The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Page #7

Arthur doesn't want to hear any of this...pulls the fish

back out of his ear.

JELTZ {ON SPEAKER) (CONT'D)

Ford struggles, shoves it back in Arthur's ear again.

JELTZ (CONT'D)

...and this is not a taxi service for

degenerate freeloaders.

The door BURSTS open. A VOGON GUARD enters. Grabs Ford

and Arthur. They struggle.

VOGON GUARD:

Resistance is useless!

The struggle continues. As they're dragged out the door,

Arthur continues to try to yank the fish out of his ear.

Ford wrestles with him, trying to keep it in.

GUIDE VOICE:

The Babelfish is small, yellow, leechlike,

and probably the oddest thing in the

Universe.

26 INT. VOGON SHIP CORRIDOR. 26

A bleak corridor. The Vogon guard pushes a still

struggling Arthur and Ford down it.

GUIDE VOICE:

It feeds on brainwave energy, absorbing

unconscious frequencies and excreting

a matrix of conscious frequencies to the

speech centres of the brain, the practical

upshot of which is that if you stick one in

your ear, you instantly understand anything

said to you in any language.

Arthur continues to struggle, until he passes a portal

window. He backs up to look out.

GUIDE VOICE (CONT'D)

Now, it is such a bizarrely improbable

thing that anything so mind-bogglingly

useful could have evolved in the Universe

purely by chance that many thinkers have

chosen to see this as a final clinching

proof of the NON-existence of God.

26a ARTHUR'S POV -- of space through the window, beautiful 26a

purple-orange clouds of swirling stars and gasses.

GUIDE VOICE (CONT'D)

The argument goes something like this...

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says

God, "for proof denies faith, and without

faith I am nothing."

(CONTINUED)

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6a CONTINUED:
26a

It's finally sinking in -- he's in deep space.

GUIDE VOICE (CONT'D)

"But," says Man, "the Babelfish is a dead

give-away. It proves you exist, and so

therefore you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says

God, "I hadn't thought of that," and

promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

The guard yanks Arthur away, pushes him forward with Ford.

GUIDE VOICE (CONT'D)

Most leading theologians claim that this

argument is a load of dingo's kidneys but

that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid from making

a small fortune when he used it as the

central theme of his best-selling book,

'WELL THAT ABOUT WRAPS IT UP FOR GOD.'

Arthur looks lost and confused. They approach a set of

double doors. He stops. The Guard shoves him forward.

VOGON GUARD:

Resistance is useless!

ARTHUR:

Ford...

FORD:

Don't panic. If we're lucky, they'll

throw us out into space.

ARTHUR:

And if we're unlucky?

Off Ford's apprehensive look we CUT TO...

27 INT. VOGON CONSTRUCTOR BRIDGE - CONTINUOUS 27

Arthur and Ford are strapped against two concrete pillars

with hundreds of elastic bands.

A STRANGE AND LETHAL LOOKING DEVICE DESCENDS FROM THE

CEILING. Looks like an instrument of torture. As the

device descends, Jeltz fishes a JEWELED CRAB out of a

gunky trough and smashes it with a hammer -- BLAM!

Jeltz takes the device in his hand -- then blows in it.

We hear FEEDBACK. It's a microphone (like ones used to

introduce boxers). He taps it. This thing on? It is.

He faces them, holds up a book entitled... " " --

smirks, then begins to read Vogon poetry.

JELTZ:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly!

Thy suppurations are to me as plerdled

gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.

Ford WRITHES in pain, as does Arthur but less so.

(CONTINUED)

2 22.

HHGG 3rd Revised Draft 8/8/03

7 CONTINUED:
27

GUIDE VOICE:

Vogon poetry is widely accepted as the

third worst in the universe.

Ford VIBRATES like he's having an epileptic seizure.

Arthur just looks like he has a migraine.

GUIDE VOICE (CONT'D)

The second worst is that of the Azgoths of

Kria. During a recitation by their Poet

Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem

"Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found

in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning," four

of his audience died of internal

hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-

Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by

gnawing one of his own legs off.

Spasms wrack Ford's body. He SCREAMS. Arthur squints.

JELTZ:

Or I shall rend thee In the gobberwarts

with my blurglecruncheaon, see if I don't!

Ford's entire body tenses, arches, then goes limp.

Arthur lets out an audible sigh as the poem ends.

GUIDE VOICE:

The absolute worst poetry was written by

Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussix.

It involved decaying swans. Luckily, it

was destroyed when the Earth was.

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