Carlos Bastarache: billandted.jpg

Saturday, 31 March 2018

billandted.jpg

Orion Pictures

Friday brought a most excellent look at Bill And Ted at Entertainment Weekly, with Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, and writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. While it teased the long-awaited third movie in the series, the EW piece also revealed a few interesting tidbits about the original films. Mainly how the first movie was darker and twisted compared to the fun-loving classic we got according to Matheson and Solomon:

“The original impulse,” explains Matheson, “Was that they were going to be responsible for everything bad that ever happened in human history. Like, they caused the Civil War. They caused World War I. They caused the Titanic to sink…

“One of the popular kids in the school ended up friends with Hitler for some reason,” Solomon says.

“This tells you how ostracized we felt by the popular kids,” jokes Matheson.

While Napoleon running around and talking about a waterslide was a joy, having Hitler in his place might actually be funnier. It’d be a hard sell, though, and Mel Brooks was nowhere in sight to help make it happen. The rest really is just an honest take on what would happen if two dudes were thrown back through history to do their history report. It’d be bedlam.

Another story about the second film actually reveals that the main character that ends up saving the day actually came about as the result of an accident while writing the script:

“It was super late, and we were super punch drunk,” says Solomon. “We deleted this whole sequence, but it began with ‘Interior–Police Station.’ But I guess I didn’t get everything out of the computer, so it just said ‘Station.’”

“It was, like, three in the morning,” says Matheson. “We’re wiped out. We’ve been working hard. We just, for an hour, all we’d say is the word ‘station.’ ‘Station!’”

“Station!” echoes Solomon. “We vowed to not not have it in.”

“‘We’re gonna have a Martian named Station.’ And by God, we did,” laughs Matheson. “Now, was that a wise decision? That’s unclear.”

This doesn’t account for the fact that they were very naked the entire time, morphed into a giant pile of steaming meat, before growing into one creature that ended up being a cross between The Big Show and a Ninja Turtle. It was a shocking moment for any young kid watching and waiting for more historical figures to save the day. Clearly, all of the darkness meant for the first movie went into the second.