They Live
Tags: murder, allegory, cult, violence, clever, good versus evil, psychedelic, humor, satire, action, brainwashing, suspenseful, sci-fi

Plot synopsis:
George Nada (Roddy Piper) is a homeless laborer who arrives in Los Angeles looking for work. He listens for some seconds to some rambling street preacher (Raymond St. Jacques), but he dismisses his message and leaves when he notices that the police are coming. He eventually finds work on an L.A. construction site. One of the workers, Frank Armitage (Keith David), takes him to a local shantytown where most of the workers live. After eating at the soup kitchen and spending the night, he notices odd behavior at the small church across the street. Investigating, Nada discovers that the church's soup kitchen is a front: inside, the loud "choir practice" is a recording, scientific machinery fills a back room, and cardboard boxes are stacked everywhere, including some in a secret compartment that he stumbles across. The leader of the group (Peter Jason) is aware that Nada is onto them. The Street Preacher is also there. Now Nada notices that he's blind. In fact, although the Street Preacher discovers Nada gossiping around, when he notices that Nada has got rough hands because of rough handiwork, he lets Nada go free.That night, the police arrive and surround the church, forcing the inhabitants to flee. The police then turn on the shantytown, destroying it with bulldozers and beating the blind minister of the church to death. Nada, Frank, and most of the inhabitants flee. Nada returns to the site the next day and investigates the church again, which has been emptied. He takes one of the boxes from the secret compartment and opens it in an alleyway. Expecting to find something valuable, he is a little dissapointed to find it full of cheap-looking sunglasses. He keeps one pair and hides the rest in a garbage can.When Nada later dons the glasses for the first time as he walks down a sidewalk on Rodeo Drive, he discovers that the world appears in shades of grey, with significant differences. He notices that a billboard now simply displays the word "Obey"; without them it advertises that Control Data Corporation which is "creating a transparent computing environment." Another billboard (normally displaying "Come to the Caribbean" written above a lovely woman lying on a beach) now displays the text "Marry and Reproduce." He also sees that paper money bears the words "This is your God." All printed matter around him contains subliminal advertising from "Obey", "Consume", "Sleep", "No Independent Thought", and "Do Not Question Authority". While he stares disbelievingly at a magazine containing the subliminal messages, a man walks up. When Frank looks at him he sees a strange humanoid with bulging eyes and mottled skin. When Nada removes the glasses, the man looks like a white, male human.Nada soon discovers that many people are actually aliens. Most of the aliens are wearing expensive clothing resembling wealthy-looking businessmen and women. When Nada enters a local grocery store and insults one of the aliens, the elderly lady speaks through her wristwatch, muttering about his location and the face that he "can see." Nada runs out of the store and into an alley where two alien policemen suddenly arrive. The two alien policemen ask where Nada got the sunglasses and he refuses to answer them. Aware that they intend to kill him, Nada escapes, killing both alien policemen. He steals a police shotgun. While evading the police, he accidentally stumbles into a local bank filled with aliens. Realizing that the jig is up, he proclaims, "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." A shooting spree ensues as Nada opens fire, killing all the aliens that he sees. After killing many of them, one of the aliens sees him and disappears after twisting a dial on his wristwatch. Fleeing the bank and into a nearby parking garage, he forces a woman (Meg Foster) at gunpoint to take him to her house in the Hollywood Hills.At the woman's house, Nada takes off the glasses to rest. He remarks: "wearin' these glasses makes you high, but, oh, you come down hard." Nada tries to convince the woman, whose name is Holly Thompson, about what is happening, but she remains skeptic. When Nada lets his guard down after Holly tells him that she's an executive at a local TV station, she tricks him into turning on the TV set where she pushes him through her window, nearly killing him. He leaves behind his pair of sunglasses, however, for her. Without putting them on, Holly calls the police.The next morning, Nada returns to the construction site to talk over with Frank what he discovered. Seeing Nada as a wanted man for the shooting spree, Frank is initially uninterested in his story. Now a fugitive with no one to turn to, Nada returns to the alley where he disposed of the rest of the sunglasses. Nada recovers the box by breaking into a garbage truck that carries it away. Just then, Frank shows up with money to give to Nada to make him leave town. Seeing that Frank is human, Nada tries to persuade him to put on a pair of the sunglasses, but Frank refuses. Then, the two of them engage in a long and violent hand-to-hand fight as Nada attempts to convince and then force Frank to put on the sunglasses. When Frank finally puts on the glasses, he sees the aliens around him as well. Nada states: "Partner, life's a bitch... and this one's in heat!"Frank joins Nada as they check into a local fleabag hotel and get in contact with the group from the church. They learn that a meeting is being held at a local community center later that evening. The community group listens to a seminar in the background introducing radical ideas. For example, the aliens are blamed for increased carbon dioxide and methane emissions "They are turning our atmosphere into their atmosphere" and quickly using up the planet's resources. Holly returns, claiming to now believe Nada, and delivers some information to the rebels about a possible location to where the aliens are broadcasting the subliminal messages.At the meeting, they learn that the aliens' primary method of control is a signal being sent out on television, which is why the general public cannot see the aliens for what they are. An unknown but brilliant inventor has created a lens called the Hofmann lens. The lens shows the world as it really is. The sunglasses, which are also available as contact lenses, interfere with the aliens' hypnotic signal.Nada then has a talk with Holly who tells him that after their encounter when he left behind his sunglasses, she put them on and hid them which is how she now believes him. Suddenly, Nada and Holly's conversation and the meeting place is raided by the police, who shoot to kill. Some of the resistance members flee outside while the police (a combination of both human and aliens) are gunning people down indiscriminately.Nada and Frank escape into an alley behind the building and get away with the help of one of the wristwatch devices that teleports them to a mysterious underground facility. They find themselves in a network of underground passages under the city that link hidden parts of the alien society including a port for space travel. Through the passages they find the aliens are throwing a party for their human collaborators. Nada and Frank meet one of the homeless drifters (George 'Buck' Flower) whom they previously met in the workers shantytown, whom is one of the many human collaborators with the aliens. Thinking that they have been recruited as he has, the Drifter shows them around the underground facility which leads them to the studio offices of a local TV station.The Drifter leads Nada and Frank to the basement of a local TV station, Cable 54, and the source of the aliens' signal. Nada and Frank pull out their weapons and kill all the alien guards, intending to shut down the hidden signal the aliens are using. But the Drifter gets away by teleporting himself and sounds the alarm. Arming themselves with assault rifles off the dead guards, Nada and Frank decide to get to the roof of the building to shut down the signal to make the world aware of the aliens among them. But aware that they will not survive, even if they succeed in shutting down the signal, Nada and Frank know that this is a suicide mission.Nada and Frank engage in a gun battle with the guards in the studio hallways and offices they are at. Holly, who works at the station, is found by Frank and Nada and she leads them up to the roof of the building where the dish is broadcasting. Making it to a stairway, Nada runs up to the roof expecting that Holly and Frank are behind him. Suddenly, Holly pulls out a gun, presses it against Frank's temple, and kills Frank. Through the special contact lenses that he is wearing, Nada notices the broadcasting antenna. Holly gets to the roof, then takes aim at Nada. Nada finally realizes that Holly is yet another human collaborator with the aliens (and possibly the one who led the police to the rebels hiding spot). Then, a police helicopter appears where the aliens aboard order Nada to step away from the broadcasting antenna.Aware that he is a dead man no matter what, Nada uses a hidden sleeve pistol and kills Holly. Nada then turns his attention back to the broadcasting antenna. Nada is shot and fatally wounded by alien police marksmen in the hovering helicopter, but manages to get one final shot from his small pistol and destroys the broadcasting antenna in the process. As a last dying defiant act, Nada gives the aliens in the hovering helicopter "the finger" as he lies dying on the roof of the building next to Holly's dead body, and the ruins of the broadcasting dish.With the signal now destroyed, people around L.A. and the rest of the country are surprised to discover aliens in their midst... seeing them on TV, chatting with them at the bar, meeting with them at the office... and even having sex with them.

Review: But it is far more pervasive than just that._They_Live_ uses the invisible alien elite as a proxy for our suspicions about how we are all being exploited by the elite of our real-life society, and how these elite are subtly programming us to accept this exploitation.So, the major theme of the movie is not, as another poster correctly pointed out, about being manipulated to be good little consumers in a crassly commercial world.
Instead, it is more about how the working class Americans in _They Live_ are being exploited by the elite upper crust, who, in the movie, happen to be aliens, but who, in the real world, are a subsociety that use their collective power to exploit the rest of us.Unfortunately, this movie sometimes has an unintentionally comic air to it.
(Carpenter loves to end his movies with zingers, in case you had not noticed!) I would highly recommend fans of this movie read Nelson's story to get a different, darker, tale than the one Carpenter made, and with good reason: In the story, you are never really sure if its protagonist is really a nut or if he has been programmed to act the way he does, because it seems his grip on reality is tenuous at best, and so everything you are reading could be a complete derangement -- or it could all be true.
Directed by John Carpenter (Assault on Precient 13, Ghosts of Mars, The Thing-1982) made a extremely well made film mixed with action/sci-fi elements and a refreshing scene of humor.
The plot is quite simple, Nada(Roddy Piper) a homeless drifter stumbles upon a pair of sunglasses through which you can see the world for what it really is, a communist type environment controlled by aliens, and then joins up with his buddy Frank(Keith David) to stop them.
John Carpenter is mostly known for the box office smash hit Halloween (1978) and as great as that film is (it's my favorite film), They Live is proof that the horror master had more to offer, along with a lot of other gems like Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble In Little China (1986), In The Mouth Of Madness (1995), Escape From L.A.
He then realized that it simply only cares about making money and he spent the rest of his career as a true independent, not following any rules and making movies the way that he wanted to.Carpenter was riding on the success of Halloween, which was in its day the highest grossing independent film ever made.
We all believe that fame and fortune is what makes us somebody but Carpenter wasn't about to become a sell out and instead he dealt with his anger by making this film and when you look at it now you can't help but think what an honest direction that was to go in.But this movie isn't just for deep thinkers, it is also a kick ass sci-fi action movie and it's a lot of fun too.
This is one of my top 5 sci-fi movies of all time, i just love it, the sad thing is not many people i know have even heard of the movie.The movie seems really slow for the first 20-30 minutes but for me the moment the movie starts is when Roddy Piper puts the sunglasses on, that's the time i sat up and got into it.The fight scene in the alley was the best movie fight scene i had saw up to that point and it stayed the best fight scene in my opinion for some years after.If you are a sci-fi fan and not seen this movie yet then i ask you WTF?
The poverty, homelessness, the Reaganvilles, police brutality, the cowardice and selfishness of humanity that prevents us from simply doing the right thing, the crushing weight of a nationwide system designed to keep us in line, keep us ignorant, divided and weak...I'm a big fan of John Carpenter's movies, and this one is one of the best..
The film has gained a cult following over the years and it is well-deserved.They Live is the story of an out of work drifter named John Nada(Roddy Piper)who has just arrived in L.A looking for work.
When Justiceville is raided by the police, Nada looks through the damage and finds a box of sunglasses and when Nada puts on a pair the sunglasses reveal that the rich humans are actually aliens controlling and influencing everyday life and Nada tries to warn and tell people but it's not going to be easy.One of the reasons They Live is a great film and works so well is because it's just as relevant as it was back in 1988.
What I also love about the film is the Humor and satire in this film where television and advertisements have subliminal messages underneath and also mocking the rich and the consumer culture when during the 1980s most people were about getting rich,making a lot of money and living good lives,but They Live turns that idea on it's head and offers a funny and biting satire of the era.
They Live is a Western in disguise and John Nada like other Carpenter Antiheros is a modern day Western cowboy instead trying to survive in the Wild West is trying to survive against Aliens in a big city The Action sequences in the film are well done with great shootouts and intensity and has one of the finest,longest,greatest fight scenes in film history.
The ending of the film is classic and funny and is a wonderful cap off to the film and is one of the things that makes They Live a great movie.Roddy Piper is great as John Nada bringing a cool and calm feel to the role and when Piper gets into the action,Piper says great one liners and kicks ass.
It's probably my favorite Carpenter score.John carpenter's They Live is to put it simply a great and one of Carpenter's best.If you love Sci/Fi,Action and Cult films I suggest you see this film.
Interesting and relevant entertainment from John Carpenter stars wrestling icon "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as beefy drifter "Nada", who arrives in an L.A. of a near future where the gulf separating social classes has become stronger than ever.
The makeup on the aliens, admittedly, is pretty damn silly.Of course, no summary of "They Live" is complete without mentioning one of the most epic of protracted fight scenes (between Roddy and Keith); every time you think it's over, it starts up again!All in all, a solid entry in Carpenters' filmography that both amuses the viewer and provides some food for thought.Seven out of 10..
But as far as being a sort of B-movie goes- and They Live, despite having a bigger budget and more special effects than most, has that spirit in its bones like an old comic book from the 50s- this is probably one of the best I've seen from the past twenty years.
(His name is never given, but hey for this story who needs it anyway?) He's a drifter who gets construction work, but by the slums he lives in he sees a church doing strange things, and after an out-of-the-blue incredibly violent police raid, Nada soon finds a pair of sunglasses left behind.
And at the core of this being a satire on the controls of society and breaking off from it (or just not being on it to start with) is not skimping on what some would expect- loaded with guns, violence, action that isn't compounded by excess weight.Featuring a fight sequence that ranks as one of the most intense and amusing in recent memory, perfectly chum-like dialog, one of Carpenter's very best musical scores, and an ending that packs it all in, They Live is a great escapist movie with a message that actually hits.
A drifter (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) discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to wake up to the fact that aliens have taken over the Earth .
The drifter named Nada join forces with a construction worker called Frank (second and final of two collaborations of actor Keith David and director John Carpenter who had previously both worked together on The Thing (1982) around six years earlier) and both of them take on an extraterrestrial threat .
John Carpenter had said that They Live had been the best film he had ever made, considering he also made Halloween, Escape From New York, and The Thing remake (arguably one of the scariest films and one of my favorite horror movies).
It's bad in the best possible way.The film stars WWF Wrestling legend Roddy Rowdy Piper as the lead hero who discovers a pair of sunglasses that reveal to him that the world has in fact been taken over by an imperialist alien race who has turned earth into a capitalist, decadent hell.
Nada forces Frank to wear the sunglasses and together they seek other humans aware of the situation to organize a resistance against the powerful aliens from Andromeda and their associates."They Live" is a B-movie by John Carpenter and one of his best films.
"They Live" is a Sci-fi - Comedy - Horror cult movie from 1988, directed by the great John Carpenter.
Drifter John Nada (Roddy Piper) finds a special pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the truth -- that aliens have taken over Earth and are using subliminal advertising to keep humans subdued and unaware they have been conquered.
You'll saying something about asses and bubble gum - if you haven't seen it, you'll soon know what I mean.Also there is a fight scene in this movie that goes on for approximately fifteen minutes that you can't even comprehend - not to say that it is good but only that it is so hilariously long (and the actors take it SO seriously!) that you can't help but think Carpenter is having a little send-up of 80s action flicks.Great story, entertaining acting, and pure B-movie greatness.
One of the few original movies of the 20th Century that is highly coveted as a bible of hidden truths in a world of elitism, conspiracy and the fate of man's freedom where capitalism and corporate rule are destroying the world, I don't think it was ever meant to be so clever, so deep or foreboding, but what would otherwise be an average '80s action movie is instead a shout against the alienation and segregation of the middle and lower classes, thanks to the ignorance of the super wealthy.Starring WWE superstar Rowdy Roddy Piper in a fascinating and often intense lead role as drifter John Nada, our relenting and reluctant hero stumbles upon a Los Angeles where the unemployed and homeless are being driven out as alien beings in disguise sit at the top of the economic hierarchy, acclimatising the globe to their own preference.Upon witnessing the carnage first hand, and then discovering a way he can separate the aliens from humans, Nada goes on the rampage, catching the attention of the underground resistance who've been planning a way to expose the alien threat for some time.
John Carpenter's They Live is one of my all time favorite movies and in my opinion also one of his best.
John Carpenter's cult sci-fi / action is fresh, tip-top entertainment packing ballsy action, shade wearing, Roddy Piper, elastic dialogues that are just so memorable ("I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass"), Keith David, aliens in human disguise and cryptic messages.
From John Carpenter,here comes one of the greatest sci-fi/action movies ever made that you'll never forget.They Live is a cult classic and without no doubt,one of the best movies of Carpenter.The movie's about a drifter named Nada accidentally makes a horrible discovery while looking for a job;the earth is ruled by aliens and the only way to see their origins hidden behind fake human faces is to wear a special pair of sunglasses.Seems that they deliver hidden messages like 'obey','no independent thought' and 'watch t.v.'to control human's minds and to keep them away from a possible mutiny against them.Soon,Nada finds out there is a small group aware of the danger on humanity and make those special sunglasses.He joins that small group with his new sidekick Frank and they begin trying to find a way for a worldwide wake up call for humans.However,they don't fight only against the aliens,they also fight against humans who are aware of the alien invasion but seduced by money,status,a much better life standard and now cooperate with the aliens.While using his unique way of storytelling to keep the tension high,Carpenter also reminds us human beings are far from perfection.He says we;humans are selfish creatures and we could do anything for our unlimited desires;whatever it takes!Besides the message it's carrying,They Live is a typical Carpenter movie.It's a low budget masterpiece with humor,great one liners,a classic Carpenter score with Roddy Piper in the lead.He's just outstanding as the lone drifter Nada.The cast includes Keith David,very underrated Meg Foster with some Carpenter regulars like Peter Jason and George 'Buck' Flower and they all give solid performances.Also there is an unforgettable fight sequence between Piper and David that lasts nearly ten minutes which is almost as famous as the movie itself.A unique movie from a master..
There is a plot hole or two, some bad alien makeup, and a few cheesy scenes, but its hard not to like this film as an action/sci-fi adventure, and its hard not to appreciate the layers of commentary Carpenter manages to cleverly conceal here.
A excessively paranoid action film, 'They Live' sees struggling labourer Rowdy Roddy Piper stumble across a secret organisation that is trying to rebel against a race of aliens that live amongst humans like normal people.
These aliens can only be seen with special sunglasses, and when he stumbles across a pair, Piper starts kicking ass because he's out of bubblegum.Some people say this is Carpenter's last great film; I say wait ten years until the likes of 'Escape from L.A' and 'Vampires' develop the cult followings that are already beginning to swell.
"They Live", produced in 1988, is somewhat of a midpoint between these two films: on one end there's a very enjoyable sci-fi film which uses its "nothing is real" theme for social commentary, with a surprisingly good performance from wrestler-turned-actor Roddy Piper, and on the other end, the film's alien effects (which, given that they're the antagonists, is a pretty major part of the film) have decayed over the years and left the film with a tinted cheese/b-movie feel.Although wrestlers have to "act" for promotional vignettes and in the ring, anyone who's seen a Hulk Hogan movie or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in "The Scorpion King" can attest that that acting doesn't translate on the screen at all.
Of course being a John Carpenter movie I had to see it right after I put it together.Roddy Piper is a drifter coming to California looking for work.
Here, John Carpenter's fiendish imagination fleshes out a tale of who really rules in a world where the President is basically an actor.Nada, played with a surprising restraint by Roddy Piper, starts the story as exactly what his name implies.
I'm a sucker for a spot of good old-fashioned sci-fi paranoia, and They Live, from director John Carpenter, is one of the finest examples the genre has to offer, a pitch-perfect blend of cutting social commentary, unashamed B-movie silliness, and hard-hitting action.Pre-dating the similarly themed The Matrix by over a decade, and made on a fraction of that film's budget, They Live stars Rowdy Roddy Piper as blue collar construction worker John Nada, who, with the help of a special pair of sunglasses, discovers to his amazement that the world is in fact ruled by ugly aliens who keep the human population under their control through the use of subliminal messages and mind-altering broadcasts.
It's an offbeat take on a conventional movie formula, and for the most part, it works fairly successfully."They Live" is a story about Nada (Roddy Piper), a downtrodden, unemployed construction worker just looking for a job and a little happiness.
Over time, Nada notice some strange things,and eventually becomes aware of a sinister conspiracy, and takes matters into his own hands to put a stop to it.The film's plot is already pretty interesting, and John Carpenter is at the top of his game here, both directing, and scripting, and I was especially excited to see this after seeing Big Trouble in Little China, which I thoroughly loved.
The alley fight scene is honestly amazing; 5+ minutes of two guys beating crap out of each other.Everybody's performances were good, especially Roddy Piper, who is just fun to watch, as he, like most wrestlers, is larger-than-life, and Keith David surprised me, and I didn't learn exactly how many movies he was in until after I saw this film, but I look for him now.Overall, an awesome movie, with plenty of action, one-liners, and thrills.
But They Live is an enjoyable adult comic book of machine guns and one liners and so much more...It also has a great performance by Roddy Piper as Nada and his line 'I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass....and Im all out of bubblegum!' is one of the best Hollywood lines in movie history.They Live also has the greatest fight scene up a city alley EVER, and it goes on for a staggering seven minutes!
John Carpenter wrote and directed this intriguing, prescient(and still timely) thriller about a drifter(Roddy Piper) named Nada, who enters a new city looking for work, but finds none, until he befriends a man(played by Keith David) who gets him work on a construction site.
If you like Carpenter's slightly twisted take on reality, then this is a great film to see, with a surprisingly good performance from Roddy Piper..