Posted By Dan Greenfield on Aug 10, 2024 | 7 comments

REEL RETRO CINEMA: New looks at old flicks and their comics connections…

By ROB KELLY

Forty years ago, movie audiences were introduced to physicist/neurosurgeon/test pilot/rock star Buckaroo Banzai. Like its lead character, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension is a cinematic polymath, combining sci-fi, comedy, rock and roll, Monty Python, The Right Stuff, the Shaw Brothers, Doc Savage, and even a little Three Stooges, resulting in one of the most unique movie-going experiences of the ’80s.

Created in the 1970s by novelist Earl Mac Rauch, the then-named Buckaroo Bandy came with a back story so extensive it rivaled what George Lucas crafted for Star Wars. It wasn’t until Rauch became friends with screenwriter and director W.D. Richter that the project gained some momentum in Hollywood, eventually landing at 20th Century-Fox (the same studio as… Star Wars).

Buckaroo Banzai — released Aug. 10, 1984 — hurls its audience into its world at the same velocity its title character hits a mountain in his attempt to pierce the 8th Dimension, and never slows down. Within minutes of being introduced to Banzai (Peter Weller), we meet his band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, as well as the main bad guy, Dr. Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow), who tried to break the 8th Dimension himself and went mad in the process. When he sees Banzai’s success, he hatches a plot to steal Banzai’s “Oscillation Overthruster” and get revenge on the world that cast him aside. Assisting him are aliens from the 8th Dimension called Lectroids who want to take over the world.

A few nights later, Banzai and his band are performing when a woman named Penny Priddy (Ellen Barkin) tries to kill herself but is saved by Banzai and is revealed to be the long lost twin sister of Banzai’s late wife. Got all that? I hope so, because the film isn’t even half done.

It’s a damn shame and completely understandable why audiences rejected Buckaroo Banzai upon arrival. With stiff genre competition like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ghostbusters, and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Banzai had its work cut out for it. The film simply asks too much of its audience’s attention, practically demanding repeat viewings just to catch everything. With the advent of cable and home video, that’s how Banzai became a cult classic, the kind of movie you look back on and marvel how it ever got made in the first place.

Aside from Peter Weller, John Lithgow, and Ellen Barkin, the film is absurdly stacked with talent: Clancy Brown, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya, Carl Lumbly, Robert Ito, Jonathan Banks, and even Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Toht himself, Ronald Lacey, as the president of the United States, who uses the “short form” when declaring war. Director W.D. Richter, in his first film, brings a breathless energy to the proceedings, which I imagine was the only way to approach this material. Banzai wears its many influences on its sleeve, and your tolerance for its whimsical approach is dependent on how much you love the stuff it’s borrowing from.

But Banzai is more than just a collection of pop culture references from decades gone by: It has a devil may care (some might say cynical) view of geopolitics and the jittery feeling that was in the air when it came to nuclear war (“Buckaroo, the President’s on Line One, calling about is everything OK with the alien space cloud or should he go ahead and destroy Russia?” “Tell him yes on one and no on two”). There’s something comforting in the thought that our destruction might come from something as goofy and quantifiable as shape-shifting aliens, not clueless leaders who could destroy the world with the touch of a button. Sure, the world is crazy and out of control, but it’s also kinda fun, too.

It’s a shame that Peter Weller, who went on to icon status just a few years later with 1987’s Robocop, hasn’t had the chance to do more comedy. Sure, his steely good looks immediately made him leading man material, but he has a charm and light touch that have eluded a lot of other cinematic superheroes. He, of course, underplays against Lithgow as Dr. Lizardo, who is at 11 from his first scene, but never gets overwhelmed by all the craziness around him. I believe that a team of people would follow this guy.

I didn’t see Buckaroo Banzai until it hit home video, but I fell in love with it on my first viewing, and I remember exactly when. In the third act, it decides to throw in another plot turn. Namely, that the Lectroids landed on Earth on October 31, 1938, the night of Orson Welles’ legendary War of the Worlds broadcast. It turns out that aliens did actually invade that night, but later forced Welles’ into saying his broadcast was fake as a cover story. This revelation is explained to us by Jeff Goldbum wearing a full on cowboy outfit. It’s that kind of movie.

It’s fun to imagine a parallel world where Buckaroo Banzai was a huge hit, spawning multiple sequels, toys, books, and other assorted tie-ins (heck, the movie tries to will a sequel into existence by giving us a title to said sequel at the end, a surefire way to put the whammy on yourself). There was a video game as well as an adaptation by Marvel Comics, appearing in Marvel Super Special #33.

Written by the Marvel’s King of Licensed Properties, Bill Mantlo, and drawn by Mark Texeira and Armando Gil, Marvel’s Banzai tries hard to capture the film’s manic, Mad Magazine-esque energy, and it does in some places. Mostly though, it leans into the sci-fi/action side of things, and you can picture if the film had been more of a success, Marvel might have given the go ahead to a Buckaroo Banzai ongoing series, where Mantlo really could have marinated in the crazy world that Rauch always imagined. If he could do it for Rom: Spaceknight, he sure as hell could have done it for Buckaroo Banzai.

Indeed, one of the complaints that could be lodged against Buckaroo Banzai is that there are too many characters (I haven’t even mentioned other members of the Cavaliers, like Perfect Tommy and Reno). An ongoing comic book series could have developed the supporting cast and maybe even handed a more developed “universe” back to 20th Century-Fox if they had ever decided to do something else with the property.

It’s been said about the Velvet Underground that while they never sold many records, every single person who did buy one went out and started a band. While I wouldn’t suggest The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension has had that kind of pop culture influence, it continues to show up in the oddest places. Banzai’s tagline, “Remember, no matter where you go, there you are” was repeated just one year later in 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. A character wears a Buckaroo Banzai costume in 2019’s Ready Player One. And director Wes Anderson borrows Banzai’s iconic ending (featuring all our heroes in a triumphant march, even one who died) for 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which just also happened to star Jeff Goldblum.

To bring things closer to home, in the 1990s I was working at a local video store chain. For reasons too salacious to get into, a few of the employees and I decided to create a series of fake accounts. Once a new account was created, the home store in Pennsylvania would issue a membership card and send it to the new customer’s address. Since we didn’t want the fake accounts connected to any of us, we created a whole fake neighborhood in New Jersey, giving each customer the same first name—John—that the creatively unimaginative Lectroids did in Buckaroo Banzai. The post office couldn’t deliver cards to a neighborhood that didn’t exist, so they were all sent back to the nearest New Jersey branch, which I just happened to be the assistant manager of. When the booby cards arrived, I distributed them to the fellow members of the conspiracy as a keepsake. As you can see, I still have mine.

It’s a cliché to say “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” but in the case of Buckaroo Banzai, it’s true. Modern movie and TV audiences seem to need every single plot turn and character motivation explained, and nowadays a movie could never get away with having a watermelon show up for no good reason.

—

Rob Kelly is a podcaster, writer, and film historian. He is the host of various podcasts including Fade Out, Pod Dylan, TreasuryCast, and M*A*S*HCast, on the Fire and Water Podcast Network.

—

MORE

— MARVEL GOES DEEP: The 1977 Hit THE DEEP and Its Solid Comics Adaptation. Click here.

— BRENDA STARR: The Movie That Didn’t Do Right by DALE MESSICK or RAMONA FRADON. Click here.