Bill & Ted The Movies

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure The Movie

And

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey The Movie

This is a page on Bill & Ted The Movies

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) is an American comedy/science fiction movie in which two slackers travel through time in order to assemble a menagerie of historical figures for their high school history presentation.

The movie was released by Nelson Entertainment & Orion Pictures, written by Chris Matheson & Ed Solomon & directed by Stephen Herek. It stars Alex Winter as Bill S. Preston Esq., Keanu Reeves as Ted "Theodore" Logan, & George Carlin as the mystical Rufus.

Plot
William "Bill" S. Preston Esq. (Winter) & Theodore "Ted" Logan (Reeves) (or simply "Bill & Ted") are two hard rock-obsessed teenagers in San Dimas, California (1988) who are in danger of flunking out of high school. This situation is particularly "heinous" because Ted's authoritarian father has threatened to ship him to the Alaskan Military Academy (run by the psychotic Colonel Oats) if he flunks. Miraculously, a guitar-playing guru named Rufus (Carlin) arrives from San Dimas of the future (2688) to help them pass a vital history report, because their garage band Wyld Stallyns holds the key to world peace & ultimate truth. However, they will not achieve this destiny if they flunk out & Ted is shipped to Alaska. Rufus lends them a time machine disguised as a phone booth to help them get an A+ on their oral report. Various time traveling shenanigans ensue, as they proceed to "collect" various historical figures, including Napoleon Bonaparte, Socrates (whose name they pronounce so?-k?e?ts), Billy the Kid, Sigmund Freud, Ludwig van Beethoven, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, & Abraham Lincoln to help them with their final history presentation. They also find love with Princesses Elizabeth & Joanna in 16th Century England, at the court of King Henry (presumably Henry VIII as the princesses, who are young women when Bill & Ted meet them, are said in Bogus Journey to be 521 years old; as that film is set in 1991, the princesses were therefore born in 1470). They also run into some problems, including mechanical troubles with the booth, & Ted's brother, Deacon, "ditching" Napoleon..

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Production
The film was shot in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area, mostly in & around Coronado High School in Scottsdale, Arizona. The school itself is near Oak St. & Scottsdale Road. Much of Coronado went through a renovation between 2005 & 2007 & the auditorium setting for the 'final report' scene was torn down, however the intricate mosaic (seen in an opening scene when Bill & Ted arrive at school in a red Mustang) on the outside of the auditorium was saved piece by piece & moved to the new auditorium.

The setting for Waterloo was Golfland (now Golfland Sunsplash) located at the intersection of highways AZ 87 & US 60 in Mesa, AZ. The bowling alley was then a non-franchised locally-owned alley, & is now the AMF Tempe Village Lanes located on Rural Road at US 60, three miles south of Arizona State University. The mall was Phoenix Metrocenter located on Peoria Road at Interstate 17. The Circle K store is located at the intersection of Southern & Hardy in Tempe.

The movie was actually made & planned for release in 1987, but due to the bankruptcy of the film's original distributor, the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, the project was not released theatrically until 1989. As a partial result of the delay, certain dates in the movie originally scripted as "1987" had to be redubbed as "1988". The copyright date of this movie is 1988 & the same date appears on the DVD cover. It was followed in 1991 by a sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

Cast
Keanu Reeves - Ted "Theodore" Logan
Alex Winter - William "Bill" S. Preston Esq.
George Carlin - Rufus.
Terry Camilleri - Napoleon
Dan Shor - Billy the Kid
Tony Steedman - Socrates
Rod Loomis - Dr. Sigmund Freud
Al Leong - Genghis Khan
Jane Wiedlin - Joan of Arc
Robert V. Barron - Abraham Lincoln
Clifford David - Ludwig van Beethoven
Lynda Walsh/ David Limmer - Professor

Origins
The characters of Bill & Ted were created & played by Chris Matheson & Ed Solomon in improv theater (originally, it was "Bill, Ted & Bob" although the third character was eventually dropped). Matheson & Solomon have described Bill & Ted as an idealised version of their friendship (Bill & Ted = Chris & Ed). In the original improvised pieces, Ted was described as having a stoner pseudo-intellectual older brother. This was changed for the movie, although Bill's stepmother Missy did make the transition from theater to the film.

Differences from original script
In earlier drafts of the script, Rufus was 28 years old & historical figures Bill & Ted plucked from history included Charlemagne (whom they referred to as "Charlie Magnay"), Babe Ruth, & a non-famous medieval person called "John the Serf". John is listed in the credits.

In the original ending, Bill & Ted delivered their oral report in the classroom, with the historical figures displaying their views on the blackboard.

Originally, the time machine was to be a 1969 Chevrolet van, but the idea was nixed as being too close in concept to the DeLorean used in the Back to the Future trilogy. Instead, the time machine was styled after a 1960s American telephone booth. In hindsight, this was quite similar to the time-traveling British police box-shaped TARDIS of the BBC's television programme Doctor Who, to the point where the Cracked parody of the film had the Third Doctor threatening to sue Rufus; however, the Bill & Ted telephone booth lacked the huge interior spaces of the Doctor's TARDIS.

Legacy
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure the 50th greatest comedy film of all time. It was also listed as number 24 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".

Two spin-off television series were produced as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures. The first, an animated series, that originally featured the voices of Carlin, Winter, & Reeves, ran for 21 episodes in 1990 & 1991. A later live-action series, featuring none of the cast from the movie (but the same lead cast as the second season of the animated series), lasted seven episodes in 1992. A spin-off comic book, Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book by Evan Dorkin, (following Bogus Journey) was produced by Marvel Comics.

There were also Game Boy, NES & Atari Lynx games released, which were very loosely based on the film's plot. A PC title & nearly identical Amiga & Commodore 64 port were made in 1991 by Off the Wall Productions & IntraCorp, Inc. under contract by Capstone Software & followed the original movie very closely.

The phone booth used in this movie was given away in a contest presented by Nintendo Power magazine (in honor of Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure), won by a boy in Mississippi.

Since 1992, "Bill & Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure" has been performed at the Universal Orlando resort every October during Halloween Horror Nights. The show differs from year to year, with spoofs of various pop culture icons. The main plot involves Bill & Ted being threatened by an evil villain from a popular film of that year, with appearances by a host of villains, heroes, & celebrities. The show usually includes elaborate dance numbers, stunts, & multiple double-entendres for the late night event crowd.

The February 23, 2007 episode of Jeopardy! featured a category title "Bills & Teds" which contained questions on famous people named Bill & Ted. A category next to it, titled "Excellent Adventures", was about famous adventures in novels & films.

The music featured in the background of the tenpin bowling scene is by 'Range War', a country band headed by Lee Ving, lead singer of infamous punk band FEAR & occasional actor (Flashdance, Clue).

U.S. pop-punk band MxPx recorded a song on their 1995 album Teenage Politics called "Like Sand Thru the Hourglass...So Are the Days of Our Lives", named after the translation to Socrates' speech, nor is it named after an opening sequence from the famous sopa opera Days of our Lives.

U.S. rock band The Ataris also recorded a song on their 1999 album Blue Skies, Broken Hearts...Next 12 Exits called "San Dimas High School Football Rules" after a line taken from the movie.

Bill & Ted are also mentioned in the song, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is a 1991 American comedy science fiction film, the sequel to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Like the first film, it stars Keanu Reeves as Ted & Alex Winter as Bill. The film's original working title was Bill & Ted Go To Hell.

Plot
Three years after receiving an A+ on their history report, Bill & Ted are still struggling with their band, Wyld Stallyns, despite help from their fiancées Elizabeth & Joanna (princesses of 15th Century England whom they met in the first film & Rufus brought back from their time). Meanwhile, in the future, the villainous Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) schemes to prevent Bill & Ted from performing at the Fourth Annual San Dimas Battle of the Bands, thereby preventing them from influencing history with their hated rock music. De Nomolos forcibly takes possession of a time machine (once again, in the guise of a phone booth), sending two evil android versions of Bill & Ted back in time to kill them. Bill & Ted are quickly abducted & driven to the desert, where their android doppelgangers throw them off a cliff.

Death, a.k.a. the Grim Reaper (William Sadler), comes to collect Bill & Ted, telling them that if they beat him in a contest he will give them their lives back. Assessing their chances of winning, they resort to giving Death a melvin & escape. Bill & Ted possess two police officers (including Ted's dad) in an unsuccessful attempt to protect their fiancées, & also infiltrate a séance led by Bill's former step-mother, now Ted's current step-mother, Missy, now a New-Ager. The two are mistaken for evil spirits & are cast down to Hell.

After encountering Satan, Bill & Ted are doomed to their own personal versions of Hell. First they are menaced by the fanatic Colonel Oats (Ted barely escaped enrollment in Oats' Alaskan Military Academy in the first film). Bill & Ted split up & are subjected to some of their worst childhood memories. Bill recalls being forced to give a kiss to his vile, aged grandmother, while Ted is chastised by the Easter Bunny for stealing his brother's Easter candy. Reuniting in the tunnels of Hell, Bill & Ted figure that there is only one way out: to play the Reaper, & win.

Bill & Ted challenge Death to a variety of games, including Battleship, Clue, electric football, & Twister, all of which Bill & Ted win. Although Death proves a poor loser, he is at their command & , with his help, the three travel to Heaven to seek advice from God. After mugging three innocent souls, the trio gain entrance to Heaven by appropriating the chorus from "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison as their answer to St Peter's question, "What is the meaning of life?" Using a map they receive from God, they find the smartest scientist in the afterlife, an alien named Station who has the ability to split his body into two smaller versions of himself.

Bill, Ted, Station, & a reluctant Death return to Earth. Station builds crude "good robot" versions of Bill & Ted as they drive to the Battle of the Bands. The good robots easily defeat the evil versions, & De Nomolos arrives in the time machine booth & directly challenges Bill & Ted. The film's conclusion relies on a series of events that at first appear to be contradictory grandfather paradoxes but are resolved as overlapping predestination paradoxes.

After De Nomolos has been defeated, Bill & Ted disappear in the time machine with their fiancées to improve their musical skills. Reappearing immediately after leaving, Bill has grown a long beard & Ted a pointed goatee. Each of them has fathered a baby with their (now) wives. They then go on to play their set as the Kiss rendition of God Gave Rock 'n Roll To You is heard on the soundtrack, & the credits show various newspaper clippings suggesting they go on to shape the future in much the same way as described in the first movie.

Soundtrack
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey: Music from the Motion Picture?

Alternative endings & missing scenes
In both media, De Nomolos ends up being killed by the exploding heads of the Evil Bill & Ted. He ends up in hell, where he spends all eternity with the evil Bill & Ted.
There's also at least one scene which appears in the promo trailer for the movie, as well as the novel & graphic novel. When Bill & Ted end up in Hell after their exorcism at the hands of Missy, they initially arrive in Hell & start having to break rocks (this part also is in the "Reaper" song at the end of the movie/soundtrack). In it, a Demon pulls a rat out of its mouth, at which point Ted exclaims that he knew a guy who "got one of those in a bucket of chicken once."
In Vai's "Reaper" this is the part where the following lines happen:

"Dude, I totally broke a rock!"

"Excellent!"

"Y'know, I kinda like this!"

An alternate scene where evil Bill & Ted reveal to Joanna & Elizabeth their secret by unzipping their faces & torso & introduce that one is the evil version of the other.
Another such scene has the Evil Bill & Ted using a set of canisters from their chests to produce real-world versions of the monsters from Bill & Ted's personal Hells (the Easter Rabbit, Granny S. Preston Esq. & Colonel Oats) & prevent them from getting to the concert. These three chase Bill, Ted, the Reaper & Station down just after they collect the parts for the Good Robot Usses, & Bill & Ted realize that they have to face their fears to defeat them. In the comic book version, Bill finally kisses his grandmother, Ted phones his little brother & confesses to stealing the candy, & the pair manage to bring out Oats' sensitive side, causing each of them to vanish. In the filmed version, the pair simply refuse to show their fear, which causes the monsters to shrink into nothingness. Although this scene never takes place in the finished film, it is foreshadowed by the evil robots (they say "Good luck getting to the concert" even though they make no effort to stop them).
Finally, in the original version of the climax, Evil Bill & Ted repeatedly kill Bill & Ted after the Good Robot Usses run off. Bill & Ted force the Reaper to bring them back each time, citing the number of games they beat him at while in Hell. Part of this scene (Bill & Ted being flung across the stage) made it into the theatrical trailer.
One scene did manage to be restored for the 1996 TBS television broadcast & currently for Spike TV broadcasts (as of June 2007). This was a light hearted moment that occurs as soon as Station starts to work on "the good robot Bill & Ted" while they were on their way to the Battle of The Bands. Death switches seats with Ted & confronts Bill with the belief that he is unappreciated. Bill tries to pep talk Death by telling him it's not true, but Death is not buying it. So Bill makes it up to him by giving him a stick of gum. Death puts the gum in his mouth, wrapper & all, & immediately spits it out, replying "I don't like gum". As of this writing, this is the only deleted scene to be shown in full.

Marvel Comics adaptation
To coincide with the release of the movie, Marvel Comics released a one-shot comic book adaptation of the movie, hiring Evan Dorkin to adapt the screenplay & pencil the art (Fabian Nicieza admired Dorkin's work on Pirate Corp$!) with Stephen DeStefano, Marie Severin & Ron Boyd as inkers. Like Archie Goodwin's adaptation of A New Hope, Dorkin worked from the original script, which included many of the deleted scenes, & portrayed Death as the archetypal skeletal figure. Due to the popularity of the comic, Marvel commissioned a spin-off series, Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book, which kept the talents of Dorkin, DeStefano & Severin. The series ran for 12 issues.

Trivia
One of the bands they competed against in the Battle of the Bands was real-life California band Primus, led by Les Claypool, performing "Tommy the Cat" from their then-current album Sailing the Seas of Cheese. In addition to Primus, "Big" Jim Martin of the band Faith No More also has a cameo as a time traveling lecturer from the past addressed as "Sir James Martin".
The song heard as Wyld Stallyns perform at the competition was "God Gave Rock 'n Roll To You", which was originally performed by Argent, & later covered by KISS. It was the KISS version of the song that was used in the actual movie. The song is preceded in the film by a track by Steve Vai, which is, in fact, the only part of Wyld Stallyn's performance that is heard.
William Sadler, who plays Death, can also be seen as the British father reacting ("My word...") to De Nomolos on television. Additionally, Sadler reprised his role as Death (including the Ingmar Bergman inspired makeup & accent) in the anthology horror series Tales From the Crypt during the Crypt-Keeper bookend sequences for the episode The Assassin.
Alex Winter can also be seen in a dual role as "Granny S. Preston, Esq" (makeup effects courtesy of Kevin Yagher).
The name "De Nomolos" reversed reads "Ed Solomon", one of the film's writers.
The concept of Bill & Ted attempting to win back their lives by challenging Death to a game is a reference to the famous Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal, in which a knight plays chess with the Grim Reaper in an attempt to save his life.
The scene of Bill & Ted's death is the famous Vasquez Rocks park in Agua Dulce, California. It can also be glimpsed in "Arena", the Star Trek episode they watch on TV right before the evil android versions of Bill & Ted appear; a shot of Bill & Ted being herded up a rock formation by their evil doubles directly mirrors a scene from the episode.
Director Peter Hewitt makes a cameo as the scruffy-looking smoker in Builders' Emporium to whom Death mumbles, "See you real soon." Writers Ed Solomon (with glasses) & Chris Matheson (in white shirt) appear as New Agers at Missy's seance.
When the two "Station" aliens charge at each other & jump in the air, the cables hoisting them up are briefly visible.
The scene where Ted's mother holds a seance & Bill & Ted are mistaken for evil spirits she picks up a book entitled "The Riddance of Evil" & starts to chant these words, "D´lrow eht elur, l´liw sirhc d´na de." In reverse it says, "Ed & Chris will rule the world," referring to writers Ed Solomon & Chris Matheson.

This Website was written in November 2007

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