#late post for august cause tumblr wouldn't let me post all month

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"That Which Binds Us Through Time: The Chemical, Physical and Biological Nature of Love; an Exploration of the Meaning of Meaning, Part One" - Love in the 'Bill and Ted' Franchise

I love the Bill and Ted movies and while I know they aren't world-changing, they carry an unwavering warm-heartedness, optimism, positivity and charm that is so important to me in the movies I like most. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and its sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey were both wacky and utterly sweet while also managing to do completely different things; the first is a fun time-travel flick, the second a bizarre sci-fi, Seventh Seal parody. Released in late 2020, Bill and Ted Face the Music was a breath of fresh air in a world riddled by both a global virus and two decades of progressively darker, grittier, bigger, blockbustier movie-making, and I loved it. I loved seeing Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter back at it again, I loved seeing something more of Liz and Jo as people, I loved the predictable twist at the end and the song that united the world, and I especially loved the introduction of Billie and Thea. The movie put a smile on my face for an hour and a half and made me feel good for a long time afterwards. Alex Winter has said of the movies: "…the notion of the sincere idea of representing close friendship against the craziness of the world is a large part of what's carried them. The films are written by two very close friends, are performed by two very close friends, and there's sincerity to this that people enjoy." Personally, fun and enjoyable movies that are nothing more than what they are are my favourite kinds of movies, which is why I have so much love for the Bill and Ted franchise and so much time for trying to argue in their favour. I don't believe we have to scratch too deeply beyond the surface to find out what's underneath, what drives these movies is not their zany plots or charming humour but the unabashed love that Bill and Ted have for each other and the people around them that was so prevalent during the first two movies and carried on almost thirty years later in Face the Music.

The Bill and Ted movies are predominately optimistic and while the conflict in each movie ranges from failing a class to the protagonists' deaths to the end of reality and the universe as we know it, it is never in doubt that the external conflict is only secondary compared to the internal conflict of the boys' lives; the idea that they might be split up, losing their girlfriends, and losing their families. The internal conflict is never based on their own personal struggles, but rather obstacles in the way of relationships with other people - those who are most important to them at the time. Following this, each movie in the franchise represents a different kind of love and relationship, relevant to the particular stage they are at in their lives and the struggles that come in the face of those connections. In Excellent Adventure it's platonic love/the boys' love for each other; in Bogus Journey it's romantic love, and finally, Face the Music represents their adult familial love, collectively portraying the characters' growth from teenagers to young-adulthood to adulthood, the seminal times in their lives and what's most important to them during those times - the chemical, physical, and biological nature of love.

The Chemical: "If you guys had been separated, it would have been disastrous for life as we know it". I think of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure representing platonic love only because the entire plot is based on their friendship and how much they mean to each other. While there is a romantic reading of their relationship, at this point in their lives I believe they are still at the platonic love stage; their friendship in this movie trumps any insinuated romantic or sexual feelings. The danger (the external conflict) established early in the movie is that Bill and Ted are failing their history class and if they don't come up with a good final project they'll fail the year. On top of that, Ted's father, Captain Logan, threatens to send Ted to a military school in Alaska if they do. The real conflict (the internal conflict) is not that they will fail history if they can't produce a great final project, it's that if they fail, they'll be separated. So, when Ted gets distracted while they're studying it is Bill who keeps them focused, not because Bill is more responsible, but because Ted moving to Alaska affects him too. If this wasn't the issue, if failing their history class meant simply failing their history class and repeating, I don't believe they would feel such a frantic need to pass. Rufus even tells us that the harmonic, peaceful utopia he has come from will be lost to the world if Bill and Ted are split up, meaning their friendship is imperative to the fate of the world.

Later on, while trying to rescue princesses in Medieval England, the boys don armour and search the castle, getting into a mock duel with each other which results in Ted falling down a staircase. Bill races after him only to witness Ted's motionless body being stabbed by a guard. Bill hides from the guards then yells at the staff to leave Ted's body alone. As he grieves over his friend's body the guard returns and Bill attacks him in anger, "You murdered Ted, you dickweed!". When Bill is knocked to the ground and appears to be in trouble Ted reappears, no longer in his armour, and hits the guard over the head from behind. Ted's perceived death is the most tragically structured scene throughout the three movies - even their actual deaths in Bogus Journey are only viewed as another obstacle they have to overcome. In Face the Music when they think their marriages are over they are terrified, yes, but their immediate response is to do something about it. The message being that in such dire situations things will work out as long as they're still together. Together, they can get through whatever difficulty is presented to them, even death. In Excellent Adventure, when Bill thinks that Ted has been killed, all he can do is slump down by his side and grieve. It's only because the guard appears that he moves to action, and that action is one performed in anger and to avenge his friend's death. If Ted had actually died Bill wouldn't have continued on his mission. He would have returned Billy and So-crates to their natural timelines, gone home and failed history all by himself. "It's a history report, not a babe report." In the same castle, Bill and Ted meet two princesses, Elizabeth and Joanna, and after finding out about their arranged marriages to "royal ugly dudes" the boys vow to rescue the girls. They fail in the process and are run out of the century; Liz and Jo are then forgotten until Rufus brings them back to present day San Dimas to be a part of the boys' band at the very end of the movie. And here's the thing, Liz and Jo are most-assuredly shoe-horned into the story because in movies heroes get girlfriends (and to avert the gay panic). On the other hand, I believe that their forgetting Liz and Jo ties in with the film's portrayal of platonic love: while they are attracted to the princesses, at this point in their lives getting girlfriends is not a part of their main objective. The movie doesn't begin with either of them saying, "Dude, we've got to pass our history class and get girlfriends before school ends". They have only to pass their history test so that they can stay together and start their band - the band that will unite the world and create a blissful, peaceful future for humankind. That's a fairly important friendship.

The Physical: In Excellent Adventure Rufus brings Liz and Jo back almost as an afterthought on the grounds that they are imperative to the success of Wyld Stallyns. Early on in Bogus Journey the organiser for the Battle of the Bands even states that the girls "can play" but Bill and Ted still have a lot to learn. While they are still secondary characters throughout Bogus Journey the princesses play a bigger role in the movie and in Bill and Ted's lives, representing the next step in their lives - romance. While Bill and Ted are still stuck like glue to each other the girls are present in the movie from the very beginning and remain a focus point for the boys throughout the story. As already noted, Liz and Jo are talented musicians compared to the more fly by the seat of their pants method used by Bill and Ted. After the audition, the boys show concern that the princesses might not be happy to have left their lives in Medieval England to be with two guys who work in Pretzel n' Cheese; they want to improve their situation so the princesses will be happy. All of this concern showing as they know that later that night, after the girls' 521st birthday party, they are going to propose. During the party the boys stay close to the princesses' sides and, because they are a symbiotic foursome, ("A couple of couples" as Bill will say in the future) they carry out their proposals at the same time and place with almost exactly the same speech. Not long after this, the Evil Robot Uses appear, kidnap the boys and kill them. Bill and Ted take a journey through hell, beat Death in a variety of board games and get their lives back, all the while focusing on finding Liz and Jo and stopping the Evil Robot Uses, who were sent to San Dimas by Chuck De Nomolos to destroy Bill and Ted's lives and the peaceful future their music will create (I love this movie). After killing Bill and Ted, the next step in ruining their lives involves ruining their relationships; the Evil Robot Uses molest the princesses (a thing that is clearly out of character for the real Bill and Ted and very upsetting to the girls) resulting in Liz and Jo breaking off their engagements. This more than being dead and more than having two evil robot versions of themselves ruining their future, devastates Bill and Ted. You can read Bill and Ted's relationships with each other and with the princesses in any way you like, but it seems undeniable to me that Liz and Jo are incredibly important to Bill and Ted, that the boys care about them deeply, and that, by the end of the Bogus Journey, all four are ready to start the next stage of their lives together.

The Biological: Early on in Bogus Journey Bill observes that "there's no way we can raise a family on the money we make at Pretzels n' Cheese, dude." This is before their dual proposal to Liz and Jo and shows that already they are thinking of expanding their circle of loved ones; a wish fulfilled at the end of the movie with the introduction of "Little Bill" and "Little Ted". Almost thirty years later we meet these miniature versions in Face the Music as Billie and Thea, who appear to be copies of their fathers in both their love of music and the lengths they will go to to help their loved ones. That theme of facing down seemingly insurmountable obstacles to save the people you love is continued in this third installment when Bill and Ted must once again come up with a song that will unite the world and save reality as we know it. As time and space start acting up in the background, there are three storylines happening around the Preston-Logan families in Face the Music; Bill and Ted's main incentive is to find the song and save their relationships with their families; Billie and Thea gather a band to play for their fathers; Liz and Jo follow older versions of themselves into futures to try and find one where they would be happy with their husbands (a driving concern for current Bill and Ted). All of the major internal conflicts revolve around the well-being of the family and, while Billie and Thea are focused on the importance of the song, both parent groups are more concerned with avoiding the potential break-up of their families, rounding off the final stage in the two men's love lives - family. "Not only was it wearing on them and on the family, but the universe they were told they were going to bring together was actually starting to unravel". Bill and Ted Face the Music is an interesting intallment in the franchise, because, in a lot of ways, neither of them have changed very much; they are still their bumbling, warm-hearted selves, but burdened in a way they haven't been before and have been for a long time by the sound of it: "I'm tired, dude". Before the Bill and Ted-like antics even begin they are faced with very real career and relationship problems: "Wait you're time-traveling again?" "Only to save reality as we know it-" "-but we just found out something way worse-" "- you're leaving us." After 30 years of trying to come up with this song Liz and Jo are frustrated for their husbands, by the impossible task that they've been given, and ask them to attend couples therapy (the men, not understanding, arrange a session for the four of them together). As they progress through the session Bill and Ted are presented with a very real and daunting prospect: their marriages may be ending, yet, as always, their reaction is to take action; they will do whatever they can to make things better. A visit from Rufus' daughter, Kelly, (another example of the love between parent and child in this movie is Kelly's admiration for her father and the work that he did) brings them back to the future, where they are informed that their already difficult task now has a very short time limit. Bill and Ted, using perfect Bill and Ted logic, decide to use Rufus' old phone booth to travel to different futures and find the versions of themselves that have already written the song, "How is that stealing if we're stealing it from ourselves, dude?" In the first future they visit they learn that they have not only failed to write the song but that Liz and Jo have left them and their daughters won't speak to them. Bill and Ted race back to their wives and promise the very confused Liz and Jo that they are going to fix everything. All of a sudden saving the universe comes second behind saving their marriages.

After desperately jumping from future to future to find the song that will fix everything Bill and Ted learn from Denis the robot that Bille and Thea have been (accidentally) killed and sent to hell. Without hesitation, Bill and Ted destroy the copy of the song that they've only just gotten their hands on so the robot will kill them too. Denis refuses but then (accidentally) kills them anyway, and this is the second time in the movie where they have prioritised their families over the fate of the universe. This is a very sweet scene; after working so hard to find the song only to hear that their daughters are in hell their immediate response is to get themselves sent to hell, too. And when Denis refuses to because they now have the song, they don't even speak before they destroy it. They are so close to fixing everything at this point but when their daughters need help, Bill and Ted sacrifice their lives (and their marriages and the universe and reality) to go save them.

All of this is textbook Bill and Ted and a joy to watch unravel, but the real treat of Face the Music, to me, is the introduction of Billie and Thea. Billie and Thea initially appear to be copies of their dads, with the same easy-going optimistic attitudes and intense love of music. Unlike their fathers, however, the girls don't play music and are only interested in listening to it, "That is our primary activity, definitely." Also unlike their fathers, Billie and Thea are geniuses, "Your musical acumen is most impressive girls". By the end of Bogus Journey, Bill and Ted have become actual talented musicians and during the wedding scene in Face the Music we see that even though they haven't been successful, they haven't spent the last 30 years idle; the song they play (the title of this essay, and a veritable weapon in its own right) features a range of instruments from bagpipes to theremin, all played on the spot by Bill and Ted themselves. But Billie and Thea's genius extends beyond their musical acumen; their plan to put together the ultimate back-up band is ultimately what saves the day. As well as that, the way they convince Louis Armstrong and Jimi Hendrix to join the band, then persuade Death to forgive their parents, shows a level of awareness, sound thinking and problem-solving that does not occupy space in Bill and Ted's brains (see: putting buckets over their heads to escape from their future selves in Dave Grohl's house). On top of all this, Billie and Thea admire and love their fathers very much. While everyone else in the movie is either giving Bill and Ted a hard time or losing faith in their music, Billie and Thea fully support them and fully believe they can do it, "Hey, dad, good luck on the song." "You got this." Billie and Thea first decide to help their fathers because they know how much pressure they're under and they want to help out in the only way they think they can, in their heads, there's no possibility of Bill and Ted not being able to accomplish their task, and when their fathers are ready, they'll be ready too.

One thing for sure that hasn't changed about Bill and Ted in 30-plus years is their great capacity for love and how much they care about the people around them. It struck me watching Face the Music that neither Bill or Ted had very good role models for families as young men. While Missy was always nice to them and wanted them to think of her as their "mom" (defending Missy is the hill I will die on), we only ever see Captain Logan either admonishing Ted or disappointed in him; Bill's father married a woman only a few years older than his son, then at one point made Bill leave his own bedroom so that he could sleep with Missy on Bill's bed. Despite these less than desirable examples Bill and Ted have always been loving and warm-hearted; they grow from friends who can't stand to be without each other, to boyfriends who would defy death itself to save their partners, then equally devoted husbands and fathers. They are two boys so open-minded and kind-hearted their success in life determines the fate of the world and creates a utopia based on their simple ideals - "be excellent to each other" and "party on, dudes". And, as the final movie shows, their legacy will live on in their daughters and all of the people they have interacted with and united through their love and music.