Rad - Top Ten Script Anomalies (5-1)

The Final Script to "Rad" has been uploaded to the internet.
The movie itself has been uploaded to youtube.

This post continues what was started in Part 1 - counting down my own personal Top Ten differences between the script for "Rad" and the final film.

Let's begin.

#5. No "Hollywood" Mike Moranda, Others

OK, the movie used real BMXers playing themselves for the final race (Hell Track). The script has none of that. No Kevin Hull, no Kirk Bihun, no Eddie Fiola, no Danny Millwee! I could live without all of those (barely)... but one thing I will not stand for is no "Hollywood" Mike Moranda.

Without "Hollywood" Mike Moranda, we are robbed of not one, but two dramatic exits in one day. Unacceptable, Rad script. Unacceptable. Oh, there are still plenty of wipeouts. The entire Hell Track race is a war of attrition. But it all looks like this:

Stuart Craine?! Are you serious?! Even a cursory glance at the text reveals it to be movie poison - poison that would destroy everything the film had built to that point. It obviously lacks both drama and that classic Hollywood sparkle. Fortunately, the makers of the movie rectified this clear oversight and did so just in time to prevent a chain reaction of cause-and-effect that could've dramatically exitted THE WORLD.

#4. The Continuity Mistake... Is In The Script!

Here's a weird one.

In the final race, at 1:21:20, the sequence goes as follows:

1. After one lap Cru is in front.
2. Cru fans are devastated. One yells, "GET UP!"
3. Cru is taken out by Rod Reynolds and crashes.

See, the fans react to him wiping out BEFORE he wipes out. It's clearly a continuity error and it's one I love to point out to the empty chair beside me as I watch "Rad" in the basement.

But here's the weird part.... it's written in the script! The script has the continuity error. Watch:

I know what you're thinking: "Recede from my face?" But put that aside, the point is the continuity. They clearly react to a wipeout before it actually occurs.

Now, arguably the text could interpreted to mean that they're reacting negatively because they are worried - worried something bad will happen, and then it does. Perhaps. But it seems pretty unlikely that someone would say, "Poor Cru." just because he's battling for first and in a tight spot. I've never seen football fans, at a game, start booing before the ball comes down from the air.

#3. Totally Different Track = No Hulk Hogan

There are some similarities between the script's Hell Track and the film's Hell Track and there are many differences as well. I won't go into all of them. Generally, the script describes sections such as "Lucifer's Lane" ( a "seventy-five yard strip of black sand"), "Freedom of Choice" (a split in the track where riders can choose one of two paths) and "Purgatory's Pools" ("two pools divided by an eight foot black wall").

The film's "Cliffhanger" where, as in baseball, you're either safe or you're out, is nowhere to be found in the script. But the biggest difference, in terms of consequences to world history, is the absence of the giant Kix Bowl. The absence of this obstacle combined with the fact that, as I already mentioned in Part 1, Cru is eating Lucky Charms in the lumberyard means that the "Rad" script goes 0/2 on Kix references.

Is that a big problem? Well, with no Kix Bowl, Cru has no springboard from which to do a back-flip! Indeed, the script contains no corresponding moment to that which occurs in the film. This means that if "Rad" had gone by the letter of the script, Hulk Hogan would have never had to eat his heart out and who knows how history would have changed as a result.

#2. The Deleted Scenes

I've already written extensively about the Deleted scenes of "Rad". But are they in the script? And if so, are they different?

Well,

• All the scenes of the kids being pissed off that Cru is being screwed are in the script (pp 79-80).
• The scene of Bart getting drunk and acting stupid is in the script (77-78).
• Cru being given a new bike specifically to race Hell Track - NOT in the script.

The only deleted scene I remember and the one I most care about is the one that isn't in the script. Not only can I not find it anywhere to watch it, but I can't even read about it.

Does my memory deceive me? Was it all a dream? Well, I still have IMDB as an independent confirmation... but this mystery continues...

#1. The End

Spoiler Alert!

So we should all know by now how the movie ends:

1.) Rod Reynolds takes out Cru, giving Bart a large lead.
2.) Bart and the Reynolds twins are running first, second, third.
3.) Bart takes out Rod Reynolds (good night, team strategy!).
4.) Bart stops and lets Cru catch up in order to race one-on-one.
5.) They run neck-and-neck until Cru does an unnecessary and risky 360 just to show off.
6.) Cru still wins somehow.

That's how it happened. But that's not how the script ends it!

First off, #1 and #2 are the same in both the movie and the script. Neither really explains what happens to Rex Reynolds. He's in second or third place and then he's never mentioned again. My theory is that he fell into a blackhole. See, the spacesuit he's wearing at the big dance was foreshadowing.

After that, it isn't Bart that takes out Rod, it's Cru. He catches up, takes away Rod's line and then this happens:

WHOAH. Carnage.
"Could we just show a few racers running over his limp body and allow the audience to imagine the rest?"
"NO. The audience will see a full ten tramplings in one long 2 minute shot. This must happen."
"Won't that interrupt, you know, the movie's momentum?"
"NO. Lifeless body trampling - do it."
"This is a kid's movie, right?"

Next, just as in #3 above (except Rex instead of Rod), Bart takes out Rex's front tire in order to take Cru one-on-one. But he doesn't wait up. Cru still catches up to Bart but only through grit, moxy, vitamins and 24-inch pythons.

So then Duke Best is all:

I think I found my Christmas card for this year.

So, then Bart and Cru race side-by-side. They simultaneously go over a gnarly jump and...

With the rest of the pack way behind, the race comes down to who will swallow the pain, get up and will their bike over the line first.

Cru...

Instead of a majestic explosion across the finish line, it's a clumsy stumble on foot. It almost feels like "Rad" predicts "Cool Runnings". Something tells me I wouldn't have liked that ending as much, watching it as a kid.

And Finally....

It doesn't differ much from what's on screen but no discussion of the "Rad" script would be complete without posting the written text of the most important and powerful speech ever given....

It makes me cry every time. The emotion is altered somewhat in the script. In the script, right after Sgt. Smith finishes the speech he's knocked out and run over by 19 motorcycles.

Rad - Top Ten Script Anomalies (10-6)

The Final Script to "Rad" has been uploaded to the internet. The movie itself has been uploaded to youtube. What does it this mean? It means that everyone in the world can watch the movie while following along with their own copy of the script, noting any differences between the two. Anyone in the world can do it and I expect everyone in the world will.

But just in case they don't, I've compiled my own list. The movie and the script differ in innumerable ways, some minor, some fairly sizable, listing all of them is a job best left to the world of academia. Let someone else get a doctoral thesis out of it. Nevertheless, I've compiled a list of the "top ten" that are the most significant in my opinion.

This article will focus on #10 through #6.

#10. Cru Is Always Drinking Beer

Cru is supposed to be the prototypical all-American kid living in America. The script is very explicit that he's in high school (what with those scenes of him in high school and all). And yet, in the script he's constantly drinking beer. Coors to be specific.

Dude's pouring beer in his Lucky Charms! Not just beer but beer in cereal. That's hardcore. And it's only breakfast time.

How are you gonna walk Hell Track when your balance is compromised from alcohol?! The above snippet is from the scene where the gang is hanging out in the lumber yard just before Sgt. Smith arrives. But that's not the only time in the script that he's seen drinking. When it looks like Cru won't get to race Hell Track and he's at his lowest ebb, he's seen back in the lumber yard, back in the shack, drowning his sorrows in more Coors.

There's your lesson, kids!

#9. Sgt. Smith's Full Name

In the movie, the legend of Sgt. Smith follows naturally from the mystery of Sgt. Smith. Is he man or machine? Does he have a home? Does he ever take off his police uniform? Was he born or was he built in a lab from the parts of lesser policemen? Who knows. We only see him without his aviator sunglasses one time, and only at the very end of the movie. That means that by the end of the movie we've only learned that he has eyes.

But that's why it's so interesting that the script contains a small morsel of extra information.... his name!

Eugene?! Eugene T.... One question answered but another raised: what does the "T" stand for? I say it's "Thunder".

Look at that character description. One definitely gets the feeling that he's intended to be more of a "bad guy" in the script than in the movie. But, of course, that would make this all the more eerie:

#8. The Origin of the Phrase "Balls Out"

"Cru! You can do it. Just pretend you're in a lumberyard.... Go balls out."

It's one of the, if not the, most important Rad quotations. A group of NASA Engineers studied it for two years before deeming it the greatest movie quote of all-time and said that it single-handedly lead to several important technological advancements - each of which enabled BMX tricks to be more gnarly in some way.

The main thing that makes it stand out is that it's so insanely random.There's no reason a grizzled policeman should be using the phrase "balls out" to a teenager. There's no reason any adult should be using the phrase "balls out" to anyone. I shouldn't even be typing it now.

"Balls out."

But the script can explain it... kind of. Here's the scene where Cru IS in the lumber yard, just as they begin to play the "cat and mouse" game with Sgt. Smith:

The movie (and script) lead us to believe that their Sgt. Smith/lumberyard shenanigans are not a one-time occurrence. This is an ongoing, regular game. And it's also quite conceivable that Cru regularly shouts the phrase "Balls out!!!" to his fellow competitors as the start signal. So it's much more natural, then, to think that when the final race is about to start, Eugene isn't reaching that particular phrase just from the top of his head. He's showing that he's "down with the kids" by repeating Cru's own phrase back to him. It's encouragement and it's an inside joke at the same time.

So in light of the script, it doesn't feel so weird anymore. So then later, during the Hell Track race:

Hmm, nope, it just got weird again.

#7. Cru's Name Isn't Christopher

All throughout the movie, everyone consistently calls Cru, "Cru". There's only a single allusion to the fact that "Cru" is just a nickname. In the scene where Cru is trying to convince his mom that she should allow him to race Hell Track, he gives her the "Dad always said, 'When your gut talks to you, you listen.'" argument. To which she replies, "Aw, Christopher, that won't wash with me. Just because he's dead that doesn't mean that anything has changed."

Uh... well.... are you sure that his death hasn't changed anything?! Nothing at all? I'll be honest, it really should change some things... quite a few things, in fact.

Oh, anyway, from that small moment, a small bit of Rad trivia is born: Cru's real name is Christopher. Or is it? Here's what that exchange looks like in the script:

It's gone! And the name "Christopher" never shows up anywhere. Going from only the script, Cru's name is indeterminate. That line must have been added later - perhaps on the day of shooting.

If you ask me, there's a strange bit of symmetry going on. Sgt. Smith's name is ONLY in the script. Cru's name is ONLY in the movie. Perhaps both the script and movie are coordinated to be viewed as halves of a cohesive whole. Each is one piece of a greater puzzle. If you ask me, we are through the looking glass and there's no telling how far this thing goes.

#6. No Skull Kid

Rad experts agree that "The Skull Kid", as he's most commonly known, is the single most mysterious element in the entire movie "Rad". To see the Skull Kid, see this small moment here.

From the existing film footage, let's list exactly what we know:

1) An unnamed teenager approaches a desk.
2) He places a human skull on the desk.
3) He says, "Thank you."
4) He walks away.

That's what we know. That's ALL we know.

It's inexplicable. It's unexplainable. If you think about it too long, blood will come out of your ears. It's kept me up nights, that's the God's-honest truth. But it's all for naught. There's no way to rationalize it. It's an eternal mystery.

That is, unless the script can provide some sort of insight that can't be gleaned from the movie.... Here's that exact moment as described in the script:

SON OF A BUSINESS. That's it?! The script doesn't just echo the same information, it deletes information. That moment is not in the script at all. We have to assume, as elsewhere, that that moment was invented on the day of shooting (or at least sometime after the final script). But who would do such a thing and why?

Rad's greatest mystery remains just that...