They Live

They Live
They Live theatrical poster
Directed by	John Carpenter
Written by	Ray Nelson (short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning") John Carpenter (screenplay)
Produced by	Larry J. Franco
Starring	Roddy Piper Keith David Meg Foster Raymond St. Jacques Peter Jason Sy Richardson George 'Buck' Flower
Cinematography	Gary B. Kibbe
Edited by	Gib Jaffe Frank E. Jimenez
Music by	John Carpenter Alan Howarth
Distributed by	Universal Studios
Release dates	November 4, 1988 (USA)
Running time	93 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$4,000,000 (estimated)

They Live is a 1988 film directed by John Carpenter, who also wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym "Frank Armitage". The movie is based on the short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson.

Plot

The story is both science fiction and black comedy, dealing satirically with the perceived notion of a declining economy and the culture of greed and conspicuous consumption associated with the 1980s. It posits a world in which some of the "haves" (the monied elite or the yuppies) are in fact space aliens seeking to oppress the "have nots" (poverty-stricken Earthlings and the desperate middle class) through subliminal advertising in the mass media.

The film stars former professional wrestler Roddy Piper as a homeless laborer who falls in with a group of shantytown rebels who have invented special dark glasses that enable the wearer to see past the façade the aliens have constructed to prevent their detection. One of the film's more memorable scenes occurs when Piper's character dons the glasses for the first time, and notices that a billboard for what appears to be a computer company now simply blares the word "OBEY," while another billboard featuring a bikini-clad model urges the viewer to "MARRY AND REPRODUCE." He also sees that money bears the words "THIS IS YOUR GOD." The messages are, of course, meant to be subliminal, causing people to become complacent about solving societal problems, spend money, stay in debt, remain unemployed, and increase the population.

A similar premise was featured in an episode of the 1950s television show Lights Out titled "The Martian Eyes", in which Burgess Meredith plays a man whose sunglasses allow him to see Martians who have disguised themselves as humans. With its narrative conceit of the world being an illusion concealing a darker reality, The Matrix and its sequels also bear some resemblance to some scenes in They Live, though Carpenter's film does not overtly indulge in philosophy.

As with many of Carpenter's excursions into genre filmmaking, They Live was panned by critics upon its release and fared poorly at the box office, only to develop a more favorable reputation in later years on home video. The DVD version was released in 2003.

Production

The idea for They Live came from two sources: a futuristic story, involving an alien invasion in the tradition of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, called "Nada" from the Alien Encounters comic book. This story came from a short story called "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson that was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the 1960s. John Carpenter describes it in an interview with Starlog magazine as "a D.O.A. type of story. A fellow is put in a trance by a stage hypnotist. When he awakens, he realizes that the entire human race has been hypnotized. Amongst us are alien creatures who are controlling our lives. He has only until eight o'clock in the morning to solve the problem." Carpenter acquired the film rights to both the comic book and the short story and wrote the screenplay using Nelson's story as a basis for the film's structure.

The more political elements came from Carpenter's growing distaste with the ever-increasing commercialization of popular culture and politics in the 1980s. As he once remarked in an interview with Starlog, "I began watching TV again. I quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something...It's all about wanting us to buy something. The only thing they want to do is take our money." To this end, Carpenter thought of sunglasses as being the tool to seeing the truth, which "is seen in black and white. It's as if the aliens have colorized us. That means, of course, that Ted Turner is really a monster from outer space."

Because the screenplay was the product of so many sources - a short story, a comic book, and input from cast and crew - Carpenter decided to use the pseudonym "Frank Armitage," a subtle allusion to one of the filmmaker's favourite writers, H.P. Lovecraft (Frank Armitage is a character in Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror). Carpenter has always felt a close kinship with Lovecraft's worldview and according to the director, "Lovecraft wrote about the hidden world, the world underneath. His stories were about gods who are repressed, who were once on Earth and are now coming back. The world underneath has a great deal to do with They Live."

After a budget around three million dollars was established, Carpenter began casting his film. For the crucial role of Nada, the filmmaker surprisingly cast wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper whom he had met at Wrestlemania III. For Carpenter it was an easy choice: "Unlike most Hollywood actors, Roddy has life written all over him." Carpenter was impressed with Keith David's performance in The Thing and needed someone "who wouldn't be a traditional sidekick, but could hold his own," he told Starlog. To this end, Carpenter wrote the role of Frank specifically for the actor.

One of the many highlights of the movie is a wild, five and half minute fist fight between David and Piper over a pair of the special sunglasses. The brawl starts off serious but eventually transforms into an absurd free-for-all. Carpenter remembers that the fight took three weeks to rehearse. "It was an incredibly brutal and funny fight, along the lines of the slugfest between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in The Quiet Man."

When They Live was released in 1988, Carpenter had hoped that it would have the same effect as his film's TV pilot. It was not a commercial success. Carpenter sees the failure of his film as a result of "people who go to the movies in vast numbers these days [who] don't want to be enlightened."

Trivia

• The memorable and oft-quoted line, "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass ...and I'm all out of bubblegum," was ad-libbed by Piper.
  • Psytrance artist Monastic Squid uses a sample of this line in his track "Bubblegum and kick ass".
  • In the David Mamet film Spartan, a drill sergeant berates his trainees: "All I have for you is a stiff dick and bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum."
  • In the popular FPS game Duke Nukem 3D, Duke says "it's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum."
  • The film Dazed and Confused features the quote "I came here to drink some beers and kick some ass, looks like we're all out of beer."
  • Rapper Ice Cube uses a paraphrase of the line in his "Get Off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here": "Cause all I got is hard dick, and bubblegum/Just ran out my last stick is where I'm comin from."
  • In the short story "The Moving Finger" by Stephen King, Howard Milta says "I'M READY FOR YOU, MY FRIEND. I'M COMING TO KICK ASS AND CHEW BUBBLEGUM, AND I'M ALL OUT OF BUBBLEGUM!"
  • The short story "The Eleven o' Clock People" by Stephen King was very loosely based on They Live, featuring such elements as being able to see the aliens, and a meeting where the resistance is attacked by the creatures.
  • In one episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, host Mike Nelson jokes "I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of ass."
  • The Grindcore / Death Metal band; Dr. Acula, included the quote "I have come here to chew bubblegum, and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." in their song 'Piano Lessons'.
• In 2001, the creators of South Park parodied / paid homage to the film's long fight scene between Frank and Nada in the episode "Cripple Fight," which contains an alley brawl between two handicapped children that copies much of the dialogue and fight choreography of the scene in They Live, right down to Jimmy screaming "You dirty mother-fucker!"
• The videos for the 2005 single "Into Your Eyes" by Armand van Helden, "Alien Angel" by 3, and "B.Y.O.B." by System of a Down all borrow heavily from They Live.
• The music was composed by the director, John Carpenter.
• The 1994 Snog album Dear Valued Customer uses several samples from They Live.
• Several famous quotes from the movie are heard in an early version of the Cuban Boys track "Stardust" (subtitled "Part 1 - They Came From Outer Space") on their 1999 "Blueprint for Modernisation" EP. In later, more easily obtained versions of the piece, these are replaced by samples from a more obscure movie, presumably because of licensing troubles.
• The end of the movie features two alien film critics criticising filmmakers George Romero and John Carpenter, parodying Gene Siskel (who panned Romero's Night of the Living Dead) and Roger Ebert.
• Rapper Cage's album 'Movies for the Blind' pays homage to the film in its cover art.
• Near the end of the film, several guards can be seen using odd scanner devices. These are actually unaltered PKE Meter props from the film Ghostbusters.
• The glasses featured in the film have a lens called the Hoffman Lens. This is a reference to Dr Albert Hofmann, the man who first synthesized LSD.
• The film was an inspiration for street artist Shepard Fairey's ubiquitous Obey Giant images.
• The NYC political group Media War borrowed the slogan "Consume, Reproduce, Obey" from the film for a 1991 activism campaign.
• One of the TV news anchors in the film was actually TV reporter Dennis Michael of "Showbiz Today," also host of CNN's "The Hollywood Minute." He says that he and his "co-anchor" in the scene, Nancy Gee, were not advised what was about to happen, simply instructed by Carpenter to improvise a conversation they might have during a break from an actual newscast.
• The band Dystopia has a song titled "They Live" on their 1999 album "The Aftermath".
• Richfield, Minnesota rock band "" They Live" draws much of their lyrical content and image from this movie.
• [Cibby Danyla], Miss Texas USA 1997, is the naked lady in the last scene right before the credits role.

External links

• They Live at IMDb
• They Live page at www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com
• Review at scifilm.org
• They Live Now Offers high quality Video & Audio clips, stills & quotes.