Principle #8: The Lost Principle of CARE
"There are too many ideas
and things and people.
Too many directions to go.
I was starting to believe the reason it matters
to Care passionately about something,
is that it whittles The World down
to a more manageable size."
-- Susan Orlean,
"The Orchid Thief"
Avengers: Age of Ultron - Vision Kills Ultron - Full HD
John Laroche:
You know why I like plants?
Susan Orlean:
Nuh uh.
John Laroche:
Because they're so mutable.
Adaptation is a profound process. Means you
figure out How to thrive in The World.
Susan Orlean:
[pause] Yeah but it's easier for plants.
I mean they have no Memory.
They just move on to whatever's next.
With a person though, adapting
is almost shameful.
It's like running away.
DAVE FILONI : Anakin, Attachments
and The Path To The Dark Side
Red Dwarf Series III: All Change - Marooned
LISTER starts tearing pages
from the book and throwing them
on to the fire.
RIMMER:
What are you doing?
LISTER:
There's nothing left to burn.
RIMMER:
But not my books!
Don't burn the books.
LISTER:
There's nothing else left.
RIMMER:
But it's obscene.
A book is a thing of beauty.
The voice of freedom.
It's the essence of civilisation.
LISTER: (Reads title)
"Biggles' Big Adventure".
RIMMER:
Well, perhaps not that one,
but you know what I'm saying.
LISTER throws it in the stove
and picks up another one.
LISTER:
Complete Works of Shakespeare.
That should be good for a couple of hours.
RIMMER:
Three days without food, and the
walls of civilisation come
tumbling down!
LISTER:
What d'you mean?
RIMMER: They say that every society is only three meals away from
revolutiuon. Deprive a culture of food for three meals, and you'll
have an anarchy. And it's true, isn't it? You haven't eaten for a
couple of days, and you've turned into a barbarian.
LISTER: I'm just burning a book!
RIMMER: It's not just a book. It's the only copy of probably the
greatest work in English literature. Probably the only copy left in
the entire universe, and you're quite happy to toss it on the fire to
keep your little mitts warm for fifteen minutes?
LISTER: There's nothing else to burn.
RIMMER: That's it, then, is it? Goodbye _Hamlet_? Farewell _Macbeth_?
Toodle-pip _King Lear_?
LISTER: Have you ever read any of it?
RIMMER: I've seen _West Side Story_. That's based on one of them.
LISTER: Yeah, but have you actually read any?
RIMMER: Not all the way through, no. I can quote some, though.
LISTER: Go on, then.
RIMMER: (Declaims grandly) "Now..." (Long pause.) That's all I can
remember.
LISTER: Where's that from, then?
RIMMER: _Richard III_, you moron. The speech that he does at the
beginning. (Declaims) "Now..." something something something. It's
brilliant writing. It really is. Unforgettable.
LISTER: OK, I'll save it till last. (Holds up another.) _Lolita_. Is it
OK if I burn _Lolita_?
RIMMER: Save page sixty-one.
LISTER opens it and finds page sixty-one. RIMMER leans over his
shoulder.
RIMMER: That bit.
LISTER: That's disgusting.
He rips out page sixty-one, folds it into his pocket and throws the rest
of the book on the fire.
14 Model shot.
Starbug in blizzard. Mix to:
15 Int. Starbug rear. Day.
Works of Shakespeare burning merrily on the fire. LISTER is at the
table. He picks up the dog food can, spoons out a generous lump of dog
food jelly, so it wobbles on his fork. RIMMER is watching him, apalled.
LISTER: And you can take that look off your face: like I'm doing
something disgusting. I'm just trying to stay alive.
RIMMER: You're going to eat the dog food.
LISTER: I haven't eaten for six days. Yes, I'm going to eat the dog
food.
RIMMER: I'm sure the dog food will be lovely.
LISTER: This isn't dog food. It's a piece of prime fillet steak in blue
cheese sauce. It's been charcoal broiled in garlic butter. Mmmmm.
Just smell that. It's delicious. Delicious.
He pops it into his mouth and swallows it.
LISTER: Well, now I know why dogs lick their testicles -- it's to take
away the taste of their food.
RIMMER: The stove's getting low. Better throw another book on.
LISTER: That's the last one.
RIMMER: You've burnt all of them?
LISTER: When we get through to Act Five of _Henry VIII_, I'm a dead man.
RIMMER: There must be something else to burn.
They both look around. At the same time, their eyes stop on the trunk.
RIMMER: No. It's Javanese camphor wood. It's priceless.
LISTER: There's nothing else left to burn except the trunk and what's in
the trunk.
RIMMER: Now wait a minute. Not Napoleon's Armee du Nord!
LISTER: Rimmer, get real, man. If it burns, we burn it. What's the
least valuable?
RIMMER: Not the trunk. My father gave me that trunk.
LISTER: The soldiers, then.
RIMMER: They're ninteenth-century. They're irreplacable. They were
hand-carved by the legendary Dubois brothers.
LISTER: Well, then?
LISTER brings out two huge wads of notes. RIMMER slightly glassy-eyed.
16 Model shot.
Starbug in blizzard.
17 Int. Starbug rear. Day.
Shot: the stove. Money is burning. Another wad lands on top of it.
RIMMER: How much has gone so far?
LISTER: Five thousand eight hundred.
RIMMER: Five thousand eight hundred!
LISTER throws on another wad.
LISTER: Six grand.
RIMMER: The whole twenty-four grand isn't going to last an hour, is it?
(Nearly in tears) It took me ten years to save it. Ten years!
LISTER: I'd better start unpacking the soldiers.
RIMMER: No. There must be something else to burn. There must be.
LISTER: There isn't. I looked. Listen, I know it's a bummer. I know it
must be heartbreaking. But it's only _stuff_. It's just possessions.
In the end, they're not important. They might go a bundle for some
swanky Islington antique shop -- but right here, and right now, all
they are is nicely painted firewood.
LISTER throws on some more money.
RIMMER: This isn't happening. It's a nightmare.
LISTER: You've got to get your priorities right. It's like those people
you read about who run back into a burning house to rescue some
treasured piece of furniture and wind up burning to death. Nothing is
more important than a human life...
RIMMER is looking in the corner of the room.
RIMMER: What about your guitar?
LISTER: ... Except my guitar.
RIMMER: Why didn't we think of it before? We can burn your guitar.
LISTER: Not my _guitar_, Rimmer.
RIMMER: It's made of wood.
LISTER: Yeah, but it's my guitar. I've had it since I was sixteen. It's
an authentic Les Paul copy.
RIMMER: But it's not worth anything. It's just a thing. It's just a
possession.
LISTER: Yeah, but it's mine.
RIMMER: How is it any different from my soldiers?
LISTER: It's my life-line. I ... I need that guitar. When it gets to me
-- I mean the loneliness -- when it gets on top of me ... it's the only
way I can escape. I mean, I know I'm not exactly a wizard on it, and
it's only got five strings, and three of them are G, but the whole of
my life I've never had anything to hang on to -- no roots, no parents,
no education...
RIMMER: No education?
LISTER: I went to art college. All I've ever had is that guitar. It's
the only thing in the whole of my miserable smegging life that hasn't
walked out on me. Don't make me burn it.
RIMMER: (Quietly) We've got to.
LISTER hangs his head.
LISTER: (Pause.) Look. this is going to sound pretty stupid ... but I'd
just like to play one more song on it. One for the road.
RIMMER: Sure, sure. I mean -- I'm not enjoying this.
LISTER: I know. I, uh ... thanks, man.
LISTER picks up the guitar, and walks off to a fairly dim corner. He
strums a chord. RIMMER is looking at the floor, slightly embarrased. In
his most feeble, plaintive voice, LISTER begins to sing:
LISTER: (Singing) "She's Out Of My Life ... She's Out Of My Life."
(Spoken) My step-dad taught me this one. First song I ever learned to
play. (Singing) "And I don't know whether to laugh or cry..."
RIMMER gets up, embarrased.
RIMMER: I, uh, just, uh... (points to the door.)
He walks up to the door.
18 Ext. Crashed Starbug. Blizzard.
RIMMER walks into the howling blizzard.
19 Int. Starbug rear. Day.
LISTER puts down the guitar and nips over to the door to check RIMMER's
gone. Carrying the guitar, LISTER nips over to the trunk, puts the
guitar against the trunk, takes a pencil out of hit top pocket and starts
tracing the guitar shape on the back of the tunk. He picks up a hacksaw.
20 Ext. Crashed Starbug. Blizzard.
RIMMER looks at his watch, then back at the ship.
21 Int. Starbug rear. Day.
By now, LISTER has removed a complete guitar shape out of the back of
RIMMER's trunk. He pushes the trunk back against the wall, slips his
guitar inside the green locker on the far wall, then crosses to the
stove, and breaks the guitar-shaped piece of wood over his knee.
22 Ext. Crashed Starbug. Blizzard.
RIMMER walking up to the door.
23 Int. Starbug rear. Day.
The door opens and RIMMER comes in. LISTER is sitting at the stove,
guitar-shaped pieces of wood burning merrily away.
RIMMER: I don't know what to say.
LISTER: Nothing _to_ say.
RIMMER: You've made a supreme sacrifice. You know that? A _supreme_
sacrifice.
LISTER: Had to be done.
RIMMER: I've been judging a book by it's cover, haven't I? All these
years, that's what I've been doing. But when it comes down to it,
you're one heck of a regular guy.
LISTER: (Grunts.)
RIMMER: There's no point in being modest. I know what that guitar meant
to you. The same as that trunk meant to me. If that trunk got so much
as scratched, I'd be devastated. It's not the outward value -- for me,
that trunk is a link to the past. A link to the father I never managed
to square things with...
LISTER: (Slightly panicky) Is it?
RIMMER: It's the only thing he ever gave me, apart from ... apart from
his disappointment.
LISTER covers his face.
RIMMER: But you've shown me, by burning your guitar, what true value is.
LISTER: (Low moan.)
RIMMER: Decency. Self-sacrifice. Those are the things that make up real
wealth. And from where I'm standing ... I'm a pretty rich man.
LISTER: Oh, god.
RIMMER: Burn the soldiers.
LISTER: No. Not the soldiers too.
RIMMER: You burnt your guitar. I wish to make a sacrifice, too. Burn
the Armee du Nord. Cast them into the flames: let them lay down their
lives for the sake of friendship. (Sniffs the air.) What's that smell?
LISTER: What smell? I can't smell any smell.
RIMMER: (Sniffs) Camphor.
LISTER: Oh, god.
RIMMER: Your guitar was made of camphor wood! It was probably worth a
fortune. Burn the soldiers -- burn them right now.
24 Ext. Blizzard.
We see two torches in the distance, coming towards us. Over, we hear:
KRYTEN: I can't go on.
CAT: You've got to go on, buddy. We're nearly there.
KRYTEN: I've no strength.
CAT: Come on, you can make it.
They come into view. KRYTEN is pulling the heavily laden sleigh, with
the CAT sitting on it. CAT whips the air.
CAT: Look -- there they are. Mush! Mush!
25 Int. Starbug rear. Day.
The soldiers are burning away. RIMMER is peering into the stove. After
a while he starts quietly imitatating a trumpet, playing the "last post."
Finally, he finishes.
RIMMER: Au revoir, mes amis. A bientot.
LISTER: Look -- there's something I've got to tell you ... something
awful.
RIMMER: If it's about how you finished off the dog food, I understand.
LISTER: No, it's not about that.
The door opens, and KRYTEN and CAT enter.
CAT: Hey, hey, hey!
LISTER: Cat! Kryten! You made it -- you found us!
RIMMER: So where have you been the last six days?
KRYTEN: We rendezvoused with Holly. Then, after two days, when you still
hadn't turned up, I said we should go and look for you.
CAT: We have been everywhere. Fourteen moons, two planets. I've been so
worried - I haven't buffed my shoes in two days.
RIMMER: So -- Holly managed to navigate her way through the five Black
Holes?
HOLLY appears on KRYTEN's chest moniter.
HOLLY: As it transpired, there weren't any Black Holes.
RIMMER: But you saw them -- you saw them on the monitor.
HOLLY: They weren't Black Holes.
RIMMER: What were they?
HOLLY: Grit. Five specks of grit on the scanner-scope. See, the thing
about grit is, it's black, and the thing about scanner-scopes...
RIMMER: Oh, shut up.
LISTER: (Sighs.) Come on. Let's go.
LISTER and CAT go out.
RIMMER: Something happened here, Kryten. Something that made us closer.
I saw a side of Dave Lister that I didn't even know existed. He's not
just an irresponsible, selfish drifter, out for number one ... He's a
Man of Honour.
LISTER comes back in. Looking at the floor, he crosses to the locker.
LISTER: Excuse me.
He opens the locker, takes out his guitar and exits. RIMMER looks at the
door, then at the fire, then, slowly, he turns to his trunk.
RIMMER: Open the trunk.
KRYTEN goes to open the trunk. We shoot through the guitar-shaped hole
at the back of the trunk as the trunk opens, and RIMMER peers in. No
expression. Without looking up:
RIMMER: Kryten, would you get the hacksaw and follow me?
KRYTEN: Where are we going?
RIMMER: We're going to do to Lister what Alexander the Great once did to
me.
The End
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