Study Guide for Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
FILMOGRAPHIC REFERENCE AND ANNOTATION (from Thomas P. Dunn and Richard
D. Erlich, Clockworks...):
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Pete Hewitt, dir. USA: Orion, 1991.
Sequel to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which I cite below.
Note evil robot versions of Bill and Ted, good robot versions of
Bill and Ted, and a Hell in which surreal scenes are set inside a
large, rusting, rather Victorian mechanism.
(Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Stephen Herek, dir. Orion,
1989.
The time-travel of two "valley boys" from southern California, who
get unusual help completing a history class project. The time-
machine in BTEA is an American-style phone booth at most only
marginally larger outside than inside, which allows phone-booth
stuffing of famous historical personages as the machine hurtles
down the network of time [cf. and contrast Dr. Who's TARDIS]. The
mechanism the film attacks is the comic rigidity of Bill's father;
see Henri Bergson, "On Laughter." Rev. Thomas Doherty,
Cinefantastique 20.1 & 2 [Nov. 1989]: 106 f.)
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS:
- Is Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey S. F.? If not, why not?
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey has: Robots, Metaphysical questions, Time travel, A
futuristic utopian society threatened with tyranny and a message ("Be excellent
to each other...!")
- While watching the Bill & Ted films, I identify mostly with the
George Carlin character, who's an adult, respectable, and on screen a
fair amount (I identify also with the history teacher, but he's a minor
character). With whom do you identify? With Bill & Ted? If not, why
not? They are the heroes, and they are (for most of you) your age.
- Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was recommended to me by
a firm feminist and has generally been admired by academic women I know
(to say nothing of a rave review in so eminently intellectual a magazine
as The Nation [the oldest US magazine]).
a. Is Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey suitable viewing for intellectuals?
b. Is Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey a step backward in its handling of
women's issues than the original?
- Does Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey develop seriously the S. F.
issues it raises? Does it develop seriously any of the issues it raises? If
not, is it a serious film?
a. I hold it a perversion (a wrong turning) in English-speaking culture when
"comic" and "serious" became antithetical in colloquial English, so I won't
accept the assertion that Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is a comedy,
hence, by definition unserious. Is the film serious comedy?
b. Have you encountered much art with a better message than "Be excellent to
each other (and party on, dude)!"?