Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Director:

Stephen Herek

Writers:

Chris Matheson (writer)
Ed Solomon (writer)

Release Date:

17 February 1989 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

History is about to be rewritten by two guys who can't spell...

Plot:

Two seemingly dumb teens struggle to prepare a historical presentation with the help of a time machine.

Plot Keywords:

Bill And Ted | Future | High School | Telephone | Telephone Booth

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

Keanu Reeves	...	Ted Logan
Alex Winter	...	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 (as Robert Barron)
Clifford David	...	Ludwig van Beethoven
Hal Landon Jr.	...	Captain Logan
Bernie Casey	...	Mr. Ryan
Amy Stock-Poynton	...	Missy Preston
J. Patrick McNamara	...	Mr. Preston

Also Known As:

Dudes (USA) (working title)
The Adventures of Bill and Ted (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

South Korea:12 | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Canada:G | Sweden:7 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:6 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

AMF Tempe Village Lanes - 4407 S. Rural Road, Tempe, Arizona, USA

Company:

De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG)

Trivia:

In the original script, the time machine was a 1969 Chevy Van, but the filmmakers thought that it would be a rip-off of Back to the Future (1985). So, they changed it to a phone booth (apparently unconcerned that "Doctor Who" (1963) uses a police telephone box as its time machine). Also, when they used the van, Bill and Ted picked up more historical figures than they did in the final film.

Goofs:

Continuity: At the end of the film, onstage during the presentation, the phone booth antenna is undamaged and shows no traces of the "gum and cans" repair done earlier in the film.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Rufus: Hi, welcome to the future. San Dimas California 2688. And I'm telling you it's great here. The air is clean, the water's clean, even the dirt, it's clean. Bowling averages are way up, mini-golf scores are way down. And we have more excellent water slides than any other planet we communicate with...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Doogie Howser, M.D.: Doogie's Awesome, Excellent Adventure (#1.19)" (1990)

Soundtrack:

The Boys And Girls Are Doing It

Dude, this was like...totally cool!

I didn't come of age in the '80s, so I missed the era when people mindlessly called each other "dude" and said "totally" a lot. But fortunately, I've seen "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", so I have some inkling of that culture. The movie of course focuses on SoCal high school students Ted Logan (Keanu Reeves) and Bill Preston (Alex Winter) who want to start a heavy metal band, but are flunking school. Little do they know that the fate of the universe in 700 years will depend on whether or not they ace their history report. No worries! Rufus (George Carlin) comes from the future and gives the two boys a phone booth, and they go back in time and pick up Socrates (pronounced SO-krayts), Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ludwig van Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Billy the Kid and Sigmund Freud. Needless to say, these historical figures are a little befuddled when they arrive in San Dimas, and the people in San Dimas are befuddled by them.

Mostly, the movie is an excuse to have Bill and Ted be the dopey dudes that they are. Whether it's Ted saying that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife (which, it turns out, some people actually believe), or the two boys getting slinky with some medieval princesses, the movie's got something for everyone. It is TOTALLY AWESOME! If you ask me, they should have also picked up Mahatma Gandhi and Alfred Hitchcock.

One more thing: Stephen Herek scored a personal triumph with this movie, as he did with "Critters" and "Mr. Holland's Opus". Too bad that he drug himself down with fare such as "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead", "The Three Musketeers", "Rock Star" and "Life or Something Like It".