Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Collection

Party on dudes! It's the movies that started it all. The ones that launched Keanu Reeves to stardom. The ones that... well... are most triumphant! This DVD collection contains both Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure as well as Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Excellent Adventure introduces us to our bodacious stars who are part of a band called The Wyld Stallyns. This band will one day create music that will bring world peace. Unfortunately, due to Bill & Ted's bad marks, this may never happen. Enter Rufus, their "guardian angel" from the future. He gives them a time traveling phone booth so that they can complete a most awesome history report. They decide to go back in time and collect famous figures from the past. This obviously leads to many Excellent Adventures. Bogus Journey on the other hand sees the two ditzy dudes from San Dimas, California, killed by evil robot twins. Bill & Ted must face off against death in order to get back and defeat the evil robots who are trying to ruin their band's good name. Can Bill & Ted cheat death, save the world from evil, rescue the princess babes and be back in time to win the "Battle of the Bands"? Or will their heinous metal twins change the duo's destiny forever? I think we all know the answer to that...

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and though one would expect an almost pristine transfer seeing as how popular this film was and it’s young age this is not quite what we are given. Colours are alright with decent skin tone and limited bleeding. Black levels are nicely detailed while still being dark. But unfortunately the print itself is quite damaged and as such there is a lot of specks, dirt, dust, and just plain icky stuff which really shouldn’t be on a DVD like this. I’m glad to say however that all this nasty didn’t really take away from my viewing experience too much.

Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey is pretty much in the same boat only being a slight bit cleaner then it’s predecessor. Contrast isn’t quite as strong and the detail is still well presented. Black levels are well maintained on this DVD as well. Where it really differs is in its aspect ratio which comes in at 1.85:1. Other then that we have an only slightly better picture for a slightly newer film.

Both DVDs sport Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. And both DVDs could have easily done the same thing with a simple 2.0 Stereo track. Of course the dialogue, music, sound effects, etc. are all well mixed and clear. But the low end and surrounds aren’t used much for a 5.1 track. If you’re going to do a 5.1 track you might as well go all out and attempt a really good one. There are also French, Spanish and Portuguese mono tracks but I didn’t bother listening to them. For those that need them there’s English, Spanish and French subtitles as well as English closed Captions. Oddly enough, the Bogus Journey DVD also has Portuguese subtitles but the Excellent Adventure DVD does not.

This is a 3 DVD set. The first two DVDs are the single disc releases for the movies themselves and contain very little in terms of special features. This is rather disturbing since it means anyone purchasing either DVD without this box set really isn’t getting anything additional or interesting with their purchase.

The first two discs of this collection have very few extras: Each has their own theatrical trailers on both and a teaser trailer and short making-of featurette on Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey .

The bonus disc, though, contains a ton of most excellent extras. First up is "The Original Bill & Ted: In Conversation with Chris & Ed" which is basically the two writers talking with each other about how the script came about. Next is the obvious "The Most Triumphant Making-of Documentary" and it's exactly that. "Score! An Interview With Guitarist Steve Vai" is an interesting piece where Steve talks about air guitar, Frank Zappa and film scoring among other things. Speaking of air guitar, the next extra is exactly that. "Air Guitar Tutorial with Bjorn Turoque & the Rockness Monster" has two air guitar competitors discussing air guitar to the extreme. Next is an interesting piece called "The Hysterical Personages of Bill & Ted." This can be played in full length OR in 8 minutes or less. The difference between the two versions? 8 minutes or less is simply the full version on fast forward. If you like Alvin and the Chipmunks then I suggest the short version. The next extra on this DVD is most awesome. We're given the episode of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures cartoon entitled "One Sweet and Sour Chinese Adventure to go." "The Linguistic Stylings of Bill & Ted" is a look at how the characters talk and what their lingo means in real English. I expected something more entertaining. This extra could have been left out. The next extra, "From Scribble to Script," is something new to me. It's an image gallery of... examples of Chris and Ed's writing process. It shows everything from the initial legal pad scribbles to the very first type written script. Very different! There are some radio spots for the films. Unfortunately you can't pick and chose the ones you want to listen to. It's either all or nothing. Last are some trailers for Space Balls, Saved!, Walking Tall, and Hoosiers as well as some images of the DVDs for Killer Klowns from Outer Space, The Princess Bride,Tune in Tomorrow, Much Ado About Nothing and Weekend at Bernie's.

Fans of the films will love this great package. Unfortunately, if you've already purchased a copy of either film, you'll need to purchase it again in this box set in order to get all the great extras. I personally wouldn't bother but some people are die hard fans. If you don't own either film yet but were thinking about it, make sure you grab this package... it's worth it in the end. Rock on dudes.