Half in the Bag: Bill and Ted Face the Music

Wow, we're fine. I was wondering how they were going to reconsider the fake trip ending and I was surprised that for the most part they didn't, no and I remember I think it's on the fake trip commentary track, they talk about it because there are all those magazine covers and newspaper headlines and those weren't the writers who were in post-production, the ones who made the end titles just added them because they thought it would be cute and fun and they are completely like that with our ideas for the third movie, so I had to figure out how to make it work. this, so they did what they had to do and it works pretty well, yeah, yeah, and especially with the idea of ​​Bill and Ted, you know, in the first movie they're like '80s Hair Metal guys. and there's a lot of those kind of acts that were like huge stadiums in the '80s and now are like playing, you know, county fairs, yeah, so that quick rise and fall totally works without it getting too, you know, harsh, yeah , just the right amount of melancholy at the beginning of the movie, well, they're also not in a completely miserable place in their lives when the movie starts, either like you can go, you can go, again, Ash versus Evil Dead, he is living in a trailer. route, you know, but, my God, they have nice houses next to each other, next to each other, you know, it doesn't seem like they're suffering, they do because they constantly think about the idea that's in the trailers. what you see in the movie is that they haven't written the song that unites the world yet and it's like, what do you do if that's your destiny and now you're in middle age and it hasn't happened yet?

Performing at the wedding and they're doing this weird experimental song with this really pretentious title. They are like trying anything. They are completely desperate. Yes, they have been. They have been crushed under the weight of expectations that no one should ever have. Yeah, no one should have someone walk into their room and just say, someday you're going to save the universe, figure it out, yeah, and now you haven't done it yet. That song, by the way, although I think that song is kind of good. all over the place because I tried all these different instruments, which is funny, but you can't tell the joke anymore that they're bad

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ians because they're not bad

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ians anymore, it's like, oh, what do they do?

They try something that reminded me maybe. was influenced by do you know anything about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys? No, in the '60s, he had a complete mental breakdown and was obsessed with writing the perfect album, so he'd just like to lock himself in a recording studio and try all of these. different, he would bring in all these different musicians and try all these different weird sounds like they weren't instruments, but he would try to use them like barking dogs and like coke cans and all this crazy hyper-experimental stuff, yeah, it got really experimental because it was just trying to write the perfect song so I don't know if this was influenced by that but it reminded me of it, it seems like it probably is and that's how we got the jingle cats, sorry but the universe told you they were. it was actually starting to fall apart time was folding in on itself when time breaks down because it seems to be happening from time to time it's very strange the crisis yeah I mean I think it's the idea that all of space and time They're connected I don't know and we're all connected because music yeah, something is and the you and the uh the phone booth can also travel to parallel dimensions I guess I don't think that's what princesses do oh yeah that's right Yeah , they go to alternate realities to find one that they can be happy with building and testing.

I forgot that they were going to different realities because we never follow them, we never see that, I don't know if that was something that was. like because the movie feels overstuffed for the short time it has, so I don't know if they cut more for budget reasons or whatever, I have to assume there was a whole subplot and then they were looking at their budget and they're thinking, well, it's the princesses, it's almost comical at this point, three movies in it's almost comical, how useless the princess characters are, they have a funny scene early on when they're doing couples therapy as a couple, yeah, and there's something fun. parts in that and then that's all you need for the movie to establish that their relationship is on the rocks because they haven't fulfilled their destiny or whatever and then taking them out of the movie one of my first big laugh out loud moments was an involuntary laugh from the beginning, you know, they perform their song at the wedding and then Ted's dad complains about him, where he's like he didn't time travel, he didn't go to heaven and hell, blah blah blah , Bill, enough of the delusions, you didn't travel in time and you didn't go to heaven and hell, it's like your daughters are also becoming big losers, the only ones in your family who are responsible or not, he says, because then the princesses They come up and he's like uh Joanna Elizabeth, how do you feel about being the only one responsible in your entire family?

How do they feel about being the only adults in their families? the only ones with real jobs come back and then they don't even respond and he turns around and walks away and then they just don't say anything. I was like that who personifies the princess characters. They are completely useless and contribute nothing. The film is a bit of a mess when it comes to the whole. What are they trying to say? But hey, I think they're just trying to cram too many things in. Yes, because you have the main plot of them traveling back in time to try to find the song.

You have the subplot, that is. like a mini reboot of the first movie, full reboot where, yeah, they find something historical, this time they find famous historical musicians, which is kind of fun, but it's basically a remake of the first movie, um, and then you have the story of the princess and then we have, well, it's like they show up from time to time only for Bill and Ted to tell them to leave again, but I'm just talking about the concept of Bill and Ted against themselves, which is their problem. They are fighting against themselves because they don't know how to make the song, they are their own enemies and it is both internal and because of the time travel also external, they are their own enemies, yes, I enjoyed it, that's your concept, yes. that's enough for one movie, but I think they didn't want it to be just another Bill and Ted adventure, you know, stretch it out a bit, yeah, which would be worse if the other subplots were terrible, but they're not like me.

Like I said, I like the daughters, they're funny, the part where Jimi Hendrix is ​​playing with Mozart is funny, I like it, I like the daughters, I just thought their underground, their underground, daughters, I just thought their underground He was a little weak, our type. The dads are totally in trouble, you should help them because since it was just a complete rehash of the first Bill and Ted movie, we're going to kidnap these historical figures. Okay, the guy who plays Louis Armstrong was pretty good, though. he didn't have enough to do, but he was at the right level, he's like Louis Armstrong, but they turned it up enough to make it kind of funny, but in the other subplots we have Rufus' daughter played by Kristen Shaw, which is weird , I know.

George Carlin was a comedy person, but he plays his role in those movies pretty straight, yeah, so it's weird to have a goofy comedy person playing his daughter, but I liked that his character's name is Kelly, which is the real name of George Carlin's daughter. I wonder if they did. At first I didn't just understand his real daughter when I started watching because I don't know what she looks like, yeah, no, but yeah, her name in real life is Kelly, so it's like, oh, that's a nice little tribute to the late George Carlin. Great George Garland, but we also meet his mother, who is now the great leader of the future, and she decides that maybe they need to kill Bill and Ted instead of letting him write a scenario.

Look, okay, this is where she comes into the territory. where if you worry about the details and try to break it down, it completely falls apart because everything happened in the past and they seem to have been very familiar with Bill and Ted in the previous movies, shouldn't they know exactly what? happened in this movie, they kind of picked it up where it's like oh rufus kept saying this was going to happen, yeah, I mean, yeah, again, okay because it's Bill and Ted, but it's a weird subplot in a movie that It's already full of subplots and it seems like it's only there as an excuse to bring in this robot character.

It didn't work for me. The robot character I understood. I understood what the joke was. Well, the joke is that he fulfills exactly the same function as the Grim Reaper in the movie. Part two starts off as an imposing figure who wants to take them to the afterlife and then gets sillier and sillier, how are we going to find them? Dude, I don't know, yeah, I don't even know, dude, but I don't know. I don't know who that guy was. I looked for it. He's on the show. Barry, the HBO series. Barry, who I haven't seen, but he's funny.

His performance is fun, but he feels like reheated leftovers from the test book story. I also want to know why. Bill and Ted, I guess, because I guess we're spoilers, full spoilers, they keep traveling further and further forward in time, you know, trying to get the song from their older versions and eventually they're like 40 37 years in the future and they die but their daughters died 37 years ago their daughters have been in hell 37 years because when they meet their daughters in hell the daughters act as if they just got there that's true it's all everything is connected rich space and time we are all connected Is it just because space and time are falling apart?

It's because facing time is breaking down. Well, well, another question is why do they go to hell? What they ever do in hell is used more as a plot convenience than anything else in this place where it is. like that's a place where all our characters can meet,

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and ted can meet death and then death can bring them all back to earth together at the same time in the same place, which was actually another great laugh for me. when they are in hell and they are about to leave him, because earlier we see the robot kill ted's father, he vaporizes him with his laser, so his father is in hell, but then for no reason his swat truck is too is in hell because He Also Vaporized, Vaporized, that's the kind of complete nonsense I wish the movie would lean more into.

The fun part for me was in hell, apparently the souls that die and go to hell are just falling into hell, I like that too yeah. and when they leave, the police continue to hit the souls, damn souls that are on the way to hell, yes, yes, you hear them like when they are in the truck, you hear them like they hit the side, I don't know if I know that the movie , like much of the post-production, took place after the coveted lockdown stuff started happening, so much of it was done remotely. I noticed some weird edits, awkward edits, like the part where they go to the uh, the future, I think it's like five years in the future when they're in the mansion and they're like the silly British versions of themselves, which was fun watching Keanu Reeves try and fail again at doing a British accent brought that out. from bram stoker's dracula it didn't work then it doesn't work now i've seen a lot of weird things already damn wolves chasing me through a blue hell oh god i forgot i was on that yeah everyone i guess i was online but there are some really weird ones like there's uh and this happens sometimes in movies if there's a super wide shot and someone is talking you can tell because they're so small it's hard to notice but their mouth doesn't match what they're saying yeah but this. it's like a standard two-take, unlike those sad open mic guys from three years ago?

Now we can finally muster some compassion and then in that scene, they are sitting across from each other at that table, the future Bill and Ted. Ted like towards the end of the shot he starts talking but his dialogue isn't there and then it cuts to the reverse of contemporary Bill and Ted and they start talking honestly I wouldn't have thought we had it in us so it's like they just used to take where he was starting to talk but they didn't use his audio it was very strange he was very clumsy jay i have seen ryan's baby it could be much worse that's true i will have another jim No more today Bill please escort this gentleman to the door.

Well, speaking of low budgets, uh, and this isn't necessarily a low budget thing, but specifically in this case I realized that they travel to the future and I hate movies. when they clearly filmed their actors completely in front of a green screen and the entire background is like a digital background, yes a digital set and in this movie they go to the future and this happens. I've also noticed this on movies like Marvel where their digital set is like an arena sized location with nothing in it it's just this barren place that always drives me crazy epic but it's not epic it's boring someone thinks it's epic in this one movie you can attribute it to the low budget they didn't have time to add a lot of details and stuff but it's like they traveled to In the future, they are walking on this 20-minute bridgemiles long that has nothing on either side except the phone booth, the original phone booth from the movie, which is right there in the center of the bridge, it's like a screen because then we have a uh, like a hologram, Rufus comes out and it's like this: this is the phone booth that I used to find the big guys and it's like I'm imagining this as a real set where you have like a hallway with all these different historical artifacts, it's like Okay, that makes sense, but it's just this gigantic empty hallway leading to a gigantic empty room because even if you're just making a set that's completely 3D, it still costs money to have someone in 3D design all these different contraptions that they're supposed to be. in some kind of complicated environment instead of just adding a big bridge, yeah I miss Bill's cool production design and Ted's fake ride.

Hell looks great in that movie. Here hell is boring, on the one hand, technically better, but yes, less interesting, yes, less interesting, yes, yes, you see. like a cave that looks like a

face

I think, and it is, there are some demons flying around and there are some hot rocks, yes, but they are well rendered hot rocks, at times when I was watching this, it had a different TV vibe. movie yeah and I'm wondering because the coronavirus has been going on for a while now and they probably knew that this wouldn't end up in theaters for a while so I'm wondering if at some point after the call was made for this to go straight to the broadcast if they didn't, just, yeah, no, we don't need such sophisticated special effects.

I think the movie was mostly finished before the decision was made, but I like to convey the effects and everything, yeah. Yeah, okay, I'm pretty sure it was almost completely done, but I'm sure it's about money. I'm sure they were betting, everyone was looking at the numbers, like: what can we win if we press this hold? this film and release it when theaters reopen. Oh, it probably won't do very well anyway, so we'll pass it on well, plus the risk you run a year from now is that we'll have all of next year's. the movies and all the movies this year are coming out all at once yeah so they're probably afraid of the competitive competition too yeah yeah that's it I mean it's like you know Christopher Nolan can tell the studio No, my film is going to wait for the theaters because he has that power and he is great, you know, his films are everything.

It is about the epic of seeing it in the cinema, the epic of the scene on the big screen. This movie you really don't need to see on the big screen. I'm sorry. what you know, you know this movie needed some kind of epilogue yeah, that's what I wanted to mention. I guess we're onto spoilers now. Yes, this movie just ends. I don't know well because the eternal logic of the problem and everything is broken. so easily that they probably didn't understand what was happening in the movie well enough to write a sequel. I don't even think it's like that.

I think this is presumably the last time we'll see a

bill

in Ted's movie. I guess I mean, especially now that it's out, it's in some theaters, but it's still mostly vod. It probably won't make much money. If it came out in a normal year, a theatrical year, it probably still wouldn't make much money. because comedies just don't do well, yeah, and this is a weird movie that probably wouldn't make much money anyway, but this is presumably the last time we'll see them, you need some kind of epilogue with Bill and Ted. I don't know if you stayed until after the credits, there is a post-credits scene with them as the elderly Bill and Ted, even if that was the last scene of the movie I would be fine with that, you needed to see Bill and Ted and their daughters Bill and Ted on stage performing at some kind of concert in a higher place or something, no you have to make it small because that ending is a big concert, yeah that's the epic conclusion, then you have something more personal like Yes, maybe they.

Everyone's hanging out in the garage or something. They're in the garage at the end of the movie during the garage at the beginning of an excellent adventure, so it comes full circle, sort of. Yeah, I'm just the whole family hanging out. that they realize how much they appreciate their family something cute and touching that involves bill and ted there is no summary jay there is no summary they are like we were done, we left because they were planning endless sequels with the daughters i I don't know if that would have ever happened even without the coronavirus, but I think there was a thought somewhere, well, maybe so, I don't know, I like them in this movie, I don't know if I would like a whole movie about them.

I just don't think it works as an extension of Bill and Ted. It's funny that they're exactly like them, but in their own movie it would feel like a cheap knockoff of Bill and Ted, yeah, creatively, I think. It was a wise decision to make them daughters because obviously at the end of the fake journey, they're like, "This is a little Ted," "This is a little bill," they cover it with a line of dialogue in this, so it's like If only his cute nickname were there. I actually think it was kind of smart because if it was just teenagers like Bill and Ted, that would have been too much, yeah, like Bill and Ted, yeah, that's what I'm saying, creatively, that was the wise decision that works for this one. movie. and then you also have Rufus' daughter, so there's this whole father-daughter thing going on.

I didn't think it was weird at the end when they saved the world with their music and it goes back to the future and we see Rufus' wife. the great leader your father would be very proud of you or she it's like your father would have been proud it's like she should get what she deserves from her for killing all these people what is this? she didn't get an apology for trying to murder bill and ted they didn't try she murdered bill and ted they murdered her daughters that's true she murdered louis armstrong and jimmy hendrix she murdered over a dozen people why time disruptions disproportionately affected a babe ruth babe ruth and george washington keep appearing in different places more than other people uh because then you don't have to hire more actors because you have a low budget.

Oh, that makes sense. George Washington continues to prove to be great with each other and having fun with the guys, so we've talked about how this movie is a mess, but still. kind of funny, yeah, because when you go with Bill and Ted you're going to see Bill and Ted be dumb, yeah, and you're not looking for an intricately designed plot that makes sense and it would be nice if it did. It wouldn't be good if it were, yes, but Bogus Journey is still the best Bill and Ted movie. Yes, yes, I saw them again. I rewatched them all in a row because of this and well, I know you did because we did our review.

That's true because I'm Mike and that movie is very good. I'm watching them all again. I'm a little surprised at how much I always knew Bill Bogus Journey was my favorite. I was a little surprised by how much I like Bogus Journey. Excellent adventure. There's a lot of art put into it as far as filmmaking goes and the ideas are very creative, yes, and this movie is a little stranger than an excellent adventure, but it still feels like a watered down fake trip, a fake trip . He was smart enough to realize that it's not a time travel series, yes, it's a series about these two dumb but good-natured guys who go on fantastical adventures, adventures that these types of characters shouldn't have, yes , because they are stupid. characters from a typical teen movie and then when they

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d the music, it was like, well, gee, did we make a movie about time travel or a supernatural movie about the afterlife?

We'll just do both, yeah, yeah, it's an amalgamation of the first two movies. waiting to hear about this movie and see the trailers, what I was expecting is that the twists would be, they're not, they're not time travel, Bill and Ted will go to alternate universes, that's what I thought it would be too. when you see them in prison and things they run into, yeah we have that, but they're not really altered versions, it's just that yeah, their futures still decorate nicely, but i was hoping they were running around with like five different copies of bill and ted together yeah I don't know it's weird it's a weird movie it seems like a lot of it is hampered by the low budget and also too many subplots okay I think it probably could have been better but okay yeah , it's a send-off to Bill and Ted even though it doesn't really have a proper balancing tip-off because we needed to get back to them at the end after, yeah, okay, we needed an epilogue scene and we didn't get one. yeah now it just stops it's like the end of american werewolf in london we just finished look american werewolf in london i just needed a scene that's so touching i needed the transformation scene that's a great scene and everyone will remember the american world of London Forever, that's all that movie needed.

Look, that's what you can do with this movie, because what makes Fake Travel so great is that it's a sequel to a time travel movie that isn't about time travel. go in a completely different direction and this movie needed to go in a different direction, yeah, and Bill and Ted as werewolves, oh God, that's what you need, something completely out of the ordinary, that's what you need to do, Bill and Ted, let's just do it. we ourselves have to wait until the coronavirus is over wow now it's not over yet do you hear that cricket yes I do?

Does that mean our prank didn't land? I've been hearing it throughout this entire discussion, so I think it means none of our jokes landed oh no, jay now that we're done talking about bill and ted face the music what do you want to do now I think we're going to be stuck in this workshop VCR repair for a long time due to corona virus I don't know if we have nothing but time. You just want to see Bill and Ted take on the music again. Sure why not? How's it going? Things have definitely been better. We can't rehearse at all and our wild stallion thing has been unceremoniously done. reduced in any way, yes, we are completely stumped, rufus, totally disagree with this dilemma, excellent, I'm already on the microphone, this is the embarrassing failed Bill and Ted TV series from 1992, again, does it matter?

Oh, Mike, nothing matters anymore.