The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I watched this at Cliff's last night on 7Two.

To recap the plot "Hyper intelligent pan dimensional
beings on a distant world ask their super computer'
Deep Thought 'What is the meaning of life and everything'
The computer tells them to come back in 7 and a half
million years and it will have the answer.

They do, with a cheering crowd that turns ugly when
they are told "The answer is 42." The computer
defends this answer by saying that it did not know what
the ultimate question is, but that it could design a
computer to give the answer in 10 million years.

The computer is the earth and the living beings on it
the 'computational matrix'. ( Aside: Is this where
the concept of the Matrix films came from???)Two of
the pan dimensional beings in the form of white mice
live on the earth to keep an eye on 'the experiment'.

Five minutes before Ms Fenchurch, who is sitting in
a cafe, in Rickmarsworth, comes up with the answer,
(This is actually not in the film, which is a hugh
oversight as it is the crux of the matter!) the
Volgons destroy the earth to make way for a Hyper
Bypass. The Bypass is made redundant 15 minutes later
when Zaphod Beeblebrox engages the improbablity drive.

Just as the earth is destroyed, Ford Prefect an alien
from a planet near Beteleuse, (Remember the movie with
Michael as a ghost like being in 'Betelgeuse'?), rescues
his friend the earthman Arthur Dent, by hitchhiking on
one of the Vogon Ships. They are found and expelled into
the void of space where the stolen space ship piloted by
Zaphod Beeblebrox, the President of the Galaxy, picks
them up.

Imagine Arthur's surprise to see Zaphod a man he met at
at party in a flat in London. He is even more surprised
to see Trica McMillan the girl he fancied at the party
and who went off with Zaphod, walk into the room."

After a few adventures the band end up on the planet,
where the creators of the computer Earth live. Arthur
finds that there was a 'spare' earth comp[uter in the
wings and it is already having the finishing touches
put on it to replace the destroyed earth."

Now comes the scene where Arthur is shown his new (old)
house. Inside he finds a scene straight out of the Mad
Hatter's tea party. Ford, Zaphod and Tricia, (who now
calls herself Trillian) are eating a feast. Arthur finds
the tea much to his liking. The mice appear and tell
Arthur that in order to complete their experiment they
need his brain. Obviously Arthur objects and the mice
say that if he can come up with a good question to the
answer 42 then he is off the hook as they really don't
want to wait another 10 million years for the question.
They reject his questions till he says "How many roads
must a man walk down?" they think this is pretty good.
(Remember this is a Bob Dylan protest song 'Blowing' in
the Wind" and if you recall the 'story opened with Arthur
lying in the road prtesting the destruction of his house)
but then they decide to take his brain any way. In
'kill or be killed' scene Arthur kills the mice. (Please
recall that we have seen their home world and it would
appear that they could be the last of their race.)

Then Arthur goes outside (skip the Vogon scene) and the
creator informs him that the life cycle is about to begin.
Arthur makes no changes to the erath and off it goes.
Then in what is a remarkable scene all the people of
earth are put back (truley a god like move), to approx.
15 minutes before the Vogons destoyed the earth thus
wiping out all memory of the event, and thus Ms
Fenchurch can still make her discovery!!."

Now it is obviously that the last scene with the mice
and this replacing the people by the earth creator are
at odds with each other.

It would seem that they did not need Arthur's brain to
continue the experiment. Yet it is also clear that
they have not been informed of the creators ability to
replace the people, and thus continue the experiment
otherwise why try to take Artur's brain. Yet they
were paying 'good money' for the job. So the question
becomes who was paying them more to withold that
information? Someone who wanted the result to be the
death of the last pan dimensional beings and their
quest for the ultimate question?