The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Page #13

258

GOMEZ'S POV...CASPER LINDLEY'S CHOPPER...landing behind a stand of

trees as the alien intruders scatter for cover.

INT. DEN - NIGHT259

Mrs. Johnson sitting near a crackling fire, at a small desk stacked

high with books and papers, her nose in an advanced chemical

engineering text.

...looking up as the front door opens, admitting Buckaroo Banzai,

Casper and Scooter bringing up the rear...

MRS. JOHNSON

Buckaroo!

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Is the professor here? Where's Penny?

MRS. JOHNSON

Both of 'em safe and sound. What's going on? Everybody's freakin' out.

A shaken Rawhide, Reno, Perfect Tommy appearing on the stairway...

RENO:

They're arachtoids, Buckaroo, from Planet 10!

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

What? How do you know that?

RAWHIDE:

It's all on the record. Come on-

Buckaroo heading up the stairs...

260

UPSTAIRS HALLWAY...BUCKAROO MOVING QUICKLY DOWN THE CORRIDOR with his

men, being debriefed on the run:

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Planet 10? The same Planet 10 you postulated beyond Pluto, Perfect

Tommy? The invisible body?

PERFECT TOMMY:

Yeah, but most of 'em blasted in through the Eighth Dimension in 1938

at Grover's Mills, New Jersey...

RENO:

...where there was some kinda giant crash landing, a huge explosion and

they fooled Orson Welles into covering it up! And then they founded

Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems and hid there for...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Orson Wells? What about Doctor Lizardo?

PERFECT TOMMY:

Lizardo caused it all. Because he was already here on earth, screwing

around with his own stupid Overthruster.

RAWHIDE:

Faulty design. It sucked.

RENO:

...but he wasn't the real Doctor Lizardo...just this arachtoid creep

that stole the good doc's body the year before in the Eighth Dimension

when Prof. Hikita's lab exploded...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Stole his body? When Doctor Lizardo's hair turned red and his mind

snapped? Of course! What else?

PERFECT TOMMY:

It wouldn't tell us the whole story until you got here. It wasn't to

talk to the head honcho.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

It? Who does?

INT. INSTITUTE LABORATORY - NIGHT261

Professor Hikita and his assistant toil away, starting at...

262

...an elaborate electron-tube apparatus that just now beings to produce

TINY GLOWING GREEN PARTICLES...

263

...the professor excited, confused...rechecking Buckaroo's EQUATION ON

HIS FOREHEAD by looking into a mirror.

INT. BUCKAROO'S STUDY - NIGHT264

...while Billy places John Parker's UNUSUAL YELLOW RECORD on a

turntable in Buckaroo's cluttered office...Casper and Scooter and the

Cavaliers seeking protection behind a PLEXIGLAS 'BLACKBOARD', their

faces seen through a maze of mathematical symbols and equations...

265

...Buckaroo at his messy desk with a can of beer, FASCINATED TO SEE HE

STILL POSSESSES ENOUGH STATIC ELECTRICITY IN HIS HAND TO DRAW A SHEET

OF PAPER UP FROM THE BLOTTER LIKE A MAGNET!

RENO:

Stand back, man...

266

...as the needle now comes down on the yellow disc, and amid a flurry

of SMOKE AND SPARKS, A GORGEOUS BLACK HUMAN FEMAL sizzles up from the

grooves of the record and hovers in mid-air...A HOLOGRAM!

HOLOGRAM:

Salutations, great Buckaroo Banzai. I am John Emdall from Planet 10.

A common grave danger confronts both our worlds.

INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT267

Meanwhile out in the corridor, Mrs. Johnson advances with a load of

cold beers and Birdseye burritos...passing by a figure frozen in the

shadows...OUR POV: THE ALIEN JOHN O'CONNOR. Mrs. Johnson gone, none

the wiser.

INT. BUCKAROO'S STUDY - NIGHT268

Mrs. Johnson entering, dropping some of her load in shock at the sight

of beautiful John Emdall floating free in the center of the room...

MRS. JOHNSON

Oh, wow...

Reno picking her things up, as Mrs. Johnson backs away from the

HOLOGRAM and sticks the burritos in a portable microwave oven in the

corner of Buckaroo's desk...

269

JOHN EMDALL:

After a bloody reign of terror, the hated leader of our military caste,

the self-proclaimed "Lord" Whorfin, a bloodthirsty butcher as evil as

your Hitler was overthrown by freedom-loving forces, tried, and

condemned, along with several hundred of his followers, to spend

eternity in the formless void of the Eighth Dimension. Death was deemed

too good for their ilk.

270

RENO:

Did you tell Penny Buckaroo wanted to see her?

MRS. JOHNSON

She's not in her room...I looked.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Will everybody please shut up so I can hear this thing?

271

JOHN EMDALL:

Were it not for the experiments of your father and Professor Hikita and

the real Doctor Lizardo, then John Whorfin would still be locked safely

away on another plane of existence.

272

Rawhide and Pinky Carruthers holding a whispered conversation elsewhere

in the room...

PINKY CARRUTHERS

"John Parker" I think he called himself, this Rasta man on a bike

dressed up in aluminum foil. With a weird album...how the hell was I

supposed to know he came from outer space?

Buckaroo moving dangerously close to the HOLOGRAM...

John Emdall suddenly pointing right at the great man...273

JOHN EMDALL:

And now, you, Buckaroo Banzai, have unintentionally helped John Whorfin

further with your Oscillation Overthruster! For our intelligence warns

us that John Whorfin is about to make good his escape from Earth back

through the Eighth Dimension...and on to Planet 10! If he should

attempt this we will have no choice but to disrupt worldwide electronic

communications and fire a particle beam weapon from your airspace to

Smolensk, in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.

PERFECT TOMMY:

An action the Kremlin will most certainly misinterpret as an American

first strike!

JOHN EMDALL:

Exactly, Perfect Tommy. The Soviets will retaliate. Your President

Widmark will launch a massive counterforce strike...and within twenty

minutes the danger to Planet 10 will be removed...

RENO:

God, if it's not one thing it's another.

JOHN EMDALL:

But...because we're good guys, we're giving you a chance to save your

planet. Stop John Whorfin before sunrise! If you fail we will be

forced to help you destroy yourselves. End of discussion.

274

There's an awful pause...and then a SCREECH as John Emdall spirals

downward into the grooves of the record again.

275

CASPER LINDLEY:

She gotta be kiddin', right? Vaporize the whole damn planet--?

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

You wanna take the chance, Casper?

CASPER LINDLEY:

Not me. No way.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Rawhide, go find out how Professor Hikita's coming with that formula.

Mrs. Johnson, take Casper and Scooter, gas up the Jet Car.

SCOOTER LINDLEY:

Wow, you know it!

Buckaroo heading for the door...

RENO:

Where're you goin'?

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

To get my guns.

PERFECT TOMMY:

His guns? Holy sh*t.

INT. INSTITUTE LABORATORY - NIGHT276

...Professor Hikita and his assistant leaning over the electron tube

apparatus, removing a rubber stopper from one of the receptacles, in

the process GETTING AN ACCIDENTAL WHIFF of that BIZARRE GLOWING GREEN

COMPOUND...Professor Hikita and assistant letting out gasps, seeing a

sight that nearly stops their hearts...

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