Revisiting the Physics of Buckaroo Banzai

serutan writes "Shortly before the release of 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension' in 1984, physicist Carl Sneider of U.C. Berkeley wrote a surprisingly interesting essay on the physics behind the movie. Since the essay is not widely available on the web and I could only find it in plain text, I posted a more readable HTML version on my site. Among the more interesting points Sneider makes are that the oscillation overthruster is the result of decades of research instead of the usual laboratory accident, and its development corresponds surprisingly well with the evolution of particle physics from the 1930s to the 80s."

Re:Weird science

[IdahoEv]

On the other hand, not knowing much about particle physics, I had always assumed that the "science" in Buckaroo Banzai was just so much vapid technobabble.

The fact that phrases like "intermediate vector bosons" tossed around in the movie actually have a connection of any sort at all to the issues being discussed puts BB already a few parsecs ahead of the typical S.F. junk that hollywood puts out.

I'd always thought of BB as a camp fantasy classic. It's refreshing to know that the writers actually knew a little science and applied it, even if the final product was entirely improbable.

Just remember

[stox]

"No matter where you go, there you are!"

Re:Weird science

[hal2814]

"The point was not to prove the feasibility of the oscillation overthruster, but to show that the science thread that runs through Buckaroo Banzai is a cut above standard movie technobabble."

Right. It's basically an inside joke. Most people think Buckaroo might as well be reversing the polarity of the neutron flow but a few people out there are really going to appreciate the effort put forth in creating the technobabblish scenes. And this sort of inside joke is a lot harder to pull off than throwing Gil Garrard's name into a Family guy episode.

Only on Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you post this story between two stories about copyright infringement, and see no irony whatsoever.

Dare I ask whether this person has Dr. Sneider's permission...?

Re:before physics was ...

[LWATCDR]

It really was science with no practical applications then. The sad thing is just as WWI was the fought with chemistry war WWII was the war fought with physics.

Re:before physics was ...

[LWATCDR]

Actually WWII was fought with Quantum Physics.

WWIII is being fought with the media.

Re:Buckaroo Banzai was easy to identify with

[jafac]

The movie was certainly about 10 years ahead of its time.

(I can't stand watching it now, because of the nasty 1980's rock-video hairstyles and costumes. But the dialog was some of the funniest stuff in cinema history - - big boo TAY!)