Such as?
Pulling out letters from the Scrabble bag.
Brilliant!
- Right. - Right.
Right, first four letters.
W-H-A-T, what.
Great. It's working.
D-O-Y, doy.
Boy. Doyo.
U, G...
Doyug.
Ah! E-T!
"Do you get..."
What... Do... You... Get?
If... Y-O-U...
M-U...
You... Mul...
T-I-P-Y.
Multiply!
S-I...
Six.
N-I...
N-E. Nine!
Six by...
Nine.
Is that it?
That's it.
Six by nine?
42?
I always said
there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
All for that!
Yup.
It's very sad, you know.
Just at the moment it's a very beautiful planet.
It is. It is indeed.
The rich, primal greens, the river snaking off into the distance,
the burning forests.
And then In two million years, bang!
It gets destroyed by the Vogons.
What a life for a young planet to look forward to.
What a waste.
Well, better than some.
I heard of one planet up in the seventh dimension,
got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards.
Got potted straight into a black hole, killed ten billion people.
Madness, total madness!
Only scored 30 points, too.
Where did you read that?
Oh, a book.
- What book? - The Hitchhiker's Guide T o The Galaxy.
Oh, that thing.
♪ I see trees of green
♪ Red roses, too
♪ I see them bloom
♪ For me and you
♪ And I think to myself
♪ What a wonderful world
♪ Yes...
♪ I think to myself
♪ What a wonderful world ♪