Bill and Ted (film): Difference between revisions

=== ''Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure'' (1989) ===

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The first film features Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan ([[Keanu Reeves]]) as two air-headed rocker kids from San Dimas, California. They're so focused on their wannabe rock band Wyld Stallyns (and so dumb) that they're in danger of failing History class and being held back. To make matters worse, Ted's authoritarian police chief father says that if that happens, Ted will be shipped off to a military academy in Alaska, breaking up the band.

=== ''Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey'' (1991) ===

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The popularity of the first film prompted MGM to release a sequel two years later. Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland), a rebel from Rufus' utopian future, wants to replace it with a militaristic [[Crapsack World]]. He plans to accomplish this by sending [[Evil Twin|Evil Robot duplicates]] into the past, where they will kill the boys, then deliver a disparaging speech worldwide at a "Battle of the Bands" concert contest and destroy Wyld Stallyns' reputation forever.

=== ''Bill & Ted 3'' (2013) ===

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In September 2010, it was announced that work had begun on a third movie ([http://io9.com/5646614/ source]). Winter and Reeves are signed on for it, as are the series' creators and writers, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon.

* [[Surfer Dude|Surfer Dudes]]: Bill and Ted are from Southern California, so their speech includes a lot of So-Cal surfer slang even though they're not surfers and San Dimas is a fair distance inland.

* [[Take That]]: In the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Bill and Ted run into Rufus at a record store, where a Take That to then-hot teenybopper group New Kids On The Block (who had a cartoon show then as well) is delivered:

'''Rufus:''' They stink. }}

* [[Trophy Wife]]: In ''Excellent Adventure'', Bill's dad has divorced his mother and gotten married to Missy, who is only three years older than his son. In ''Bogus Journey'', they have split up and now Ted's dad is the one married to Missy.

** And you'll never guess where it got the "[[Days of Our Lives|like sands from the hour glass]]" expression.

* [[Big "Shut Up!"]]:

'''Bill''': "SHUT UP, TED!" }}

* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: Rufus addresses the audience directly at the start of the film to explain the situation, and again at the end to reassure us that Bill and Ted "do get better" vis-a-vis their terrible music skills.

* [[Creator Cameo]]: Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, who created the characters and wrote the script, appear as the annoying waiters serving ice cream to Napoleon.

* [[Critical Psychoanalysis Failure]]: The police interrogator assigned to Sigmund Freud gets progressively more irritated as he talks to him. (One probably wouldn't go so far as to say he's going ''crazy,'' though.)

'''Sigmund Freud:''' ''[leans in closer]'' "Tell me about your mother." }}

* [[Crystal Spires and Togas]]: Suggested, though not really shown.

** Also, Joan of Arc's lines are in standard modern French, when she actually spoke the Limousin dialect which is somewhat different.

* [[Everything's Better with Princesses|Everything's Better With Royal English Babes]]:

'''Ted:''' "But, Bill, those... are historical babes." }}

* [[Exty Years From Now]]: Rufus dates the future scenes to 2688, just about 700 years after the movie came out.

* [[Gay Moment]]: Bill and Ted hug after Ted turns out to have not been killed by that medieval dickweed, then promptly let go and jokingly yell "Fag!" to one another.

* [[God Test]]: Invoked when Bill and Ted challenge their future selves:

''[quadruple air guitar]'' }}

* [[Historical Domain Character]]: Including [[Abraham Lincoln]], [[Ludwig Van Beethoven]], Billy the Kid, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], Sigmund Freud, [[Socrates]]...

* [[Mistaken for Profound]]: Socrates mistakes song lyrics for wisdom.

* [[The Not-So-Harmless Punishment]]: The guys enthusiastically embrace the King's order to "put them in the [[I Thought It Meant|Iron]] [[Iron Maiden|Maiden]]" with a positive "EXCELLENT!"

'''Bill and Ted:''' "BOGUS!" }}

* [[The Power of Rock]]: And how -- the music of Wyld Stallyns ushers in a worldwide golden age of peace, harmony, and awesomeness.

* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Bill lapses into one when he thinks a medieval dude killed Ted.

* [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Royal Ugly Dudes Are Bogus]]

* [[Shout-Out]]: Numerous references to 80s culture.

** Bill and Ted dress up in knightly armor and swordfight to mock [[Star Wars|lightsaber noises]].

'''Bill:''' Oh, yeah? Well, I'm Luke Bill, and you're not my father! You! }}

** After they tell Socrates that "All we are is dust in the wind, dude", he quotes the tagline for ''[[Days of Our Lives]]''.

** Rufus ''never divulges his name''. Bill and Ted learn it from their future selves. Maybe it was in that phonebook?

* [[Stylistic Suck]]: Bill and Ted's guitar skills.

* [[Tagline]]: "History is about to be rewritten by two guys who can't spell."

* [[Timey-Wimey Ball]]: Parodied like everything else. Okay, the boys have to leave on their journey, but their time moves at the same pace as them so they can't just spend comparatively weeks worth of preparation using time travel when they have to accomplish their history report by the next day. And when they are in a jam trying to get that accomplished, they figured that they could use the time booth to manipulate things to their advantage '''now''', which they would have to recreate after they finished their history report... And it ''works''.

* [[Chess with Death]]: Parodied.

* [[Confusing Multiple Negatives]]

* [[Counter Zany]]: "How do we defeat evil robot usses?" "By building ''good'' robot usses to fight them!"

* [[Covers Always Lie]]: Parodied when they complained that rock albums inaccurately portrayed hell.

* [[Creation Sequence]]: Station assembling the Good Robot Usses in the back of a moving van.

* [[Creative Closing Credits]]: The end credits resolve the story, showing their rise to fame, and ending with {{spoiler|the band heading off to perform on Mars}}.

* [[Crystal Spires and Togas]]: subverted in the sequel, where we learn that not everyone is happy to live in a future founded by a pair of hard rockers.

* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: The "Good Robot Us'es" created by Station own the "Bad Robot Us'es" created by De Nomolos. They uppercut their heads off their bodies, and a follow-up punch to the torso causes them to explode.

'''Evil Ted:''' [[Friendly Enemy|Kudos to you, good human usses!]] }}

** In a less literal sense, their Battle of the Bands entry also counts. They had the most insane intro in the history of rock music, with robots and time travel, and their band has aliens, robot backup dancers, and ''Death himself''. I honestly feel sorry for everyone who had to play before them.

* [[Don't Fear the Reaper]]: Bad attitude? Yes! Evil? No!

** Combines with [[Waxing Lyrical]] after the two beat Death and he has to lead them to Heaven.

'''Death:''' "I HEARD THAT!" }}

* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]: Colonel Oates, the head and namesake of Oates Military Academy where Ted's dad is threatening to send him in the first movie. He's only mentioned in the first film. He first appears in the sequel and doesn't seem too bad initially. However, when the duo goes to hell, the first punishment they go through is being in military school with him where he's this trope in full force and demands that they "get down and [[Up to Eleven|give me infinity]]".

** Then again, they are in ''HELL...''

* [[Earth Is the Center of the Universe]]/[[Humans Are Special]]: Mocked when Bill and Ted ask God for help in protecting their girlfriends, and are sent to meet the smartest man in the universe... who turns out to be two squat, large-nosed Martians. {{spoiler|Or one big one, depending....}}

* [[Evil Twin]]: The duo's robot duplicates.

* [[Exposed Extraterrestrials]]: Station.

* [[God Test]]: Double subverted; when the heroes' [[Evil Twin|Evil Twins]] arrive, Ted is suspicious, but Bill convinces him to trust them. Then Ted trusts his robot counterpart after it passes a [[How Many Fingers?]] test.

* [[Graceful Loser]]: Evil Bill and Evil Ted of all people, when the Good Robot Usses charge them in the climactic concert.

''(Good Robot Usses punch heads off Evil Robot Usses)'' }}

* [[The Grim Reaper]]: Starts off as a minor antagonist, but soon joins the guys. Later {{spoiler|wins the Indy 500 on foot and gets caught in a lip-syncing scandal}}.

* [[I Fell for Hours]]: Bill and Ted's long fall to Hell, which takes so long they begin playing "20 Questions" to pass the time.

** To be fair, it was a pretty short game:

'''Dead Ted:''' "''Whoa!'' Yeah!" }}

* [[If You Die, I Call Your Stuff]]

'''Dead Bill:''' "Oh. Well then they're yours, dude!" }}

* [[Ironic Echo]]: "Catch ya later, Bill and Ted!" First by the Evil Robots to Bill and Ted, then by Bill and Ted to the Evil Robots. {{spoiler|Both times, the party spoken to is about to die.}}

* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: Ties in with the [[Stable Time Loop]]. De Nomolos decides to broadcast his defeat of Bill and Ted live to the world. After he's defeated, this only ensures that Bill and Ted broadcast their first performance live all over the world, hence beginning the cycle of their music creating the future [[Utopia]].

* [[Overly Long Gag]]: When they get sent to hell.

* [[Overly Long Scream]]: Bill and Ted fall down a pit to hell, screaming the whole way, but the pit is so deep that they eventually get tired of repeatedly screaming and start playing 20 questions.

* [[Our Founder]]: Bill and Ted, in The Future.

* [[Pokémon-Speak]]: The Stations use the word "Station" for everything.

* [[The Power of Rock]]: Taken [[Up to Eleven]], as the effects of Wyld Stallyns' music are shown via a newspaper montage at the end of the film (set to [[KISS]]'s "God Gave Rock 'n Roll To You"):

Wyld Stallyns to Play Mars - "Station!" }}

* [[Really Gets Around]]: Missy was married to Bill's Dad in the first film, but has left him and married Ted's Dad by the sequel. She also flirts with Col. Oates, and the end credits reveal that she has left Ted's Dad for De Nomolos.

* [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]]: The Evil Robot Bill and Ted, who can apparently get "full-on robot chubb[ies]" from looking at a picture of the guys' girlfriends.

* [[Robotic Reveal]]: Bill punching his robotic evil twin.

* [[San Dimas Time]]: Interestingly, the sequel seems to throw this out by allowing Bill and Ted to spend 16 months to get guitar lessons, then return to the present to win the concert. This could be explained by assuming that Bill and Ted have to jump 16 months into the future after they win the concert.

** Plausible explanation: Bill and Ted take the booth sixteen months into the future, get out, and allow Future Bill & Ted (who have been in intense training ever since the concert) to get in and take the same booth back to the Battle of the Bands, while Bill and Ted wait in the future. Once their set is over, Future Bill & Ted get back in the booth, go back to their own time, and let Bill and Ted have the booth back, whereupon Bill and Ted travel back to their present San Dimas and begin sixteen months of intense training.