{"id":9886,"date":"2024-12-10T23:37:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9886"},"modified":"2024-12-10T23:37:31","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:37:31","slug":"they-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/they-live\/","title":{"rendered":"They Live"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"They Live <\/strong>(1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity and sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Carpenter (as \u201cFrank Armitage\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Carpenter and Alan Howarth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gary B. Kibbe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 4, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, George “Buck” Flower, Peter Jason, Raymond St. Jacques, Jason Robards III, John Lawrence, Susan Barnes, Sy Richardson, Wendy Brainard, Lucille Meredith, Susan Blanchard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $13M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The best sci-fi movies say something about the times in which they were made. I\u2019ll grant that this statement doesn\u2019t apply to the Star Wars trilogies, but they\u2019re in a class of their own. As for my original statement, may I introduce into evidence the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the remake? Both made statements about the current affairs of their respective times. In the 50s, it was Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunt for Communists in America. In the 70s (aka \u201cThe Me Decade\u201d), it was the laid-back Southern California lifestyle.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Similarly, John Carpenter uses They Live<\/strong> to make a statement about the deterioration of the American Empire. The US he depicts, a society of greedy rich people and poor folks with nothing, is a mess with the declining economy, pollution and the depletion of natural resources. In the guise of an alien invasion tale, he delivers a biting commentary on mass consumerism and the deadening effect it has on the American people. It\u2019s true we\u2019ve become slaves to the media. Just look around. What if there\u2019s something sinister behind it? What if ads contain subliminal messages intended to make us complacent as a society? What better way to open the door to a hostile takeover by aliens? It\u2019s a frightening thought when you consider it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The main character (played by pro-wrestler Piper) is never actually named in the movie. He\u2019s referred to as “Nada” in the credits. It\u2019s the Spanish word for “nothing”. It’s the way we see most people we encounter on a day-to-day basis, whether it be a stranger on the street or the person in front of us at the supermarket check-out counter. When we first meet him, he\u2019s an unemployed drifter who\u2019s come to L.A. looking for a job, any job. What he finds is a city full of apathetic people who don’t give a damn about anybody other than themselves. Most of the characters aren\u2019t even referred to by name. Nobody cares enough to know names. That\u2019s how bad it\u2019s become.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He finds work at a construction site where he meets Frank (David, The Thing), one of several people who have taken up residence at a nearby shantytown across the street from a church where something strange is going on. There\u2019s also this bearded man who keeps showing up on illegal TV broadcasts claiming we\u2019ve all been enslaved and lulled into compliance by signals that keep us in a dream-like state. After a police raid destroys the encampment, Nada finds a box of sunglasses hidden in the church. He takes a pair and puts them on only to discover a horrifying truth that\u2019s been right in front of him for who knows how long.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When seen through the lenses, the world is totally different. It\u2019s literally a black-and-white place where billboards, magazines, newspapers, labels on products and paper currency all have subliminal messages written on them. They display totalitarian commands like \u201cObey\u201d, \u201cConsume\u201d, \u201cConform\u201d, \u201cNo Independent Thought\u201d, \u201cMarry and Reproduce\u201d and \u201cThis Is Your God\u201d (on the currency). He also sees some people are actually aliens, their skull-like appearance concealed by human faces. They walk among us as politicians and members of the upper class; they are the ruling class. They use the subliminal messages and TV signals to control the human population by hypnotizing them so that they can\u2019t see the aliens for who and what they truly are. When it becomes known that Nada sees things as they really are, he\u2019s forced to go on the run from police and aliens-in-disguise.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nada has a hell of a time getting anybody to believe him. He takes TV station employee Holly (Foster, Masters of the Universe) hostage at gunpoint after an incident at a bank. She humors him until she\u2019s able to escape. When he tries to tell Frank, the two men get into a prolonged brawl until Nada finally forces him to see the truth. It turns out they\u2019re not the only ones aware of the situation. They\u2019re recruited by a rebel army planning to destroy the alien transmitter and eliminate the threat to humanity once and for all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As you can see, They Live<\/strong> is markedly different from other movies of its kind. You\u2019ll find none of that jazz about giant spaceships destroying national monuments and major cities. The military is not called in to fight the invaders. There are no huge mobs of frightened people fleeing in panic. It\u2019s a bit more subdued than that. Any filmmaker can make a megabudget alien invasion noisefest replete with fancy CGI and frenetic, overedited action scenes, all of which is really a means of concealing tired plots and shallow characterizations. It takes a true master to put a different, original spin on things. Enter Mr. Carpenter who impressed the hell out of me the previous year with his brilliant Satanic horror movie Prince of Darkness. He does the same with They Live<\/strong>, a decidedly more cerebral take on the alien invasion genre.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That\u2019s not to say there isn\u2019t any action in They Live<\/strong>. On the contrary, there\u2019s a fair amount of shooting and running and fighting, especially fighting. Did you really expect otherwise from a movie featuring a pro-wrestler in the lead? This leads to the movie\u2019s only real flaw. By way of displaying his star\u2019s special set of skills, Carpenter gives us a prolonged fight scene between Piper and Keith. It lasts for nearly six minutes. I hate to say it, but it stops the movie dead in its tracks. I get why the makers put it in. You can\u2019t make a movie starring Rowdy Roddy Piper and not have him show off his moves. His fans expect it. They\u2019d go berserk if he didn\u2019t. But did Carpenter really have to drag it out like he does? I\u2019ve heard arguments on both sides. I think it\u2019s distracting and off-base. That, of course, is my own opinion.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Overlong fight scene notwithstanding, Piper shows real action star potential in They Live<\/strong>. I wasn\u2019t completely sold on him until the now-iconic scene where he enters a bank armed to the teeth and announces, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum!” before killing a few more aliens. What a GREAT line! That\u2019s when I knew a new star was born or so I thought. It didn\u2019t happen for him. He co-starred in a handful of DTV titles- e.g. Resort to Kill, Back in Action and No Contest- until his death in 2015. It\u2019s tragic how the major studios failed to see the possibilities with Piper, yet kept allowing Hulk Hogan to \u201cact\u201d in cinematic travesties like Mr. Nanny and Santa with Muscles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Co-star David Keith is also very good as a guy just trying to make money to take care of his family in Detroit. He doesn\u2019t want to get mixed up in things, but realizes he has no choice after seeing the truth of the matter. He\u2019s also a real bad ass. Foster, with her piercing blue eyes, offers up ample support as a woman who plays a pivotal role in what\u2019s going on. Raymond St. Jacques (Cotton Comes to Harlem) is on board as a blind street preacher involved in the human revolution. Carpenter regular Peter Jason (Prince of Darkness) shows up as one of the leaders of the revolution. It’s always good to see him: he’s one of the best character actors in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like I said earlier, They Live<\/strong> is that rare sci-fi movie that isn\u2019t overly reliant on special effects. It was made on a meager budget of $3M meaning Carpenter can\u2019t afford to lay L.A. to waste with a huge battle. What he can afford looks pretty good. Some have said the little flying saucers Nada sees while wearing the glasses look like something from a low budget sci-fi movie from the 50s. I think that’s kind of the point, Carpenter is obviously paying homage to the films that influenced some of his work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Are the themes explored in They Live <\/strong>still relevant today? It depends on how you look at it I suppose. I don\u2019t want to say anything about the state of the world today. We know what\u2019s going on out there. It\u2019s all over the nightly news and the Internet. It\u2019s gone past apathy to outright hatred. On the other hand, mass consumerism is still very much a thing only now it\u2019s done on Amazon. If Carpenter remade it today, he\u2019d probably do it a little differently. Even so, I like They Live<\/strong> just as it is. It\u2019s gained a cult following over the years and it’s well-deserved. It deserves to be recognized for transcending the sci-fi genre and making a relevant statement in a manner that never feels heavy-handed or overly serious. It\u2019s intelligent, understated, satirical and fun. It\u2019s sci-fi for the thinking person, yet it\u2019s accessible to those who only came to see Rowdy Roddy fight. Well done, Mr. Carpenter.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They Live (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity and sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: John Carpenter (as \u201cFrank Armitage\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Carpenter and Alan Howarth\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gary B. Kibbe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 4, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, George “Buck” Flower, Peter Jason, Raymond St. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/They-Live-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9886"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10207,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9886\/revisions\/10207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}