Hot take:
Superheroes are really big right now! [Fanfare sting]
[mumbled] Yeah, totally original observation: copyright, me.
But it IS a big deal. When future film historians look at this era,
they'll have to grapple with the superhero film as a genre unto itself.
This is where the eyeballs are going.
This is where money is being spent
This is how people around the world are learning the concept of "movie."
And of course, with any success comes copycats.
[Mumbled] Who is excited to see Tom Cruise fight a Franken-Dracu-wolf of the opera? I know I am ...
[Normal] And yes, we're already starting to see an artistic backlash to the superhero genre.
I've, um, always been a pretty big apologist for the superhero genre.
But believe me, I get why there's a backlash.
Because let's face it: it's a weird genre.
[dialog from movie] "Sargon is not a mutant.
But he understands mutant desire. I became his lover.
That's the only reason he set me free."
"You're crazy! Sargon loves no one!"
I mean, from an outsider's perspective.
Superheroes are WEIRD.
"Despite her superpowers. She's emotionally defenseless.
"She's in love, but she's not loved in return.
"This impossible love for Sargon, the alliance's worst enemy, leads her to betrayal and madn--"
>[Laughs] >"Fuckin' shit!"
So if it's weird, why does it work?
Why do people go to these movies over and over again?
How does a cinematic universe build and keep an audience?
Now let me talk about this.
Let's not get cynical.
Let's not be dismissive of the genre and most importantly:
Don't be mean. There's no need to be mean. 'Cause
Remember:
No matter where you go,
"There you are."
[ "Procession of the Nobles" plays ]
Now, if you haven't seen "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension"
Just go see it. Be nice to yourself. Go SEE it!
Buckaroo Banzai, played to deadpan perfection by Peter Weller,
is the perfect polymath hero.
He's half American, half Japanese (hence the name)
He's a nuclear physicist, a neurosurgeon, a race car driver
and a rock star. And he's excellent at all of these jobs.
'80's White Guy Generic Rock! Wow! So cool!
Buckaroo was surrounded by his band -slash-
academic colleagues -slash- pit crew
-slash- crime-fighting team: "The Hong Kong Cavaliers."
(Don't overthink the name).
And they put their heads together and drive through a mountain.
And in that mountain? The 8th dimension.
And in that 8th dimension?
"Evil! Pure and simple, from the 8th dimension!"
And so Buckaroo Banzai clashes with exiles from Planet 10.
The Red Lectroids -- who are ... like... if
Worf
Worf fucked
Worf fucked Admiral Ackbar.
And the result never made it past the fetal stage.
And they're evil and ... Italian?
[Heavy Italian accent] "Curse you, Banzai! Don't you realize what you are saying?"
And they're wanted criminals on the run from the good Black Lectroids who are...
Jamaican?
"Hello! Buckaroo Banzai?"
Oh yeah, and they're all named... John?
[Dialogue] "John, John, John, John, John."
So -- Bonsai's contacted by the president of the United States,
who is first introduced like this (sure).
And they have to stop the Bad Lectroids before the Good Lectroids ignite the Cold War.
And also Buckaroo finds a long-lost twin sister of his dead wife.
And also there's a whole secret society called the Blue Blaze Irregulars.
And they have to wear bubble wrap to watch meta from the aliens.
And also the Lectroids came here during the hoax broadcast:"The War of the Worlds"
(which wasn't a hoax, apparently).
And Lectroids capture the twin sister and torture her with bugs and honey
because they need a thingy
so that can fly spaceships that leak milk for some reason
Buckaroo: "Wh-what is that?"
John Parker: "Is okay. It's an insulating liquid."
And of course: the watermelon.
"Why is there a watermelon there?"
"I'll tell you later."
There is no 'later.' There is never a 'later.'
This movie is art.
This movie is Nerd Art.
And there are plenty of prominent nerds who agree with me.
[Kevin Smith] There's no better definition, or label for this movie,
if you have to put a label on it, then "Art Film."
This is a true piece of art, man. It doesn't give a fuck what you bring to the table
It brings itself to the table and says: 'figure it out.'
[ Kyle ] The film was practically designed to be a cult classic.
It was heavily marketed to fans of Star Trek, with promotional materials packed out of conventions.
And ironically, it flopped because it went up against Star Trek III.
Of course, future Star Trek would lovingly reference it.
And you can't tell me that Moffat-era "Doctor Who" didn't nab some style choices.
And among its celebrity fans?
Wes Anderson.
This movie was destined to be a nerd classic. But how?
Because of the watermelon.
Hear me out.
"Why is there a watermelon there?"
So why IS the watermelon there?
Well, why is Buckaroo Banzai there?
Buckaroo wouldn't be out of place in the 1930s magazine
He's practically a direct descendant of this character,
first published by Street and Smith in 1933.
Doc Savage was another renaissance superman with another group of multi-talented white dudes,
"The Fabulous Five," each of which has a "Hong Kong Cavalier" counterpart.
Doc Savage, along with characters like The Shadow, The Phantom, and countless others
would lay the groundwork for the modern superhero.
Before being completely overtaken by it.
The film is a few highbrow references, sure, like Yoyodyne Propulsion,
the name being taken from the literature of Thomas Pynchon,
but the meat of the movie is picked from the pulps.
The Blue Blaze Irregulars are a riff on the Baker Street Irregulars,
the society of street urchins who came to the aid of Sherlock Holmes --
himself another proto-superhero, in his own way.
The Lectroids' backstory directly references "The War of the Worlds,"
itself the origin of so many alien invasion stories.
The main plot is literally cleaning up the fallout from a 1930 sci-fi story.
also in "Buckaroo's" never-made sequel,
he was set to clash with a character named Hanoi Zan:
a yellow peril villain in the vein of Fu Manchu.
[Under his breath] Well, I guess that means we should be glad it was never made (Yeesh!)
So that's it? "Buckaroo Banzai" is just pulp fiction?
It's based on a long-dead genre from the 1930s?
Can you really build a franchise around that?
Yes. You can.
It can work AMAZINGLY well.
But why does something like Star Wars charm while "Buckaroo," initially, baffled?
Well, I have a theory.
I'm gonna use a phrase, and Marvel fans will recognize it immediately:
True Believers --
One of Stan Lee's most enduring catchphrases --
the magical phrase used to curate the Marvel audience.
It shows up in his letters to the reader, and that the annotations of the comics page,
encouraging the reader to seek out other stories:
Smilin' Stan keeping you up-to-date on all the goings-on in the Marvel Universe
Furthering the idea that superheroes are modern mythology,
Lee's interjections could be seen as kind of a call to prayer,
an invitation from the in-group to share special knowledge with you: the Reader.
The Believer.
Remember that battle our hero fought? Remember these allies he met along the way? Remember these foes?
It's that act,
repeated, issue after issue, that Marvel first built its universe.
Remember, True Believers?
The world-building in "Star Wars" is different.
Sure, it builds on a trove of genre conventions:
Space ships, robots, ray guns, a secret society of Holy Warriors --
nothing you wouldn't find in a pulp novel.
[Princess Leia] "Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars."
[ Kyle ] But when Leia mentions the Clone Wars, there's no pause, no wink, no True Believers Moment.
We are not expected to know what the Clone Wars were, or why they're important,
It's only there to quickly establish the connection between Obi-Wan and Leia,
and why she considers this old hermit worth seeking out.
Sure -- later Star Wars media expanded what the Clone Wars were, and why they mattered,
But here? It's a footnote.
In the original "Star Wars," the Clone Wars matter as much as Tashi Station
or the Kessel Run.
The movie makes sense without it.
There's no intertextual requisite before engaging with the work.
Compare that to one of the first true superhero films.
Imagine some future society who'd never heard of Superman, and they find Richard Donner's
1978 "Superman."
It sets up every necessary detail about the character:
Krypton, kryptonite, Smallville, Metropolis,
the basics of his relationships with Ma and Pa Kent,
Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Perry White, and Lex Luthor.
You can construct a complete character profile of Superman using only this film.
But that future society would be baffled by this scene:
If Lois is in danger and Superman is the only one who can save her,
why, oh why
would Clark Kent stop and pause to look at a payphone?
True Believers know exactly why.
It's a fun in-joke that rewards the audience's familiarity with the character.
And as feature superhero films got bigger and their audiences got wider
their True Belief moments could cut a lot deeper.
I'm sure you can think of plenty of examples.
[Wolverine] "Do you actually, go outside in these things?"
[Cyclops] "What would you prefer, yellow Spandex?"
"What are we gonna call this guy?"
"Uh, Doctor Octopus!"
"Eh, that's crap!"
"Science squid?"
"Crap!"
"Doctor Strange?"
"Pretty good! ...But it's taken."
[sword clangs]
"Bob?"
"Wade?"
"Oh, my God! I haven't seen you since, uh --"
"Jacksonville."
"TGI Fridays! Well, what the Hell?!"
And again -- it sort of works.
These films are adaptations of stories and characters
that reward deep knowledge of the lore.
And yes, they would start to show up in Star Wars
"The garbage will do!"
[Star Wars theme]
[Video Game sound]
I'd encourage you to check out this video by The NerdWriter,
Where he talks about the trend in intertextual beats in modern movies --
a trend which, arguably,
became popular with the rise of the superhero film.
Now here comes the part where I name-drop a French dude:
Structuralist literary theorist Gerard Genette
(There we go)
would call the True Believer Moment a form of Transtextuality:
Over his career, Genette defined five forms of transtextuality:
Intertext, where the text sites another text
(either by quotation or plagiarism),
Metatext - where the text indirectly alludes to another texts through commentary,
Paratext - the cover, the advertisements, the texts that act as a threshold to bring the reader TO the text.
Hypertext, which places the text as a continuation or transformation of an outside text
(like with sequels and spoofs) and
Architext, which places the text inside the larger forms
of a literary genre and its conventions.
Therefore, according to Genette, the Architext of the superhero genre
relies on the Paratext and Intertext acting as Hypertext.
(That is the worst sentence I've EVER written!)
[wheeze]
Okay -- put simply,
Comic book worlds require the existence of other superheroes.
It's especially true of 21st century characters like Jessica Jones and Kamala Khan.
Jones is a superhero defined by her disillusionment with the world of superheroes after trauma.
Her origin story is how she stopped being a superhero.
Kamala Khan is the opposite: a superhero who loved superheroes.
She names herself after her favorite hero.
She writes fanfiction about characters she later meets.
Point is: neither character would function in a universe devoid of other superheroes.
When they adapted their own properties, Marvel Studios
understood that transtextuality and they dug in DEEP.
It lets the superhero genre get away with a narrative chutzpah
that no other genre would ever dare attempt.
So the guy with the robot suit who disagrees with the 90 year-old World War II veteran
just takes a little vacation to Queens,
all so he can hire a skinny teenage boy with wrist ejaculators ...
all so he can fight another guy with a different arthropod gimmick
in a German airport with another guy in a robot suit,
another 90 year-old veteran,
a different guy with a robot backpack,
a Russian murder ballerina,
a guy with a bow,
a woman who wiggles her hands till red stuff comes out,
His Majesty King Furry,
and a pink British robot with God bullshit for a brain.
No other genre would attempt this.
No other audience would ever buy it.
But because there's about half a century's worth of fiction explaining this world and how it operates,
distributed in nearly every medium imaginable,
and because the kid is referred to as "Peter" and "Mr. Parker"
and because he blathers out of speech that manages to insert a certain 6-word phrase into our brains:
"When you can do the things that I can,
but you don't, and then the bad things happen,
they happen because of you."
audiences around the world go:
"Cool!"
"Why is there a watermelon there?"
"I'll tell you later."
So why is there a watermelon there?
Well, why does Clark Kent stop to look at a payphone?
At least to me that's the SPIRIT of why there's a watermelon there.
Part of the fun of "Buckaroo Banzai" --
and there is a LOT of fun --
is seeing this fully fleshed-out world existing as the only part of a lost franchise.
"You remind me of someone I once knew long ago."
There's Penny's twin sister like a lost episode from an ongoing narrative
"Was she very beautiful?"
"She was 'Queen of the Netherlands'"
Course we'll never see this encounter with the Queen of Netherlands,
just as we'll never meet the mysterious Pecos who, we're told, is off in Tibet.
"YOU'RE Pecos!"
"Pecos's in Tibet. Name's Reno."
Like another hero, we'll meet in a future issue,
and, of course, "Buckaroo VS.. the World Crime League,"
the sequel that never came, villains we'll never fight --
at least on film.
"Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension" is like
watching a cinematic universe superhero film
without having seen the other films in that cinematic universe...
or knowing who the characters are,
or having ever heard of a superhero.
"A-a-a-a-h!!!"
And THAT is what makes "Banzai" so strange.
there are True Believer moments for belief that doesn't exist.
And yet, it wants you to believe it exists.
"You know I'm a big fan of all you guys --
I love the comic books, and the records."
Everyone knows his name.
They pick up his comic book.
As soon as he's on screen, he's just given the status of 'Hero':
No 'Hero's Journey,' no origin story.
No matter where WE go, there HE is.
Buckaroo Banzai is a character who dares you to search for his transtext.
And as for the modern Superhero,
we're still in the middle of the evolution of this genre.
And this past year, we've seen some of its most interesting developments.
And right now? It's impossible to pinpoint just how future generations might view it.
But in my opinion, to this hypothetical future audience,
our current superhero movies might look a lot like "Buckaroo Banzai,"
with all the strange tangents, and hints at a universe outside the frame.
Again: this technique is a staple of all things nerdy and geeky
But the way it's handled in "Buckaroo Banzai" defamiliarizes --
making us see the technique with new eyes --
like it's given us its own set of bubble wrap and goggles.
Maybe "Banzai" could be seen as a spoof of this sort of storytelling.
It predicted the strange conventions of a genre that had yet to dominate popular culture.
And, as Nerd-dom continues to overtake Mainstream film,
I think it'll be important to understand that the mechanics of the genre,
beyond guy-in-costume punch other guy-in-costume,
and instead see it for what it is: a deeply layered
hypertext of connected concepts,
that might be the true nervous system of the superhero genre:
a neural network of connections to
who-knows-what: another character, another battle, another foe, another movie?
All 'Brain' ... little 'Body'.
After all, as Buckaroo himself said about the brain:
"See, you can check your anatomy all you want ...
and even though there may be normal variation, you get right down to it,
this far inside the head, it all looks the same.
No, no, no, no -- don't tug on that!
You never know what it might be attached to."
At that's quite a lot to say about a movie with a character named "John Big Booty."
"Big Boot-TAY!!"
["Buckaroo Banzai" main theme music]