BE. EXCELLENT. TO. EACH. OTHER.

June 9, 2020 3:28 PM

Bill & Ted Face the Music [Official Trailer]
posted by Fizz (61 comments total)

oh. oh no...
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:36 PM on June 9, 2020

OH YEAH
posted by waitingtoderail at 3:44 PM on June 9, 2020 [6 favorites]

Louder for the people in the back.
posted by jeremias at 3:46 PM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

🤘🤘
posted by SansPoint at 3:47 PM on June 9, 2020

Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:49 PM on June 9, 2020 [19 favorites]

Knowing the teaser was being released today I woke up thinking about how many years and how much incredibly hard work went into creating something that is, essentially, 90 minutes of silliness and absurdity. (Ed Solomon, co-writer of all three Bills & Teds and some other stuff)
posted by Etrigan at 3:50 PM on June 9, 2020 [7 favorites]

If they don't work in the, "Keanu Reeves is immortal" meme, I'm going to be really sad.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:51 PM on June 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

I was wondering why Keanu Reeves was creeping me out ... he looks like a slightly less haggard Tommy Wiseau in this. Cheep cheep cheep Rufus!
posted by benzenedream at 3:52 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

They should just go back in time and show the first movie. Now that would be excellent.
posted by chavenet at 3:58 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

Station?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:03 PM on June 9, 2020 [5 favorites]

Just remember that they dropped this trailer on... 6/9.

(The director is Dean Parisot, who gave us the timeless and fantastic Galaxy Quest. Excellent!)
posted by azpenguin at 4:05 PM on June 9, 2020 [41 favorites]

If you're going forward in time, dudes, some vaccine would also be most excellent.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:06 PM on June 9, 2020 [11 favorites]

Cautiously optimistic about this, and although I probably shouldn't think this, since we are all a good deal older now (except Keanu apparently), but it was nice to see death again.
posted by Fuchsoid at 4:09 PM on June 9, 2020 [8 favorites]

I'm grinning like an idiot.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:49 PM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

Just remember that they dropped this trailer on... 6/9.

nice
posted by entropicamericana at 4:52 PM on June 9, 2020 [13 favorites]

I'm usually against these "cashing in on aggressive nostalgia" bullshit movies/TV shows, but this seems self aware enough to not just be a retread of every joke from the last two movies. Although, it seems like perhaps the premise is "your old shit isn't going to work, you morons!", so maybe we'll get the greatest hits at the beginning and then the movie will shit on them for trying it.
posted by sideshow at 5:10 PM on June 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

It would be nice if the princesses actually have something to do in this one - otherwise I'm really looking forward to it!
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 5:11 PM on June 9, 2020 [7 favorites]

This is the movie that made my parents decide that they wanted Keanu Reeves as their son in law. Yes. Seriously. They maintained that hope for 30 years. Now they love his girlfriend and have resigned themselves (laughingly, lovingly) to having to have someone else as their person in law so long as they are excellent to me.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 5:13 PM on June 9, 2020 [8 favorites]

I'm usually against these "cashing in on aggressive nostalgia" bullshit movies
I'm still against this cheap nostalgia bullshit. I loved B&TEE as a teenager. That was a long time ago. Please have new ideas Hollywood. Humbug.
posted by Popular Ethics at 5:19 PM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

Kinda need this right about now.
posted by RolandOfEld at 5:19 PM on June 9, 2020 [5 favorites]

I was wondering why Keanu Reeves was creeping me out

It's because we haven't seen him clean shaven in a long time. He does look a little odd without facial hair now.
posted by Liquidwolf at 5:59 PM on June 9, 2020 [7 favorites]

We all know what Keanu Reeves has been up to these past few years, but lest we forget, Alex Winter has been busy with his Zappa documentary.
posted by vverse23 at 6:12 PM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

The original was excellent, the sequel was non-henious, and this will be most bodacious too. They can do no wrong, party on, 69, case closed.
posted by Beardman at 6:13 PM on June 9, 2020 [10 favorites]

Someone elsewhere on the internet pointed out that the opening date is (was, pre-COVID?) 8/21/2020.

8+21+20+20 = 69.

Now that's a nice date for a movie opening.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:30 PM on June 9, 2020 [19 favorites]

SDHS Graduation of the Class of 2020 -- Bill & Ted give commencement speech at San Dimas High School.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:38 PM on June 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

Good god, no. Talk about unnecessary.
posted by gottabefunky at 6:46 PM on June 9, 2020

This looks cute. Sometimes unnecessary things are also necessary.
posted by bleep at 7:02 PM on June 9, 2020 [23 favorites]

Also just out of curiosity, do guys who talked like that as radical teens in the 80s still talk like that now?
posted by bleep at 7:05 PM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

I came of age in the eighties and I still say things are “rad” without the faintest tinge of irony, Eep.

Bill and Ted’s bodacious Valley-speak was over the top even when the first one came out, they were a couple of goofy stoner caricatures even then.

I hope this movie is extremely non-non-non-non-non-non-non-non-non-non-non-non-non-heinous!
posted by egypturnash at 7:14 PM on June 9, 2020 [8 favorites]

The summer blockbuster ... for when all the cinemas are closed
posted by scruss at 7:26 PM on June 9, 2020

That was a trip. They're actually doing this.

I have a feeling this movie will be fun. It doesn't seem like a nostalgia cash-grab to me at all. Everybody involved obviously really wanted it to happen.

Reeves is one of my favorite celebrities and I'm not knocking him... but he's reached an age where he kind of needs the beard. It gives his face some shape. But I suppose a bearded Ted would look too much like a stoner John Wick!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:32 PM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

My peoples, he's supposed to look old and lame. That's literally the point of putting him in those clothes. Old Lame Ted recovers his inner Dude.
posted by aramaic at 7:45 PM on June 9, 2020 [11 favorites]

I just wanted to say that Bill & Ted's Death is also the naked tai-chi villain guy at the beginning of Die Hard 2, and that this is a totally awesome party fact to know.

William Sadler! My favorite non-Death role of his is as Sloan, the apparent head of Section 31, Star Trek's answer to the "these guys are so classified that they don't officially exist" black ops group.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:05 PM on June 9, 2020 [11 favorites]

Also the dad on the much-missed* Wonderfalls.

*In every sense.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:00 PM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

I've seen the original Bill And Ted's about a million times. I've seen #2 never. From the previews (yes I'm that old) it looked bogus. Am I missing something?
posted by Mchelly at 9:12 PM on June 9, 2020

My friendship with my best friend forever and dude I've lived with for over fifteen years now started in part because we both agree that the sequel to Bill & Ted was better than the original. I am now concerned that we will watch this new movie and have dissenting opinions - will this spell the end of our friendship???? Make of this what you will.
posted by Mizu at 9:25 PM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

Of the time-traveling rock and roll teenage nerd movie franchises of the 80s, I never understood why this one didn't get more love. Will miss George Carlin.
posted by St. Oops at 9:34 PM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

This looks so marvelously stupid. I can’t wait.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 9:40 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

From the previews (yes I'm that old) it looked bogus

It's a little uneven, but it was mostly fun.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:02 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

Speaking as someone who non-ironically used the word "bogus" yesterday chatting to a friend (with whom I have watched the original Bill & Ted, like, SEVERAL times) I'm here for this and I hope that it is rad. Maybe she and I will video-chat watch it together or something.
posted by potrzebie at 10:18 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

(Ed Solomon, co-writer of all three Bills & Teds and some other stuff)

I think you mean De Nomolos.
posted by kersplunk at 1:21 AM on June 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I've seen the original Bill And Ted's about a million times. I've seen #2 never. From the previews (yes I'm that old) it looked bogus. Am I missing something?

I've never seen Bogus Journey either, but Evan Dorkin's comic book adaptation of that movie is most excellent. He also did a great job on the monthly comic series that followed, in large part because Marvel gave him free reign with it.
posted by May Kasahara at 2:52 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I liked bogus journey because it was such an incredible departure from excellent adventure.
So many sequels end up just being retreads of the original, but bogus journey takes such a wild ride through the premise.

I have in the past showed people excellent adventure and then challenged them to name a single plot point from bogus journey. They have rarely if ever succeeded.
I see a few people here haven't seen it. I really suggest you do.
It's not at all what you might think.

That's why I think movie number 3 might be worthwhile.
The creative team behind bill and ted understand (I hope) that the next story needs to go in wild new places and do fun new things with... I guess the cosmology of Bill and Ted.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:59 AM on June 10, 2020 [9 favorites]

I truly expect this movie to directly address many of the problems of our society. Just being vaguely Buddhist like the first movie is clearly not enough. This movie is going to spell out just exactly what "be excellent to each other" really means, and how to go about doing it.

OK this is my dream, don't harsh it dudes
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:33 AM on June 10, 2020 [14 favorites]

From the previews (yes I'm that old) it looked bogus. Am I missing something?

It is not not, not not most excellent.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:56 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

BTEA was that it was the first movie / show I'd ever seen that truly understood time travel. After so many linear plots where people went backwards and made problems they had to fix, or went forward and freaked out over what had changed, Bill and Ted were the first time travelers I ever saw who understood that if you had a time machine, you could plan to do something in the future which would affect you in the present. Even for that alone, I really can't see how anyone considered it a stupid movie.

And on that subject I loved this previous FPP about film costuming: Does your favorite period drama pass the Bill and Ted test?
posted by Mchelly at 6:00 AM on June 10, 2020 [19 favorites]

MetaFilter: the cosmology of Bill and Ted.
posted by Fizz at 6:11 AM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

HOLLAND TAYLOR??
posted by rmd1023 at 7:06 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Speaking as someone who non-ironically used the word "bogus" yesterday chatting to a friend

This reminded me: the notion of someone saying “bogus” non-ironically reminded me that the voice that I hear in my head saying this is that of a former co-worker, who also frequently said “fer sure.” He’d be in his mid-to-late fifties by now... he’d have been prime demographic for the first wave of Bill & Ted. Huh.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:11 AM on June 10, 2020

Not only do I (43-yo) still occasionally drop in a 'gnarly,' 'bogus' or 'rad,' I have shown my 11-year-old these movies and now HE does it, too, unironically.

His favorite was "heinous," because he thought they were saying "anus," and that was way too funny.

Also, the writers from the original, the original actors who have immense affection for the property, and the director of Galaxy Quest? I'm so in.
posted by skullhead at 8:27 AM on June 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Barstow!!! Ouch. That alone gives me faith that the people writing this know their grim CA towns and what they mean in the same way the original had to be set in a place like San Dimas. I love you, Bill and Ted.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:33 AM on June 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

I don't know what to think if this is going to be good or bad or suck or what.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:33 AM on June 10, 2020

Considering Keanu's earlier characterization of remakes and sequels

Q. Does this mean you're out of "Love Boat: The Movie"?

A. Oh, God! It's gonna be a whole film? (Shaking his head.) America just keeps eating itself. Pretty soon we're all going to get mad cow American disease.

I'm more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that this isn't just a cynical retread.
posted by Lexica at 12:27 PM on June 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

That brief interview was something. He has a way of speaking like nobody else, it can be kind of poetic, but he's so casual about it that you don't even notice the word jazz he's laying down. His blood tickled! Guilt is like a bag of bricks!

When I was a kid the big joke about Reeves was that he was dumb. I think time has shown otherwise. The dude plays a lot of otherworldly types for a reason. He's from some other place, but he gets along just fine here.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:52 PM on June 10, 2020 [9 favorites]

For all the iconic roles he has had, that have become a part of the Zeitgeist; Keanu is way, way underrated. It's like .... totally bogus, man.

Just off the top of my head; the things I can think of; B&TEE, Speed, Johnny Mnemonic, Point Break, Matrix, John Wick ....

That's a pretty decent career.
posted by indianbadger1 at 2:14 PM on June 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

Keanu is very good at certain roles but doesn't impress as having a huge range. Lots of actors are like that, it's no crime, but I think that's why he isn't regarded as a great actor.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:58 PM on June 10, 2020

Lots of actors are like that, it's no crime
Sandra Bullock to the white courtesy phone.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:50 AM on June 11, 2020

Keanu is often mocked for being sort of stonefaced, but B&TEE showed him gleefully emoting with bright childlike smiles that he didn't do in any later films. It's almost shocking to see him beaming for the camera in the parking lot of the Circle-K!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:57 AM on June 11, 2020 [6 favorites]

Yeah, he may not have the most range as an actor, but every now and then he'll play wildly against type and the results can be kind of amazing. ("It was FREE PIZZA!") Somebody commented years ago that he's very good at looking like he's learning, like he's trying to understand. He's also good at aliens, saints and other people whose feet don't quite touch the ground.

Keanu, Bowie and Christopher Walken feel like they might all come from very different parts of the same planet. If Bowie was the Man Who Fell to Earth, Keanu would be the benevolent alien who was sent to check up on him, while Walken is the guy who was sent to terminate the Bowie alien but just ended up going native too.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:51 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]

I've seen the original Bill And Ted's about a million times. I've seen #2 never. From the previews (yes I'm that old) it looked bogus. Am I missing something?

I recently re-watched them both with my kids (their first time). We thought #2 was much, much less excellent than the first one. Bogus Journey has a few really good bits (Bill and Ted possessing their dads, some of the clever time-travel bits) but a whole lot of it is a mean-spirited downer (the Evil Twins being nasty, Hell is how gross old people are) and generally was just way less funny and charming.

I'm really hoping this movie can re-capture the sweetness of the first one.
posted by straight at 4:22 PM on June 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Evan Dorkin just announced a new Bill and Ted comic series.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:31 PM on June 19, 2020