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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Promotional one-sheet poster.
Directed by	Peter Hewitt
Produced by	Scott Kroopf
Written by	Chris Matheson Ed Solomon
Starring	Keanu Reeves Alex Winter William Sadler Joss Ackland George Carlin
Music by	David Newman
Distributed by	Orion Pictures
Release date(s)	July 19, 1991
Running time	93 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20,000,000
Gross revenue	$38,037,513 (domestic)[1]
Preceded by	Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

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 "Theodore" Logan and Alex Winter as Bill S. Preston Esq. The film's original working title was Bill & Ted Go To Hell.

Plot

The movie opens in the future, where Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) steals a time traveling phone booth, and then sends robotic duplicates of Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) back to the past to prevent their band Wyld Stallyns from winning the Fourth Annual San Dimas Battle of the Bands, and thus removing their influence on history. Rufus (George Carlin) attempts to stop De Nomolos' plan but ends up lost in time. In the present, Bill and Ted struggle with their band Wyld Stallyns; while former 15th-century princesses and current fiancées Elizabeth (Annette Azcuy) and Joanna (Sarah Trigger) have become skilled on their instruments, Bill and Ted are still inept. De Nomolos' robots capture Bill and Ted, and kill the pair by throwing them over a cliff (the same cliff shown in Star Trek earlier in the film), then take over their lives, including ruining their relationships with the princesses.

The real Bill and Ted find themselves facing Death (William Sadler), the Grim Reaper, who challenges them to a game for their souls. They realize they have no chance of defeating him, and instead give Death a "melvin" and flee. Bill and Ted try to find someone that can help them in their ethereal state, first by possessing Ted's father, Captain Logan (Hal Landon Jr.) — "I totally possessed my Dad!" — and another police officer (Roy Brocksmith), and then by trying to call out at a séance held by Ted's stepmother Missy (Amy Stock-Poynton). However, at the séance, they are mistaken for evil spirits and cast down into Hell. The two are sentenced by Satan (voiced by Frank Welker) and forced to live their own personal versions of Hell. The two realize their only means of escape is to play the Reaper in a game for their souls.

The Reaper brings them out of Hell, and lets them decide which game to play. The pair select several games, including Battleship, Clue, electric football, and Twister, each time winning and requiring the Reaper to insist on a rematch. Eventually the Reaper acquiesces and lets the pair command him. Bill and Ted realize that the only way to face their robotic counterparts and get to the Battle of the Bands is to find the smartest being alive to build them a more powerful set of robots. The Reaper takes them to Heaven and introduces him to Station (also voiced by Frank Welker), an alien that is able to split itself into two smaller versions of itself. The group returns to present-day Earth, and gather the necessary parts for Station at the local hardware store. As they race to the Battle of the Bands, Station completes powerful robotic versions of Bill and Ted. Station's robots are able to defeat De Nomolos' clones before Wyld Stallyns are due to take the stage. De Nomolos arrives from the future in the time machine, intent on defeating the band himself over a worldwide television broadcast, but Bill and Ted are able to get the upper hand with the time game rules and their friends' help. Rufus, who was able to return to the future and then travel to the present, helps to secure De Nomolos while encouraging Bill and Ted to get on stage and play.

As Bill and Ted reunite with their fiancées and prepare to play, they realize that their musical skills still are lacking, and the four of them disappear briefly in the time machine, reappearing moments later but aged 16 months; during their time, they have not only learned how to skillfully play their instruments but both couples have married and borne a child. Wyld Stallyns, joined by both the Reaper and Station, play their world-changing music to a global television audience thanks to De Nomolos' interference. During the end credits, fictional newspaper and magazine articles describe the worldwide impact of the Stallyns' music towards the Utopian future.

Cast

• Alex Winter as William "Bill" S. Preston Esq. and Evil Bill
• Keanu Reeves as Ted "Theodore" Logan and Evil Ted
• Joss Ackland as De Nomolos
• William Sadler as Death
• George Carlin as Rufus
• Pam Grier as Ms. Wardroe
• Annette Azcuy as Elizabeth
• Sarah Trigger as Joanna
• Ed Gale, Arturo Gil, and Tom Allard as Station

Soundtrack

When Bill and Ted are asked "What is the meaning of life?" they reply with the lyrics from "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison.

Alternative endings and missing scenes

• In both media, De Nomolos ends up being killed by the exploding heads of the Evil Bill and Ted. He ends up in hell, where he spends all eternity with the evil Bill and Ted.
• There's also at least one scene which appears in the promo trailer for the movie, as well as the novel and graphic novel. When Bill and Ted end up in Hell after their exorcism at the hands of Missy, they initially arrive in Hell and 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 and Ted reveal to Joanna and Elizabeth their secret by unzipping their faces and torso and introduce that Evil Bill is actually Evil Ted and vice versa. (In the theatrical version of the movie, there is an extra set of Bill and Ted clothes in the corner while the evil Wyld Stallyns are carrying off Joanna and Elizabeth. These clothes are the unzipped costumes of the switcheroo.)
• Another such scene has the Evil Bill and Ted using a set of canisters from their chests to produce real-world versions of the monsters from Bill and Ted's personal Hells (the Easter Rabbit, Granny S. Preston Esq. and Colonel Oats) and prevent them from getting to the concert. These three chase Bill, Ted, the Reaper and Station down just after they collect the parts for the Good Robot Usses, and Bill and 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 and confesses to stealing the candy, and 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, losers!" even though they make no effort to stop them).
• Finally, in the original version of the climax, Evil Bill and Ted repeatedly kill Bill and Ted after the Good Robot Usses run off. Bill and 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 and 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 and 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 and Ted" while they were on their way to the Battle of The Bands. Death switches seats with Ted and 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 and all, and 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 and pencil the art. Like Archie Goodwin's adaptation of the first Star Wars film, Dorkin worked from the original script, which included many of the deleted scenes, and 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 and Severin. The series ran for 12 issues, featuring original stories. The first arc features negative results from Death's decision to take a vacation.

Production notes

• The name "De Nomolos" reversed reads "Ed Solomon", one of the film's writers.
• The scene where Ted's step-mother holds a seance and Bill and Ted are mistaken for evil spirits she picks up a book entitled The Riddance of Evil and starts to chant these words, "D´lrow eht elur, l´liw sirhc d´na de." In reverse it says, "Ed and Chris will rule the world," referring to writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson.

Cameos

• One of the bands competing 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".
• 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 and accent) in the anthology horror series Tales From the Crypt during the Crypt-Keeper bookend sequences for the episode "The Assassin." Sadler had previously appeared in the series' first episode "The Man Who Was Death", starred in "Demon Knight" and had a cameo in the film Bordello of Blood as The Mummy. William Sadler also portrayed Luther Sloan of Section 31 in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. William Sadler also portrayed the villain Colonel Stewart in the film Die Hard 2.
• Alex Winter himself plays "Granny S. Preston, Esq." (makeup effects by Kevin Yagher).
• 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) and Chris Matheson (in white shirt) appear as New Agers at Missy's seance. Ed is credited as 'Stupid' seance member, and Chris is credited as 'Ugly' seance member. They are given similar credits in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Film references

• The concept of Bill and 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.
• In the scene where Bill and Ted are addressing God, there are two statues at the base of the staircase. One is of Michael Powell and the other is of David Niven, a homage to Powell and Pressburger's 1946 afterlife classic A Matter of Life and Death (known in the US as Stairway to Heaven). The vast white expanse of stairs is also a visual homage to the memorable stairway in this film.
• The scene of Bill and Ted's death takes place at the often filmed Vasquez Rocks park in Agua Dulce, California, which can also be glimpsed in "Arena", the Star Trek episode they watch on TV right before the evil androids appear. A shot of Bill and Ted being herded up a rock formation by their evil doubles directly mirrors a scene from the episode.

Sequel

A third theatrical film of the Bill and Ted franchise was planned, and a screenplay was written. Although it never got past the pre-production phase, a large portion of the script, and overall concept, was adapted into the 1996 film Bio-Dome.^[2]

References

External links

• BillAndTed.org, official fansite
• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey at Allmovie
• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey at Rotten Tomatoes

From Wikiquote

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 "Theodore" Logan and Alex Winter as Bill S. Preston Esq. The film's original working title was Bill & Ted Go To Hell.

Directed by Peter Hewitt. Written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon

Evil Ted

• I got a full-on robot chubby.

Marriage Proposal

Ted: Your probably noticed we haven't given you our gifts yet.

Bill: That's because...

Ted: Um...

Bill: Um...

Bill and Ted: 'scuse us dude.

[Bill and Ted take their girlfriends to opposite sides of the pool]

Bill: [Takes out a folded piece of paper from his pocket] I wrote this myself.

Ted: [Also takes out a folded piece of paper from his pocket] I wrote this last night.

Ted: [Begins to read] Elizabeth.

Bill: [Also begins to read] Joanna.

[The two talk simultaneously]

Bill: As I wander through this dark and lonely forest of life, surrounded by various beasts... Bears, vipers, squirrels. Not to mention small tree growing lichen, woodpeckers, slugs, gila monsters. Oh no, that's the desert.

Ted: As I swim through this dark and fearful sea of existence, surrounded by various creatures... Sharks, eels, yellowtail, and also barnacles, and algae, man-o-wars, starfish, blowfish, catfish. Uh oooh, that's fresh water.

Bill: The point is, I know we promised you a better life.

Ted: What mean is we told you the future had some really good stuff.

Bill: But all that stuff hasn't happened.

Bill and Ted: But it will, I hope.

Ted: The day after tomorrow, if things work out...

Bill: What I mean is....

Bill and Ted: [Turn to each other and give a shrug. Then turn back to their girlfriends.]

Ted: Will you...

Bill: ...Marry us.

Elizabeth: Theodore...

Joanna: ...I'd love to.

Bill and Ted: [Smile, take out a plastic pink and purple heart ring. Holds it up for the other see that they suceeded, and then places it on their respective girlfriend's finger. They then give a quick air guitar to the other, and receive a kiss on the cheek by their girlfriends.]

Dialogue with the Grim Reaper

• You sunk my battleship!
• Don't overlook my butt, I work out all the time. And reaping burns a lot of calories.

Grim Reaper: I believe Colonel Mustard did it in the study with a candlestick.

Dead Bill: Sorry, death, you lose! It was Professor Plum!

Grim Reaper: I said Plum!

Dead Ted: No way! You said Mustard! Can we go back now?

Grim Reaper: Uh, best three out of five!

Dead Ted: I don't believe this guy!

Bill: Hey Ted. Don't fear the reaper.

[air guitar]

Grim Reaper: I heard that!

Taglines

• Once... they made history. Now... they are history.
• Bill & Ted party on!
• It's a trip.
• Whoa dude! Pressed hams!

Cast

• Keanu Reeves - Ted Logan; Evil Ted
• Alex Winter - Bill S. Preston, Esq.; Granny Preston; Evil Robot Bill
• William Sadler - Grim Reaper
• Joss Ackland - Chuck De Nomolos
• Pam Grier - Ms. Wardroe
• George Carlin - Rufus
• "Big" Jim Martin - Sir. James Martin

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey at Rotten Tomatoes