La Ron S. Readus
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Bill & Ted (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2020-11-26 00:00:03 +0000 UTCBill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, and Bill & Ted Face The Music. Not only is this franchise one of the cornerstones of pop culture that has stood the test of time thanks to the multiple references to it in media since its conception in the late 80s, but is also responsible for the career of one of the most kind and humble Canadian immortals the world has ever seen.
But with the release of the third installment of the franchise Bill & Ted Face The Music in the incredible garbage fire year that is 2020 -- placing the duo in their biggest adventure yet -- this film almost 30 years in the making not classifies the Bill & Ted franchise as a movie trilogy. But is it a PROPER movie trilogy? And if not, how can we make it one? Let’s find out.
INTRO
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was released February 17, 1989 and written by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson based on a stand-up routine the two performed during their college days.
They took a huge chance shopping it around because of the demographic the movie was aimed at, but it eventually landed at De Laurentiis and was distributed via Orion Pictures after a bit of script restructuring.
The gamble in question was that it would either be a huge hit or a huge flop according to the film’s director Steven Herek because it was written to be specifically aimed at the first few waves of Gen X’ers like Solomon and Matheson themselves.
Despite negative reviews from Variety, Washington Post and The New York Times, the gamble paid off and brought around 40 million dollars to the box office with a budget between 6 to 10 million.
/And along with the film gaining a cult following and gaining a footing in modern day pop culture because of it, it also became the first step in Keanu Reeves’s journey of a leading actor in Hollywood, with Ted being his breakout role./
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey came out 2 years later on July 19,1991, once again written by Solomon and Matheson, but this time directed by Pete Hewitt, who would later direct the films Tom & Huck with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, The Borrowers with John Goodman, and the first Garfield movie with Bill Murray.
Originally titled Bill & Ted Go To Hell because they...go to hell in this one, its less of a time travel adventure and more of a journey through the afterlife, considering that the film slightly parodies the Swedish historical fantasy film The Seventh Seal, where Death -- also known as the grim reaper -- plays a prominent role.
/Out of the first two movies, Bogus Journey has to be my favorite one, due to a lot of the creative decisions that were made throughout the story like the way Hell is portrayed, and the very personification of Death himself./
And apparently I’m not alone in that regard. Because while the movie didn’t rake in as much of a profit as its 1989 counterpart with a box office total of 38 million compared to its budget of 20 million, reviewers and critics found the film a lot funnier than its original.
And while Variety still disliked it in comparison to the original, the Washington Post wasn’t afraid to give kudos where they were due.
By the time Bogus Journey was made, both the writer duo Solomon and Matheson and the bodacious duo Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter became good friends with each other. But talk about a third installment of the Bill & Ted franchise didn’t really start circulating between the four until around 2005 when Keanu Reeves was asked if he’d ever play Ted again.
And upon him saying absolutely, the four started thinking about whether or not it could happen. Then five years later, Bill himself Alex Winter revealed that Solomon and Matheson found a way to make it work that’s both appropriate for where the characters would be, and that would bring the franchise full circle to its time-traveling roots.
Thus, with a bit elbow grease and a lot of growth, Bill & Ted Face The Music was conceived and had just...the UNFORTUNATE circumstance of being slated for release on August 28, 2020; the midst of a summer completely claimed by COVID-19.
/And because they made the decision to release the film on Video On Demand instead of gambling with a theatrical release, the box office numbers reflected that decision with an as-of-now number of 6.1 million in comparison to a 25 million dollar budget./
Nevertheless, it is currently the most highly praised installment of the Bill & Ted franchise. Even from the media sources that looked down at the previous installments before.
And more importantly, because of its overall story, it not only opens the door for more adventures with the now properly introduced daughters of Bill and Ted Billy and Thea, but also allows a proper retirement of the characters of Bill & Ted in a way that ties the first three movies together in a complete arc.
CURRENT STANCE
/I’m gonna be honest with you, Readers. I never grew up with the Bill and Ted movies growing up, so my initial reaction to Bill and Ted Face the Music’s marketing 2020 was basically “eh.”/
And while that did change upon me watching all three of the films for the first time to make this video, I’d be lying if I said that there isn’t a specific kind of 80’s first wave Gen X nostalgia that possesses Excellent Adventure over the course of the movie; ESPECIALLY the third act.
Yes, I know that this bit of criticism is a bit expected. Especially coming from a Millennial with Baby Boomer parents whose childhood took place in the 90’s and whose teenage years happened during the first decade of the 2000’s. The only difference is that I only point that out because upon seeing said levels of nostalgia, I am COMPLETELY aware that while still widely enjoyable, Excellent Adventure was not -- at its core -- meant for me.
/It's part of the reason why I enjoy Bogus Journey a bit more than Excellent Adventure. While there were definitely some lingering 80’s vibes, the 90’s were still a bit undefined to the point where there wasn’t so much nostalgia for the movie to soak up. Also Bill and Ted’s journey to Hell and back, meeting, beating and eventually befriending Death, and even the adventure they had to take in order to keep a fixed point in time from being drastically altered felt a bit more compelling to me than the Ferris Bueller-esque race they had to go on to present their History report on time./
Bill and Ted Face the Music is kinda on par with Bogus Journey with me in that regard.
Because while still a comedy featuring 2 airheaded dudebros with hearts of gold now in their mid 50’s and families of their own, it takes some time to explore to a certain extent a lot of the themes in the first two movies that Generation X folk dealt with
/Specifically how they were treated by their Baby Boomer parents and how in turn, they learned how to become better parents to their own children/
And trust me; there’s a LOT I can say on that subject alone when it comes to how the Bill and Ted trilogy tackles it. But that’s not the point of this video
The point of this video is to see if Bill and Ted Face the Music narrative-wise acts as a proper closing chapter to the trilogy by tracing back to the first installment in a way to bring the entire franchise full circle. And in order for us to do that, we have to unpack the overall plot of the movie
/Which in retrospect, is a pretty simple one. It’s the year 2020, and Wild Stalyn has been declining in popularity since their world-famous debut at the 1991 Battle of the Bands. And that’s because the song Rufus told them that they would make in order to unify the world back when they aced their history report in 1988 has yet to be made, and every attempt has had mixed results. However, because the song hasn’t been made, space and time is beginning to collapse in itself. Historical figures and monuments are starting to randomly show up in places where they don’t belong, and if the song isn’t created and played by 7:17pm, reality as we know it will cease to exist./
Now you’d imagine just from this premise alone, that Bill and Ted Face the Music ticks all the boxes associated with a third installment of a franchise establishing the whole as a proper trilogy.
There's the thread in the first film’s plot that plays a significant role in the third in a way that makes all three films work together as one cohesive story.
This allows the third film to reveal new information about what's being carried over from the first, and expand upon it in various ways; reveal something new about it, make it play a role in the plot of said installment, or sometimes both at the same time.
/With Face the Music, it implies that the thread carried over from Excellent Adventure is the fact that they’ll eventually make a song that’ll unify the world. And the new information Face the Music gives that thread taken from Excellent Adventure is that the song needs to be made by a specific time in order to stop the world from ending./
But Readers, what if I told you that the Excellent Adventure thread in question was actually misconstrued?
Well, in order to prove my point and show Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson -- the writers of ALL 3 Bill & Ted movies -- that I’m not just being nitpicky for the sake of it in the case they watch this, we have to go back to Excellent Adventure and take a better look at the thread in question.
THE THREAD
/As I stated before, Readers. Outside of the use of the non-Fuck F word that shows the film’s age as much as the mall scene in the third act, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is one of the closest things to an 80’s John Hughes teen film without John Hughes directly being involved. So much so that it’s inspired the works of a lot of other creatives and has been referenced in a lot of recent media that has since become modern day staples in pop culture
JG Quintel -- the creator of the animated shows Regular Show and Close Enough -- is CLEARLY one of those creatives./
But, I’m not gonna lie; being 32, knowing nothing about the franchise outside of the involvement of time travel and watching Excellent Adventure for the first time, I kinda expected something...different when I first started up the movie.
Instead of COMEDY comedy that was presented, I expected -- and I’m absolutely sure there’s someone out there that can write an entire paper on how the franchise is exactly that -- a subtle yet comedic piece of the human condition as it was presented in the late 80’s
/And this assumption was mainly in part to the futuristic character of Rufus, portrayed by the late great comedian George Carlin./
Now before I proceed, I want to make it VERY clear. I am in no way attempting to make George Carlin a monolith. Some people did exactly that with Louis C.K. and look at him now.
Nevertheless, unlike a lot of individuals out there, I wasn’t introduced to George Carlin through his comedy. To me, he was -- and always will be -- Mr. Conductor of Thomas and Friends back when it was on PBS. I wasn’t aware of his adult-oriented comedy until I was in my freshman year of college.
And while there’s a lot that I agree with him regarding his work, like his points of view regarding the inner workings of politics and multinational conglomerates being what truly grips the country -- some of said points you can argue have gotten SLIGHTLY better considering who we currently have as representatives now -- there are things he mentioned in his comedy that I both don’t really care and play devil's advocate for, such as the reason why he didn’t vote in elections and his opinions regarding american obesity
/So when I saw that George Carlin was in this movie and as a result the entire franchise, and learning that he was a time-traveler, I expected his character of Rufus to pretty much be an embodiment of himself; an observer who takes note of the things happening around him./
And while it wasn’t as deep or as profound as I expected it to be, considering what I knew about how his mind worked, I still kinda received that, albeit on a pretty simple level.
Only instead of taking the information in the movie and going “I just think it’s funny how,” he attempted to either correct or stay the course in order to make sure things happen accordingly.
/in allowing to give Bill and Ted access to his time machine so that they can go to different points in history in an attempt to ace their History report, he does exactly that, and explains WHY he did it when their Excellent Adventure reaches its end and they aced their report/
(If you guys were separated, it would’ve been disastrous for life as we know it)
Those of you who eat, drink and breathe time travel stories know this aspect as a fixed point in time; something that HAS to happen in a timeline in order for things to proceed a certain way, like the kiss during the Under the Sea Ball in Back to the Future Part 1 that ensures Marty McFly and his siblings, y’know, actually exist.
/In the Bill and Ted trilogy there are two prominent ones before Face the Music happens; the duo acing their history report in order for Ted to keep from going to military school in Excellent Adventure, and the duo winning the Battle of the Bands in Bogus Journey and thus planting the roots of the futuristic utopia as the band Wild Stalyn. And with both of these events, Rufus helps them accomplish them in one way or another so that they stay in place./
/However, in his explanation of why he helped them in Excellent Adventure due to the reveal that their music would be the cornerstone of this eventual utopian society, he lets them know something else as well./
(Eventually, your music will help put an end to war and poverty. It will align the planets, and bring them into universal harmony. Allowing meaningful contact with all forms of life. From extraterrestrial beings to common household pets)
Now you might be thinking to yourself, “That’s it. That’s the thread. That’s what Ed and Chris took from Excellent Adventure to Face the Music.”
But while it IS true that this is the intended thread brought over to Face the Music, that’s not what happened in the movie.
Because in Face the Music, Bill and Ted are operating under the information that Rufus told them there was one specific song that achieves all of this, when according to the thread being brought over, it's a broader generalization he’s referring to.
He doesn’t say “Eventually you create a song that will put an end to war and poverty,” he says “Eventually your MUSIC will help put an end to war and poverty.” The thread that was taken from Excellent Adventure in order for Face the Music to properly connect with it has been misconstrued in order for it to fit with the third movie’s overall plot, thus making it fall a bit short of making the whole a Proper Movie Trilogy
But fortunately, there is a way to adjust certain things in the third film to not only make it fit the mold of a Proper Movie trilogy, but also stay true to the initial movie we received and the themes it explores within it.
So in order for Bill & Ted Face the Music’s initial story to work as originally intended and unite the three films as a proper movie trilogy, we need...what the majority of individuals could afford to have in their lives. We need more George Carlin. Let me break it down for you.
RECONSTRUCTION
/In Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Rufus informs Bill and Ted that their music will “help put an end to war and poverty, align the planets and bring them into universal harmony, allowing meaningful contact with all forms of life.” In Bill and Ted Face the Music, Bill and Ted are acting under the information that Rufus told them all those years ago, and have to be part of one song to accomplish those feats, racing against the clock to make it before all of reality is destroyed./
So let's establish that Rufus KNEW Bill and Ted had to be involved in this specific song in order to keep the timeline intact, but purposefully kept that information to himself. Here’s why:
When Rufus traveled back to 1988 to help Bill and Ted with their history report, he did so in order to make sure they weren’t separated so that they could form Wild Stalyn. Same when he intervened to solidify a spot for them in the Battle of the Bands in 1991 under the guise of Ms. Wardroe.
/Rufus’s main goal was to make sure these fixed and pivotal points in time were preserved in the timeline so that the future he comes from -- and reality as a result -- stays intact./
But remember what I said about the character of Rufus reflecting the real life personality of George Carlin regarding him being a watcher of things that takes notes on what he observes? Well, Rufus still reflects exactly that in this adjustment.
He wasn’t lying when he said that the future utilizes their music and whatnot as the cornerstone of their society. As a matter of fact, he probably let them know everything he told them at the end of Excellent Adventure because he knew it wouldn’t put so much pressure on them; if anything, it would INSPIRE them.
Basically, what I’m saying is in this adjustment, he only let them know that much because he knew that they could only HANDLE that much.
/If Rufus told them at the end of Excellent Adventure that he did all this because one day the year 2020 at 7:17pm they would partake in a song that would unite the world and that he made sure these fixed points in time happened in order to keep the universe from unraveling, who KNOWS how teenage Bill and Ted would’ve reacted./
/Especially after seeing how ADULT Bill and Ted reacted when they found out the news./
No, in order for Face the Music to work, Rufus HAD to have known that this potentially apocalyptic event was going to happen. And when the first threat to the current timeline in the form of the history report happened, he knew he had to be the one to not only set them on the right path, but to actually allow them to mold the events over the course of their Excellent Adventure that are responsible for the utopia the future ends up becoming.
But because he knows just how much someone can take from his observational nature, Rufus only lets them know information about the things they discovered along the way, and gives a lighter, fluffier, Obi-Wan Kenobi “certain point of view” variant of the destiny they would eventually manifest.
/And considering that in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey it's revealed that Rufus is a university professor and a historian by trade, it’s pretty safe to say that all of these changes we’d make regarding how much Rufus knows about the overall timeline would still be acceptable for his character./
Unfortunately, because George Carlin is no longer with us and Face the Music ALSO retires Rufus for that same reason, we can’t use him to distribute this exposition in order to use Face the Music to reveal this new info from the thread at the end of Excellent Adventure in order to solidify the plot regarding the end of space and time.
/Thankfully, we have a new -- and honestly underused -- conduit in the form of Kristen Schall’s Kelly, one of Rufus’s children./
The way we use Kelly in this regard is that she’s the one that stumbles upon her father’s research about Bill and Ted’s involvement in the creation of the song that unites the world, and lets the two know about the dilemma.
/They -- upon remembering Rufus’s words at the end of Excellent Adventure and remembering everything they accomplished to set up the bedrock of the utopian future in Bogus Journey -- think they’ve already manifested the destiny Rufus informed them of./
That’s when they find out through Kelly that Rufus only let them know what they needed to know in order for them to naturally be in the proper place to help create the song once the year 2020 hits, so that there’s a proper reveal about every aspect of his actions from the first movie onward; proper exposition about the thread that was initially stitched in the first movie.
/But upon doing so, she lets them know that Rufus’s research about the song is incomplete, and the scattering of different historical landmarks and individuals across points in time is proof that while Wild Stalyn’s music is still the bedrock of the future Rufus and Kelly come from thanks to the preservation of the two fixed points in time, the song that they’re part of to unite the world hasn’t been played yet./
That way it still establishes the end of Bogus Journey as a significant fixed point in the timeline to ensure their society and the duo’s involvement in the plot.
/THAT'S when Bill and Ted go on their journey to find their future selves hoping they achieved creating the song in their later years in order to save the world./
Meanwhile, Kelly -- just like her father -- only tells Bill and Ted what they need to know in order to insure their role in the creation of the song is established in the timeline, and does the same with Billie and Thea -- Bill and Teds respective daughters -- by sending them on THEIR own “Excellent Adventure” of picking up historical musicians to form a band when their dads return with the song, knowing from her father’s research that it’s Bill and Teds daughters that will create the song they’re gonna be part of to unite the world.
/Creating the third and final fixed point in not only Rufus and Kelly’s utopian future, but also in making sure the world is saved./
Now for those of you who HAVE seen Face the Music, you might be saying to yourself that there’s still one more loose end in order to make these changes work. And that’s in the form of Rufus’s widow and Kelly’s mother, the Great Leader.
/She’s the one that has very little faith in Bill and Ted to create the song on time, and she’s the one who sicks the time-traveling robot Dennis to kill them because some believe that the deaths of Bill and Ted is what unifies the world instead of the song./
Her fix is pretty simple, and like Kelly would help extend the posthumous role Rufus has in regards to the whole trilogy.
/All it would take would be to adjust one scene between Kelly and herself./
(Your father and I agreed on everything)
Umm...(pauses) UMMMM....
Considering the decisions she made over the course of Face the Music and how she reacted when she first met Bill and Ted, it’s a bit hard to believe that she saw the two in the same reverence as Rufus did.
/Not as bad as Chuck De Nomolos from Bogus Journey of course, but she definitely wasn’t at the same state of nirvana the 2688 council of the utopian future was in when the two visited during their Excellent Adventure./
No, instead of the Great Leader and Rufus agreeing on everything, I’d adjust it so that the role Bill and Ted played in the uniting of the world was one of the things they disagreed on.
Because their very society is based on the two’s music and their philosophy, she believes that making them martyrs upon the time of the collapse is what's necessary to unite the world in order to avoid it, especially since so much of Wild Stalyn’s music has been its cornerstone for well over 30 years already.
/And considering her role as the Great Leader on the council, her duties would eliminate her from time traveling to the extent as Rufus did to see for herself how wrong she was, pretty much keeping her theories as just that; theories./
So when she and Kelly are discussing things as the clock ticks ever closer, Kelly would reflect the work of her father, while the Great Leader would reflect her own feelings.
Which, after seeing Bill and Ted first hand upon instructing them to create the song and realizing that they hijacked the time machine, would not only paint them in a bad light with her...
But have her realize that in order to keep their society from crumbling by realizing it was all based on two dimwits that are a collective 250 pounds of muscle away from being classified as himbos...
Killing them off might not only make sure their way of life isn’t tampered with by finding out how simple they are, but might also save all of space and time.
/Making these adjustments to Face the Music not only makes sure George Carlin’s legacy as the character Rufus is more cemented throughout the story that’s bigger than just a digitally hologramed homage to his first scene meeting the boys in Excellent Adventure
/But it also gives Kelly more to do, while also allowing the Great Leader to have a bit of an arc with Kelly as well, that kinda reflects the trilogy-long arc that Ted and his police chief dad underwent that started with the Baby Boomer demand of authoritarian respect in their Gen X children...
/The critique of seeing said members of Gen X refusing to utilize the same parenting techniques on their Millennial and Gen Z children due to the trauma they suffered from it, and the eventual healing that takes place between Boomers and their Gen X children upon the realization that they were wrong./
But like I said earlier, we don’t have time to unpack all of that. The parent-child dynamic in the Bill and Ted trilogy is a video essay in its OWN right!
CONCLUSION
Bill and Ted Face the Music is honest to goodness a pretty great sendoff to Bill and Teds arc that was started in 1988. And even without my adjustments in order for everything to properly tie in with each other, it’s still a fun movie in its own right. I would definitely recommend you catch this.
But after you watch the movies and you were ever wondering if it was possible, make no mistake that the Bill & Ted movies as they are now have the potential to be a funny, bodacious, most excellent, and a proper movie trilogy.
And yes, I ALSO want more Billy and Thea. Everyone who says otherwise is LYING.
Right now you can find the entire Bill & Ted trilogy on demand to either rent or buy. But if you want to purchase them and also help financially support the channel I’ll have links to them in the description box below.
So with that being said Readers, your homework assignment for the day: Write in the comment section below what YOU think about the Bill & Ted trilogy if you’ve seen it.
Or if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class another trilogy you want to see me tackle later on in this segment.
Whichever you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
