Isaac and myself love movies. Now every Saturday we will quickly talk about a movie we recently watched. Hope you enjoy and share in your views with us.
They Live
They live... we sleep. John Nada (played by then just retired WWF wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper) is a laid-off blue-collar worker who believes in the "American dream". He doesn't have a place to sleep or a job but he believes that everyone get their chance. One night, hundreds of cops on foot, by cars and in helicopters raid a local chapel where our friend John Nada happens to be near. It seems like it might be related to the constant interferences happening on television where an old man talks about us been asleep and warning of an evil conspiracy that's been brainwashing the general public.
The next morning when everything is quiet, Nada decides to take a look inside the chapel. The only thing he finds there are sunglasses. After trying them on what looks to be normal becomes a shocked revelation. He stumbles (literally) into the shocking reality of a galactic-size conspiracy in which his fellow citizens are being hypnotized through subliminal messages on television and behind everything in print, from magazines to posters to marquees. When Nada wears the special sunglasses developed by an emerging underground resistance, those secret messages are revealed: "No independent thought... Consume... Conform... Stay asleep... This is your God (the message of money)... Do not question authority!"
In a 1988 interview with John Carpenter for American Cinematographer Magazine, the director said that "THEY LIVE began with a comic book I bought called 'Nada.' It was published by Eclipse Comics, a company which puts out very beautifully rendered science fiction stories. This particular strip was taken from a short story called "Eight O'Clock in the Morning," by Ray Nelson. In the story, this guy wakes up and realizes that the entire human race has been hypnotized, and that there are creatures among us. I became entranced with the story, but I felt that it should be updated. I thought that it might be more current if the guy woke up and realized that the Reagan Revolution was run by aliens from another planet."
THEY LIVE is a political satire and a homage to the 1950's paranoia movies. Roddy Pipper delivers some cool lines like "I'm here to kick ass and to chew bubble gum--and I'm all out of bubble gum". Plus Pipper and Keith David battles in what has to be the longest fight in movie history... and just because David doesn't want to wear the glasses!
Director: John Carpenter
Running time: 94 minutes
Released: 1988
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