Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: Classic or Beyond Classic?

The best part of the film is clearly when Bill thinks Ted is dead but then he's not and they hug. It's fantastic.

And the bit where they ask that woman: "When did the Mongols rule China?" and she goes: "How should I know? I only *work* here!" Heheh.

AND! The bit where Ted catches Bill letching at his own Mother: "She's your *Mom*, dude!"

So many bits...

NO:

MGM is developing a straight-to-DVD revisiting of the late-'80s cult classic "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" for producer Frank Mancuso Jr. at 360 Pictures. Although their deal is still being worked out, writers Gabe Grifoni and Suzanne Francis ("Wieners") have already turned in an outline for an updated take on San Dimas' most excellent native sons.

Is that a *NO!* as in gnarly or NOOOoooo! as in bogus?

o_O

Quite obviously the latter, Thermo.

More than a decade later, they actually tried to get a third "Bill & Ted" feature made, with the idea of checking in with the guys as middle-aged men. Actors Keanu Reeves (Ted "Theodore" Logan) and Alex Winter (Bill S. Preston, Esq.), now both in their 40s, were reportedly game until Reeves' manager advised his client, by then a major movie star (although still on-screen climbing in and out of phone booths), against revisiting the material.

God, Keanu Reeves's management SUCKS.

Sucks for being sound of mind.

Spoilsport.

Keanu, we've got this great movie lined up for you...Johnny Mnemonic. Can I put you down as a yes?

http://io9.com/375484/bill-and-teds-completely-unnecessary-remake

The main differences are that the phone Bill and Ted use to travel through time isn't an old-school phone booth, but something "funkier." Their band is called the Atomic Gorillas instead of the Wyld Stallions. The script is supposedly full of "hip" pop culture references for today's kids, like Bill and Ted worrying they're going to miss The Dark Knight.

http://www.htlc-ch.org/LP/LordsPrayerJesusCrying5.jpg

I didn't need to read that. You didn't need to post that. I blame you, the messenger.

Sick bastards

At one point in the movie, a character utters, "San Dimas High School football rules!" This was inserted at the behest of the town of San Dimas in lieu of the previously-written line for the character, which was "Stage fright, go away!"

but something "funkier."

what, an antiquated police call box?

oh wait, i know! a taco truck!

Look I'm just glad Alex Winter's getting some work. Guy never did shit else, but not for lack of effort apparently -- IMDB credits him for his uncredited role as Subway Passenger in Fever (1999).

Can't wait for the "Dude, Where's My Car?" reboot in 2015.

I've been outta high school way too long, but does the "Bill and Ted" type even exist anymore?

Oh, please let this be an April Fool's which got out of hand.

(I was caught out last night getting dismayed at a Zelda trailer which turned out to be one, so...)

Alex Winter did go on to do some fun, weird stuff. His sketch show on MTV ran for a summer, but was killed off way too early.

Look I'm just glad Alex Winter's getting some work. Guy never did shit else, but not for lack of effort apparently -- IMDB credits him for his uncredited role as Subway Passenger in Fever (1999).

-- iiiijjjj, Sunday, April 6, 2008 8:04 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

i thought he directed that

also someone posted something recently about how he's a successful commercial director

Fact: while never making it past the first 20 mins of either B&T, I did see Freaked, the feature Winter directed. (not good)

Bill and Ted's Totally Deep Hole:
http://vimeo.com/709250

Requiem For a Bogus Journey:
http://vimeo.com/709250

Strangely hypnotic/annoying.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure confirmed by both Keanu and the other guy! Don't worry, it's not going to be cynical.

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/09/23/most-excellent-exclusive-alex-winter-confirms-bill-ted-3-is-on-the-way/

"We kicked around the idea over the years and had always thought if we could make something that was as kind of genuine in spirit as the originals and without falling prey to kind of retro cynicism or something that was unnecessary, it would be worth doing," Winter told MTV's Adam Rosenberg in an interview arranged, amusingly, via Twitter. "Now the cat's out of the bag, and the truth is that, yeah, we have finally hit upon an idea that we think is pretty great."

"We've been working on it for the past couple of years, honing that idea and getting it into shape," he continued. "Screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon are working on it now. The bottom line is that we still all feel like we need to sit down and look at a script and see if it's everything that it can be before we set about doing anything with it."

Winter wasn't able to divulge much about what "Bill & Ted 3" will focus on, though he emphasized that the movie won't be "cynical."

"The essence of what we've always wanted to do is to make a 'Bill & Ted' movie," he said. "We don't want to make a cynical 'here's Bill and Ted — you guys are our kids, now YOU guys go be Bill and Ted and the franchise can live for another 25 years!' It's not that. It's a straight up, what's the funniest and most surprising take on where Bill and Ted would be right now if we stopped back in on them? That's what we're doing."

*gets in phone booth, goes back to 2 minutes ago, adds "III" to first line in previous post*

Apparently a third b&t script was actually written, they passed on it, so it was reworked and re-cast as 'Bio-Dome'. Really.

Bogus barely begins to describe this turn of events... >:(

I'm all for this. I wish more movies would do this. Especially in a way that truly advances the characters 20 years. Like I would love a Bill & Ted where they're in shitty, unfulfilling marriages with the babes from Bogus Journey and have crappy jobs and talk about the glory days at the San Dimas Watering Hole.

whiney otm

Also, I always imagined a Robocop sequel where the original Robocop is like 20 years past being totally outdated useless technology after they invented all the rad new robotcops. And Robocop is reduced to being the precinct's office manager or secretary or some pencil pusher and the movie is all about his sad life as an old man robot

Robocop as Fish on Barney Miller. Works for me!

honestly, i'm really fucking glad that horrible chris ware sensibility is confined to comics and charlie kaufman movies

http://i53.tinypic.com/2a8q0q8.jpg

i think it's a good idea or in other words - station!

if it won't fail - Wayne's World reunion movie is just a matter of time

I don't know if I am in favor of this – the guy who played Rufus is dead. Who will mentor them now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6dYiIbRKM

Sigh. The problem is that I think I secretly would see this if it happened. No matter how ill-advised it seems.

"Who will mentor them now?"

they are kinda old now themselves.. - thats another problem for the script writer to deal with.

Clearly they will go back in time and meet their younger selves. And Clarence Clemons can mentor them. Solved and solved.

this is a nice launching off point. they have a run-in with this timeline:

https://i1.wp.com/methodsunsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/shorts-bill-ted-2.jpg

Freaked is so good. Rasta eyeball henchmen named Eye & I!

Oh man freaked is the best movie ever made

bogus journey is really really really really crazy and really GOES FOR IT in a way few movies especially sequels would.

I'm so good with people doing the thing they got famous for in their youth when they are old. It's cool to see people old.

I still stand by this:

Bill & Ted traveled time, conquered death, met aliens and God itself, and defeated their own ego — all with the simple commandments of Be Excellent To Yourself and Be Excellent To Each Other.

No other organized religion has delivered as much. https://t.co/B8HKTJaWc8

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) May 9, 2018

bogus journey is really really really really crazy and really GOES FOR IT in a way few movies especially sequels would.

yeah it is flat out insane. the first movie had them time travelling around hanging out with historical figures, so how do they top that? any other time travelling franchise would just relocate their adventures. instead they kill them in the first half hour and have them traverse life and death and the supernatural space in between. they possess their parents, they haunt a seance, they quote Poison lyrics to God, they beat Death at Twister and later have him join their band, etc. just non stop insanity

I'm so good with people doing the thing they got famous for in their youth when they are old. It's cool to see people old.

For some reason this immediately made me think of when I saw the 50-year-old Jesus and Mary Chain play and indeed they were great

one thing that’s kinda interesting to me about bill and ted is that i’d struggle to tell you much about what differentiates them from each other as characters but yet they don’t feel underwritten - they’re this kinda unique friendship gestalt where they’re so in sync that they’re essentially one character

and that character’s name

is

WYLD STALLIONS

*air guitar*

indeed a big part of the appeal is the two leads, their chemistry. it is a pair of best friends, a bromance for the ages. they talk about this in the Totally Non Bogus Disc interviews, how when they casted the first one they saw the actors in line at a fast food place and thought "These people should be Bill & Ted" because they just looked like two Cali best friends hanging out together. it is a very cute & wholesome relationship that avoids being twee even with Keanu tilting his moppey head like a puppy. this friendship is super important, it anchors the films while the most insane shit - time travel, life and death - is going on around them.

i’d struggle to tell you much about what differentiates them from each other as characters

Well, Ted did take Bill's stepmom Missy to prom . . .

Bill is the "smart" one, Ted is the gregarious one. I think.

Step Brothers had a pretty similar vibe. it didn't really register how strange that was until a while after

in theory a B&T III could be great. I'm just kind of jaded by all the terrible fan service reboots that are out there right now though and it's hard for me to believe this will possess any of the creative spirit that made Bogus Journey a genuinely good sequel.

Like I can already picture this:

Bad guy: Use the Slipknot on them.
B&T: Excellent!
Bad guy: Hang them.
B&T Bogus!

However if they have a So-crates-like encounter with Karl Marx that would redeem it for me

Freaked is great and I'm happy to hijack this thread in the service of reemphasizing that point.

Alex Winter talked about Bill & Ted 3 in his Film Threat interview about Freaked (ca. 1992). It involved one of them being shrunk and deposited into the brain of the other in order to make him less of a dumbfuck. Or fuck-up. Can't remember the exact quote.

I'm just kind of jaded by all the terrible fan service reboots that are out there right now though and it's hard for me to believe this will possess any of the creative spirit that made Bogus Journey a genuinely good sequel.

Like I can already picture this:

Bad guy: Use the Slipknot on them.
B&T: Excellent!
Bad guy: Hang them.
B&T Bogus!

I'm guessing this is your example of a lazy sequel joke, but I actually did chuckle at it

I was watching the Red Letter Media take on the first two, and right at the start one of the guys brings up a good point. The first one came out in 1989, and it's an iconically '80s movie. The second one comes out just two years later, '91, yet it already feels totally '90s. Really underscores that cultural shift.

First one was written in 1984-85 and shot in 1987 iirc? Second one was probably written and shot all in 1990 - even the Evan Dorkin sequel comic series started in 1991.

if the sequel had come out nowadays, it woulda had its original title

re-watching the original with a couple 90s babies who haven't seen it, and they are absolutely loving it. pure joy for us all

lol, I knew sic would correct me that it was shot a couple of years before release. Point still stands!

Unrelated - and I say this as someone who spent time in the valley as a kid - was there a male equivalent of a valley girl? A valley guy? Because these guys talk like surfers/stoners/skaters but aren't any of those things. If anything they're ... metalheads? But don't really act like that, either. It's one of the movie's many charms.

not correcting, just reasoning why!

Uh, Marina Men?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXDRHOvfFZk

Because these guys talk like surfers/stoners/skaters but aren't any of those things. If anything they're ... metalheads?

I grew up in the 80s 3000 miles from the Pacific and being a "surfer dude" was definitely a way of life that did not involve actual surfing

Yeah, me too! There were surfer dudes at my school in suburban Philly. Though they also went surfing on the shore, as I recall. Still, would surfer dudes also be metalheads but not stoners? Hmm ...

it's definitely cool to see an on screen adaptation of those types where they're actually likeable, idk if I can think of another example quite like it

spicoli ?

valley dudes

Ninja Turtles?

mama's boyz

oh...Ninja Turtles that's a good one

bossa nova!

Chevy nova?

is it weird that i like bogus journey more

(i watched them both for the first time this weekend)

it’s very onbrand for you <3

it really is

Station!

Because these guys talk like surfers/stoners/skaters but aren't any of those things. If anything they're ... metalheads?

Faith No More?

The casting of the two daughters in the new movie is so fucking good, especially brigitte lundy-paine ie Ted’s daughter Billie

her physicality & mannerisms are so hilariously on point and her wardrobe is a fever dream of perfection: rash vest + long shorts (dickies maybe?) with the classic 80’s sunset strip medallion belt & docs = chef’s kiss

i just love her, completely transfixing

i made that very same observation to my wife when we watched this last week. she captures the essence of whoa keanu.

she's great. lil bill was less successful, on both an accent and mannerisms front, though I do like that actress in other stuff.

new movie's thread btw: Come anticipate Bill & Ted 3 aka BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC with me

Because these guys talk like surfers/stoners/skaters but aren't any of those things. If anything they're ... metalheads?

Faith No More?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, September 6, 2020 10:51 PM bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agaHP0eQHmU

https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/godot.jpg?w=1024

this feels like a Family Guy cutaway gag

Worth noting that Hal Landon Jr., who plays Ted's dad, is also "Pencil Machine Operator" in Eraserhead.

Oh shit!

"I totally possessed my dad!" is my favorite movie moment ever.