YMMV / The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Are the members of the Banzai Institute/Hong Kong Cavaliers earnestly written larger-than-life adventurers and experts in every conceivable field? Or is their nature as an omnidisciplinary Heroes "R" Us a parody of Gary Stu archetypes? If it's the latter, does the story tell us we're supposed to trust them with world-changing decisions because they're just that good, or is their eccentricity and perceivable buffoonery a satire of how political figures (such as the movie's version of the President and Secretary of Defense) put too much trust in the opinions of out-of-touch technocrats who are effectively Cloudcuckoolanders unaligned with the concerns of real people?
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Practically invoked. It was designed specifically to appeal to fans of sci-fi and comic books back before such things had the broad appeal they have now. It also includes heavy Shout-Out to a lot of science fiction tropes that were already out of vogue long before the film was made (the titular character was literally a spoof of the typical "Heinlein Hero"). With heavy promotion at Star Trek conventions (ironically, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock beat it at the box office). This is a movie that was specifically designed to be a Box Office Bomb whose hyper-niche appeal would eventually earn it a cult following through TV and home video. It also didn't help that Buckaroo Banzai was almost totally eclipsed by the then rising cult status of Doctor Who,The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981), Red Dwarf, the Cyberpunk genre, and "Japanimation", all of which offered refreshing stylistic differences compared to typical American sci-fi/comics at the time.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Why is there a watermelon there? Reno promises to tell him why, and never does.^note It was a production prank. That's it. Word of God states they literally put it there to get up the nose of a particularly pushy film executive who seemed to hate everything about the film, so they put a random watermelon in to see if they could get a rise out of him, and when the scene raised no objections, they figured out of it that he'd stopped watching the production work and they were free to go as strange and wacky as they wanted.
• Broken Base: The Against the World Crime League novel is extremely controversial among fans of the original film. Part of this is due to problematic tropes such as a queer-coded secondary villain, a more hostile and abrasive portrayal of the original film's protagonist, intentionally unlikable secondary characters (including some on the good guys' team), and extensive use of often sexually graphic shock value elements - two of the most contentious being that Banzai and team are repeatedly described as handling their captive's genitals, in a way that may be intended as a grimly comical Running Gag but instead comes off as sexually abusive; and that Penny spends much of the book being drugged and taken advantage of by Hanoi Xan, while the team takes their sweet time doing other things before rescuing her. Some fans consider the dark, dry humor and numerous random, tangential surprises to be in keeping with the tone of the original film while others find the story to be bloated, gratuitous, and full of unnecessary (often perverted and uncomfortable) details that take a hard left from the cheesy playfulness that first made the world and characters endearing.
• Complete Monster: John Whorfin is the ruthless leader of the Red Lectroids from Planet 10. In opposition to the peaceful Black Lectroids, Whorfin seeks to conquer his homeworld and proclaim himself its lord and master, but he and his forces were banished to the 8th Dimension for their crimes. Escaping with his forces due to Dr. Hikita and Dr. Lizardo's experiment, Whorfin possesses the latter and is sent to a mental institute until he breaks out by killing a guard, and has his men find Buckaroo Banzai and steal his perfected overthruster, to use with his ship to return to Planet 10 and continue his conquest. Whorfin has Penny Priddy captured and tortured for information on the overthruster, ordering her killed when Banzai doesn't cooperate; this eventually leads to Whorfin viciously electrocuting Banzai. Whorfin then attempts to use an unfinished overthruster to pilot his ship, despite the danger of destroying his ship and his forces along with it, coldly killing Bigboote for trying to convince him otherwise. Described as being a "bloodthirsty butcher", Whorfin stands out for being a dark presence within a lighthearted film.
• Cult Classic: The film has a devoted following among those who found it on broadcast, cable, and VHS tapes.
• Fridge Horror: Buckaroo Banzai and his Institute are seen as so competent that they are trusted with the nuclear launch codes. What happens if he, or someone on his team, has a momentary lapse of communication or judgment?
• Genius Bonus: When he first meets Reno and Perfect Tommy, Jersey mistakes each of them for Pecos. Later comics reveal that Pecos is a woman.
• Ham and Cheese: Everyone in this film seems to be having the time of their lives, but especially John Lithgow. The fact that everyone went so far over the top is probably why it has retained the cult status it has instead of being entirely forgettable. In fact, in an attempt to actually produce the announced sequel, Buckaroo Banzai vs. the World Crime League; all of the former cast were reported as being enthusiastic about returning to their roles. Unfortunately, the film remained stuck in Development Hell.
• Hilarious in Hindsight
  • During the opening credits (When William Traylor and Carl Lumby's credits are on the screen), there is a square yellow box equipment-thing in the background, with what look like two white eyes and brown for the lower third. It really looks like Spongebob Squarepants, though could never have been intended to. This wouldn't even be worth mentioning save for the fact that Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs) plays Rawhide. Funnily enough, Buckaroo Banzai actually got a Parental Bonus Shout-Out in one 2000 episode of SpongeBob SquarePants ("Big Pink Loser"), where Patrick claims that his life's dream is to "defeat the giant Monkey-Man and save the 9th dimension". ("Monkey Man" was John Bigbooté's disparaging term for humans)
  • Buckaroo's suit during the end credits.
    • It looks a lot like Peewee Herman's outfit. Although Paul Reubens was already something of a cult figure as Peewee Herman, it wouldn't be till the next year with Pee-wee's Big Adventure that the character would catapult to national consciousness.
    • Even discounting that, the outfit would look perfect on the 11th Doctor.
  • Long before anyone was able to make the idea of a shared movie universe a viable project, this film created an uncanny replica of how it feels to watch an entry from one out of order, with the frequent references to Buckaroo's other adventures and unexplained stuff like the watermelon.
• Literary Agent Hypothesis: All Buckaroo media [the movie, the comics, the novels] are all supposedly based on the adventures of Buckaroo himself, who is not a character, but a real person.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I'm sure in the miserable annals of the Earth that you will be duly enshrined!"
  • "This ain't my goddamned planet, understand monkey boy?" must have appeared on thousands of science fiction convention buttons in the years after the film
  • And, of course, "Wherever you go, there you are," shared with Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
• Not So Crazy Anymore: One of the biggest jokes of the film is that it is deliberately structured to be entry X in a greater Shared Universe and there are many in-jokes that would only be comprehensible if you were up to date on the (nonexistent) mythos or willing to explore an (equally nonexistent) Archive Panic. While back then the joke was a reference to Long Runner pulp series like Doc Savage, by 2022 this is (for good or ill) one of the biggest issues people refer to when they talk about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its competition.
• Once Original, Now Common: As pointed out by Moviebob and Kyle Kallgren in their videos on the film. Buckaroo spends a lot of time quietly poking fun at the absurd melodrama of serialised pulp fiction adventure books, from the wacky characters to the massive fake continuity looming in the distance that is referenced through fake Mythology Gags and Continuity Nods, to replicate the experience of starting to read an established continuity partway through without reading the books that preceded it (note that this movie predates Wikipedia by seventeen years) and joke about how silly it sounds when grown people act it out in live-action. But nowadays, anyone confused by Continuity Lockout can look up the relevant details online, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has not only enjoyed considerable success using such a model of storytelling, but it's also made it normal to see gags referencing other parts of an established continuity or other versions thereof and either not be confused or be able to find out what it means fairly quickly. In other words, Buckaroo Banzai more or less shows how weird the average modern franchise movie would seem if it were viewed as a standalone work, without a franchise to support it.
• Quirky Work: When Jeff Goldblum as a cowboy named New Jersey is only the tip of the weirdness iceberg, you're definitely a Quirky Work.
• Retroactive Recognition: Jonathan Banks played a hospital guard at the institution where Lizardo is staying at the beginning of the film. Banks was a rather prolific "that guy" actor in several well-known 80's films before netting his most famous role as Mike in Breaking Bad.
• So Bad, It's Good: Much like Flash Gordon (1980), the movie isn't really bad so much as it is incredibly campy and cheesy, and the freewheeling "Why not?" approach taken with the entire production makes it a ton of fun to watch.
• Spiritual Predecessor:
  • To the Sailor Moon "Death Busters" arc, due to both involving a plot of a mostly one-gender group of heroes (the Hong Kong Cavaliers being this to the Sailor Guardians) up against an evil alien force led by The Quisling Mad Scientist (the Red Lectroids and Dr. Emilio Lizardo / Lord John Whorfin being this to the Death Busters and Professor Tomoe).
  • The movie also apes the characters and style of the Doc Savage pulp novels. The leader, Doc/Buckaroo, is a Renaissance man and a skilled brain surgeon, he surrounds himself with five men who are almost as talented but not quite, there is one female in the group (Pat/Penny), and they have global organizations that fight evil.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: Doc Savage on LSD.
• Values Dissonance: The fact that Buckaroo is half-Japanese is treated as far more exotic than it would be in modern times. And of course, he's played by an actor who's clearly just white. Also, the patient on whom Banzai is operating in the surgery scene is referred to as an Eskimo, which is considered a derogatory term in Canada and Greenland (nowadays they're just called "Inuit").
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?:
  • The ramifications of allowing even the most competent people and organizations to handle nuclear weapons are discussed. What if a bad lapse in judgment causes the nukes to go off, or some external political factor forces their hand?
  • Fitting for a film made in and largely about the Cold War era, the concept of a proxy war plays a big role. Earth, and largely the United States, becomes a potentially disposable proxy in a war between alien factions - very similar to conflicts the U.S. fought against the USSR throughout the 20th century with other, poorer countries as each power's frequently unfortunate pawns.
  • Much of the plot has to do with the unchecked power of a corporation engaged in shady business while the government turns a blind eye.
  • In terms less of great power politics and more small "p" politics, the President assuming there's "some kind of race war in New Jersey" going on when Buckaroo Banzai introduces John Parker (who is black) and tries explaining the Lectroids/Planet 10 situation.

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