It’s official, Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves are reunited once again to reprise their iconic, cult following roles of Bill & Ted. It’s a film that’s been talked about for years now. Will it happen? Will it not happen? Like many scripts in Hollywood it was up in the air. The plot and script existed. And Winter and Reeves have expressed wanting to do the film. But it needed the funding. And now the film finally has the budget it needs.
An announcement was made at the Cannes Film Festival, of all places, that ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music is officially in production. ‘Fun With Dick and Jane’ director Dean Parisot will be the man behind the helm. Thankfully the script is written by original writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. And duh, Reeves and Winter will be reprising their roles. That all sounds fun and good. But there is something that I noticed in the plot that mildly concerns me.
The plot is basically that Bill & Ted are middle aged men now (go figure) with families. Life has caught up with out two heroes. They’ve written countless tunes together over the past 25 plus years to fulfill their destiny. Of all the tunes they’ve written there isn’t one that really passes. The fabric of space and time starts to break up around them when they are visited by a man from the future. He says that only their music can save everyone (the pressure is on). So they endeavor out on a time travel spree to seek the song that will bring balance to the world and fix everything.
Now, that sounds fine. It’s certainly something that, as a big Bill & Ted fan, I’m interested in. However, it kind of ignores key parts of the second Bill & Ted film. In the end of ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’ our heroes use the telephone booth to travel forward in time and back. When they return in the seemingly instant time transaction they are well trained guitar professionals. They start their song with some epic guitar solos, everyone freaks out and the intro erupts into KISS’ ‘God Gave Rock N’ Roll to You’. Then the end credits role while the song plays and shots of newspaper headlines read ‘Bill & Ted New Album Debuts at #1 in 40 Countries, World Peace Declared’ and ‘Bill & Ted Break Up, Dow Drops 7,000 Points’, and on and on and on. So, my question is this: Did that not happen? Are we going to ignore the end of the middle film in a now manifesting trilogy? With the information at hand it seems like it might. I think the plot is fun, but it could use a little more originality and continuity. And there’s also this, at the end of the second film Bill & Ted come back married to their mid-evil sweethearts and have kids: little Ted and little Bill. And apparently in the new film our dynamic duo gets help from their daughters. They had sons at the end of the second film!!
All that aside the movie still sounds good. And at the end of the day I’m just happy that Winter and Reeves are reprising their infamous roles.
Ending of the second Bill & Ted.
