Some Choice Excerpts from the 2012 Version of the Face the Music Script
Ultimately, the changes made to this script were all definitely for the better lol, but there are some little gems here and there in this version
CUT TO 1994: POLISH MTV
Not great video quality: the guys interviewed on a cheap set. Ted is KNITTING some kind of thick, amorphous shape.
POLISH INTERVIEWER (O.S.)
(Polish accent) What are you making there, Ted?
24 YR OLD TED
I never know. I just knit till it feels done.
POLISH INTERVIEWER (O.S.)
It’s very.. dense what you’re knitting.
24 YR OLD TED
Yah. I call em yarn blobs.
(then)
Ask Bill what he does to relax.
POLISH INTERVIEWER (O.S.)
What do you do to relax, Bill?
Ted moves his mouth - but we hear BILL’S VOICE.
24 YR OLD BILL’S VOICE COMING FROM TED
I do ventriloquism, dude!
REGINE CHASSAGNE
I personally felt sorry for them. They were trying so hard that they were actually driving people away..
QUICK PHOTOS: Bill and Ted playing increasingly obscure instruments and wearing increasingly eccentric clothes (capes, flight suits, kilts, knickerbockers.. play didgeridoo, theramin, rainsticks, harp).
WIN BUTLER (V.O.)
Or, maybe as people were drifting away, it just made them try harder, it’s tough to know.
BILL/TED
“That Which Binds Us Through Time: The Chemical, Physical and Biological Nature of Love; An Exploration of the Meaning of Meaning.”
TED
Ready, Bill?
BILL
Ready, Ted. One..
TED
Two..
BILL
One two three four..
Ted plays bagpipes. Bill is engaged in a kind of wide-mouthed Aboriginal ‘throat-singing.’ While clearly a great deal of thought (and even love) has gone into the preparation of this piece, it is at its core quite difficult to define and, in fact, impossible to enjoy.
TED
Bill - come on. It’s me. You don’t have to spin me. It sucks. All our songs suck. What are we doing? Seriously. Our wives are mad at us, our sons are mad at us, we’re broke-- why are we even doing this?
BILL
we’re doing it cause we have to! Ted - we’re supposed to save all humanity.
TED
Says who??
BILL
Those people - from the future --
TED
What if they were wrong?
BILL
How could they be wrong? We saw the future - we were there.
TED
Alls I know is, at this moment, I feel like for the last 20 years we’ve been beating our heads against a wall, and it hurts, and I wanna stop.
BILL
But we can’t! We promised!
TED
Who’s gonna care? Seriously. I’m sick of it. And you know you are too.
Bill just looks at Ted - for a long moment - and then he just deflates, dropping the facade.
BILL
Okay. Yah. I’m totally sick of it. But I thought if I ever admitted it - to you or me - we’d completely crumble.
There’s a pause.
TED
I can’t do this any more. I just can’t.
A FLASH of LIGHT outside, visible under the garage door..
Then: We HEAR a metallic WHOOSH.. Then FOOTSTEPS. Someone.. Or something.. is outside.
Bill and Ted look at each other, walk toward the garage door and slowly open it, revealing--
The futuristic BOOTH.
BILL/TED
Whoa..
And next to the booth, emerging from its shadow, ROLLINS.
BILL
Who are you?
ROLLINS
Come with me, please.
BILL
Are you from the future?
ROLLINS
Yes.
A beat. The guys look at each other again.
TED
Are you mad at us?
ROLLINS
We have very little time.
He opens the door for them. Ted leans closer to Bill.
TED
I think we’re in trouble.
BILL
Relax, Ted. They totally love us in the future.
TED
Ted. Stop drinking for a minute and look me in the eye. Do you have the song?
50 Yr Old Ted almost looks Ted in the eye: at his eyebrows.. between his eyes.. But not in the eye.
TED (CONT’D)
No. In the eye. Look me in the eye, Ted, and tell me you have the song. Otherwise we’re gonna leave right now. Do you have the song or do you not?
(beat; shakes his head sadly)
You totally don’t have the song, do you?
50 YR OLD TED
(finishing his entire flask)
You know what? Screw you, me.
Knives go up to Bill and Ted’s throats.
65 YR OLD TED
See you in hell, guy.
TED
Okay. Um. I don’t want to be argumentative here. But I don’t think there could be two souls of the same person in one hell.
65 YR OLD TED
Well, there’s two of us here.
65 YR OLD BILL
Ted - don’t --
65 YR OLD TED
“Oh, I’m Ted and I’m a philosophical monist!”
TED
Well, I am! And I knew you knew my name!
65 YR OLD BILL
Ted - do not get drawn into this argument - we talked about this -
2 DOZEN HUNS stand before them, spears raised, with a LEADER yelling in Mongolian.
SUBTITLE: KILL THEM BOTH!
Bill and Ted’s eyes widen -
TED
Whoa..
Ted yanks a knitting needle, holds it “threateningly.” It does nothing. The Huns come closer. Suddenly --
-- Fifteen years into the future. 60 year old Bill and Ted with their now 5 year old GRANDDAUGHTERS on their laps. Teaching them simple chords on the guitar.
They are completing the telling of a long, long story:
95 YEAR OLD BILL
And as they looked back on everything they’d done.. Everywhere they’d been.. Everyone they’d known...
95 YEAR OLD TED
There was only one word to describe it.
There’s a pause. The old men look at each other - then out at their children and their children’s children.. And smile. And say - quietly - and with deep conviction:
BILL/TED
Excellent.
CLOSE ON BILL AND TED