Trailer: “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension”
If you have not seen this movie, but you know someone who has, you’re probably sick to death of them telling you, over and over, “You gotta see this movie!” That gets real old, I know—but as someone who is a fan, I must confess, I have, indeed, been that annoying friend pleading with you, “Just try it!” I was always convinced that if someone saw it, they’d be glad they did. I now know that this is not necessarily true. I once persuaded a reluctant friend to try it (it was available on an American Airlines flight…huh?!), and he did not care for it. At all.
Okay, so I now accept the fact that this movie is not for everybody. Honestly, I get it. It’s really just too quirky to earn a wide audience. It didn’t help that 20th Century Fox refused to support it. When they screened it, they were not happy with it. “Buckaroo Banzai” was hard to categorize…Sci-fi? Comedy? Shrug-and-scratch-head. They didn’t know how to promote it, so they didn’t—not very much, anyway. They only opened it in 236 theaters in August of 1984. “Buckaroo’s” competition that summer: “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and a little film called “Ghostbusters.” In other words, game over. “Buckaroo Banzai” didn’t stand a chance. The movie only made $620,279 on its opening weekend before finally grossing $6.2 million in North America—half of its $12 million budget.
I understand why Fox didn’t know how to promote this movie, but they didn’t even try. They slapped together a terrible trailer that I won’t bore you with. Look for it sometime on YouTube and ask yourself if you would’ve bought a ticket based on the trailer. You wouldn’t have, and neither did anyone else. I don’t even remember why I went to see it; I must have read a good review.
Now that “TAOBB:AT8thD” is available on Blu-Ray, it deserves one more chance at fame and glory (other than with the guys at the comic book store). I’ve done what Fox should’ve done back in the day: I have created the trailer that “Buckaroo Banzai” deserves. If this doesn’t make you want to see the movie, well…I’ve done all I can do, and, I promise, I’ll never mention it again. But if you do want to see it, come on over! I’ve only seen it about 25 times, and I’d be happy to watch it again.
The Trailer That Should Have Been…
