The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai

Even if you are a luke warm Banzai fan you'll find this book entertaining. I've loved the movie since I first saw it back in the 80's and recently re-discovered the movie while looking for the DVD on line. That's when I discovered this novel. What a great idea, to give us diehard Banzai fans an in depth and detailed story written from the perspective of a true insider, where he not only helps us understand the movie better but gives us back stories that the movie simply couldn't. Now I'm wishing for more novels of the further adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers. I suppose another movie is out of the question?

Once in a while a form of entertainment comes along that transcends its genre to become something greater. This is one such form of entertainment. This book transcends the standard clichés of the novelization and becomes an amazing work of fiction that can be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel. It fills in some blanks and explains some details that the movie did not. It enriches the movie and the movie does the same for the novel. The format of the book is different from the standard novelization as well. It's written as an after-the-fact account by one of Buckaroo's associates (Reno) and while this might take away some of the dramatic tension from the story it's as if Reno is telling you the story of what happened and you hang on his every word. This not only makes the novel unique in the movie novelization genre but in works of fiction as a whole. There have been recent novels that have taken a similar approach (World War Z) but it is Buckaroo Banzai that started it all. Recommended.

When I first came on the pulp paperback of this film some years back, I thought it was too dense to read and passed on it. Having since seen the film more than twenty times (It's my favorite movie) I decided to read this reissued version. The story is told from the point of view of Reno in the first person, which kills any dramatic action since it's all after the fact. It's very unevenly written and also very intriguing. Although I figured that Earl Mac Rauch wrote this book first and then adapted it to the film script, I think now that it's a novelization tie-in made after the film.But that doesn't explain why certain parts are so different from the movie. In the film, there's a conflict (to oversimplify) between the (good) black lectroids and the (bad) red lectroids. In the book there are only bad lectroids, the good ones instead being called Adders. The book also continually refers to another book or episode of B. Banzai and friends called Extradition from Hell, another evocatively named pulp-fiction adventure which begs to hit the screen. Viewers of the film are aware that it ends with an ad for the next serial as it were, Buckaroo Banzai and the World Crime League, of which there is no mention in this book. The introduction seems to say that another volume of stories is forthcoming, and hopefully some sort of cinematic sequel.This is one of two books I can think of where the film is better than the book based on what it chose to leave out. The other is Forrest Gump, drawn from the book by Winston Groom. But for one exception, I think the Buckaroo Banzai film is very well edited in relation to this book. For instance, the gruesome torture scene of Penny Priddy in the book is replaced in the movie with a nearly comic one, and the intriguing philosophies given all through the book are worked implicitly into the movie rather than being discussed at length.The real miracle is the film's tone, which is why I think people keep watching it. It's light without being flippant, about real things without being weighty, fantastic but not randomly so, moving without being sentimental. The book doesn't have this light tone, but it does delve into ideas that are mind-boggling and mind-expanding. It starts out almost unreadably bad, with an odd kind of stilted syntax and deliberately archaic language, but it ends up excitingly well.The one exception where the book could improve on the film is in an alternate (longer) beginning which shows rather than tells the Buckaroo backstory. I had the Special Edition DVD which includes an alternate beginning in the Special Features section. But I highly recommend instead the Special Collector's Edition DVD which allows you to select a longer edition of the entire film with the new beginning. In my opinion this makes the film a lot better. It's the definitive The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, and it's truly an amazing film.This edition of the book says it's being released to coincide with the Special Collector's Edition DVD of the film, and this DVD really is that much better. But even on the Special Edition there's an interview with director W.D. Richter and a pilot for a TV show done in CGI that even now would find a huge audience. I join with about a million fans of this film asking why not more Buckaroo now?

What I liked was reading one of my favorite movies. While this is one of the FEW times a book cannot rival the movie, it is still great fun. She was… Queen of the Netherlands....No don't tug on that.

Has everything I expected, but then, as a fan of the movie, I've delved into much of the background on it. I remember seeing this book at a point-of-purchase rack of novella's in a small department store near my father's workplace back when the movie had just come and gone from theaters, and I thought it was only a novelization of the film, having read several that really were. If I had known it was more than that, and not just the embellishments novelizations typically have, I would've bought it with my allowance, or at least read it in the store while passing the time before my father's workday ended. Now that I own a copy of the DVD and book, I am content--except for the lack of sequel, ha! :)

I got this on the recommendation from a friend who knew I loved the movie, but I'm having the hardest time getting thru it. The language of the book is so steeped in the pulp novels of the 30s and 40s that it's almost like a foreign language. It's written as a journal by one of the characters chronicling the adventures of the protagonist, Buckaroo Banzai, and the narrator will often refer to previous adventures which never actually occurred ("Just like that time we..."). There's only one BB story but the narrator talks about a history with the characters we know nothing about, which is a distraction every time. The cover mentions a section of "never before seen" photos, but the photos look like a bad copy of a fax. In some of them you can't make out any detail. In fact, if you look closely at the text pages they also look like photocopies. It almost feels like a bootleg of a book, if that's a thing. I gave it three stars because I still love the characters, but the story is confusing and this edition is sub-par.

If you liked the humor and action of the Buckaroo Banzai movie, you'll enjoy this.

Cool book. I can't wait to read it.

Die "selbstverständliche Leichtigkeit faktischen Unsinns" im Film der frühen/mittleren 80er Jahre des vorigen Jahrhunderts ist leider inzwischen völlig verlorengegangen - bzw. durch bis zur Seelenlosigkeit kommerzialisierten Unsinn "ersetzt" worden."Buckaroo Banzai – Die 8. Dimension" gehört ebenso wie "Jäger des verlorenen Schatzes" und "Big Trouble in Little China" zu diesen 80er Filmen, und wenn man bedenkt, dass diese Filme in der Realität im Zeitraum zwischen "Nato Doppelbeschluss" und "Neutronenbomben" veröffentlicht wurden, kann man nicht behaupten, dass die damals in leichtere Zeiten als heute fielen."Buckaroo Banzai ..." ist aber mit ziemlicher Sicherheit der am wenigsten bekannte der drei Beispiele - und das wahrscheinlich zu Unrecht.Warum reite ich bisher so auf dem Film herum ?1. Weil dessen Story die Grundlage des Buches darstellt)2. Weil das Buch die spezifische Stimmung des Films von der ersten Seite - und das schliesst auch die Vorworte ein - eins-zu-eins transportiert.3.Weil das Buch die Story verbereitert und vertieft. Wie bei "echten" Literaturverfilmungen üblich, würde man diese Features dann im Film vermissen, wenn man ihn sich erst nach der Lektüre gibt.4. Weil der Film an unmöglichsten Stellen mit shock-surprise-Grotesken aufwartet, die beim Lesen vllt. nicht ganz so "hilarious" wirken (können).5. Weil es sich empfiehlt, vor der Lektüre den Film anzuschauen, denn allein schon die Anzahl der Personen in Banzais Entourage nebst vieler anderer Attribute des "BB-Universums" den unvorbereiteten Leser beim "Erstkontakt" durchaus verwirren könnte, zumal die Story eben nicht aus der Sicht von BB, sondern von "Reno" erzählt wird.6. Wenn jemand den Filn nicht mögen sollte, er/sie sich das Buch auch gleich sparen kann.BTW: Film und Buch haben keinen Macho- oder gar frauenfeindlichen Einschlag, trotzdem stellen sie nicht wirklich die bestmögliche Frauenlektüre oder einen Frauenfilm dar.Nichtsdestoweniger liefert die blutjunge Ellen Barkin eine gute Leistung ab, genauso aber auch der blutjunge Jeff Goldblum. Allerdings spielt der völlig entfesselte John Lithgow ALLE anderen mit einer schier unglaublichen Intensität an die Wand.Wie der Film ist auch das Buch duchwürzt mit relativ stark emotionalen Szenen, die aber irgendwie nie lächerlich wirken, obwohl sie "Popcorn-Film-Emotionen" sind; also bitte keinen Shakespear erwarten.Alles in allem: wen der allgemeine Ton des Buches anspricht - das kann man schon auf den ersten Seiten prüfen -, der wird durchweg davon gut unterhalten werden; wer den Film mag, natürlich auch.Man sollte allerdings auch Spass an Absurdem haben können; in gewisser Hinsicht kommen einem da - obwohl völlig anders gelagert und inhaltlich nicht vergeichbar - Monthy Python Filme in den Kopf.

Alles was einen plagte, wer ist Buckaroo's Vater, wer seine Mutter, gespielt im Doku Film von Jamie Lee Curtis, alles wird gesagt, und noch vieles mehr. Für jeden Freund des letzten Heldens dieser Welt, und einer der letzten guten Musiker ein MUß.Gut wenn man sonst noch Fragen hat, nach dem Doku Film von 1984 nicht verwunderlich.