Now, that sounds a lot like novelist Thomas Pynchon, who is referenced throughout the film: Yoyodyne is lifted directly from his novels and the names of the Lectroids in BUCKAROO BANZAI are clear nods to Pynchonian nomenclature. He’s not interested in fame, wants nothing to do with celebrity culture, simply wants to be known through his work. The disc’s extras push the idea of the “true story” to an extreme and everyone plays it straight, thus providing more fodder for the obsessive fan base.įor instance, we’re told that few people have ever met the “real” Buckaroo, that he could walk the streets and never be recognized. Richter, who added several layers to the mythology with the DVD release. Unfortunately by then Sherwood Studios had gone bankrupt (thanks in no small part to the grand failure of BUCKAROO BANZAI) and the rights to the characters were lost in a swamp of red tape, effectively killing any hope of that promised sequel.īut even as a stand alone, interest in BUCKAROO BANZAI continued to grow with a little help from W. Only after the film came out on videotape did it start to find its true audience people who would not only watch the film over and over again, but inflict it on their friends and family and spread the word as well. Ironic thing is it was catering so hard and so pointedly to the geek crowd that it merely confused mainstream audiences who had no idea what to do with any of this, so avoided the theaters in droves. In any case the film didn’t last in theaters long enough for the geeks to find it. Maybe they were too sure of themselves or maybe they overplayed their hand. This was very big news perhaps only to those few hardcore fans who were aware that all references to Hanoi Xan had been edited out of the original film. THE WORLD CRIME LEAGUE, in which we would be introduced to Buckaroo’s arch-nemesis Hanoi Xan (another Doc Savage reference). Richter and Mac Rauch (and Sherwood Studios, who produced the film) were so confident about the film’s success on the cult circuit they announced the sequel even before the closing credits rolled: BUCKAROO BANZAI VS. It even had a conceit (which became part of the mythology), namely that the film was really a docudrama based on actual characters and actual events.īUCKAROO BANZAI was, in short, a pre-packaged geekfest just waiting to be unpacked, analyzed, picked apart, debated and endlessly quoted. ![]() Most important of all, it came with a ready-made mythology involving not only what appeared on the screen, but also what didn’t appear, together with what went on behind the scenes. BUCKAROO BANZAI featured interdimensional aliens and spaceships like no other, plenty of jokes, a convoluted plot that cannot be easily summarized, a flurry of obscure references to NASA, Orson Welles and, most predominantly, Thomas Pynchon. It was loaded with toys and props unique to its own universe (most notably the famed Oscillation Overthruster). It was inspired in no small part by the old Doc Savage comics of the ‘30s. Their tale of the neurosurgeon/two-fisted physicist/adventurer/rock ‘n’ roll star had all the above elements and much, much more. Richter (who’d written the screenplay for the 1978 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) left nothing to chance. ![]() In the case of THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8 TH DIMENSION, screenwriter Mac Rauch (who’d previously written Scorsese’s NEW YORK, NEW YORK) and novice director W.D. ![]() And sometimes you had to wait for home video before that word of mouth really started to spread. Sometimes it worked (REPO MAN, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD), sometimes it didn’t (TAPEHEADS ), sometimes it did for a bit but then sputtered away (LIQUID SKY, CAFÉ FLESH). But tapping into the zeitgeist ain’t always that simple. The formula was an easy one: take some off-beat characters, put them in a whacky plot (often with a science fiction or conspiratorial angle), give them a few immediately quotable lines and lots of unique, colorfully detailed set designs, film the whole thing in a fresh and energetic style, add a really cool soundtrack and bingo: you got yourself the next ROCKY HORROR or EL TOPO. Hit it right, make the next PINK FLAMINGOES and not only would the film live forever, but it could lead to much bigger things. There was money and status in that midnight movie circuit. A number of directors in the mid-80s set out quite consciously and deliberately to make the next big cult hit.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |