But they los!:)
They Live is a 1988 American science-fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson, and starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster.
It follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to spend money, breed, and accept the status quo with subliminal messages in mass media.
The film was and is a minor success at the time of its release, debuting #1 at the North American box office.
It originally received negative reviews criticizing its social commentary, writing and acting. However, like other films of Carpenter, it later enjoyed a cult following and eventually became recognized as a largely underrated work.
The film has also entered popular culture, and notably had a lasting impact on street art (particularly that of Shepard Fairey), while its nearly six-minute alley brawl between the protagonists makes appearances on all-time lists for best fight scenes.
PLOT
A drifter, credited mononymously as "Nada", arrives in Los Angeles. While out on the street, he sees a street preacher warning that “they” have recruited the rich and powerful to control humanity.
Nada takes a job on a construction site and befriends fellow construction worker Frank, who leads him to a shanty town soup kitchen and its leader, Gilbert.
That night, a hacker takes over television broadcasts, claiming that scientists had discovered signals that were enslaving the population and keeping them in a dream-like state, and that the only way to stop it is to shut off the signal at its source. Those watching the broadcast complain of headaches.
Nada secretly follows Gilbert and the street preacher into a nearby church, and discovers them meeting with a group that includes the hacker. He sees scientific equipment and cardboard boxes inside, and hears Gilbert worrying that the Hoffman lenses they made won’t be enough without "strong people" to help them. Nada is discovered by the blind preacher and escapes.
That night, the shantytown and church are destroyed in a police raid, and the hacker and preacher are surrounded and beaten by riot police.
The following day, Nada retrieves one of the boxes from the church and takes a pair of sunglasses from it, hiding the rest in a trash can. Nada discovers that the sunglasses make the world appear black and white, but also reveal subliminal messages in the media to obey, consume, reproduce, and conform.
The glasses also reveal that many people are actually aliens with skull-like faces.
When Nada mocks an alien woman at a supermarket, she alerts other aliens via a mysterious wristwatch. Nada leaves, but is confronted by two alien cops. He kills them and steals their weapons. Nada enters a bank, where he sees that several of the employees and customers are aliens.
He states "I have come here to chew bubble gum, and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum." He then murders several aliens with a shotgun and escapes by taking Cable 54 employee Holly Thompson hostage. At Holly’s home, Nada tries to get her to try on the glasses, but she knocks him out of the window and down a hill, and then calls the police.
Nada returns to the alley and retrieves the box of sunglasses from a garbage truck. Frank meets Nada to give him his paycheck. Nada tries to get Frank to put on a pair of the glasses, but Frank thinks Nada is a murderer and wants nothing to do with him to protect his family. Frank and Nada get into a long brawl, after which Frank is too tired to prevent Nada from putting the sunglasses on him. After seeing the aliens and a flying saucer, Frank agrees to go into hiding with Nada.
Frank and Nada find Gilbert, who leads them to a meeting of the anti-alien movement. At the meeting, they are given contact lenses to replace the sunglasses, and learn that the aliens are using global warming to make Earth more like their own planet, and are depleting the Earth’s resources for their own gain. They also learn that the aliens have been bribing humans to become collaborators, promoting them into positions of power.
Holly arrives at the meeting, apologizing to Nada, with information on the source of the signal. However, the meeting is raided by police and the vast majority of those present are killed, with the survivors (including Frank, Nada, and Holly) scattering into the night as the police surround the area. Nada and Frank are cornered by police in an alley, but they accidentally activate an alien wristwatch, opening a portal that they escape through.
The portal takes them to the aliens’ spaceport, where they discover a meeting of aliens and human collaborators, celebrating the elimination of the "terrorists". They are approached by a former drifter, now a collaborator, who gives them a tour of the facility. He leads them to the basement of Cable 54, the source of the signal, which is protected by armed guards. Nada and Frank find Holly and fight their way to the transmitter on the roof, but Holly kills Frank, revealing that she is a collaborator.
Nada kills Holly and destroys the transmitter, but is fatally wounded by aliens in a helicopter. Nada gives the aliens the middle finger as he dies.
With the transmitter destroyed, humans all over the world discover the aliens hiding among them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten