Todd Merriman looks back at John Carpenter's "They Live," featuring special sunglasses, super yuppies from outer space, and unabashedly-drawn-out fight scenes.
They Live
Rated R
Starring: Roddy Piper, Keith David and Meg Foster
Directed by: John Carpenter
95 minutes
The year was 1988. Ronnie was in the White House. Downsizing was all the rage. The gap between rich and poor was widening. And “They Live” hit the nation’s theaters.
“They Live” is the story of homeless man John Nada, played by wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. Though he’s down on his luck, Nada doesn’t give in to bitterness or blame anyone else for his troubles. He doesn’t share his fellow bum Frank’s view that everyone is only out for him or herself. Unlike Frank, he has no desire to “take a sledgehammer to one of those fancy fucking foreign cars.” He has hope that a hard day’s work will make him successful in life.
“I believe in America,” he explains to Frank, played by Keith David. “I follow the rules. Everybody’s got their own hard times these days.”
At least, that’s his attitude until he finds a box of special sunglasses.
Then he sees that the earth is run by a race of skull-faced super yuppies from outer space. The aliens narcotize earthlings through, natch, television, broadcasting a signal that camouflages them, making them appear as ordinary humans. When revolutionaries disrupt the alien broadcasts to tell the truth, interrupting the endless stream of ads and mindless programming, viewers get headaches. Kind of like when you try to watch Free Speech TV on your satellite dish.
The revolutionaries also made the sunglasses, and coincidentally, run the mission where Nada and Frank are staying.
Anyone who puts the glasses on no longer sees what the aliens want them to see, but what’s really there. The subliminal messages come straight to the surface. To the naked eye, a billboard appears to advertise a computer. Viewed with the glasses, it really says, “Obey.” Magazines actually say things like, “No independent thought,” “Consume,” “Submit,” “Watch TV.” A billboard ad for a Caribbean getaway featuring a bikini-clad woman really says, “Marry and reproduce.” Dollar bills say, “This is your god.”
“They Live” is a populist, satirical sci-fi allegory on mass media manipulation, rampant consumerism, and the consequences of blind greed over compassion for one’s fellow man.
But that’s not why I like it.
I like it because once Nada puts on the sunglasses he gets pissed off and starts shooting.
I like it because he walks into a bank, shotgun in hand, and says, “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubble gum.”
I like it because Nada and Frank have a fistfight that lasts 5 minutes and 21 seconds, just because Frank doesn’t want to try on the sunglasses. It’s refreshing to watch because it’s almost nothing like any fight scene in any recent action film. No musical accompaniment. No flashy effects. No one flying around with the assistance of hidden cables.
It’s just 5 minutes and 21 seconds of two guys beating the shit out of each other in an alley. ‘Rassler Roddy even slams his opponent to the pavement in a suplex. Not that he comes away unharmed. Frank gives him six seconds worth of repeated knee-to-the-nasties.
The scene is so endearing that South Park mimicked it in an episode where handicapped Timmy and Jimmy get in a fight.
Frank throws a punch, and 5 minutes, 21 seconds, later Nada forces the sunglasses onto his face. Then the two men join up with the revolutionaries, only to find that after all that fuss over sunglasses, the underground has manufactured some contact lenses that do the same thing. But they obviously can’t make enough contact lenses for all humanity, so Frank and Nada find themselves, armed with machine guns and grenades, on a mission to destroy the source of the alien’s signal.
And if I keep talking, I’ll give away the ending. Suffice it to say, this is a cool movie. I give it 5 beers out of a six-pack.