Pahan kehä (1988)
Trivia
The line "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum" was ad-libbed by Roddy Piper. According to director John Carpenter, Piper had previously written the line in his notebook of potential verbal bits during his wrestling career. He shared the notebook with Carpenter, and they agreed that this particular line fit the character and the film perfectly. Piper went on to use it at a wrestling match.
Carpenter brought real "homeless folks" into the production for several scenes and smaller characters and gave them food as well as paychecks. "I thought that was a pretty classy thing to do," says Piper.
The big fight sequence was designed, rehearsed and choreographed in the back-yard of director John Carpenter's production office. The fight between Nada (Roddy Piper) and Frank (Keith David) was only supposed to last twenty seconds, but Piper and David decided to fight it out for real, only faking the hits to the face and groin. They rehearsed the fight for three weeks. Carpenter was so impressed he kept the scene intact, which runs five minutes, twenty seconds.
Roddy Piper, being a married man at the time of filming, refused to take his wedding band off. That's why in several scenes you can see a wedding ring on.
Roddy Piper's character never gives his name nor is he referred to by name throughout the entire movie. He is simply listed as "Nada" in the credits, which means "nothing" in Spanish and Portuguese. The name almost certainly references the character George Nada in Ray Faraday Nelson's short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning", from which the film was adapted.
John Carpenter wanted a truly rugged individual to play Nada. He cast wrestler Roddy Piper in the lead role after seeing him in WrestleMania III (1987).
Vince McMahon didn't want Piper to do the film. "Yeah, I figured," says Carpenter. McMahon told Piper that he would find him a different film at the same pay rate within four weeks, but Piper passed and ended up splitting with the WWF. Carpenter asks why, and Piper states plainly that McMahon is a control freak. "When I came back to wrestling I was twice as important as when I left," he says and credits Carpenter and the success of the film. "The politics of that business is something I don't get," says Carpenter.
Many movie posters for the film featured a long blurb that read: "You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong.".
John Carpenter was impressed with Keith David's performance in The Thing - 'se' jostakin (1982) and needed someone "who wouldn't be a traditional sidekick, but could hold his own." To this end, Carpenter wrote the role of Frank specifically for David.
After Nada kills several ghouls and exits into a side street he comes face to face with a human cop who he disarms and tells to leave. The actual phrase he uses is "Beat your feet," but according to Piper the actor apparently misinterpreted it on the first take and began running in place. "God bless him," he says, "his heart was into it big time."
For years after the film's release - and even on the movie's DVD commentary - Roddy Piper maintained that the film was based on an actual incident in the 1950s in which a company manufactured a TV that planted subliminal messages in women's brains instructing them to make extravagant purchases. Piper was unaware that the "documentary" he had seen, L'affaire Bronswik (1978), was in fact a comedy short.
According to a title-card in the made-for-DVD short documentary He Lives: Interview with John Carpenter (2013), "They Live opened at the #1 at the US box office. And disappeared from theaters soon afterwards".
Piper credits Carpenter and "They Live" with jump-starting the wrestler-turned-actor migration. "I was the first wrestler ever in the history of wrestling to star in a major motion studio picture that became #1 box office of the weekend, and that gave the itch to I don't know how many wrestlers. And not one of them to this day has put out a quality picture like this, and not one of them has had a #1 hit like this.
The communicators used by the guards near the end is also the PKE meter used in Ghostbusters - haamujengi (1984).
The role of Nada was originally written for Kurt Russell. But John Carpenter felt he should cast somebody else after casting Russell in four of his films prior to this one: Elvis (1979), Pako New Yorkista (1981), The Thing - 'se' jostakin (1982) and Säpinää Chinatownissa (1986).
The scene where the police attack and destroy the homeless encampment was difficult for Piper to shoot as it reminded him of similar events he witnessed in his own life. "It was a painful scene for me," he says.
The film was made and released about twenty-five years after its source short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson had been first published in 1963. According to John Carpenter, this movie was also based on an Eclipse Comics comic-book adaptation of this story.
Originally scheduled for an October 21, 1988 release date, the film was moved to November 4, in order to avoid competition with Halloween 4 (1988). Interestingly, John Carpenter had been producer and co-writer of the first three Halloween films (and director of the first), but Halloween 4 was the first in the series that was made entirely without his involvement. Another reason to move the release was to capitalize on the November 8 presidential election, in tandem with the film's social commentary.
The only character given a first and last name is Holly Thompson (Meg Foster).
On an episode of Monstervision (1991) in 1997, Roddy Piper mentioned that John Carpenter had wanted him to discuss the film's political subtext (which was critical of Reaganomics) while doing promotions for the film. However, due to being in the United States on a green card, Piper felt it wasn't his place to discuss American politics. He also noted that he had rather liked President Reagan and thus didn't really agree with the film's politics, so he would shy away from talking about them while promoting the film.
Unsurprisingly, both men have a problem with authority. "I have this adolescent hatred of authority," says Carpenter. "I've never gotten over it since I was a kid." Piper adds "Ask me for my shirt off my back I'll give it to you, tell me? Not a chance."
Writer-director John Carpenter has said of this movie that it was a critique of Reaganomics, a "vehicle to take on Reaganism". However, over the years, several neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups co-opted the movie for their own purpose, spreading rumors that it is really an allegory for Jews controlling the world. This forced Carpenter to respond on Twitter in 2017 by stating "They Live is about yuppies and unrestrained capitalism. It has nothing to do with Jewish control of the world, which is slander and a lie".
Piper recalls it being uncomfortably easy getting into the mindset of a homeless person. "I lived on the street myself," he says, "so it didn't take long to kind of get the feeling of what's going on. Everybody's got their own little life and they think that's it, and nobody's helping nobody."
On the commentary, Carpenter pointed out that Piper has made more movies than he has. "I've only made 20," says the director. "Yeah, but you made 20 good ones," replies Piper.
Graffiti artist Shepard Fairey got his "obey" name from this film.
It cost $12,000 to have the train roll by for the opening shot. A technical error required them to do it a second time.
Director John Carpenter had "final cut" on the film according to He Lives: Interview with John Carpenter (2013).
"Now we're about to start one of the great fight scenes in movie history," says Carpenter, and he's not wrong. "It's a real fight. It's not a flashy fight in terms of you guys don't have kung-fu going, you don't have martial arts, you're not flying through the air. You're just going at it." Piper and David rehearsed the fight in Carpenter's back yard for over two months. Carpenter told Piper during production that he wanted to include a suplex in the fight, to which Piper replied "Which one?" before attempting to demonstrate a few on the director himself. Carpenter managed to avoid falling victim to those, but he did consent to letting Piper subject him to a sleeper hold and vouches for its authenticity.
Piper's shirtless scenes raised a conspiracy theory that no one but Piper was aware of. "The rumor was that you had taken my head and put it on someone else's body," says the actor, "and people don't believe that's my body." "What are you talking about?" asked Carpenter incredulously. Apparently Piper was dogged at subsequent wrestling events by fans claiming the film had used computers to falsify his physique. "That's ridiculous," says Carpenter.
Carpenter recalls an early screening at Los Angeles' City Walk where a young kid exited the film seemingly confused with what he had seen. "He had been brought up with Rambo films," he says. "He was expecting it to be jingoistic and rah-rah, and it bothered him a little" that the point of the film was instead the idea of class divide.
Shepard Fairey credits the film as a major source of inspiration, sharing a similar logo to his "OBEY" campaign. "They Live was...the basis for my use of the word 'obey'," Fairey said. "The movie has a very strong message about the power of commercialism and the way that people are manipulated by advertising."
Carpenter mentions the various bumps and troubles they had while filming in downtown Los Angeles, and Piper adds "like paying the gangs off." The director agrees but adds no details.
Piper is no fan of his performance during the scene where Nada and Frank talk post-fight in the motel room. Carpenter tells him he was proud of him though for opening up and delivering an authentic, "real" performance. Piper wishes he had pushed himself harder, but Carpenter tells him that he still watches his old films thinking he could have done this or that better.
"Life's a bitch and she's back in heat" is Randy 'The Macho Man' Savage's favorite line in the film.
The film references climate change, which was known to scientists by the time although it was nowhere near as well-understood by the general public as it became in the following century. The mention of climate change is on the hacker's television broadcast shown during the meeting of the alien resistance. Within the plot of the film, climate change is being deliberately caused by the aliens to make Earth's climate more conducive to their species. Similarly, increasing concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few people and organisations - another real-life occurrence since the 1980s - is attributed within the film's plot to the alien conspiracy. The speaker at the black-tie event says this is due to the alliance between the aliens and the audience, "the human power elite."
John Carpenter thought about a famous actor to play Nada such as Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Sylvester Stallone, David Hasselhoff, and Johnny Depp. However, he decided to hire a professional wrestler to play the character.
Carpenter compliments the film's matte painting work featured in the scene where Nada first looks through the sunglasses and points out that it was done by "one of the unheralded geniuses in our business, Jim Danforth."
Actress Meg Foster was cast after director John Carpenter had seen her performance in the Canadian film Ticket to Heaven (1981).
At the beginning of the movie, when Nada is walking the streets and pauses by a storefront filled with TVs, one TV image shown is of Mount Rushmore. The shadows on the Presidents' eyes are particularly dark and Abraham Lincoln appears to be wearing a pair of the sunglasses. This foreshadows Nada taking on the role of 'The Great Emancipator'.
Piper recalls the scene in the grocery store where Nada falls down as being a rare moment when Carpenter second-guessed his decision after the fact. "At the time you said 'do it,' but then you thought maybe it made our hero look clumsy." "I must have been taking some drugs," explains Carpenter as he thinks it's perfectly fine now.
After Nada and Frank teleport to the tunnels, two soldiers are at a checkpoint and hear about the assault on the rebel base. One is holding the "PKE Meter" used by Egon in Ghostbusters - haamujengi (1984). It can also be seen being used by soldiers on two other occasions while Nada and Frank are being chased through the building.
After Pimeyden valtias (1987), this was the second and final film that John Carpenter made for Alive Films.
The film became the subject of so many neo-Nazi postings which claimed that the film's aliens were actually meant to be Jews who were subverting white society and taking over the world, that John Carpenter made a lengthy, angry, and public statement in early 2017 stating that this theory was bigoted garbage with no truth and no connection to his ideas for the film.
Carpenter sent Piper and Keith David off to lunch one day and instructed them to remain in character. The goal was camaraderie, not alien hunting, and it seemed to work. "You came back and I said 'Well what happened?' and you said 'We didn't have to say much, there we were together.'" Piper adds they were just comfortable with each other.
Piper commented on the first scene showing hidden messages in the TV broadcast by adding that it has a historical precedent in L'affaire Bronswik (1978). It refers to a company that manufactured a special television designed to feature subliminal messages for the purposes of advertising suggestion. "All of a sudden a housewife would come home with 50lbs of dog food, and she didn't even own a dog!" "Very truthful!" he adds after Carpenter scoffs a bit. The Bronswik Affair is actually a mockumentary made in the '70s about manufactured consumerism.
Carpenter has been a wrestling fan since he was a kid. "I even wrote a column for The Ring magazine."
Piper points out the shot of his character, John Nada, walking by himself. "Lonely guy, always walking by himself, which is pretty much the character and pretty much the truth," he says. "Kind of a little bit of an introvert."
Carpenter points out the wide shot showing cop cars heading towards Holly's (Meg Foster) house saying "That's coming down my street, I live over there." Piper seems to think that's too much information citing a recent issue with a stalker. "Two years stalking my family," he says, "gun runner." They agree to discuss that in more detail once they stop recording.
After The Thing - 'se' jostakin (1982), this is Keith David and John Carpenter's second and final film together.
Though much has been made of neo-Nazis championing the film as allegory for Jewish conspiracies, the far-left on the other hand--and taken more seriously--have praised the film as the "perfect Marxist movie", in that Carpenter's depiction of "unrestrained capitalism" (his own words) is a satire of society's domination by a consumerism as entrenched and powerful as any fascist super-state.
The "Into Your Eyes" music video by Armand Van Helden mostly consists of recreated scenes from They Live, but with a twist.
Alec Baldwin, Michael Biehn, Brian Bosworth, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Campbell, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Tommy Lee Jones, Michael Keaton, Christopher Lambert, Stephen Lang, Dolph Lundgren, Michael Madsen, Bill Paxton, Ron Perlman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Patrick Swayze, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Bruce Willis were considered to play Nada.
That's my pitiful harmonica playing there," says Piper as his character appears onscreen playing the harmonica pitifully. "That song, Jay the Alaskan York made up called 'La Brea Tar Pit Blues'." "Jay Alaskan what?" asks Carpenter. "He was 320lbs, whip around his neck," says Piper.
In this story the aliens are only seen by people wearing special sunglasses. This however is not the first time this basic plot line was used. The first was in a TV movie called The Love War (1970) shown in the 1970s.
The final of three movies with George 'Buck' Flower about alien visitation. The first was Starman (1984) (who played the cook who gave the alien a ride). The second was Mac ja minä (1988).
At the end of the film, right after Nada shoots the transmitter and the aliens are revealed, the camera cuts to a bar television set.
While someone keeps switching channels, one of the TV shows featured is a movie critic decrying the violence in films. He says, "all the sex and violence on the screen has gone too far for me. I'm fed up with it. Film makers like George Romero and John Carpenter have to show some restraint...."
Mr. Carpenter allows a little self-reference. Very meta.
While someone keeps switching channels, one of the TV shows featured is a movie critic decrying the violence in films. He says, "all the sex and violence on the screen has gone too far for me. I'm fed up with it. Film makers like George Romero and John Carpenter have to show some restraint...."
Mr. Carpenter allows a little self-reference. Very meta.
A book next to Nada is shown, by Edgar Cayce on ESP, who claimed to have psychic powers. In his youth he was talking to angels and recived messages from aliens. Same as the protagonist in movie, he was considered a weirdo and nobody believed him.
Spoilers
One of the alien TV broadcasts refers to the director by name. An alien commentator is complaining about sex and violence in the media, and his dialog breaks off with the words, "Film-makers like George A. Romero and John Carpenter have to show some restraint. They're simply--."
The aliens superficially resemble walking, rotting corpses. John Carpenter didn't want the aliens to look like the "high-tech" creatures of other science fiction films. He decided that since these beings were corrupting humanity, they themselves should resemble corruptions of human beings.
All the various aliens throughout the movie, both male and female, were portrayed by stunt coordinator Jeff Imada but the credits lists a female ghoul as played by Michelle Costello and obviously there are a few scenes with multiple ghouls onscreen. Imada played the ghouls who had close-ups/speaking parts. "He could fit into the costumes," says Carpenter before Piper adds "and he didn't mind the pumps. When you have 14 black belts you can wear pumps!"
When Frank (Keith David) angrily asks Nada (Roddy Piper) how many people he had killed, Nada replies that they weren't people. The only human character killed by Nada is Holly Thompson (Meg Foster).
Piper regretted his performance in the final scene flipping the bird to the bad guys, and thinks it "should have been straight and strong" instead of weak and slightly bent.
This film and "Alien Nation (1988)" were the two major Hollywood studio science-fiction films released in the year of 1988 that featured alien characters assimilated into modern day society on the planet Earth.
The fight scene between Keith David and Roddy Piper was used as a direct reference for the scene in South Park: Cripple Fight (2001) where the handicapped children Jimmy and Timmy settle their differences.
The film is partially shot in black-and-white which involved only the scenes and sequences where the aliens were visible to the audience when characters are wearing the sunglasses for most of the film. But this visual aesthetic ceases towards the end of the picture whereupon the aliens become visible in color for the film's final act.
