Headscratchers / The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

• Why does the President have to declare war on Russia? The Black Lectroids plan to use their particle weapon to obliterate Smolensk, in order to trigger World War III by the Soviets "retaliating" against the US for a presumed first strike. If this does happen, there's no point in declaring war; USSR is going to go to war anyway.
  • Perhaps out of an attempt to have a first first strike, kick it off themselves rather than waiting for the Black Lectroids to do it, or the slim hope that if the US can completely obliterate the USSR's ability to retaliate, then the human race will survive.

• Why is Whorfin so desperate to find Banzai's overthruster, if he has his own? In the end he just uses his own anyway, seemingly confident in its capabilities.
  • There was a "crucial missing circuit" that Banzai's overthruster had and Whorfin's lacked. With the Hong Kong Cavaliers assaulting Yoyodyne and the Black Lectroids minutes away from seeing Earth consumed in nuclear fire, Whorfin gave up on either getting Banzai's overthruster or getting the necessary information out of Banzai, and just used the one he had. Which Bigboote pointed out several times would not work. And indeed, it doesn't.

• In fact, why does Whorfin have to wait for Banzai's experiment in order to go ahead with his plan if he already has built his own overthruster? He could have done it years ago.
  • His overthruster didn't work, at least not completely. He needed a circuit Banazi's overthruster had that his lacked.

• Why do they call "New Jersey" that just because he's from New Jersey? According to their license plates, they're all from New Jersey, and the majority of the movie takes place in New Jersey.
  • They all currently live in New Jersey, they are not all originally from there.

• On the other hand, seeing as they're in New Jersey, why does he simply say he's from New Jersey instead of, like, a place in New Jersey? That's like someone in Dallas saying "I'm from Texas."
  • That's good enough for most people.

• Buckaroo is half Japanese, his name is Banzai, a Japanese word, there's Japanese on his blinds and his headband... but his band is called the Hong Kong Cavaliers — Hong Kong is Chinese (under British control at the time), not Japanese.
  • It sounded cooler/more marketable?