In a most excellent turn of events, Orion Pictures has finally dropped the first teaser
trailer for what's sure to be the single greatest cinematic endeavor in the history of humankind:
Bill & Ted Face the Music, the long-awaited continuation of the adventures of Keanu Reeves'
Ted "Theodore" Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esquire, played by Alex Winter.
"Be excellent to each other."
"And party on, dudes!"
It's been a long time since we last saw our righteous friends. We first met them in 1988's
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, in which the pair traveled through time to collect
historical figures for their final high school report and discovered their destiny: For their
band, the Wyld Stallyns, to unite the world through music. Then, in 1991, we went along
for Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which saw our heroes killed by evil robot versions of
themselves from the future. They descended to Hell and were forced to escape by winning
a terrifying and tense game of Twister against William Sadler's Death.
Bill & Ted Face the Music will find the two in middle age, somehow having failed for all
this time to write the song that will save humanity. There's a panel of radical dudes
and dudettes from the future who are none too pleased at Bill and Ted's failure. There's
the return of the famous telephone booth and the circuits of time. And there's one bright
idea by Ted: to go to the future and steal the world-saving song from themselves. After
all…
"How is that stealing if we're stealing it from ourselves, dude?"
Fans should be overjoyed that this trailer is finally here, and the movie looks every
bit as hilarious and awesome as we thought it would. With all of that excellence flying
at your face, though, there are a few small details you might have missed.
After an extremely brief shot of what appears to be a hologram of the Earth indicating some
kind of phenomenon occurring in Southern California, we see Bill and Ted in the phone booth, intercut
with a scene in which Ted cooks up their plan to travel to the future. But in one very interesting
sequence, two things are shown in quick succession: Bill and Ted wearing tuxedos, giving some
kind of speech at what could only be a wedding; and a shot of their daughters, Billie "Little
Bill" Logan, played by Brigette Lundy-Paine, and Thea "Little Ted" Preston, who's portrayed
by Samara Weaving. That's right, Bill and Ted named their daughters after each other.
In case you've forgotten, we've met them once before.
"This is little Ted."
"Hello, Little Ted!"
"And this is Little Bill!"
"Hello, Little Bill!"
We don't see the duo's wives, the princesses, in this trailer for Bill & Ted Face the Music,
but we know they'll figure into the story. Glee's Jayma Mays is portraying Bill's wife
Joanna, and Children's Hospital's Erinn Hayes will play Ted's wife Elizabeth. Still, it
certainly looks like one or both of Bill and Ted's daughters will be getting hitched, and
if you know Bill & Ted, then you know that there are no unimportant plot points. Perhaps
it's these nuptials that will finally move the guys to write their world-saving tune?
Perhaps they'll have to keep circling around in time to give a dozen versions of this speech
until they get it right, for some reason? There's a lot that could be going on here,
but it seems significant that this shot was included in the trailer.
Another significant shot? This one:
Yup, that's William Sadler, reprising his role as Death, rocking out with his excellent
friends. In Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Death was eventually brought around to the side
of righteousness, joining the Wyld Stallyns and accompanying Bill and Ted on their journey
to superstardom.
"You might be a king or a little street-sweeper, but sooner or later, you dance with the Reaper.
Haha!"
In another shot, we can see that at one point, the guys were indeed pretty successful with
their music. There's a professionally-made Wyld Stallyns leather jacket framed on the
wall; in another frame, you can spot what certainly looks like an issue of Rolling Stone
with our heroes on the cover. There are other magazine and newspaper clippings on the wall,
like the ones seen during Bogus Journey's closing credits. Of course, all of those clippings
told us the story that Bill and Ted had basically succeeded in achieving world peace, so what
could have happened to disrupt the timeline? Perhaps Death will have some knowledge of
the situation to impart.
And now, about that sojourn to a possible future or perhaps an alternate reality: Apparently,
in one attempt to steal their world-saving song from themselves, Bill and Ted end up
snagging one iteration of the tune from...ultra-jacked, prison-bound versions of themselves.
"No way."
"How did you like our song?"
"It was little on the dark side, but you know, that's cool."
It's unclear what these lunkheads did to get themselves thrown in prison, but judging by
their tattoos, it appears that they hadn't lived radically different lives from their
regular counterparts prior to breaking bad. Bill has a Wyld Stallyns tattoo, and Ted has
one reading "Elizabeth and Billie forever", the names of his wife and daughter.
It looks like Bill and Ted may have to encounter a bunch of different versions of themselves
while attempting to hunt down the song that will save the world. We can only guess as
to what other kind of Bills and Teds might be out there in the multiverse, and we certainly
have every hope that Bill & Ted Face the Music will show us when it arrives in theaters on
August 21.
"Catch ya later, Bill and Ted!"
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