MOVIE: Monty Python's The Meanig Of Life

I know I said I'd let someone else make this thread, but I couldn't wait any longer, mmkay?
This is the last of 4 Monty Python movies, and is probably their best (in my opinion).
I don't know how I should summarize the whole movie, seeing as it's not really a one-plot movie.
It's pretty much linked events explaining the meaning of life.
So I guess I'll do a breif summary for each stage of life (in the movie).

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I. The Miracle Of Birth
Part 1:
Two, let's say, poorly educated doctors are helping a woman in labour give birth. Trying to impress the administrator, they get all the most expensive machines in the hospital, including the oh-so popular machine that goes 'ping'!

Graham Chapman and John Cleese as the doctors.
Michael Palin as the administrator.
Eric Idle as the husband of woman in labour.

Part 2; The Third World:
A middle-aged Roman Catholic man loses his job at the mill, and must tell his wife and 70 children. To try and keep his family livinig happily, he explains to his 70 children that he must sell them all for scientific experiments. Of course, the children don't want to leave the family, but the father explains clearer by singing a nice song (Every Sperm Is Sacred).
We are then lead to a house across the Roman Catholic's home to a Protestant couple, who have a conversation about sexual intercourse and how to prevent pregnancy. While they have their conversation, we see all of the Roman Catholic children walking out of their house across the street.

Michael Palin as the Roman Catholic husband.
Terry Jones as the Roman Catholic wife.
Graham Chapman as the Protestant husband.
Eric Idle as the Protestant wife.


II. Growth And Learning
This stage first starts off with a teacher giving a speech [that makes absolutaly no sense] in church. As the teacher sits down, the preist stands in front of the church and has a short praise for God. The students and preist start to sing a song as the camera zooms out, and we are quickly lead to a classroom of 'teenage' boys doing work. The same teacher walks in the classroom and gives his students a nice lesson on sex. For a demonstration, he brings his wife in and start to have sex on a pull-out bed. One student named Biggs, however, is joking around while the lesson is being taught, and is chosen to play rugby against the master team. And after playing rugby against the master team, in which they [the master team] won, we see the student in front of the camera covered in mud. He puts his hands over his face, and we are suddenly lead to the next stage of life.

John Cleese as the sex educator.
Terry Jones as Biggs.
Michael Palin as the preist and a student.
Eric Idle and Graham Chapman as students.


III. Fighting Each Other
We now see Biggs again with his face covered. When he takes his hands away from his face, we see he is no longer on a rugby field, but in the middle of a war field. Grenades start setting off everywhere, and he starts to run to a ditch where five other soldiers are taking cover. The five soldiers respect Biggs for being their captain, and reward him by continuously giving him watches and clocks, cards and cheques, and a cake. By the time Biggs turns down the cheque and the cake, the soldiers start to get very angry at him, as one by one the soldiers start getting shot and die. Now regretting turning the presents down, he decides to eat the cake for his soldiers, as they still continue to die one by one.
Now, as the camera zooms out from the war field, we see that it was only a movie being watched by very few people.
Outside, however, a sergeant major, with some students, wants to begin 'marching up and down the square'. But he is rudely interupted by one student at a time, saying they'd rather be at home, or reading a book, or practicing the piano. After a short while, all of the students are gone, and the sergeant is the only one left to march up and down the square.
Quickly as the camera zooms out of the sergeant marching up and down the square, we are taken back in time to the Zulu War. While hundreds are being killed, we see two sergeants name Ainsworth and Pakenham enjoying themselves inside their tent, to only hear bad news about their fellow sergeant named Perkins, who mysteriously had a leg bitten off during the night. Accompanied by a doctor named Dr. Livingstone and another sergeant, they all go out to search for the missing leg. During their search, they bump into two men in a tiger costume who claim they didn't steal the leg. The five men investigate the two men in a tiger suit, and a man comes in front of the screen and says 'Hello. Good Evening, and welcome to the Middle Of The Film'.
The Middle Of The Film isn't a stage of life, but is just a random scene in the middle of the film. We are taken to a woman in a nice looking room, where she welcomes us to the middle of the film and the very random game called 'Find The Fish'. We zoom into a tv screen, and see two very strange people [one man and one woman] in a very strange house repeating 'where can that fish be?' and 'it went wherever I did go'. After the strange game is over, we're lead to the next stage.

Terry Jones as Biggs, fellow sergeant, and strange man in Find The Fish.
Michael Palin as a soldier in war, sergeant major, Pakenham, first man in a tiger costume, and woman introducing the Find The Fish.
Eric Idle as a soldier in war, man watching war film, first complaining student, Perkins, and the second man in a tiger costume.
John Cleese as a soldier in war and Ainsworth.
Graham Chapman as a soldier in war, man watching war film, second complaining student, Dr. Livingstone, and strange woman in Find The Fish.
Terry Gilliam as a soldier in war and man introducing the Middle Of The Film.


IV. Middle Age
This stage revolves around a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Hendy on their vacation. A waitress takes them to a dungeon themed restaurant, where the couple are greeted by a waiter at their table. The waiter asks what the couple would like to talk about, and as the movie is about the meaning of life, the couple choose phillosophy, although their conversation is side-tracked by talking about Burt Bacarack. After complaining to the waiter about their bad conversation, the waiter tells them about the special conversation of the day, 'Live Organ Transplants'. And this is where we start the new stage.

Michael Palin as Mr. Hendy.
Eric Idle as Mrs. Hendy.
Terry Gilliam as the waitress.
John Cleese as the waiter.


V. Live Organ Transplants
This stage begins with a Jewish rastafarian man who hears his doobell ring. At the door, two men ask for his liver. The rastafarian says no, but the men don't take no for an answer. The two men bring the Jewish man into the dining room, put him on the table, and start to disect him. The wife of the rastafarian walks in the dining room. Not disurbed at all by her husband being disected, she has a short conversation with one man and asks him into the kitchen for a cup of tea. He says yes, and we are shortly switched to the kitchen where the woman and man enter and start to have a small love talk. Ruining the conversation, the man asks her for her liver. The wife says no, for she'd be too scared, but the man helps her change her mind by opening her refridgerator to see a man in an orange suit walk out and start to sing to her (The Galaxy Song). After his song, he re-enters the fridge, and the woman agreed to donate her liver.

John Cleese and Graham Chapman as the men asking for liver donors.
Terry Gilliam as the Jewish rastafarian.
Terry Jones as the rastafarian's wife.
Eric Idle as the Galaxy Song singer.


VI. The Autumn Years
Part 1:
This stage starts by a man singing a short song (The Penis Song) in a fancy restaurant. After his song, a very fat man named Mr. Creosote enters and is greeted by the head waiter, who brings him to his table. Unfortunately, Mr. Creosote can't help but throw up all over in the restaurant. The head waiter orders another waiter named Gaston to get buckets for Mr. Creosote to throw up in. Being the big man he is, he orders everything on the menu. After finishing all of his food, the head waiter brings Mr. Creosote a 'special' wafer thin mint. Mr. Creosote says no, but after being tempted, he eats one. The head waiter runs and jumps for cover. Mr. Creosote starts to expand rapidly, until he explodes and vomit is splattered onto every customer in the restaurant.

Part 2; The Meaning Of Life:
The head waiter and a cleaning lady have a short conversation about what the meaning of life is. After a while, the camera moves it's way until we see Gaston, who takes us for a long walk to the home in which he was born and explains what he thinks the meaning of life is. But, after talking to the camera and realising it wasn't much of a phillosophy, he angrily walks away from the camera to his house.

Eric Idle as the man singing The Penis Song and Gaston.
Terry Jones as Mr. Creosote and the cleaning lady.
John Cleese as the head waiter.
Graham Chapman as a customer at the restaurant.


VII. Death
We fisrt see a short scene of a man named Arthur Jarrett being chased off of a cliff by several nude woman.
Then, we see the grim reaper approaching a house where 3 couples are having supper. The couple owning the house named Geoffrey and Angela allow the grim reaper into their house and introduce them to the two other couples dining there, Mr. and Mrs. Katzenberg and Mr. and Mrs. Portland-Smyth. After a long talk with the grim reaper, he finally tells the 3 couples that they've died from eating the salmon mousse. The grim reaper leads them all to 'paradise', where we see the Hendy couple walking off talking about how they love the hotel, and we see a women greeting them to heaven. The 6 go into a big restaurant, where a man sings (Christmas In Heaven).
After the song, we go back to the woman who introduced 'Find The Fish' and explains the meaning of life.

John Cleese as the grim reaper.
Graham Chapman as Arthur Jarrett, Geoffrey, and Christmas In Heaven singer.
Michael Palin as Mrs. Katzenberg, Mr. Hendy, and woman who introduced Find The Fish.
Eric Idle as Angela and Mrs. Hendy.
Terry Jones as Mrs Portland-Smyth.
Terry Gilliam as Mr. Katzenberg.

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I know I probably didn't get everything in there, but this took me an hour to type, so I don't care. Share your thoughts.

P.S: For the people who haven't seen the movie, here are the songs [click the song titles].

The Penis Song (sung by Eric Idle)
Christmas In Heaven (sung by Graham Chapman)
The Galaxy Song (sung by Eric Idle)
Every Sperm Is Sacred (sung by Michael Palin)

wow lots of info, ive seen some of them they are really funny

http://www.geekstinkbreath.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=41910

You must be a huge fan 'cause you already made one!

Oh trust me, she is.

I haven't seen that one, sound savage though.

Ella:

Oh trust me, she is.

I love Meaning of life!

The machine that goes "PING!"

i love all of Monty Python films, if it was for people like the early carry on actors there wouldnt be Monty Python, John Cleese said so himself.

Monty Python is so funny! I don't think I've seen 'The Meaning of Life' though...
I've seen 'Life of Brian' and 'The Holy Grail' though

The Meaning Of Life has to be the best one of all, it's too damn funny for it's own good

I love all Monty Python. i only saw some of the meaning of life but it was WEIRD! funny though!

My personal favorite Monty Python movie is Life of Brian, but that's just me, my dad, and my sister's opinion. Still, love every sketch done by the gang.

I remember watching this a couple years ago. I loved the fat exploding man and the sex ed. class. Great movie.