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 USA
Language English
Gross revenue $3,665,306
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! (also more simply referred to as Buckaroo Banzai) is an American science fiction film that has reached cult film status. It was released in 1984, directed and produced by W. D. Richter and concerns the efforts of the multi-talented Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), a 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 from Planet 10. 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 (Weller), a 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 from Planet 10.

The theatrical release version of the film opens with Banzai 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 (John 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 whom 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 retracted 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, November 1, 1938, the day after 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

Peter Weller as Buckaroo Banzai, 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.

The Hong Kong Cavaliers are the assistants of 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.

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

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 Blazer 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. 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] Richter had read a review of a book that Mac Rauch had written called Arkansas Adios, then bought and read it. He 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 he was attending the University of Southern California[1] and working as a script analyst for Warner Brothers.[2]

[edit] Screenplay

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. 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. 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. 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 1980, Richter talked with producers Frank Marshall and Neil Canton about filming one of his screenplays.[4] Out of this meeting, Canton and Richter 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] They shopped Mac Rauch's treatment around to production executives who were their peers but no one wanted to take on such unusual subject matter by two first-time producers and a first-time director. Canton and Richter contacted veteran producer Sidney Beckerman at MGM/United Artists who Canton had worked with before.[4] Beckerman liked it and introduced Richter and Canton to studio chief David Begelmen. Within 24 hours they had a development deal with the studio.[2] It took Mac Rauch a year and a half to write the final screenplay and during this time, the Lepers from the treatment became Lizards and then Lectroids from Planet 10.[4]

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. Mac Rauch ended up writing three more drafts before they had a shooting script.[3]

[edit] Casting

For the role of Buckaroo Banzai, the studio wanted a recognizable movie star but Richter and Canton wanted to cast a relatively unknown actor.[2] Richter has been impressed by Peter Weller's performance in Shoot the Moon and met with him.[4] He 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] Richter told him Banzai's story and convinced Weller to do the film. The actor says that he based his character on Elia Kazan, Jacques Cousteau, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Adam Ant.[4]

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 was not 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] For Lizardo's accent, Lithgow spent time with an Italian tailor at MGM and recorded his voice. He changed his walk to that of an "old crab, and because my alien metabolism is supposed to be messed up".[4] Lithgow said of his character, "playing Lizardo felt like playing the madman in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari".[4]

Ellen Barkin describes the film as "if Terry Southern had written Star Wars. None of the characters are quite what they should be - just my kind of thing."[4] Richter's only choice to play John Bigboote was Christopher Lloyd. Richter first met Jeff Goldblum on Invasion of the Body Snatchers and wanted him to play New Jersey. The actor admired his writing and was eager to work with the cast the director had assembled. Lewis Smith was asked to dye his hair blond and it took eight hours and he saw it go from red to orange to fluorescent yellow to white.[4]

Clancy Brown said that his character is "very common sensical. He's the everyman of the film".[4] Robert Ito was so determined to get the role of Dr. Hikita, that he disguised himself as an old man, designing his own makeup job to age himself 30 years.[4]

[edit] Pre-production

Production designer Michael Riva had worked with Richter before and spent two years working on the look for Banzai before pre-production.[4] He and Richter studied all kinds of art and literature for the film's look, including medical journals, African magazines, and Russian history. The inspiration for the look of the Lectroid masks came from Riva sporting a lobster on his nose. Their outfits were influenced by contemporary Russian lifestyles and they went with greens, blues and yellows because, according to Riva, they are "sick and anemic."[4] For Buckaroo's look, the costume designer had him wear a Gianni Versace sports jacket and a Perry Ellis suit and tie. He also wears a recut Giorgio Armani fabric suit.[4]

[edit] Principal photography

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] Buckaroo's neurosurgery scene with New Jersey was shot at the Lakeview Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley.[4] The jet car sequences were shot in October on a dry lakes north the San Bernardino Mountains. The vehicle was designed and built by Riva, art director Stephen Dane and Thrust Racing owners Jerry Segal and George Haddebeck. Segal started with a Ford F-350 truck, reinforced the frame assembly, added the front end from a Grand National stock car, borrowed air scoops from a DC-3, and a one-man cockpit modelled after a Messerschmidt fighter plane.[4] Under the hood, Segal modified the Ford engine with an oversized carburator and nitrous oxide injectors. The Oscillation Overthruster was created by Riva and visual effects superviser Michael Fink out of a gyroscope to which a metal frame, wires, circuits, and tiny strobe lights were added.[4]

The Banzai Institute exteriors were shot in Rustic Canyon with the interiors filmed in an Art Deco house designed in 1931 by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for his wife, Delores Del Rio.[4] Deserted rooms at Brentwood's V.A. hospital were used for Dr. Lizardo's room at the New Brunswick Home for the Criminally Insane. Lizardo's 1938 laboratory was filmed at a deserted industrial site, Alpha Tubing. The set decorators rented a collection of 1930s electrical props used in the original Boris Karloff Frankenstein films.[4] The interiors of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems were shot in an abandoned Firestone Tire Factory. The production rented warhead nosecones from Modern Props and had televisions going all the time on the set. Wilmington's Department of Water and Power provided the location for Dr. Lizardo's shock tower and served as the Yoyodyne exterior.[4] 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."[5] The Armco Steel Plant in Torrance housed the Lectroid launch hanger. Finally, 12-weeks of filming were done on the backlot and soundstages at MGM.[4]

Richter and Riva did not want metal spaceships and opted for a more organic look like a deep sea oyster shell.[4] Gregory Jein, Inc. and Stetson Visual Concepts built the spaceship models and worked off sketches by production illustrator Tom Cranham and used seashells as guides.[4]

[edit] Soundtrack

The film's music coordinator and sound designer Bones Howe worked with musician Michael Boddicker, who wrote and performed the score, on the theme music and sound effects.[4] Howe selected the source music for the club scene and put together a special arrangement of "Since I Don't Have You" that Buckaroo sings to Penny Priddy. Weller, an accomplished musician, played the guitar, trumpet, did his own vocals, and learned to mime piano playing. Howe and the filmmakers decided not to go with a rock music score and instead opted for an electronic one instead. He wanted to "integrate music and sound effects so that everything would merge on the soundtrack with no distinction between music and sound".[4] Boddicker was Howe's first choice for composer. They had worked together on the soundtrack for Get Crazy. Boddicker had just won a Grammy for his song, "Imagination", on the Flashdance soundtrack. In addition to composing the score, he also produced alien sound effects while Alan Howarth was hired to create the sounds of the 8th Dimension.[4]

[edit] Reception

Fox hired Terry Erdmann and a team of publicists to promote Buckaroo Banzai 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]

Buckaroo Banzai was originally scheduled to be released on June 8, 1984 but was pushed back to August 15. It opened on 236 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. It made USD $620,279 on its opening weekend before finally grossing $6.2 million in North America.[6]

The film was not well-received critically and currently has a 68% rating[7] on Rotten Tomatoes (vs. 50%[8] by its Top Critics) as well as a 5.9/10 rating[9] on the Internet Movie Database. Dave Kehr, in the Chicago Reader, wrote, "Richter seems to have invented an elaborate mythology for his hero . . . but he never bothers to explicate it; the film gives you the mildly annoying sensation of being left out of a not very good private joke".[10] In his review for the New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote that Buckaroo Banzai "may well turn out to be a pilot film for other theatrical features, though this one would be hard to top for pure, nutty fun".[11]

Buckaroo Banzai has since attracted a loyal cult following and was quite popular on home video.[12] 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".[12] 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.[12] Entertainment Weekly ranked Buckaroo Banzai as the #43 in their Top 50 Cult Movies.[13]

[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. The entire packaging and literature with the DVD maintain a mythos that Buckaroo Banzai is a real person, the Banzai Institute exists, and that the movie is in fact a docu-drama of the real adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. The producers make claims such as they had brief tours of the Banzai Institute, and had met and interviewed several members of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, and that the script needed approval from the Institute.

[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.[14]
  • 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.[14]
  • 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.[14]
  • Moonstone will also release a special oversize one-shot Wild Assess of the Kush written by Earl Mac Rauch with art by Paul Hanley.[14]

[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; the film reportedly would have focused on the League and its leader, Hanoi Xan.

[edit] Buckaroo Banzai TV Series

In late 1998, the Fox Network tried to develop a Buckaroo Banzai TV series, entitled Buckaroo Banzai: Ancient Secrets and New Mysteries, but nothing ever came of it.[15] The special edition DVD of the original movie 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. The first of these novels, Buckaroo Banzai: Return of the Screw, was published on September 15th, 2007.

[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 $2,300 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

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Production Notes", 20th Century Fox Press Kit, 1984. Retrieved on 2008-02-04. 
  5. ^ Niderost, Eric. "Peter Weller: Code Name: Robocop", Starlog, August 1987. 
  6. ^ "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai", Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2008-01-18. 
  7. ^ T-Meter Critics. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 9 March 2008.
  8. ^ Top Critics. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 9 March 2008.
  9. ^ User rating. IMDb.com. Retrieved on 9 March 2008.
  10. ^ Kehr, Dave. "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension", Chicago Reader. Retrieved on 2008-01-18. 
  11. ^ Canby, Vincent. "Sci-Fi Farce", New York Times, October 5, 1984. Retrieved on 2008-01-18. 
  12. ^ a b c Goldberg, Lee. "W.D. Richter Writes Again", Starlog, June 1986. 
  13. ^ "EW's Top Cult Movies", Entertainment Weekly, May 23, 2003. Retrieved on 2008-01-18. 
  14. ^ a b c d Buckaroo Banzai. Moonstone Books. Re-retrieved on 9 March 2008.
  15. ^ Wolk, Josh. "Role On", Entertainment Weekly, December 16, 1998. Retrieved on 2008-01-18. 

[edit] External links

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