Main Cast: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin, Terry Camilleri, Bernie Casey, Dan Shor
Release Year: 1989
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
With only a few days before their high-school graduation, it looks like airheaded rock star wannabes Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are doomed to flunk all their finals. The boys' long-suffering teacher (Bernie Casey) gives them one more chance. If they can ace an oral exam on the topic of how a famous historical personality might react to modern times, they will be allowed to pass. If not, Ted's dad will plunk the boy into military school, thereby breaking up the boys' garage band permanently. Bill and Ted receive unexpected aid from a very unexpected source: Rufus (George Carlin), an Emissary from the Future. It seems that in Rufus' time, Bill and Ted's rock music is the basis of all society-and if their band is aborted, Rufus' world will no longer exist. Thus, Bill and Ted are whisked off in a time machine (actually a telephone booth) to retrieve a few historical characters--including Joan of Arc, Abe Lincoln, Napoleon and Beethoven--as "eyewitnesses" for their crucial oral exam. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure inspired both a sequel (Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) and a Saturday morning cartoon series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
This slacker comedy provides some good low-brow laughs and, sadly enough, delivered many teenagers some history lessons when it was released. Keanu Reeves' breakthrough role as the loveable dunce Ted resulted in typecasting that would plague his career until The Matrix. The film aggravated some educators with its frivolous treatment of academia but brought praise from others for making history fun and palatable. It also stamped words like "bogus" and "gnarley" firmly into the '80s slang lexicon. George Carlin's appearance as the time-traveler Rufus adds a little comedic legitimacy to this little film, which essentially boils down to engaging and well-paced silly, mindless fun with a fairly well-written script. The legacy of Bill and Ted can be traced to the slacker comedies of Adam Sandler, and the film itself was popular enough to spawn an ill-fated sequel and a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon. ~ Mike DiBella, All Movie Guide
Tony Steedman - Socrates; Roi Loomis - Sigmund Freud; Jane Wiedlin - Joan of Arc; Robert V. Barron - Abraham Lincoln; Clifford David - Ludwig van Beethoven; Hal Landon, Jr. - Capt. Logan; Amy Stock-Poynton - Missy/Mom; J. Patrick McNamara - Mr. Preston; Ron Althoff - Security Guard; Diane Franklin - Princess Joanna; Marjean Holden - Student Speaker; John Karlsen - Evil Duke; Kimberley Kates - Princess Elizabeth; Al Leong - Genghis Khan; Duncan McLeod - Bartender; Lisa Rubin - Girl at Mall; Fee Waybill - One of "The Three Most Important People In The World"; Clarence Clemons - One of "The Three Most Important People in; Martha Davis - One of "The Three Most Important People in; Chris Matheson - Ugly Waiter; Ed Solomon - Stupid Waiter; Tom Dugan - 2nd Neanderthal; Tony Camilieri; Frazier Bain - Deacon; James Bowbitch - John the Serf; John Clure - Tatooed Cowboy; Traci Dawn Davis - Jody; Jeff S. Goodrich - Music Store Salesman; Carol Gossler - Aerobic Instructor; Anne Machette - Buffy; Dusty O'Dee - Old West Ugly Dude; Mark Ogden - 1st Neanderthal; Heather Pittman - Kerry; Ruth Pittman - Daphne; Steve Rotblatt - Police Psychiatrist; Steve Shepherd - Randolf; Claudia Templeton - Aerobic Saleswoman; Jim Cody Williams - Bearded Cowboy; Stanzi Stokes; Richard Alexander - Bowling Alley Manager; William Robbins - Ox
Credit
Gordon White - Art Director, Glenis S. Gross - Casting, Brad Jeffries - Choreography, Scott Kroopf - Co-producer, Joel Soisson - Co-producer, Jill M. Ohanneson - Costume Designer, Stephen Herek - Director, Larry Bock - Editor, Partick Rand - Editor, David Newman - Composer (Music Score), Daniel Marc - Makeup, Roy Forge Smith - Production Designer, Tim Suhrstedt - Cinematographer, Robert W. Cort - Producer, Stephen Deutsch - Producer, Ted Field - Producer, Michael S. Murphey - Producer, Jennifer Williams - Set Designer, Barry Nolan - Special Effects, Dan Bradley - Stunts, Chris Matheson - Screenwriter, Ed Solomon - Screenwriter
Bill and Ted's girlfriends have been kidnapped. Fortunately, they left a series of musical notes to mark their path. Now, the righteous duo must travel through time and space looking for these notes to find their girlfriends in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, a 2D overhead adventure based on the 1989 movie starring Keanu Reeves. Bill and Ted arrive in each era in their time-traveling phone booth, with the goal of collecting the musical notes scattered in the stage. After collecting enough notes, new time eras are unlocked. Along the way, players must also collect other items to unlock puzzles blocking access to certain stage areas, so carry an inventory of items for the future. Levels contain a variety of enemies, who can kill with one touch. While players can't kill the enemies, they can try to subdue them using certain musical instruments. Two players can link together to play as the game's two characters simultaneously.
~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Roots & Influences
The characters in the game are based on the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Overall
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure looks awful, its sounds are bland and repetitive, and the plot sounds dumb, which should be enough for most gamers to skip this title. Moreover, while the poor presentation does hide some decent puzzle gaming, too many bad factors simply outweigh any enjoyment you may derive from the puzzles.
For a pair of musicians, Bill and Ted's musical selection is pretty sparse. There are no sound effects to speak of, and only one song recycled throughout the game, remixed or redone with different instruments. It's not a bad song at first, but after you hear it over and over, it'll start to gnaw on your subconscious and slowly begin to annoy you. Your best bet is to simply turn the sound off and play other music before hurling your Lynx across the room.
The graphics consist of an overhead view similar to The Legend of Zelda on the NES, except that The Legend of Zelda's graphics don't suck. Everything is poorly drawn, and half the time you won't be able to tell who or what the enemies are supposed to be. Even the animation quality for characters and enemies is poor; instead of seeing your character walk across the screen, an ugly sprite is redrawn over and over while the ground scrolls. And scrolling is choppy.
The game's controls are in the same abysmal shape as its graphics. Bill and Ted cannot take small steps or edge along. The map is tile-based, and your character must be on one tile or another. Therefore, if you're walking along and want to change course midway, you have to wait until your character moves fully into the new tile before turning. This noticeable delay is just annoying at first, but when you're navigating tight spaces and repeatedly die because of the delay, it becomes frustrating.
Finally, most of the gameplay is boring -- you run around collecting things so you can open up more areas where you can collect more things. You can't even fight back against the enemies; the best you can do is try to subdue them using musical instruments.
However, if you can get past the shoddy graphics, lame sound, unresponsive controls and boring gameplay, you might actually enjoy the puzzles that revolve around manipulating objects throughout time. A puzzle might be solved by using an object acquired in another time, while another might revolve around solving time paradoxes by moving objects through time. Still, given the game's staggering depth of problems, most gamers won't find it worthwhile.
~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Enjoyment
Some interesting puzzle ideas are submerged beneath unresponsive controls and gopher-type gameplay.
~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Graphics
Ugly, squashed graphics with choppy scrolling.
~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Sound
The one song in the game isn't bad, but it will start to grate you after hearing it and its variations over and over and over.
~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Replay Value
Once you go through the game, there's not much point doing it again.
The film opens in the future San Dimas, California, with Rufus (George Carlin) preparing to use a time-traveling phone booth to travel back to 1988 to make sure that Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore "Ted" Logan (Keanu Reeves) remain together as the band "Wyld Stallyns", as their music is the core of the future's Utopian society. Rufus finds that Bill and Ted are on the verge of failing their high school history class, and should Ted fail, his father, police captain Logan (Hal Langdon) will ship him off to an Alaskanmilitary academy, effectively ending the pair's dreams of forming a band. As the two try to write a history report by asking customers questions at a local Circle K, Rufus introduces himself to them. Though Bill and Ted are skeptical of Rufus' claims, they are convinced when future versions of themselves land nearby and explain the situation to them. Rufus shows Bill and Ted how the time machine works by taking them back to see Napoleon Bonaparte (Terry Camilleri) preparing for battle. Rufus returns to the present and leaves the two with the time machine; after Rufus leaves, they discover that Napoleon was dragged with them back to the present, and get an idea: to pass their history exam, they will go back in time and kidnap other historical figures and have them explain what they think of the San Dimas of the present. Bill and Ted leave Napoleon with Ted's younger brother Deacon while they travel back to the past.
Bill and Ted first collect Billy the Kid (Dan Shor) and Socrates (Tony Steedman) (whom they refer to as "So-Crates" (English pronunciation: /ˈsoʊkreɪts/)), who are both confused but eager to help the pair. When they travel to 15th Century England, they become smitten with Princess Elizabeth (Kimberley Kates) and Princess Joanna (Diane Franklin), but fall into trouble with their father the King; they manage to escape with the help of Billy and Socrates and continue traveling through time. Soon, they have collected Sigmund Freud (Rod Loomis), Ludwig van Beethoven (Clifford David), Genghis Khan (Al Leong), Joan of Arc (Jane Wiedlin), and Abraham Lincoln (Robert V. Barron). The passengers encounter brief technical difficulties, and when attempting to return to the present, end up returning on the previous day outside the Circle K with Rufus introducing himself to their past selves. Bill and Ted recount their experience to their past selves, and learn how to properly return to the present from Rufus in order to give their history report on time.
While trying to get the other historical figures accustomed to life in San Dimas by dropping them off at the local shopping mall, Ted learns that Deacon abandoned Napoleon at a bowling alley the night before. Bill and Ted go off to search for him, finding him enjoying himself at a local water park, "Waterloo". When they return to the mall, they find the other historical figures have been arrested by Ted's father due to the chaos they caused. The two try to figure out how to rescue them when they realize they can use the time machine to go back in time and plant elements, such as the cell keys, at the police station for their escape plan. They successfully free the historical figures and make it to the school on time for their report. The report is an outstanding success, and the two pass their course.
The influential historical figures are all returned to their own time, seeding Bill and Ted's philosophy throughout time.
In the closure of the film, Rufus joins Bill and Ted as they practice and congratulates them on their report. Rufus brings in Princesses Elizabeth and Joanna, whom he rescued from their father (and from getting married to those royal ugly dudes), and explains that he's introduced them to the modern century, and that they too are destined to be part of Wyld Stallyns. As the four begin to play an amateurish cacophony of music, Rufus breaks the fourth wall and assures us that "they do get better".
The film was shot in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area, mostly in and around Coronado High School in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1987. The school itself is near Oak St. and Scottsdale Road. Much of Coronado went through a renovation between 2005 and 2007 and the auditorium setting for the final-report scene was torn down. However, the intricate mosaic (seen in an opening scene when Bill and Ted leave from school in a red Mustang) on the outside of the auditorium was saved piece by piece and moved to the new auditorium.[citation needed]
The setting for Waterloo was the Golfland Sunsplash water park at the intersection of Arizona Highway 87 and the US 60 freeway in Mesa. (In reality, there is a water park in San Dimas, but not named "Waterloo.") The bowling alley was then a non-franchised locally-owned alley, and is now the AMF Tempe Village Lanes located on Rural Road at US 60 freeway, three miles south of Arizona State University. The mall was Phoenix Metrocenter located on Peoria Avenue at Interstate 17. The mall has since been renovated and no longer looks as it did in the film. The Circle K store is located at the intersection of Southern and Hardy in Tempe.[2][3]
Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson make appearances in the film during the ice cream scene. Ed is credited as the 'Stupid' waiter, and Chris is credited as the 'Ugly' waiter. They are given similar credits in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.
During the shot of Rufus' hands playing his guitar solo, the actual hands are those of Stevie Salas the composer of all the guitar work featured within the film.[citation needed]
The film was actually made and planned for release in 1987, but due to the bankruptcy of the film's original distributor, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, the project was not released theatrically until February 17, 1989. As a partial result of the delay, certain dates in the film originally scripted as "1987" had to be redubbed as "1988". The copyright date of this film is 1988 and the same date appears on the DVD cover. It was followed in 1991 by a sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.
Origins of Bill & Ted
The characters of Bill & Ted were created and played by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon in improv theater (originally, it was "Bill, Ted & Bob" although the third character was eventually dropped). Matheson and Solomon have described Bill & Ted as an idealized 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 film, 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 and historical figures Bill and Ted plucked from history included Charlemagne (whom they referred to as "Charlie Mangay"), Babe Ruth, and a non-famous medieval person called "John the Serf". John is listed in the credits.[4]
In the original ending, Bill and Ted delivered their oral report in the classroom, with the historical figures displaying their views on the blackboard.[citation needed]
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. Its similarity to the time-traveling British police box-shaped TARDIS of the BBC's television programme Doctor Who is reflected in the Cracked parody in which the Doctor threatens to sue Rufus.
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack was released in 1989. The tracks are as follows:
Animated series: The first, an animated series ran on CBS in 1990, featured the voices of Carlin, Winter, and Reeves returning to their roles in the film. This season ran for 13 episodes and was produced by Hanna-Barbera. However, in 1991, a second season of 8 additional episodes ran on Fox Kids but was produced by Dic with none of the original cast.
Live action series: A later live-action series, featuring none of the cast from the film, included Evan Richards as Bill and Christopher Kennedy as Ted (reprising their roles from the Dic season of the cartoon), and lasted seven episodes in 1992 on Fox.
A one-shot comic book adaptation of the sequel was published to coincide with the second film's release. It's popularity led to the series Bill and Ted's Excellent Comic Book by Evan Dorkin and produced by Marvel Comics.
Video games
There were also Game Boy, NES and Atari Lynx games released, which were very loosely based on the film's plot. A PC title and nearly identical Amiga and Commodore 64 port were made in 1991 by Off the Wall Productions and IntraCorp, Inc. under contract by Capstone Software and followed the original film very closely.
Legacy
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was a financial success, grossing $40.4 million domestically on a budget of about $10 million.[7] It has become something of a cult classic. The film has an 81% freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 reviews.[8]
Both the success of the film and the animated series spawned a short-lived breakfast cereal using new animation for the commercial: Bill & Ted's Excellent Cereal.
The phone booth used in this film 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.[9][10]
Since 1992, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure" has been performed at the Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood 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 and Ted being threatened by an evil villain from a popular film of that year, with appearances by a host of villains, heroes, and celebrities. The show usually includes elaborate dance numbers, stunts, and multiple double-entendres for the late night event crowd.[11][12]
