Buckaroo Banzai : Part 1

Attention all Blue Blaze Irregulars, Dr Banzai needs your help in locating the dastardly Red Lectroids !

If you followed that last sentence then you are part of a very large following for one of the biggest cult movies to hit the silver screen in the last 20 years. In 1984 a movie with the extremely long title of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eight Dimension premiered to so-so reviews and a somewhat decent box office take. It starred a whos-who of great acting talent with Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Lloyd. But even with all this talent the critics still couldn't agree, was it a Sci-Fi adventure, was it a comedy, was it a documentary? im actuality it was all of those and more rolled up into one amazingly fun and enjoyable movie. We thrilled to watch Buckaroo Banzia (adventurer,musician and brain surgeon) and his group of Hong Kong Cavaliers which included
reno, New Jersey, Perfect Tommy and Rawhide. We hissed and booed at the evil Red Lectoids with their inconspicuous human names of John Bigbooty (that's BUUTAE) and John Smallbottom. And lets not forget the ever impressive Banzai Institute and the band of reserves named The Blue Blaze Irregulars. You have to look at this movie from the stance that nothing is ever as it seems. Buckaroo drives his rocket car into the side of a mountain and enters the 8th demension and comes out the other side alive, but in doing so brings back something with him and our wild story begins. John Lithgow as the evil Dr. Lizardo gives the best campy villain performance ever and wants to steal Buckaroos Overthruster and help the Red Lectoids take over the earth. As with my other movie rants I hate to give away too much story so that those who have never seen it can enjoy it without spoilers, so lets look at other aspects of the movie.

So what happened? It didn't last long in theatres or gain the sales to make it a blockbuster hit, in fact it was considered a box-office bomb and Sherwood Studios went bankrupt shortly after its release, and put the movie and sequel rights into a legal limbo which still lingers today. The movie hit its true stride when it hit the home video market and became a cult favorite much like 1979s Mad Max and The 5th Element. In 2001 MGM fought through mountains of red tape to release a Special Edition DVD to expose a new generation to Buckaroo. The DVD was loaded with tons of extras including scenes of Jamie lee Curtis playing Buckaroo's mother from a flashback sequence that was cut from the original release as well as several other deleted scenes.

This was a movie that has firmly planted itself into pop-culture. There are still active web-sites that update weekly about Buckaroo Banzai, with the main official site www.banzai-institute.com . You can go to any Sci-Fi or Comic Convention and still find patches and other Buckaroo merchandise. In 1987 the prop for the "oscillation overthruster" was used as a "spectral analyzer" in a episode of Star Trek:TNG. Nods to Buckaroo have been given in shows as recent as Fox Networks hit show 24. Recently Moonstone Comics has announced an all new comic series based on the characters from the movie and should be very sought after by all Buckaroo Banzai fans. Take the time to sit one Saturday night and watch this move, watch it twice, even three times. You will see and hear something new every time. It's just plain outright fun and can be seen by all ages.

Coming Soon : "Buckaroo Banzai vs The World Crime League". Just kidding, but keep an eye out for Part 2 of the post. I will have the opportunity soon to speak with Joe Gentile, the owner of Moonstone Comics and writer of the new Buckaroo Banzai comic series and ask some questions and gather some info on the new series. I also have a piece of new art from the series that has never been posted anywhere else.