The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Page #7

INT. CELL - DAY138

Penny sitting on her bunk, a disheveled mess...depressed, her head

buried in her hands as Buckaroo arrives. She sees his reflection in

the pitiful mirror above her toilet...

PENNY PRIDDY:

What're you doing here? Why're you looking at me like that?

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

I guess 'cause you remind me of someone I once knew, long ago before

any of this craziness.

PENNY PRIDDY:

Go away. Let me rot?

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Who were you really trying to kill last night?

PENNY PRIDDY:

You. Like the papers all say.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Pretty terrible shot.

Silence. Penny realizing you don't fool this man with the sloppy

bowtie...coming over to the bars...

PENNY PRIDDY:

Was she pretty?

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Who?

PENNY PRIDDY:

The girl I remind you of.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

She was the Queen of the Netherlands.

PENNY PRIDDY:

It's kinda hard this way.

Meaning fixing his tie...which she's trying to do...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

I'd turn around, but I'm afraid you'd strangle me.

PENNY PRIDDY:

The Netherlands. Whew, that's a long way from Wyoming.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Wyoming? Not Cody, by any chance?

PENNY PRIDDY:

No. Laramie. Except I was born in Cody. How did you know that? Oh,

right, sure, I forgot: you know everything.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

No, I don't.

Penny taking too long to retie Buckaroo's tie...an excuse to be near

him...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Having a little trouble with that knot, aren't you?

PENNY PRIDDY:

Which? The one in my throat.

Things really heating up between these two...Buckaroo changing the

subject...blocking Perfect Tommy's view.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Did you have family there--? A sister? In Cody?

PENNY PRIDDY:

I don't know. I always felt like I did, like there was another me...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Another 'you'?

PENNY PRIDDY:

Somewhere. See I was taken away by the Priddies when I was a baby. I

was adopted.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Adopted. I should have know. Of course. If it was a snake, it'd bit

me!

PENNY PRIDDY:

What? I don't understand you. I don't understand anything anymore.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Who does? It's a crazy mixed-up world. Just do the best you can with

what you have...

Buckaroo touching her moist cheek, wiping away a tear. Perfect Tommy

and the Desk Sergeant exchanging looks...

PERFECT TOMMY:

Running a little late, Buckaroo.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Let her out. In my custody.

PERFECT TOMMY:

Let her out? She's a killer.

Buckaroo and Penny unable to look away from each other.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

No she's not.

INT. PRESS CONFERENCE - AFTERNOON139

REPORTERS, cameras, microphones, and a small audience of VIPS, civilian

and military, in a large hotel conference room...eyes on the ticking

clock...examining charts and MODELS OF SUBATOMIC PARTICLES...on the

dais, Professor Hikita, Secretary of Defense McKinley and Senator

Cunningham, waiting for Buckaroo.

140

Over the refreshment table set up for reporters, TWO REDHEADED MEN

WEARING GLASSES practically FILL THEIR CUPS WITH CUBES OF SUGAR...one

of their arms ELONGATING (1) for more sugar...THE STRANGE MOVE

UNNOTICED...

141

...as the crowd breaks into SPONTANEOUS APPLAUSE and Buckaroo Banzai

enter, Penny Priddy beside him...the glamorous couple surrounded by the

Hong Kong Cavaliers.

142

JOHN O'CONNOR, and JOHN GOMEZ, those two nearsighted REDHEADS with the

sweet coffee applauding only politely.

143

Buckaroo taking Penny onto the dais with him, the Cavaliers assuming

positions of security as...

...Buckaroo sits next to Professor Hikita who shields his remarks from

what must be easily FIFTY MICROPHONES...

PROF. HIKITA

Rawhide tells me Dr. Lizardo escaped...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

(nodding)

I'm assigning a couple Blue Shields to protect you around the clock,

just in case.

Professor Hikita removing the OSCILLATION OVERTHRUSTER from his

battered briefcase and laying it on the table. Buckaroo taking a sip

of water...

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Thank you for coming. Before I answer any questions, I think Buckaroo

owes us all a few explanations for yesterday's antics.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Mr. Secretary...Senator Cunningham, ladies and gentlemen...thirty years

ago, nearly to this day, my mother and father and Sir Alan Motley, all

former colleagues of Professor Toichi Hikita at the Texas School of

Mines, gave their lives for what was considered at the time an insane

notion:
the possibility of contacting alien life... not on another

planet, but on a simultaneous plane of existence within solid

matter...life which, before the war, Professor Hikita had actually

glimpsed while pioneering a highly primitive gravity catapult with

Doctor Emilio Lizardo.

1st REPORTER

The same Doctor Lizardo that just...?

PROF. HIKITA

One and the same.

144

SOMEONE ELSE'S NEARSIGHTED POV, PEERING AT THE BACK OF PROFESSOR

HIKITA'S HEAD THROUGH A CRACK IN THE CURTAINS BEHIND THE DAIS...

145

John O'Connor and John Gomez at the refreshment table now adding

several packs of 'Sweet 'n' Low' to their thick coffee as...

ON THE DAIS:
146

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

I don't wanna go get too technical here, ladies and gentlemen, but I'm

talking twister physics. Quantum Mechanics. Now you see, now you

don't. This table I'm sitting behind? It appears to be solid matter,

right?

Buckaroo demonstrating by picking up his plastic water glass, dropping

it, splashing water left and right as the container naturally bounces

off the table...

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

But in point of fact, the solid parts of this table... the protons,

quarks, your neutrons and electrons...they comprise only about one

quadrillionth of its total volume.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Which is not a helluva lot to sink your teeth into.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Exactly. So the professor here, way back in 1937, figured that if

solid matter is mostly empty space, a person oughta be able to discover

a to travel inside things like tables. And mountains.

PROF. HIKITA

We at the Banzai Institute have at last found that way: an alternating

gradient synchronizer that softens solid matter by attenuating its

electroweak forces!

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Which we all know are the forces that tend to pull objects part, right,

professor?

2nd REPORTER

What about the Pentagon? The possibility of war in the Eighth

Dimension, Mr. Secretary?

PENNY PRIDDY:

Hey, better there than here, huh?

SOME APPLAUSE, the Secretary of Defense eyeing Penny critically as the

lights dim...as RADAR SHIELD ONE slips into the room, approaches the

dais, and the FIRST SLIDE is projected onto the screen...

147

...the image a murky one...but the outline of a WARSHIP WITH U.S.

SAILORS ABOARD nonetheless unmistakable...

CLOSE ON:
148

RADAR SHIELD ONE

(a whisper)

The President's calling you, Buckaroo.

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

The president of what?

RADAR SHIELD ONE

The President of the United States.

149

ANOTHER SLIDE, even more graphic, the number on the bow of the ship

plainly visible...7541.

EVERYONE CAPTIVATED.150

BUCKAROO BANZAI:

Is he still delirious?

RADAR SHIELD ONE

(shrugging)

Can't tell. It's real fuzzy. I patched him through to a pay phone down

the hall.

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