The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Page #3

ANGLE ON:
55

TV ANCHORWOMAN:

The Jet Car off the road! Radio contact with Mission Control here

severed...that firestorm apparently interfering with

communications...Buckaroo Banzai in serious trouble.

GENERAL CATBURD:

Either that or he's popped his cookies.

Professor Hikita, on pins and needles, face taught, concerned.

MISSION CONTROL:

Mach 1. Buckaroo! Do you read? Commence braking procedure! Over!

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

He's heading for the goddamn mountains!

MISSION CONTROL:

Eject, Buckaroo! EJECT!

Buckaroo heard faintly in a STORM OF NOISE...SPEAKING JAPANESE...

SENATOR CUNNINGHAM

Professor Hikita, what'd he say?

PROF. HIKITA

(quizzical)

He said, "This Bud's for you, Professor." What does that mean?

56

ON THE MONITORS the JET CAR is seen heading directly into a box canyon

and TOWARD A WALL OF MOUNTAINS, impact virtually assured.

ANGLE ON:
57

GENERAL CATBURD:

Looks like Banzai's finally gonna get more than he bargained for. And

take the friends of the Earth with him.

Rawhide and Reno exchanging very concerned glances...

INT. JET CAR - DAY58

Buckaroo Banzai peers out his thick glass window.

BUCKAROO'S POV:
THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN CLOSING FAST...59

60

ANGLE ON Buckaroo's hand moving to a switch on the dash marked

OSCILLATION OVERTHURSTER, remaining there, posed.

REVERSE ON BUCKAROO: eyes on his instruments.61

ANOTHER ANGLE ON Buckaroo hitting the OVERTHRUSTER...62

63

BUCKAROO'S POV...THE FACE OF THE MOUNTAIN RUSHING UP INTO FRAME!

COLLISION A PICO SECOND AWAY!

INT. MISSION CONTROL ROOM - DAY64

ALL INSTRUMENTS LOSE CONTACT WITH THE JET CAR! Jaws drop in disbelief.

CLOSE ON MONITOR: THE JET CAR SIMPLY GONE, VANISHED INTO THIN AIR...

65

ANGLE ON:
66

MISSION CONTROL:

It's off my scope!

GENERAL CATBURD:

What the devil? What is going on?!

INT. JET CAR67

BUCKAROO'S COCKPIT POV... like a roller coaster ride through a meteor

shower - THE EIGHTH DIMENSION, AN ORGANIC ASTEROID HURTLING RIGHT AT US

EMITTING STRANGE STATIC ELECTRICAL CHARGES...MONSTROUS...RED...GHASTLY!

68

REVERSE ANGLE. Looking directly at Buckaroo as his face distorts under

God-knows-how-many G-forces...where the hell is he?! His plexiglas

visor shattering as if hit with a two-by-four.

COCKPIT POV...Buckaroo's windshield CRACKLING AND THE COCKPIT TURNING

RED.69

70

CLOSE ON DASHBOARD: wildly spinning dials, Buckaroo punching the

OSCILLATION OVERTHRUSTER again, amid fire and smoke!

INT. HELICOPTER - TEST RANGE - DAY71

The TV crew in their fancy helicopter first to witness an astounding

sight.

72

THEIR POV:
the JET CAR EMERGING FROM SOLID ROCK AS THOUGH THE CRAGGY

MOUNTAIN WERE MUSH!

CLOSE ON:
73

HELICOPTER NEWSMAN

(in apoplexy)

He's through it! He's gone through the mountain without a scratch!

Oh, my God! Oh, my God in Heaven!

INT. MISSION CONTROL - DAY74

An overjoyed Professor Hikita, surrounded by chaos and confusion,

throws both arms skyward in triumph...

PROF. HIKITA

Banzai!

INT. JET CAR - DOWN RANGE - DAY75

Fifty miles downrange, Buckaroo tries to slow the speeding, smoke-

filled JET CAR.

EXT. JET CAR - DAY76

A parachute popping out its back, at once ripping off in the high

velocity wind...

INT. JET CAR - DAY77

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Chute negative. I'm gonna try and lay her sideways.

78

ANOTHER ANGLE as he reaches for the hand brake and simultaneously spins

his Brodi knob hard to the right!

EXT. MIDDLE OF NOWHERE - DAY79

Buckaroo doing the impossible, somehow bringing the racing JET CAR to a

spinning, skidding halt in a thicket of dry brush! AS OVERHEAD THAT

NETWORK HELICOPTER CIRCLES...

EXT. JET CAR - DAY80

The battered JET CAR, exhausting smoke, Buckaroo rolling its window

down, opening the door and emerging, checking the damage to his

vehicle, noting a STRANGE GELATINOUS SUBSTANCE on the cracked

windshield, touching it and turning his nose from the smell...his glove

steaming!

THE NEWS COPTER LANDING IN THE DISTANCE.81

82

ANGLE ON Buckaroo as he lowers himself under the Jet Car, coming face-

to-face with one ugly SPHERICAL PARASITE, THE THING SUDDENLY SHOOTING

OUT at Buckaroo as he's about to touch it...A MOBILE PHONE starting to

BEEP back in the cockpit...the PARASITE coming to rest on the

ground...dead?

INT. BLOCKHOUSE - DAY83

Pandemonium, people cheering...General Catburd on the phone...

GENERAL CATBURD:

This his frequency? Nobody's home.

EXT. JET CAR - DAY84

Buckaroo ignoring the phone, taking his lunch bag from the front seat

and removing a sandwich, taking a bite of it, and using the foil to

pick up the BIZARRE PARASITE from the desert floor...wrapping the weird

thing up...now at last reaching for the car phone...

INT. BLOCKHOUSE - DAY85

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

(Taking the phone)

Gimme that! You tell me, Buckaroo, what in the hell is this going-

through-solid-matter-and rendering-all-conventional-defense-perimeters-

useless-over-night bullshit?

But now Professor Hikita snatching the phone from the Secretary,

turning his back to the room!

PROF. HIKITA

Buckaroo! Did you seem them? Did you?

EXT. JET CAR - DAY86

Buckaroo leaning in to check his gauges, talking on his telephone. TWO

FIGURES from the news copter approaching, still a hundred yards off...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

See 'em? They about had me and the whole damn car for breakfast.

Broke my windshield...

INT. BLOCKHOUSE - DAY87

PROF. HIKITA

(into phone)

The creatures? They attacked you? They tried to possess you?

GENERAL CATBURD:

Creatures?

(grabbing the phone)

Buckaroo, Catburd here. I got egg all over my face, but that's okay.

No room for egos here. We're all Americans and I wanna buy that thing

of yours. What's it gonna run me?

PROF. HIKITA

Not for sale.

GENERAL CATBURD:

I wasn't talking to you, Hikita san.

...as the Secretary of Defense picks up a RED PHONE...

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

This'll be the President of me?

Perfect Tommy and Reno suddenly stepping forward, intimidating

Catburd...

PERFECT TOMMY:

She's not for sale, right, General?

INT. HOME FOR CRIMINALLY INSANCE - DAY88

CLOSE ON the haunting, unsettling eyes of DOCTOR LIZARDO, AN ORANGE-

HAIRED OLD MAN watching NETWORK FOOTAGE of the Jet Car Test on his

battered Philco TV set...his eyes practically burning a whole through

the screen...

...PULLING BACK TO REVEAL a room in an insane asylum, a room designed

for several inmates but occupied by only one, this crazy old

fiend...the empty beds piled with books and Italian memorabilia, the

walls covered with mathematical equations...

89

ANGLE ON Dr. Lizardo even now unable to resist scribbling another

formula on the wall with a piece of chalk...

CLOSE ON PHILCO:
90

ANCHORWOMAN ON TV

Here she is, slowed down. Lookit there...slam! Right into the side of

that mountain! Perfect Tommy, Rawhide, Reno, you guys're the Hong Kong

Cavaliers. Buckaroo's most trusted inner circle. So I gotta ask, did

it surprise you fellas as much as the rest of us when the BJV, the

experimental jet vehicle went right off the scope and apparently smack

into a black void?

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