Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey: Encyclopedia - Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is a 1991 American comedy science fiction film, the sequel to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Like the first film, this one stars Keanu Reeves as Ted and Alex Winter as Bill. The film's original working title was Bill & Ted Go To Hell.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey - Plot

Bill, Ted and their two fiancées (Elizabeth and Joanna) are members of the amateur heavy metal band called Wyld Stallyns. Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) has cultivated a severe dislike for the utopian society created as a result of the success of Wyld Stallyns, and has plotted to stop Bill and Ted at or before their world-wide debut at the 4th Annual San Dimas Battle of the Bands. De Nomolos forcibly takes possession of a time machine booth. He sends two robot look-alikes of Bill and Ted back in time to kill their real versions, which they quickly do. The evil Bill and Ted then proceed to mess up the lives of the real Bill and Ted.

Death (William Sadler) comes to collect Bill and Ted, but they are very committed to warning their fiancées about the "evil robot usses". Providing them with the opportunity to live, Death tells them that they may beat him at a contest — paroding Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal — but warns that he has never lost. Assessing their chances of winning, they resort to giving Death a melvin and escape. Bill and Ted possess two police officers (including Ted's dad), report their own deaths to the police and try to convince the police to protect their fiancées. But they are not believed, so they depossess the police and look for another way. Bill and Ted find a séance underway led by Bill's stepmom, Missy, but the two are mistaken for evil spirits and are cast down to Hell. After a sampling of their worst childhood memories and a run-in with Colonel Oats, they must chose which will be their eternal fate. Bill and Ted figure that there is only one way out: to win a contest with Death.

Bill and Ted do not play Chess with Death, the traditional game used in such a contest. Instead, they play Death at Battleship, Clue, Electric Football and Twister. After his defeat, Death is at their command. The three of them go to Heaven to seek advice from God on who can help them defeat the evil robots. However, to gain an audience they mug three souls (to take their clothes) and recite the chorus from the song "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison to "explain" the meaning of Life. Using a map they receive from God, they find the smartest scientist in the afterlife, an alien named Station who has the ability to split his body into two smaller versions of himself.

Bill, Ted, Station and a reluctant Death return to Earth and life. Bill and Ted drive to Builder's Emporium where Station selects the parts to build good robot versions of Bill and Ted. Station assembles the robots in the back of the van while Bill and Ted drive to the Battle of the Bands.

The good robots vaguely resemble Bill and Ted, but easily defeat the evil robots. De Nomolos then arrives in the time machine and directly challenges Bill and Ted. The film's conclusion relies on a series of events that at first appear to be contradictory grandfather paradoxes but are resolved as overlapping predestination paradoxes.

William Sadler also plays a minor role as an English family member.

During the credits, the Steve Vai song "Reaper" is played. The song was an original created for the film. The song can be found on The Elusive Light and Sound Vol.1.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey - Alternate Endings and Missing Scenes

There's several alternate endings to the movie, which don't appear on any of the video releases, but are the same in both the novelization and the graphic novel.

In both media, De Nomolos ends up being killed by the exploding heads of the Evil Bill and Ted. He ends up in hell, where he spends all eternity with the Evil Bill and Ted.

There's also at least one scene which appears in the promo trailer for the movie, as well as the novel and graphic novel. When Bill and Ted end up in Hell after their exorcism at the hands of Missy, they initially arrive in Hell and start having to break rocks (this part also is in the "Reaper" song at the end of the movie/soundtrack). In it, a Demon pulls a rat out of its mouth, at which point Ted exclaims that he knew a guy who "got one of those in a bucket of chicken once."

In Vai's "Reaper" this is the part where the following lines happen:

"Dude, I totally broke a rock!"

"Excellent!"

"Y'know, I kinda like this!"

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki