The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

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The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Theatrical poster
Directed by W. D. Richter
Produced by W. D. Richter
Neil Canton
Written by Earl Mac Rauch
Starring Peter Weller
John Lithgow
Ellen Barkin
Jeff Goldblum
Christopher Lloyd
Lewis Smith
Music by Michael Boddicker
Cinematography Fred J. Koenekamp
Editing by George Bowers
Richard Marks
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) August 15, 1984
Running time 103 minutes
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Gross revenue $3,665,306
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! (also more simply referred to as Buckaroo Banzai) is a science fiction film that has reached cult film status. It was released in 1984, directed and produced by W. D. Richter and it stars Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum and Clancy Brown. The film is a cross between the action/adventure and science-fiction movie genres, and also includes elements of comedy, satire, and romance. It is also made to feel like one in a series of movies, by the use of ongoing allusions to other characters, adventures and events.

Contents

[edit] Tagline

  • Beings from Another Dimension have invaded your world. You can't see them...but they can see you. Your only hope is Buckaroo Banzai.

[edit] Plot

Buckaroo Banzai spans roughly 50 years and begins in the middle of the story. It doesn't fill in some of the earliest parts of the story until the viewpoint characters themselves unravel the mystery — roughly halfway through the movie. In its essentials, the plot concerns the efforts of the multi-talented Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (whose careers include physicist, neurosurgeon, Samurai, rock musician, Jet Car driver and comic book hero) to save the world by defeating a band of inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids.

The theatrical release version of the film opens with Banzai (Weller) performing a test-run of his Jet Car, a heavily modified pickup truck powered by a jet engine and capable of exceeding Mach 1. The car is also equipped with a device called an oscillation overthruster, which allows it to drive through solid matter. The test is a success; Banzai stuns onlookers by driving the Jet Car directly through a mountain. Emerging from the mountain, Banzai finds that an alien, pod-like organism has attached itself to the car during transit.

Hearing of Banzai's success, Italian physicist Dr. Emilio Lizardo (Lithgow) breaks out of the New Jersey insane asylum where he's been imprisoned for some years. In a flashback sequence, we learn that Banzai's assistant and mentor, Dr. Hikita (Robert Ito), was present at a failed overthruster experiment of Lizardo's in 1938. Failing to transit through the target wall, Lizardo is briefly trapped in the 8th dimension where his mind is taken over by Lord John Whorfin, hence his current diagnosis of a delusional disorder.

Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) salutes his Black Lectroid ally as he descends under parachute at the end of the movie.
Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) salutes his Black Lectroid ally as he descends under parachute at the end of the movie.

Whorfin is the leader of the Red Lectroids, a race of alien reptiles, who he had led on an expansionist campaign on Planet 10. After being defeated by the peace-loving Black Lectroids, Whorfin and his band of followers were banished into the formless void of the 8th dimension. Lizardo's failed experiment accidentally released Whorfin, where despite being trapped in Lizardo's body, he maintains his leadership of the Red Lectroids. He soon brings over a thousand of them to Earth in an incident that was reported by Orson Welles in his radio broadcast The War of the Worlds, only to have it mistaken as fiction.

These Red Lectroids now pose as employees of a defense contracting company named Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. They have been working on building a large spacecraft under the cover of a US Air Force program, the "truncheon bomber," and intend to rescue the remaining exiles in the 8th dimension, then travel on to Planet 10 and take over. The lack of a working overthruster was a problem until Banzai manages to produce one, and Whorfin hopes to steal it. Banzai's team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, becomes aware of the Yoyodyne link, and hacks into their computer. They discover that everyone there has the first name John, with various last names such as Yaya, Smallberries, and Bigbooté. At first they think it's a joke, but then they also note that they all have the same birthday, the same date as the The War of the Worlds broadcast. They deduce the connection between Lizardo, Yoyodyne and the Lectroids, and inform Banzai.

In the meantime, a Black Lectroid spacecraft orbiting Earth contacts Banzai, giving him a cryptic nonverbal message that enables him to see through Lectroids' natural pheromonic camouflage. (To unassisted humans, Black Lectroids appear to be Rastafarian Jamaicans, while Red Lectroids appear as caucasians.) The ship also sends a "thermo-pod" to Earth, with a messenger who brings Banzai a holographic message from the Black Lectroids' leader, explaining Lord Whorfin's history and motives, and giving an ultimatum: stop Whorfin and his Red Lectroid army, or the Black Lectroids will protect themselves by staging a fake nuclear attack and letting the U.S. and USSR destroy the world in a burst of Cold War paranoia.

With help from the Black Lectroid messenger John Parker, and his usual posse of helpers ("those hard-rockin' scientists, the Hong Kong Cavaliers"), Buckaroo succeeds in his mission, destroying the Red Lectroids and saving Earth.

During the end credits, there is a screen title proclaiming the upcoming sequel Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League (see below).

[edit] Cast and characters

[edit] Buckaroo Banzai

Main article: Buckaroo Banzai

Buckaroo Banzai is a renaissance man, a top neurosurgeon, particle physicist, race car driver, rock star and comic book hero. In the film, his latest experiments open the door to the 8th dimension and unwittingly start an interstellar battle for the world.

[edit] The Hong Kong Cavaliers

The Hong Kong Cavaliers are the assistants of Buckaroo Banzai in the movie, and are similar to Doc Savage's Fabulous Five.

They reside at the Banzai Institute, a think-tank located in Holland Township, New Jersey. They are experts in a variety of fields and also are his rock and roll band. They are referred to by code names or nicknames and, except for New Jersey, their real names are unknown.

  • Rawhide (Clancy Brown) is arguably Buckaroo's lieutenant, and plays bass guitar.
  • Reno Nevada (Pepe Serna) plays saxophone.
  • Perfect Tommy (Lewis Smith) plays rhythm guitar, and is generally accepted to be perfect.
  • New Jersey (Jeff Goldblum), whose real name is Dr. Sidney Zweibel, is a neurosurgeon colleague of Dr. Banzai from Columbia. He sings a little, dances and plays piano.

In addition to the Hong Kong Cavaliers, Buckaroo Banzai is assisted by a network of supporters and fans. The Radar Rangers are an amateur radar enthusiast group that helps Buckaroo track major threats. The Blue Blaze Irregulars are people of all ages and from all walks of life and help in various ways. Their organization includes assault teams in its structure. Pinky Carruthers (Billy Vera) is a member. The Rug Suckers are a team of armed civilians who operate a rug cleaning company, but are available to help Banzai when called on.

[edit] Production

W. D. Richter and writer Earl Mac Rauch met through the Dartmouth College Alumni magazine.[1] He had read a review of a book that Mac Rauch had written called Arkansas Adios, then bought and read it. Richter enjoyed the book so much that he wrote Mac Rauch a letter asking permission to adapt it into a film.[2] Mac Rauch was flattered and agreed. The two men began corresponding and when the writer told him about his interest in becoming a screenwriter, Richter offered him an open-ended invite to visit him in Los Angeles where was he was attending the University of Southern California[1] and working as a script analyst for Warner Brothers.[2]

Years passed and Richter became a successful screenwriter. Mac Rauch took Richter up on his offer and arrived in L.A. Richter proceeded to introduce the writer to producer/director Irwin Winkler who gave Mac Rauch rent money for the next six months.[1] Over several dinners, Mac Rauch told Richter and his wife about a character named Buckaroo Bandy that he was thinking of writing a screenplay about.[1] Richter and his wife liked the idea and paid Mac Rauch $1,500 to develop and write it. According to MacRauch, his script was inspired by "all those out-and-out, press-the-accelerator-to-the-floor, non-stop kung fu movies of the early '70s."[3] Richter remembers, "Mac's working technique then was sort of improvisational. He would write 30 pages and then give them to us. We'd comment on them, and he'd take them away and so radically alter them no matter what we said that he'd come back with a new storyline, new characters."[1] Mac Rauch recalled, "It's so easy to start something and then - since you're really not as serious about it as you should be - end up writing half of it...You shove the hundred pages in a drawer and try to forget about it. Over the years, I started a dozen Buckaroo scripts that ended that way."[2]

Mac Rauch's original 30-page treatment was entitled, Find the Jetcar, Said the President - A Buckaroo Banzai Thriller.[2] Early on, one of the revisions Mac Rauch made was changing Buckaroo's surname from Bandy to Banzai but he wasn't crazy about it.[1] However, Richter convinced him to keep the name.[1] The Hong Kong Cavaliers also appeared in these early drafts, but, according to Richter, "it never really went to a completed script. Mac wrote and wrote but never wrote the end."[1] Another early draft was entitled, The Strange Case of Mr. Cigars, about a huge robot and a box of Hitler's cigars.[2] Mac Rauch shelved his work for a few years while he wrote New York, New York for Martin Scorsese and other un-produced screenplays.[2]

In 1979, Richter and business partner Neil Canton formed their own production company and decided that Buckaroo Banzai would be the first film. Under their supervision, Mac Rauch wrote a 60-page treatment entitled, Lepers from Saturn.[2] He completed the first draft of the screenplay in 1982 and Richter and Canton shopped it around to all the Hollywood studios.[2] The esoteric content turned-off all of them but one. Sidney Beckerman, a production executive at MGM/United Artists liked it and introduced Richter and Canton to studio chief David Begelmen. Within 24 hours they had a development deal with the studio.[2]

However, a Writers Guild of America strike forced the project to languish in development hell for more than a year. Begelmen left MGM because several of his projects had performed poorly at the box office. This put all of his future projects, Buckaroo Banzai included, in jeopardy.[2] Begelmen formed Sherwood Productions and exercised a buy-out option with MGM for the Banzai script. He took it to 20th Century Fox who agreed to make it. MacRauch ended up writing three more drafts before they had a shooting script.[3]

For the role of Buckaroo Banzai, the studio wanted a recognizable movie star but Richter and Canton wanted to cast a relative unknown actor.[2] They decided on Peter Weller who was hesitant, at first, to take the role because he was unclear on the overall tone of the movie. "Would it be campy? Would it be a cartoon? Or would it be the sort of wacky, realistic film that would catch people sideways - and not be a cartoon," Weller remembers.[2] The actor met with Richter who told him Banzai's story and convinced Weller to do the film. For the role of Dr. Emilio Lizardo, the studio wanted to cast an unknown actor but Mac Rauch had written the role with John Lithgow in mind. Like Weller, he wasn't sure about the character but Richter convinced him by "claiming what a real feast for an actor this wonderful Jekyll and Hyde character was," the actor said.[2]

By the time of filming, Richter had a 300-page book called The Essential Buckaroo[1] that consisted of notes and had every incomplete script Mac Rauch wrote over the years.[2] Principal photography began during the second week of September 1983 on locations in and around Southgate, an industrial suburb of L.A.[2] The interiors of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems were shot in an abandoned Firestone Tire Factory.[2] The jetcar sequences were shot in October on a dry lake north the San Bernardino Mountains.[2] Finally, additional shots were done on the backlot and soundstages at 20th Century Fox.[2]

Weller remembers that during the scene where his character is tortured by Dr. Lizardo, "I never laughed so hard in my life! They had to stop takes on that segment over and over because of the banter between [Christopher] Lloyd and [John] Lithgow."[4]

During the post-production stage, Richter cut out the prologue that introduced Buckaroo's parents and, at the suggestion of the studio, toned down some of the comedy.

[edit] Reaction

Fox hired Terry Erdmann and a team of publicists to promote the film at Star Trek conventions with a few film clips and free Banzai headbands which have now become highly sought after collector's items by fans of the film.[2] The studio made no attempts to sell the film to a mainstream audience with traditional promotion. Studio publicist Rosemary LaSalmandra said, "Nobody knew what to do with Buckaroo Banzai. There was no simple way to tell anyone what it was about - I'm not sure anybody knew."[2]

The film was originally scheduled to be released on June 8, 1984 but was pushed back to August 15. It opened on 356 screens and faced stiff competition against the likes of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Ghostbusters.

Buckaroo Banzai has since attracted a loyal cult following and was quite popular on home video.[5] Richter said, "It has had the most dramatic reactions of anything I've worked on. Some loathe it and others are willing to die for it."[5] The director feels that the film failed commercially because the narrative was too complex, he would have liked to have had more coverage for certain scenes, he could have edited the film better and there were too many master shots and two-shots that left little for the editor to work with.[5]

[edit] Other versions of the movie

A substantially longer print was shown in test screening in Texas and in Washington State before general release, but the "restored" DVD print is still missing much of the test print material.

The DVD of the film restores a deleted opening scene consisting of a "home movie" from Buckaroo Banzai's childhood, narrated by Clancy Brown, who plays the character Rawhide. The scene depicts an early test of a precursor to the Jet Car, built by Buckaroo's parents and Dr. Hikita. The test ends in disaster, as the Jet Car has been sabotaged by the evil Hanoi Xan, leader of the World Crime League. The "home movie" ends, and dissolves to the present-day opening scene of the film depicting Buckaroo's test run of the latter-day Jet Car. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Buckaroo Banzai's mother, Sandra Banzai.

The novelization by Mac Rauch is told through fake documents written and compiled by Reno Nevada, and further expands on the backstory of the film, including the murder of Peggy Banzai (her twin sister Penny plays a role in the movie) by the minions of Asian crime lord Hanoi Xan, the deaths of Buckaroo's parents in an early Jet Car accident, and at least two other fictitious novels.

The 103 minute version released on DVD in January 2002 has a subtitle track that has director's commentary-style information that also has a fake documents feature.

[edit] Comic books

[edit] Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics adapted the film into comic book form in Marvel Super Special issue #33. The adaptation was also released as a two-part limited series.

[edit] Moonstone Books

In 2006, Moonstone Books began publishing comic books depicting the further adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers.

  • The first story, called Return of the Screw, was written by Buckaroo Banzai's creator, Earl Mac Rauch. The black-and-white preview edition of the comic was released in February 2006, featuring a behind-the-scenes article by Dan Berger regarding the transformation of the rejected Buckaroo Banzai television pilot script Supersize those Fries into the present comic book miniseries. The three issues of this comic have been collected into a trade paperback.[6]
  • In December 2007, Moonstone released a new Banzai comic story A Christmas Corrall in the Moonstone Holiday Super Spectacular compilation, also written by Earl Mac Rauch and drawn by Ken Wolak.[7]
  • A prequel to the movie will be released in early 2008 called Of Hunan Bondage written by Earl Mac Rauch with art by Superman Returns storyboard artist Chewie.[8]
  • Moonstone will also release a special oversize one-shot Wild Assess of the Kush written by Earl Mac Rauch with art by Paul Hanley.[9]

[edit] Failed Sequels

[edit] Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League

The credits mention a sequel, Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, which was never made. This is a play on the James Bond films which end similarly. The film reportedly would have focused on the League and its leader, Hanoi Xan.

A fan script was written by Ernest Cline, posted on the Internet and subsequently bought, but the prospects of production seem slight considering the initial film's limited take at the box office. (The film Free Enterprise parodies this with its promised sequel, entitled William Shatner versus the World Crime League.)

[edit] Buckaroo Banzai TV Series

In the late 1990s, the Fox Network tried to develop a Buckaroo Banzai TV series, but nothing ever came of it. The special edition DVD contains a short computer animated sequence that was made as a test for the series. The clip depicts a Space Shuttle trying to land with broken landing gear. Dr. Banzai maneuvers his Jet Car under the Shuttle and uses it to take the place of the broken gear.

[edit] Buckaroo Banzai books

The novelization of the first movie was reprinted to coincide with the release of the movie on DVD. In the foreword Mac Rauch mentioned that the Buckaroo Banzai series would be continued in a series of novels. None of those novels has been published, though Rauch does discuss writing them on the DVD commentary. He mentions one plot point from the first novel: Penny Priddy is killed by Hanoi Xan, who strangles her with her own hair.

[edit] Computer game

An early example of the computer industry licensing movie titles is "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai", a text adventure published by the now defunct software publisher Adventure International and written by Scott Adams. Original unopened copies of this game are extremely rare. A copy of the game sold for $2300 on eBay in 2002. This game is a text based language parser and playable online reengineered versions of it exist on the net.

[edit] References in popular culture

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, on the border of Thousand Needles there is an area consisting of flat desert with a mountain. Tire tracks lead up to the mountain and abruptly end just before the mountain wall, but the tracks then resume on the other side, in Tanaris, and lead to a crashed vehicle - a reference to the test of the Oscillation Overthruster.[citation needed]
  • The computer game "BZFlag" includes a game element named the "oscillation overthruster" which allows a player to travel through solid objects.
  • The expression "monkey boy" is used in other movies. It was used in a different context prior to the Banzai movie, for example in The Great Locomotive Chase (1954). In the films Men in Black (1997) and My Favorite Martian (1999), however, it is used in the same context as used by Whorfin in Banzai; that is, a space alien referring to human primate origins.[citation needed]
  • The computer game City of Heroes contains a reference to the oscillation overthruster. In the game, it is an item that can be used by Science and Technology based heroes to increase the intangibility duration of their powers. There are also multiple references to the film contained "radio missions," including rescuing P. Priddy of the BB Institute, defeating Operative Whorfin, and bosses ordering heroes confined to the Pit.[citation needed]
  • The mercenary unit Team Banzai, led by the enigmatic Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, appears in the fictional Battletech universe. Team Banzai first appeared in the House Davion Handbook (Published by FASA in 1988 ISBN 1-55560-035-2) as an Elite mercenary Battlemech Regiment under contract to the Federated Suns. Further references appear throughout the Battletech Universe canon. Team Banzai is listed as comprising three Battalions: the Hong Kong Cavaliers, the Radar Rangers, and the Blue Blazers. Characters noted as belonging to Team Banzai (besides the unit's leader, Dr. Banzai) include Perfect Tommy, Reno Nevada, and Rawhide. The unit travels between planets on a jumpship named The Nth Dimension.[citation needed]
  • In the movie Nothing [5], John Bigboote's name is called over the PA system when Dave comes to work for the very last time.
  • In an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick's first goal of achievement was to "defeat the Giant Monkey Man and save the 9th Dimension," before Spongebob retorts by saying "it sounds a little hard," then decides it would be to "defeat the little Monkey Man and save the 8th Dimension."[citation needed]
  • The closing credits of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou feature the title character walking along a waterfront, joined one at a time by his companions. At the end he reaches his ship and a character who died during the movie is waiting for them there. This is almost a shot-for-shot replay of the credits for Buckaroo Banzai. Both movies feature Jeff Goldblum.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Berger, Dan. "The Saga of a Hollywood Orphan: An Interview with W. D. Richter", World Watch One: Newsletter of Team Banzai, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Flynn, John L. "Across the Eighth Dimension: Remembering the First Adventure of Buckaroo Banzai", Sci-Fi Universe, 1995. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. 
  3. ^ a b Goldberg, Lee. "Earl MacRauch: Living with the Lepers of Saturn", Starlog, July 1984. 
  4. ^ Niderost, Eric. "Peter Weller: Code Name: Robocop", Starlog, August 1987. 
  5. ^ a b c Goldberg, Lee. "W.D. Richter Writes Again", Starlog, June 1986. 
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ [2]
  8. ^ [3]
  9. ^ [4]

[edit] External links

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