THE FILMS

STEVEKarl, what's the last film you saw?

KARL(thinking) ...one about a dog.

STEVEWhat was it called?

KARLDunno. It were on.

RICKY(to Steve) Right, we're doing it. We're explaining proper films to him. Because I think the problem is nobody's ever sat him down and told him why they're brilliant.

STEVEOr the problem is he's right about all of them and we've never noticed.

RICKYIt's not that.

STEVEIt might be that.

RICKYIt's NOT that. Four films. Three of the greatest science fiction pictures ever made, and then a fourth one at the end, and I'm not telling him what the fourth one is yet, because Steve's got a theory and he's been unbearable about it since Tuesday.

RICKYRight. Twenty-third century. New York. Flying cars everywhere, stacked up in the sky. Bruce Willis is a taxi driver, ex-military, bit of a mess, lives in a tiny flat where the bed comes out the wall.

KARL(immediately interested) Oh, that's alright. Where's the bed go in the day?

RICKYIn the WALL, Karl-

KARLNo, I know, but where. 'Cause it's got to go somewhere, an' if it's in the wall then that's the same room, in't it, yer've not made the room bigger, yer've just put yer bed in the wall.

STEVE(already writing) "You've just put your bed in the wall."

RICKYMOVING ON. A girl falls out of the sky into his taxi. She's the fifth element. She's a perfect being, engineered, sent to Earth to stop a great evil.

KARLWhat's the evil.

RICKYIt's a big black ball. It's a planet-sized sphere of pure evil and it's coming towards Earth and it gets bigger when you attack it.

KARLSo don't attack it.

RICKY(pause) They do try that.

KARLNo, but I mean, if yer've worked out it gets bigger when yer shoot it, and it's just comin' towards yer, then it's a fire, in't it. Yer'd not put water on a chip pan. Yer'd put a lid on it. Has anyone tried a lid?

STEVE(genuinely thinking about it) ...has anyone tried a lid?

RICKYIT'S A PLANET.

RICKYThere are four stones. Earth, wind, fire, water. You need all four, plus her, and then she can stop it.

KARLWhere are they.

RICKYThey're with an opera singer. Blue one. Alien.

KARLWhy's she got 'em?

RICKYShe's keeping them safe.

KARLShe's doin' concerts though.

RICKY(pause) ...yes.

KARLSo the four things that save the world are in the handbag of a woman doin' a tour. That's not keepin' 'em safe, that's takin' 'em out. Yer'd leave 'em in.

STEVE(quietly) He's not wrong about that.

RICKYShe's - Steve, whose side are you on?

STEVEI've told you, I'm the book.

KARLAn' the perfect one. The girl. What's she perfect at?

RICKYEverything. She's the pinnacle. She's the ultimate being.

KARLCan she speak English?

RICKY(long pause) ...not at first, no.

KARLSo she's the most perfect thing in the universe an' she's arrived somewhere she can't order a sandwich.

STEVE(head down, writing) "Can't order a sandwich."

KARLThat's not perfect, that's a foreign exchange student.

STEVERight, this one's better. This is the big one. Dune.

RICKYDesert planet. Arrakis. It's the most valuable place in the universe because it's got the spice, and-

STEVEIt's not just valuable, it's that nothing works without it-

RICKYI'm getting to that-

STEVENo, but that's the thing, you can't do interstellar travel without it, that's why-

RICKYI KNOW WHY, Steve, I've read it-

STEVEYou've seen it.

RICKYI've read some of it.

KARL(watching them) Yer don't know what happens, do yer.

RICKY(sharply) We both know exactly what happens.

KARLYer've been arguin' for a minute an' I've not been told owt yet.

STEVE(after a beat) ...that's fair. Right. Karl. There's a desert planet. Under the sand there are worms. They're enormous - hundreds of metres long.

KARLWhat do they eat?

RICKY(carefully) ...they eat what's in the sand.

KARLWhat's in the sand?

RICKYIt's - there's an ecosystem-

KARLIt's a desert though. Yer've said it's a desert. Nowt grows. So there's a four-hundred-metre worm livin' on a planet with nowt on it, an' he's been there thousands of years. He's not eatin' the sand. Nobody eats sand.

STEVE(to Ricky, uneasily) People do actually raise that one.

RICKYPeople raise it because people are pedants!

STEVEPeople raise it because it's a whacking great hole in the ecology and everyone who loves the book knows it and we make our peace with it.

KARL(satisfied) So I'm right.

RICKYYou're right in a way that adds NOTHING.

RICKYThe people who live there wear stillsuits. It recycles everything your body loses. Sweat, breath, all of it, and it filters it back to drinking water.

KARL(genuinely appalled) Yer drink yer own sweat?

RICKYYou drink recycled moisture, yes.

KARLHow long's it in there before yer get it back?

RICKYIt's - it's a continuous process.

KARLSo yer havin' a drink of this mornin'.

STEVE(losing it) "A drink of this morning."

KARLAn' what about when yer've had a bad night. Curry an' that.

RICKYTHE SUIT DOESN'T-

KARLIt's got to, though. Yer said it does everythin' the body loses. So it's all goin' in the same tank.

RICKY(quietly, defeated) The book does not address that.

KARLWell it should. That's the first thing anyone'd ask. Yer've moved to a desert an' they've given yer a suit that gives yer yesterday back, an' the film's about politics.

RICKYRight, one more, and this one's the biggest of the lot. Everything you can see is a simulation. The whole world. You're actually in a tank, and the machines have taken over, and they're feeding the simulation into your head.

KARLWhy?

RICKYWhy what?

KARLWhy are they botherin'. If they've won, an' everyone's in a tank, why not just leave 'em in a tank. Why build 'em an office to go to.

RICKY(pause) Because they need us. We're the power source. Human beings are batteries. That's what the machines are farming us for.

KARLWhat are they feedin' 'em?

RICKY(hesitating) ...they liquefy the dead ones and feed them to the living ones.

KARLRight. So it's a loop then.

RICKYIt's a closed system, yes.

KARLBut yer losin' summat every go round, aren't yer. Yer can't get more out of a bloke than yer put in him. Me mam couldn't do that with a chicken and she were good.

STEVE(putting the pen down slowly) ...that's thermodynamics, Rick. He's just done thermodynamics with a chicken.

RICKY(pained) I KNOW it's thermodynamics. Everyone knows. It's the most famous hole in any film ever made. The original idea was that they were using human brains as processing power, which works fine, and somebody decided that was too complicated for an audience and changed it to batteries.

KARLWell they shouldn't have.

RICKY(sharply) Shouldn't have what?

KARLShouldn't have said what we're FOR. They could've just had the machines keepin' us in tanks an' never said why. I'd have been fine with that. Machines have got us in tanks, right, that's the film. Soon as they tell us it's for the electric, I'm sat there goin', that's not electric, that's a compost heap with a job.

STEVE(writing very fast) "A compost heap with a job."

RICKY(rallying) Fine. Fine. But it's a metaphor, Karl. The whole thing's about being trapped in a system that's using you and telling you it's normal-

KARLAye, that bit's good.

RICKY(thrown completely) ...sorry?

KARLThat bit's good, that. Bein' in summat that's usin' yer an' everyone actin' like it's normal. That's proper, that is. That's most jobs.

RICKY(quietly, to Steve) He liked the metaphor.

STEVEHe liked the metaphor and rejected the mechanism, which if you think about it for one second is the correct way round and nobody does it.

KARLAn' why's everyone got sunglasses on indoors?

RICKY(instantly, exhausted) Nobody knows. Nobody has ever known. It's the nineties.

RICKYSo all three rubbish, then.

KARLAll three daft, aye.

RICKYThose are three of the most celebrated science fiction films ever made.

KARLAye, well.

RICKY(needling) Is it because there's spaceships? Because you don't like anything that isn't in Manchester?

KARLI've nowt against spaceships.

RICKYYou've spent an hour attacking spaceships.

KARLI've not said owt about the spaceships. I've asked what the worm eats, an' where the bed goes, an' what they're feedin' the people in the tanks. Nobody's told us. That's not me bein' against it, that's them not sayin'.

STEVE...hang on.

RICKYWhat?

STEVE(slowly) Say the list again, Karl.

KARLWhat the worm eats. Where the bed goes. What they're feedin' the people.

STEVE(to Ricky) That's the same question. That's the same question three times. He's asked one question all night and it's taken down three films.

RICKY(reluctantly) ...it's the food one.

STEVEIt's the food one. It's where does the stuff come from. Three of the greatest science fiction films ever made, and a man who has seen none of them has run one question at them and all three have fallen over at the same spot.

KARLIt's a normal question, that.

STEVEIt's such a normal question that nobody in any of those productions asked it out loud, which is why it's still there.

RICKYRight. Fine. FINE. Films are out. Films have people in them who make things up in meetings. I'm going to a book.

STEVE(delighted) Oh, he's gone to the book.

RICKYAsimov. Foundation. Not the telly one, the BOOK, the actual thing, 1951. This is proper science fiction written by a man who did the work.

KARLGo on then.

RICKYThere's a galactic empire and it's about to collapse. And a mathematician works out you can predict what enormous numbers of people will do, statistically, hundreds of years ahead. Not individuals - never individuals - but populations, the way you can't say when one bloke will get a bus but you can say how many buses a city needs.

KARL(pause) So it can't tell yer owt about anybody.

RICKY(immediately) Correct. That's stated. That's in it. It only works on the big numbers.

KARL(slightly thrown) ...right.

STEVE(quietly) First one that hasn't fallen over.

KARLHow's he checked it, though? He's sayin' what happens in a thousand years. He'll be dead in forty. Nobody's ever gonna be able to tell him he were wrong.

RICKY(pointing) NOW. Now that's a proper one, and I'll be honest with you, that one's a bit thin in the book. He's tested the maths on smaller things and he's confident. It's the weakest part and people have said so for seventy years.

KARLSo he's guessin'.

RICKYHe's extrapolating.

KARL(mildly) That's guessin' with a better coat on.

STEVE(writing) "Guessing with a better coat on."

KARLAn' another thing. If everyone knows what's been predicted, they'd all start doin' different, wouldn't they. Yer can't tell people what they're gonna do an' expect 'em to still do it.

RICKYThat's in the book.

KARLIs it?

RICKYThat is IN THE BOOK, Karl. The plan only works if the population doesn't know the details. Keeping it secret is a plot point. It's a whole thing.

KARL(genuinely surprised) Oh. Well that's alright then.

RICKY(with rising joy) And before you ask - go on. Ask me. Ask me the one you've asked all night.

KARL(warily) ...what are they eatin'?

RICKY(triumphant, standing) FARM WORLDS. It's a galaxy, Karl. There are worlds that do nothing but grow food and ship it, and the trade routes are half the plot, and the whole reason the Empire is collapsing is that the supply lines are failing. He THOUGHT ABOUT IT. He thought about it in 1951, and it's on the page, and I have waited an hour for this moment.

STEVE(applauding slowly) He's got one. He's finally got one.

KARL(nodding, entirely without resentment) Aye. That's better, that. That's a proper one, that.

RICKY(still glowing) So you like it.

KARLNo.

RICKY(the glow going out) ...what do you mean, no? It answered everything! You asked four things and it had four answers and one of them's a plot point!

KARLAye, it's all sound. I've nowt to say against it. I still don't want it.

STEVE(leaning in, interested) Why not?

KARL'Cause it's all been worked out already, hasn't it. Everythin' that's gonna happen, some fella's done the sums on it hundreds of years back, an' everyone's just... goin' along the line he's drawn. Nobody can change owt.

RICKY(quickly) There's a bloke in the second one who breaks it. A mutant. He's not in the sums because he's one person and the maths only does crowds, and he wrecks the whole plan. Asimov wrote the hole in his own thing and then drove a man through it.

KARL(after a moment) ...that's good, that. That's proper good, actually.

RICKY(hopeful) So?

KARLStill don't want it. It's not that it's wrong, Rick. It's that I don't fancy livin' in it. Yer just the weather in that, aren't yer. Yer not a bloke, yer a bit of the average. He's not predictin' ME, he's predictin' how many of me there'll be.

STEVE(putting the pen down) ...that's a different kind of objection. That's the first one all night that isn't about warrant at all.

RICKY(slowly) He's not saying it's got a hole in it. He's saying he doesn't want to be in it.

STEVEWhich our instrument has absolutely nothing to say about, and shouldn't. Twelve weeks and we've never once had to say "this is sound and I don't like it," and it turns out that's a completely legitimate sentence and we've got no machinery for it whatsoever.

KARLIt's just a book. I'm allowed to not fancy it.

STEVEYou are. That's exactly the point. Passing the test was never the same as being good.

STEVERight. Last one. This is the one I picked and Ricky doesn't know why.

RICKYHe's been smug about it since Tuesday.

STEVEJapanese. Two little girls move to a house in the countryside because their mum's ill and she's in a hospital nearby. They explore. There's soot creatures in the empty house. And in the woods there's a huge grey thing, size of a shed, and it's asleep, and the little one falls asleep on it.

KARLWhat is it?

STEVEIt's Totoro.

KARLWhat's a Totoro?

STEVE(carefully) Nobody says.

KARL...right.

STEVENobody in the film says. It doesn't talk. It's not explained. The girls just call it that because the little one says it that way.

KARL(nodding slowly) Go on.

STEVEAnd then there's a bus. And the bus is a cat.

RICKY(watching Karl carefully) Here we go.

STEVEIt's a giant cat, and it's also a bus. It's got windows and it's got legs and there's a sign on the front saying where it's going, and it runs along the tops of the trees.

KARLThat's alright, that.

RICKY(exploding) THAT'S ALRIGHT? A CAT THAT'S A BUS IS ALRIGHT, BUT THE SUIT'S TOO MUCH?

KARLAye.

RICKYWHY?

KARL(shrugging) 'Cause nobody's told us how the cat works.

KARLNobody's stood there goin' "and the reason the cat is a bus is 'cause of the such-and-such particles." They've just gone, there's a cat, an' it's a bus, an' the kids get on it. So there's nowt for me to check, is there. I've not been ASKED owt. I can just watch the cat.

STEVE(putting the pen down entirely) Rick. That's it. That's why the two of them went wrong and it's got nothing to do with sci-fi.

RICKYGo on then.

STEVEHe never once objected to something being impossible. Not once, all night. He's fine with a woman falling out of the sky. He's fine with a giant cat. What he objected to was being TOLD HOW IT WORKS. Because the second the film explains a mechanism, it's making a claim - it's saying, here is how this hangs together - and then he does the only thing he does, which is ask the next question, and the film has no answer, because it was never really explaining, it was just doing a voice that sounds like explaining.

KARLThey shouldn't have said what the spice does.

RICKY(quiet) ...what?

KARLIf they'd just had the spice an' never said, I'd have been fine. It's when they tell yer what it's for an' why it matters an' how nowt works without it - that's them askin' me to follow it. An' if yer ask me to follow it I'm gonna follow it, an' then I'm gonna get to the worm an' go, what's he eatin'.

STEVE(quietly) The cat bus never invited you in.

KARLIt's just a cat. It's a cat that's a bus. Grand.

RICKYSo you'd watch it. The cat one.

KARL(without hesitating) Aye, I'd watch that.

RICKY(genuinely surprised) You've not said that all night. You've not said that about anything in eleven weeks.

KARLWell it sounds nice, dunnit. Two kids in a house in the country, an' their mam's poorly, an' there's a big soft thing in the woods. What happens at the end?

STEVE(carefully) Not much. The little one goes missing for a bit and they find her. And the mum's alright.

KARLDoes the big grey thing turn out to be bad?

STEVENo.

KARLIs there a fella tryin' to cut the woods down?

STEVENo.

KARL(genuinely pleased) So there's no baddie at all?

STEVEThere's no baddie at all.

KARL(after a moment) ...that's better than both of 'em, that. That's the best one yer've said all night an' nowt happens in it.

RICKY(to Steve, honestly baffled) He's just described his ideal film and it's a film where nothing happens and there's a cat.

STEVE(mildly) He's described a film with no claims in it, Rick. He's not being difficult. He's being consistent. He's been consistent for twelve weeks and we keep acting surprised.

RICKYRight, wrap it. Steve.

STEVE(reading) Fiction is outside the instrument, because a story is not a claim and a dragon is not a lie. But a story can put on the costume of a claim, and the moment it explains its own mechanism it has invited the one question he always asks - and if the explanation was decoration, he finds that out immediately - which is why the bed, the stones, the worm and the tanks all fell over, and all four of them fell over on the same question, which was what are you feeding it. Two things survived, by opposite routes. The book made its claims and KEPT them - four objections, four answers, one of them a plot point - and he still did not want it, which is a sentence about taste and not about warrant, and we have no machinery for that and should not pretend to. And the film survived by never explaining anything at all, so there was nothing in it to check, and he could just watch the cat.

RICKYAnd the moral is what, we should stop explaining things in films?

STEVE(pause) No. The moral is that explanation is a promise, and most things that explain themselves are not keeping it. Which is our whole programme, and we got there tonight through a Japanese cartoon about a bus.

KARLIt's a cat.

STEVEIt's a cat that's a bus.

KARLAye, that's what I said.

RICKYSo we'll put the cat one on. Friday. All three of us.

KARLAye, go on.

RICKY(suspicious) You're being very agreeable.

KARLI like the sound of the bus stop bit.

STEVE(looking up sharply) I never told you there's a bus stop bit.

KARLWell there would be, wouldn't there. If yer've got a bus.