Transcript

Intro Clip

Excuse me. You know, you look like your head fell on the cheese dip back in 1957. You, you're okay. This one, real fucking ugly. You see, I take these glasses off, she looks like a regular person, doesn't she, huh? Put them back on. Formaldehyde face. That's what we got. She took enough out of you. You get out or call the cops. Call the cops. You know what you need? You need a Brazilian plastic surgeon. I've got one that can see. He's a tall Caucasian male, doesn't appear armed, wearing sunglasses. I don't like this one. Not one bit.

Steve

It's two Dads one Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around and shoot the about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are Talking about the 1988 John Carpenter cult classic they Live.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Starring Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David. Nic, this was your pick for us. Why don't you tell us a little bit about they Live and why you picked it.

Nic

Yeah. So they Live is something that I saw pretty early on. I saw at some point in my teens. And I think it was a word of mouth type movie. It wasn't like a huge, you know, there weren't McDonald's cups with Roddy Piper on them at that point, at least not for his role in they Live.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Really interesting concept. I think a lot of the imagery in this movie, you'd know even if you were unfamiliar with the movie, a lot of it is kind of bled out into society, especially with the last 15 years with like the Shepard Fairey Obey line of clothing and stuff like that. And that the street art and stuff that he did this movie I just thought was so cool. I loved wrestling as a kid and Roddy Piper was one of my favorites. So to get to see him in a starring role and actually do, like, pretty good. There's reasons that he's in this role that I think we could get into. But that makes it fun. There's fighting, there's aliens. It's just kind of. It builds a very interesting view of the world. It imagines a very interesting world. And also at one point in college, I had a couple of film classes at UC Santa Barbara. And one semester there was a guest lecturer for a class that was John Carpenter.

Steve

Oh, my God.

Nic

So I got to take a class that John Carpenter taught, which was really sweet. And, and I've loved his work. I mean, I like a lot of. From everything from Escape from New York to Halloween to Vampires. Like, I really like his style. I like his stuff. So I think this one will be a lot of fun to talk about.

Steve

Yeah, I think you're right. This movie really exists, like in popular culture, kind of, whether or not you see it.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

To wit, I was sure I'd seen this movie and then I watched it like three days ago. I have definitely never seen this movie before this week. Like, I've seen lots of clips. I'm obviously well aware of, you know, the concept and the sunglasses and chewing bubblegum and kicking ass. Yeah. Which actually kind of became a Piper wrestling catchphrase. I think later in his career he used it in the ring as well. But yeah, this was like a really fascinating view for me. I too love John Carpenter's work. You know, I think the thing is like one of just the best sci fi or horror movies, like, ever made. And this was not long after he did that movie. And yeah, this was a lot of fun to watch. It's really very in the Carpenter mold. It's very creative, it's very inventive. It's very, you know, out of left field. But interestingly enough, and we'll get into the facts in a minute, like, this movie opened its opening weekend number one at the box office, which is kind of shocking.

Nic

Pretty impressive.

Steve

Rated R sci fi horror movie starring a pro wrestler, a Scottish pro wrestler.

Nic

I mean, we didn't. We didn't look kindly upon Scotsman back then.

Steve

Oh, no, no, no. Immigrants. Anyway. Yeah, okay, let's dive into the facts then. On. On. They live.

Nic

All right.

Steve

Okay, so they live or they. An R rating came out on November 4, 1988. Originally, I read something about it wanting to be, or intended to be, earlier into Oct. October. But Halloween 4, the return of Michael Myers, which Carpenter was not involved with, was slated to come out then. And so they pushed it for two reasons. One, not to put Carpenter's movie up against Halloween. And also to make it closer to the election. The 1988 US presidential election makes sense. Interesting. With a running time of 94 minutes. It was written and directed by John Carpenter from the short story Eight o' Clock in the Morning by Ray Faraday Nelson. It stars Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David. The scores on Rotten Tomatoes, 87% fresh. Very highly regarded by critics at the time. IMDb a 7.2, which I think is like 7.2. Feels very much like IMDb ratings at.

Nic

That level, we agree it's good.

Steve

They're exactly. Everybody thinks it's a good movie. Yeah, Right. And there are some people who are huge fans and probably some detractors, obviously, but, like, generally, it's accepted as a good movie. Did not win any awards. It was made on a budget of $4 million and it received, or it earned 13 million at the box office for a 3.3, about three and a quarter times its money, which in our scale puts it as a solid success. Maybe not a blockbuster hit, obviously, but ye very successful run in the theaters for. They live. Cool, man. Is there any other preamble or should we just get into it?

Nic

Yeah, I think we can just dive right into it.

Steve

All right, great.

Nic

And, you know, one of the first things in this movie that we noticed that occurs throughout, which is a Carpenter thing. Some people like it, some people don't. But his score, he has a very. There's a very signature Carpenter musicality to it. Right. He uses similar themes throughout his films and everything. And it's this kind of like low guitar with some harmonica, like, very kind of bluesy, railroady.

Steve

I even wrote a note later on in the movie, dun dun dun, just because I'd heard it so many times. I finally wrote it in my notebook.

Nic

It's everywhere. It's everywhere. And so this starts the movie off and we're kind of shown a not so glamorous Los Angeles, right? The scenes it's showing, it's very kind of working class Los Angeles, downtown la, you know, where the regular people are at. And we have our lead character, Rowdy Roddy Piper, who we would be fair to refer to as Rowdy Roddy Piper throughout this podcast because his name is never presented to us in the film.

Steve

Right, let's go ahead and address that real quickly. Right. So I was watching this movie again for the first time this week. I kept. Because so many of the characters are named, you know, Frank and Gerald and Holly Thompson. Right. She actually gets a whole last name, too. There are characters that have names and people refer to by their names. But I kept thinking to myself, has anybody said anything to Piper referring to him by a name? Has he introduced himself to anyone? And it's like, I was pretty sure I didn't see that. So when the credits rolled and it said his name is Nada, I thought, oh, it's just clever. Like, nothing Spanish for nothing. Right? You know, whatever. Later found out, actually, in the short story by Nelson, the main character is named George Nada. And so it does appear Carpenter Borrowed calling the character that for the credits, basically. But it is a quite intentional choice by Carpenter to not have the main character named in any way as sort of an everyman scenario. Right. He's just meant to be a nameless, ostensibly faceless. Although Piper does a great job acting with his face, but, you know, ostensibly nameless, faceless, everyman avatar for the audience to occupy while watching the movie. So it is deliberate that he is not really named at all in the film.

Nic

No backstory, nothing interesting. All we know is that this is a guy who looks like he's kind of traveling from city to city looking for work, and work is dried up where he was, and he ends up in this job placement center in downtown la. A lot of people in line there. The woman who's supposedly trying to help him is very dismissive. Does not seem to care about his situation. There's no work for you.

Steve

Actively annoyed at him. Isn't this your job, lady?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know what I mean?

Nic

Why don't you quit bugging me and get a job? It's like, wait, this is the get a job place, right?

Steve

And I think it's like, if you're gonna be pissed at the public, if you have a job where you have to deal with the public and they're not being rude to you, you of have to at least have that surface level of, like, helpfulness, you know, Like, I don't think you got to put up with anybody being a dick. But he was being incredibly polite and giving her all the info and, you know, whatever he could. I do think, by the way, I'm not. I did not look this up, and I should have. I think that's the actress that plays the, like, boss of the afterlife in Beetlejuice, the one that smokes from the tracheotomy wound. I think that's the same woman. She looked real familiar to me.

Nic

Big couple years for that lady then. Yeah. And, you know, we find out later, you know, why this person, quote, it might have so much disdain for the average everyday struggling person.

Steve

Right, right.

Nic

So we're shown a few different. Just scenes of the street. We have nada. Stumbles across this blind street preacher who's telling everybody, you know, you know, they're. They got signals and they're.

Steve

We have owners, whatever.

Nic

Yeah. So kind of explaining it in. In the typical, like, street preacher. Why would I believe this guy? He sounds crazy kind of way. There's people who are, like, watching TVs in the window of an electronic store, which is my favorite way to consume television. That's actually how I watch this movie for the podcast.

Steve

Standing in a Best Buy.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lady on TV who's talking about like how important it is to be famous and everything. So we're getting a sense of like what the values that are being pushed on society are from this media and everything. And at the same time, Nada is having difficulty finding any kind of work. He ends up at a construction site and is told this is a union job. And then we get the obligatory scene of the Teamsters just kind of standing around doing nothing. And it really shows you it doesn't matter. The politics of something. You know, things that are ostensibly left leaning, like this film, the Simpsons, whatever, are still going to give you the lazy union guy trope no matter what. Right.

Steve

That's just how effective anti union propaganda that's been in this country since the 50s. Yes. Is that even. Even the ostensibly left le have an anti union bias, which is shitty.

Nic

So he ends up getting some employment now. So he's got somewhere at least to swing his hammer for the day. But that's as far as he's gotten.

Steve

Right. And so we get the glamour shot of Rowdy, Rowdy Piper shirtless, breaking bricks or whatever the hell he's doing on this construction site. Looks great. Obviously this was near the peak of his wrestling career. So obviously great shape, great physique. And I'll just real quick, I think Piper, he claims, I read an interview with him that came out shortly after this movie did and you. Or actually no, the interview was much more recent, maybe 15 years ago. And he was like, hey, this was like the movie that kind of started the whole wrestler to Hollywood pipeline. You know, this was before no holds barred with Hulk Hogan. This was obviously long before Dwayne Johnson became the highest paid movie star in the world. Right?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But I think he's right. I don't know.

Nic

Princess Bride.

Steve

Yeah, that's true. Princess Bride did come before this one by a year or two.

Nic

Not as an action star necessarily.

Steve

And Audrey the Giant, obviously being Andre the Giant and an absolute literal kind of freak of nature, you know, he could have been. It's not surprising that somebody like that would find a place in Hollywood for very specific roles. Yeah, but Piper, you know, as an example, Carpenter originally apparently wanted Kurt Russell or wrote this role for Kurt Russell. We know John Carpenter loves working with Kurt Russell. The simple fact that, like he had just done a run. I don't know if this is the exact order of the movies that came out in Carpenter before this, he might have done others, but, you know, Escape From New York, the Thing, and Big Drum, Little China were all within the, you know, seven years prior to this. And they were all John Carpenter, Kurt Russell joints. So he decided, eh, maybe I need to go somebody else. He was watching WrestleMania 3 and was so impressed with Rowdy Roddy Piper that he decided that's who he was.

Nic

Wow.

Steve

Cast in the role. So. But yeah, so I think Piper's right. This was like the movie. The first time we really got a sense of, like, oh, these wrestling guys, they are performers.

Nic

100% performers. Yeah.

Steve

100%. These are, you know, actors. Regardless of, you know, any hoity toity ness that might say otherwise, like, that's what they are. So, yeah, like, coming out of the gate and he really gives a. I'm not going to say it's a fantastic performance, but it is a very solid performance.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, the Kurt Russell thing, because it makes total sense. You could see Kurt Russell delivering a lot of these lines. I actually wrote down that Roddy Piper's character is Kurt Russell from Overboard. If some fork in the road moment happened where he didn't end up with kids and stuff. Right, Right. He's basically could be the exact same guy.

Steve

Right. No kids, doesn't own his own construction company.

Nic

No.

Steve

No mini golf. Dreams of the future.

Nic

Right. Just Roddy Piper just building shoe racks and yacht closets, like, I think. Yeah. So good on Carpenter, though, for spotting this. I mean, it is a risk at the time, even. It takes somebody who's famous because there wasn't crossover success. People might have known who Hulk Hogan was, but probably not as many as we think.

Steve

Well, and this is the thing. And if anybody was known from the WR this time, it was Hogan. It wasn't the Ultimate Warrior or Randy Macho Man Savage or Rowdy. Rowdy Piper. It wasn't any of those guys. It was Hogan only. So the fact that Piper got this gig before no holds barred came out is remarkable.

Nic

That's a big deal.

Steve

And that's all Carpenter.

Nic

I. I want to read something because I think this is a good time to bring it up because it's showing. Roddy. There's a few scenes where he's, like, shirtless and it's showing like, all right. This is also why they put this guy in this movie. He's enormous. He looks like a badass. Right.

Steve

Built like a brick shithouse.

Nic

So in the vein of talking about why movie reviewers are kind of worthless, that we got into a little bit during the Starship Troopers episode. So, J. Carr, writing for the Boston Globe.

Steve

Am I going to hate this guy when you're done?

Nic

No, you're just going to be baffled at why he says this carpenter delivers his throwback to the 50s visuals, complete with plump little B movie flying saucers. That makes his point that the richer fascist fiends, blah blah, blah, they live starts running low on imagination and inventiveness. But then he says, but felt that as a sci fi horror comedy they live with its wake up call to the world is in a class with Terminator and robocop, even though its hero doesn't sport bionic biceps.

Steve

Well, I mean, I'd put first of.

Nic

All, Peter Weller's fucking biceps. We're talking about RoboCop against Roddy Piper.

Steve

I want to have them arm wrestle. I think they mean literally bionic. The fact that RoboCop is made of metal and the Terminat made of metal, I think is what.

Nic

Yeah, I see that. All right. I see that now. Because if Peter Weller was not like, dude, are you calling him a wimp?

Steve

No, I think they're calling him all natural.

Nic

And we're not going to edit that out because it's important to highlight how wrong I am.

Steve

I'll leave it in, I promise.

Nic

All right. Okay, back to the, Back to the scene, right?

Steve

So we've got him. He's working at the construction site. And it gets to the end of the day and everybody's heading home. And the foreman looks over and goes, hey. Because he can tell he doesn't have anywhere to be, any place to go. He's like, hey, there's no camping on site here. You know, you got to, you can go. Be back in the morning, but get out of here tonight. You can't stay here. Yep. Which, you know, leaves him a little sort of like Sol. But our second kind of second major character of the movie, Keith David's character, Frank, shows up and is like, hey, like, if you got need some place to stay, I'm heading to this place. There's, there's food, there's space.

Nic

Justiceville.

Steve

Is that what he couldn't call from Justiceville? Lovely. But yeah, he's like, hey, you know, you can come with me if you want or whatever. And it's like Piper, sort of nada. Sort of says no or doesn't really say anything at the first, but then ends up following him anyway. It was a little bit of a strange exchange.

Nic

He just kind of stays like 20 paces behind him. And then Frank turns And says, you know, I don't like anybody following me.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Unless I know why, or whatever. And then Roddy Piper's like, well, I don't like to follow anyone unless I know where he's going first. And they both kind of give the knowing nod of like, hey, you're a rugged loner, too. All right, cool, let's go.

Steve

This is 100% the version. This. This is the same thing as the Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers handshake with biceps and Predator. This is the moment between these two.

Nic

Absolutely. Absolutely. And they end up walking Justiceville, which is this kind of shanty town. There's some kind of society structure. They're getting people fed and everything, but it's definitely, you know, messed up. There's some TVs operating, some people sitting outside watching TV.

Steve

Good to note, by the way, back in the day when, you know, TV signals, they weren't cable boxes.

Nic

Yeah, you got to get an antenna. All you need is a plug.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Amazing. And they're kind of talking about, you know, how the world came to. Came to be. Just making comments about just the state of things for them. And I think at some point, Frank Keith Davis character is talking about, well, I came from Detroit, but they kept closing everything down. There's no work. So I'm out here. I have a wife and two kids out there. He says, they close one more factory, we should take a sledge to one of their fancy fucking foreign cars, Which I really enjoy.

Steve

Yes, good stuff.

Nic

So now moving the plot forward. Watching the TV in the camp, the signal appears to be intercepted. So whatever's on tv and it's like an ad for Lee Press on nails or something goofy like that. And then it cuts into just this man's face who's like, you know, they're trying to keep us asleep. They're trying to keep us selfish, keep us sedated. And then he's cutting in and out and everything. And then after the signal goes back to normal, everybody gets kind of a headache. And they're like, ah, this is. This has been happening all day.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know, first of all, this.

Steve

I want to comment quickly on this. They keep referring to this as hacker.

Nic

Hey.

Steve

The hacker got back on, like. Which is like, fine. They don't know who this person is. So. But apparently this is happening happened before. And this is like the least intimidating looking, kind of least. I don't know. This guy to me looked so strange and out of place. He looked like a college professor or something giving a lecture. Giving a fucking TED Talk. Like, it was so strange. But he's the face of, as we come to learn, this sort of underground movement, this resistance that exists. And it's like, really? That's the guy. Like, of all the other people that could be sort of the face of this operation, this is the guy you're putting on TV to, like, very boringly drone on at people about their owners and. And the signals and stuff. It's like nobody's paying attention.

Nic

Forget the Guy Fawkes mask. We need a Wilford Brinley mask.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Seriously. Yeah.

Steve

Oh, man.

Nic

Yeah, that. It is funny. He's not intimidating or scary at all, right?

Steve

No, he doesn't even have gravitas. Like, David could do it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And just have gravitas because of his voice and his stature and his. And his, you know, whatever. This guy just looked so like. He was like a white, wet saltine. He's just like, meh. Yeah.

Nic

I mean, Keith David, as an actor, I love so much. He's so good and his voice is great. And it does feel like a treat whenever he's in something, because a lot of times he's in something that seems beneath his level. Right. Like, he's surrounded by actors who are not as good of him. They're as good as him. Especially when he's playing alongside Steven Seagal in Mark for Death and stuff like that. But love. Keith David, one of the best voices of all time.

Steve

Yes. Yes.

Nic

So this signal is intercepted. And Roddy kind of looks across the street and he sees there's a lot of, like, action going in and out of this church. There's supposed to be a choir practice going on. You can hear the choir singing.

Steve

Hear the singing.

Nic

And he makes a comment about how choir practice is running late and goes over and starts poking his head in. And he basically sees that there's some speakers that are playing a fake choir practice, obviously concealing some kind of meeting in a room. He finds a box full of sunglasses. He ends up. What does he do?

Steve

Well, he kind of, like, backs into this, like, wall panel and kicks it open and realizes there's this hidden paneling.

Nic

Behind him, the whole room. He does a good wrestling kick to.

Steve

Open up the wall, too, but there's. The whole room looks like it's out of Breaking Bad. Like, there's all these, like, beakers and graduated cylinders and all these different things and Bunsen burners and shit. So it's clearly, like, not like an operating place of worship. You know what I mean? This is being used for something else. What I wasn't 100% sure about was we kept getting cuts over to this meeting taking place with Gerald and the guy, the TV signal and a handful of other people. Gerald, by the way, we should mention, was sort of the. The welcoming committee at Justiceville and the one making food for everybody. So we've been introduced, but now Rowdy sees him or there's a thing. What I'm not sure is does Nada hear or see anything that's happening? Because it seemed like maybe he was hearing it, but I'm not sure.

Nic

He's not fully picking up. But he knows that the choir practice is fake.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And then he sees all this other like production equipment laying around. So he's like, yeah, what's going on here?

Steve

But then he makes enough noise that it sort of attracts their attention. And I think he can tell that he. That, you know, somebody is. That he's being hurt. So he goes to leave.

Nic

He has a couple great falls in this movie, by the way, where it's a very. It doesn't look like a cool guy falling in any way. Like he looks goofy as hell in a great way, right.

Steve

And in that controlled way that really only stuntmen and pro wrestlers can pull off, you know, so. But I did love this moment. So he goes to leave the church then and kind of go back over to the camp Enchantment. And when he walks out of the church, I don't know why this tickled me so much, but he tries to very casually put his hands in his jean pockets. But his pants are so tight he could barely get two fingers into each pocket. And he's trying to look casual with just a couple of fingertips pointing out of his pockets. It's like the most ridiculous looking thing. But that's the 80s working against him.

Nic

Really, is what it was. And as he's walking out of there actually he stumbles into the blind preacher who touching his face and his hands just to make sure he's okay.

Steve

So Roddy Piper, I got the sense and we wouldn't know this yet because we haven't gone this, but it's like looking back on that moment, I have the feeling the preacher can tell by touching the faces, right. If somebody's alien or not. So he's able to tell that not as human.

Nic

And Roddy goes across and then it looks like there's a family that's staying in Justiceville. That kind of baffles me. It seems like a 35 year old dad with two 26 year old kids.

Steve

It's really weird I mean, the daughter I could buy at 19, but that son looks like he's at mid-20s at the youngest.

Nic

So Roddy Piper goes over and makes some kind of deal with the son, who gives him his binoculars. And then there's a cut. And it just looks like Roddy Piper's been looking through binoculars for 16 straight hours across the street at the church. It's daytime, and then all of a sudden it's nighttime. But he's kind of checking this building out. He's very suspicious of it. And then we see that evening, the police raid this place, right? They come in, they've got the helicopter, and all kinds of riot cops.

Steve

Well, it's super weird, too, because it looked like they were gonna raid the church, right? And then it's like as more and more people show up, you know, cops show up. And first of all, it is a legitimate police raid. This is a ton of officers and, you know, people in body armor and all this stuff. And Gerald and somebody else has helped the blind preacher out of the church, and they've come back over to the. To the encampment side. But then the bulldozer shows up and they turns and starts demolishing the homeless encampment, which I was, like, kind of surprised by. I don't think that. I don't. I couldn't tell if the movie was trying to set us up, that they were doing that to try to surprise people, like, oh, we're coming over here. Oh, no, we're not. We're going that way. Or if it, like, what the kind of reasoning was to, like, make it look like it was aimed at the church and then suddenly turn. It was just an interesting choice, and I didn't fully understand.

Nic

Yeah, I think they just had some kind of association with it or. I mean, if you happen to be living near something that's perceived as being bad, then you're open season to be killed in the feather and stuff, right?

Steve

Yeah, I guess so.

Nic

Yeah. And kind of brutal. I mean, they're. They're just taking down these people's camps, and it looked like a pretty legit, just collection of people trying to survive. You know, it wasn't like a training camp for some militia or anything like that.

Steve

But that's how. I mean, that's how even today, our governments treat the unhoused.

Nic

You know, so then the cops are basically. We're beating up the broadcast guy, who. I think that might be the last time we see him. The guy who comes in the broadcast, the preacher is fighting them off with his cane and stuff. He ends up getting kind of overcome and beaten up. Rodney takes the 26 year old boy with him to hide out and they end up in kind of like a crack house type place.

Steve

Really? Yeah, some kind of flop house, Some old abandoned building.

Nic

Yeah. And the guy in there is just kind of like, oh, hey man. Like this will help you forget. Like just kind of showing them like, hey, the other option is this.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Like you can know what you know and just do drugs all day. Like me. Like that'll work.

Steve

I mean, it does something for you. It's a choice.

Nic

There's an ad on tv. It's for fashion as like freedom of expression. That I thought was interesting. It was kind of like, oh, this is how you don't need to like, you know, talk about your own conditions and what might be causing them. You just wear a shirt and that's how you be yourself.

Steve

Exactly. This was about the point though, I got to be honest. Like, so the police have raided this camp. Obviously we've seen the stuff with like the TV giving people headaches. But like, this was the point where I glanced at how much timing. I'm like, this movie's only an hour and a half long. Long. And this is 30 minutes into the movie, basic give or take. And like nothing had really happened yet. You know what I mean? It's like it really is a situation. We'll get more into, more in this, more into this as we go. But like, this movie is doing so much work to set up this universe for us and like, give us this setting and this place and, you know, tell showing us ways in which it's subtly different from the reality that we understand that we have. And that's all fantastic. But like, like we're also watching a movie, so like, we need the plot to do something. Well, luckily it's about this time, right? When Rowdy, after the raid, decides to go back into the church, kick in that false panel that he found from before and take one of the boxes of sunglasses. He just takes it with him. Yep. He goes to an alley nearby, and this was, I thought, probably the dumbest move the character made. He goes to hide them in a trash can.

Nic

Terrible. Terrible.

Steve

Which is like, while he was doing it, I'm like, dude, they're gonna collect the trash. Like, do you know when the trash gets picked up at this location? Cause if you don't know know, you don't know when. You know what I mean? It's like, unless you're sure. Like, oh, well, they picked it up yesterday. So it'll be here for a week. Okay, fine.

Nic

But like, there was a billion other places to put that thing. Right?

Steve

It could have hidden behind some kind of trash can or something. Right. Maybe it would have been around longer, I don't know. But yeah, he's in an alley, he find. He puts in this trash can, takes one of them with him. Yep. And this is when he goes to put the sunglasses on for the first time. And I think the first things we see are the signs or the advertisements.

Nic

Yeah, it's like billboards.

Steve

Yeah. And they. The first one, I think says obey.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

And all capital letters, just Obey. And he starts seeing, you know, people that look like they've had their faces melted off. People on TV look like that, obviously. Every billboard, every sign in every shop.

Nic

Window, all the magic scene, every printed page. Yep.

Steve

Every single one of them is different. And it says something like, you know, I obviously don't write them all down or anything, but, you know, like, obey buy things, you know, watch tv. Marry and reproduce. Yeah, marry and reproduce on night. Not mistakenly on a sign of a beautiful woman in a swimsuit. Probably advertising beer or something. Right. Oh, no, that's actually Marion. Reproduce is the actual message. So it's like he's able to see underneath a layer of bullshit to what is actually being shown to us or sold to us or whatever, which is obviously cool. And obviously that's the crux of the premise of the movie. This is the world as it exists. And we only don't know because we don't have Rowdy Roddy Piper's magical sunglasses.

Nic

Exactly. We don't have those shades. Really cool scene. Really good way to just like show, you know, the character's new immersion in this world. And then the way that they decided to shoot it, where everything's black and white, everything has a very like 50s look to it. The effects, the way that they do, like the surveillance orb things like, they have a very like 1950s sci fi look to it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Which. Which I think makes it a lot of fun.

Steve

Yeah. Really great to. Quick throwback to like. So we. We see Rowdy. One looks up and he's able to see one of these surveillance drones or whatever they are. These like. And. And you can't see them at all without the sunglasses. They're just invisible. And if you think. If you go back to prior to the police raid before the helicopter appears overhead, Gerald and one of the other guys is outside with the sunglasses on, looking up into the sky and getting worse, run back inside and Decide to start evacuating. So it seems like, you know, one of those surveillance things was there, spotted them, and that's what triggered the raid to begin. Oh, we found them. And then they're scrambling to get out. And that was something that, like, you know, at the time, it's like, what are they looking at? Like, what does that even matter? You might not even notice. Right. The helicopter shows up relatively quickly. So, like, maybe they were just looking at the helicopter, but I really think there was a moment before that when they're looking up into the sky with very worried body. Body language. And so, you know, ostensibly, maybe one of these surveillance drones is flying above them and tracked them down.

Nic

And he starts. Roddy Piper. He has some snappy lines for things right away. I would liken him to ash in army of Darkness with the way it seems like this is a normal guy saying things that a real guy would say instead of a really polished, like, perfectly delivered line. The way he's kind of. Of stumbles. He stumbles through some of his words. He flips into having his accent sometimes and not. Which is cool. But, yeah, his lines are good. A couple of the things that we see, he's at a newsstand and he's looking at all the magazine covers. They just say, obey, consume, sleep, watch tv. He looks at one of the alien guys who can see. He doesn't know that Roddy can see him, but he's just like, yeah, what's your problem? Problem. The newsstand worker is holding money, and then when he looks at the cash, it just says, this is your God on it. And he ends up kind of walking through. He sees them in the hair salon. A lot of them are the ones getting their hair done. There's a couple ones. There's one unloading a car. Who's the alien woman? And clearly the humans are her help, her nanny and her housekeeper or whatever. It shows a couple of the alien women in the supermarket talking to each other. And they're like, oh, can you believe she used blue corn tortilla chips? How classless is that? You know, just this good, good little, like, cross section of. Of that type of person who's not far from, like, that type of person today.

Steve

Yeah. And it's clear that it's all people, all of the people that he's seeing as human. And then he puts the glasses back on to see them as aliens. They're all, like, wealthy or.

Nic

Yes, they have good positions.

Steve

Right. They're there, they're shopping at the store, but they're not Working at the store, that kind of thing. And so generally speaking, it's not like it's everyone that fits that category. There are humans that, that you know, are, are by appearances upper class to wealthy that are not turning into aliens when he puts on the sunglasses. But it's like the opposite isn't true. Like none of the, like, service people are aliens.

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

So it's interesting thing he goes into, I guess he's. It's in the grocery store and he's looking around and he's staring at this woman, this older woman, and you know, recognizing that she's an alien and, and this, you know, he kind of like freaks out at whatever. And at one point he looks over to another woman who we don't see, but we're guessing is human. He looks at her and goes, you, you're okay. This one real fucking ugly. Yes. I put on these glasses, formaldehyde face, like it's got all these little lines.

Nic

He says, looks like her head fell in the cheese dip in 1957. Really good. Two of the guys having a conversation, to your point, about like the successful people being the aliens.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Two of the men having a conversation in the supermarket. You could see there's one alien and one human. And the human is like, yeah, I don't know what to do. It's just really, you know, I'm really depressed. I don't know what to do. Then the aliens, like, I don't know, don't worry about it. And then the guy, the human says, well, that's easy for you to say. You got the promotion. You kind of get a window into that on tv. It shows, you know, a politician giving a speech who could represent like one of a million people of that time. Absolutely. And we get like a little extra scene of Roddy looking at that and he goes, huh? It figures it would be something like that. Kind of like Montgomery Brewster's getting the idea to waste his money on a political campaign. So we spot them on tv. So yeah, so he's starting to like, he sees what's going on and people also recognize him as someone who knows what's happening.

Steve

Yeah, it's interesting too, like, like Carpenter has never been about subtlety. Like, he definitely is about bombast and about, you know, making the moral problems of his characters and stories pretty obvious. So some of it is a little heavy handed, but it's like in that Carpenter style. So it's like, I feel like as long as you go into this recognizing I'm sitting down to watch a John Carpenter Movie, like, it won't bother you, I don't think, if you're, you know, familiar with his work. But it is, like, pretty on the nose. A lot of the, like, you know, wealth bad, you know, consumerism bad, politicians bad.

Nic

Sure. But I think that filming the alien stuff in this very, like, kind of almost campy 1950s way, it goes hand in hand with everything else being on the news.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

The whole movie's supposed to beat you over the head.

Steve

So in the grocery store, they recognize the old woman that he was saying, like, you know, formaldehyde face. You know, you're facing the cheese dip or whatever, all that stuff. Like, she recognizes that he can see, so she literally starts talking onto her watch. Right.

Nic

We've got one that can see.

Steve

Got one that can see. And they start describing him, you know, male, 6 foot 2, like, whatever it is, you know. So he, like, goes to leave the store and the police begin, like, surrounding him. The key, I want to point out, is like, the first act of actual violence that Rowdy Rowdy Piper commits in this movie is a textbook executed WWF clothesline.

Nic

Very nice. Perfect Frank Dreven esque.

Steve

Perfect clothesline to open up the violence. And at that point, Piper's character basically is like instant vigilante. Just add sunglasses.

Nic

Oh, yeah.

Steve

Like, it's like, immediate. He is ready to just destroy. So he's able to acquire, like, a shotgun and a pistol from the cop car. Right. Like, he beats up these cops that were cornered him in the alley that he can see are aliens from his glasses. So he beats them up, takes their weapons. Now he's got a shotgun, he's got pistols, like, whatever. Right. He's got all this stuff. And he goes into a bank.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And look, this is the part where the guy. There was a little bit of incredulity from me on this. It's like. Like he is instantly just like, yep, gonna start killing. And I mean, I. Did we get any indication prior to this moment that this character is. That's how he would react? Like, it seems like such an extreme reaction, but, like, I don't know.

Nic

Yeah, no, that's a good point. Especially with how, you know, earlier I said that Keith David was talking about, oh, if these guys, you know, we should take a sledgehammer to their foreign car? And Roddy Piper's reaction was very much like. Like, no, I believe in America. I think if I have a. Can exchange an honest day's work, then that. So, yeah. Did the sunglasses shatter his belief in America? To a degree that he Just turned into a rampage killer. Or did he just feel so, like, backed up against the wall? Because, yeah, you're correct. It does seem like he's the guy who would be like, all right, well, these aren't the problem still that, you know, I should learn to code or something.

Steve

Well, I don't even know if it's. It's like, I feel like I can see why he would be like, whoa, what the hell? But I feel like it's. It's an interesting jump to be. To immediately like, well, I gotta kill these things then. Yeah, you know, that's the. It's like wanting to fight against it, wanting to educate others or wake other people up. Like, that all would make a ton of sense. That's much easier to, like, follow. But, like, he just flips a switch and turns into Frank Castle. Like, I mean, it's just absolutely, like, ready to go. This is the movie falling down all of a sudden, like, you know what I mean? So.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But yeah, so he is basically trying to get away. So he goes in the bank, he kills a bunch of people. Well, not people. A bunch of aliens.

Nic

And he delivers his famous wine in the bank. Right.

Steve

Yeah. I came here to do two things. Chew bubble gum and kick some ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum. Which, by the way, he wrote that long before the movie was even written. He talked to John Carpenter about it, and the two of them were trying to figure out what little lines could throw out. And Piper's like, well, I've got this one I haven't had a chance to use in the ring yet, but I kind of like it. And they go, oh, yeah, that sounds good. Apparently, he shared a bunch of. Of them with Carpenter. That's the one.

Nic

Beautiful.

Steve

That's the one that made the movie. So.

Nic

And that. I mean, that ended up sticking. That was something that was in that. That Duke Nukem game. I remember that popping up again in the late 90s.

Steve

Only six years later. Richard Linklater would repurpose the line for Dazed and Confused when his Nikki Katz character says, I'm only here to do two things. Kick some ass and drink some beer. And we're almost out of beer.

Nic

Nice, but very similar. Yeah, very nice. So he's in the bank and he's. He's blasting away. Everything he sees is an alien. Really accurate from distance with a shotgun to not hit any.

Steve

No collateral damage.

Nic

And he sees that this watch. He has one of them cornered or one is talking into his watch, pushes a button, makes himself disappear. He's back out on the street. He takes out a spy, one of the spy drones. A cop comes up to him, who. Who he can see is human, so he doesn't shoot him. It was funny when he tells him to run away, he says, beat your feet.

Steve

And he does. He runs off. There's a moment where there's a couple patrol cars pass him and then a SWAT team, like, jogging behind the patrol cars, which is not a thing because the patrol cars are long gone. But yet there's, like, a group of, like, armed SWAT sort of LAPD that are just jogging along in formation looking for him, I guess. But it very strange. Strange. Like, I don't know if that's supposed to indicate to us, like, this is the aliens thinking, what would they do? Yeah, what would humans do? And being wrong, like, I guess that that's possible. It is very strange.

Nic

They do a bad job, I think, of. Of locating him. He's able to get himself into a parking garage. Poor women, man. I mean, every depiction of a parking garage is just bad news for them. They're never handed a gift. Gift in a parking garage. You know, they're never helped in any way. It's always some like this. So he basically follows this woman to her car and, you know, all right, just drive. My favorite driving instructions. Just drive.

Steve

Just drive. Yeah.

Nic

And, you know, explains to her kind of, but not very well, basically, first.

Steve

Just, like, take me to your house. Like, do you live alone? Like, blah, whatever. Don't lie to me. So first of all. So again, we've gone from I'm a construction worker who's got a live and let live, I love America attitude and I'm just here because Denver ran out of work. Yeah. To I now know about these alien freaks and I'm going to kill them. To I'm also willing to hide Carjack and kidnap a human woman in order to get away from them, I guess. But, like, man, we. We went to, like, kidnapping real fast. Oh, yeah, this guy shifted. He.

Nic

Roddy does not have much of a plan. I. I don't think that this fight is scripted in the way that many of his professional ones were.

Steve

No, true.

Nic

I think he's. He's going off the. And this scene. So we were talking earlier about this movie could definitely be longer because there's some really cool stuff. It would have been fun to explore. This was a scene that I felt, like, dragged a bit because it didn't. He was just. He was at her house for kind of a while, and it was just, you have to have a break in the action, I guess. But she takes him back to her house. She pulls into the garage, and they get out, and she has a neighbor across the street, a guy who's out there in a Hawaiian shirt watering his plants, who looks more like a wrestler than anyone I've ever seen in my life, I swear to God. Roddy Piper was like, hey, we need, like, a real wrestler in this. Because this guy had, like, a wrestler, wrestler look. So this guy's spotted, basically, he's getting out of the car with her. He's trying to explain to her about the glasses and what they do. She's not interested in even peeping through the them. She's like, well, if. If I took those glasses from you, I would tell you that I.

Steve

What you want to hear. Exactly.

Nic

So what. What does that prove?

Steve

Yeah. Yeah. And then so, you know, he. He has a lining. Boy. He says, oh, I'm sorry. I need to be here. And I'm thinking to myself, like, bro, you don't. You don't need to be. You. You're choosing, you know. And she's like. He's talking to her about, yeah, like, what he's discovered this day. And she's just basically, like. Doesn't believe him, you know, it's like, whatever. And then, you know, he's like, so what do you do? And she's like, oh, I'm a, you know, like program director or whatever, at K. Something, something, something, whatever. You know, radio station or, I mean, a television station. And he goes, that's the one that's got the broadcast. Like that. And he goes to, like, turn the TV on to check it out, at which point she just slams him in the back of the head with a champagne bottle. Thickest wine bottles on the planet, by the way, are champagne bottles because they have to hold 5 or 5 to 8 atmospheres of pressure inside. So there's that. He goes through the plate glass window. Yes, there is. I'm sorry, this is a hard. I don't believe for a second this is the fugitive. This is Richard Kimball jumping off the dam. Nobody survives that fall. It's at least 30ft down. It's on to hard. It's onto a hard slope that he then tumbles down.

Nic

It's like the hot rod in Hot Rod, where he keeps falling down the side of the hill.

Steve

Impossible to find that she smashed this.

Nic

Bottle over his head and then gives him the slightest nudge that blasts him through the window. I really enjoy that scene. Yeah, but. Yeah, I mean, very improbable the, the plus side, I guess, is that he seems legitimately beat up. Like he doesn't seem like 100% physically for the rest of this movie. I mean, he doesn't have this like Superman element of like bouncing back. So he's really beat up and drags himself kind of back to town and everything.

Steve

Right. And. And that's true. And we'll. But I'll get to the butt in a second. Yeah. So he goes back to the alley where he hid the box of glasses. Of course, trash has been picked up, so there's nothing in the trash can. So he's freaking out. But he looks and he sees the garbage truck that just did the pickup is still there in the alley. So he rushes over, he jumps into the back, he's able to find the box of glasses, at which point the, the back of the garbage truck lifts up as if to dump everything out and does dump everything, including him out. And I know the driver didn't know the back was open because he had shut it and latched it. And then Rowdy came up and opened it. But why would that have been? Why did it, why did it go up to begin with? It was so strange. But regardless, it dumps him out.

Nic

He's cleanest trash ever. By the way, if you're ever going to end up in a truck full of trash, that is the trash you want to be in.

Steve

Must have been a recycling truck.

Nic

You know what it was? It was the dad's plastic bag for Christmas wrapping on Christmas morning. It was all bubble wrap and ribbon.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so he's there. So now he's got another pair of glasses because he left the pair at. At Holly was the name of the woman that he kidnapped. He. He lost his glasses there as he went through the plate glass window, but he's got another pair. And his buddy Frank comes down the alley and he's like, oh, Frank, like, I gotta whatever. But. But he know. Frank knows that, like, he's wanted. Like, he basically is aware of the rampage that he went on. It's like, oh, how many people did you kill? He's like, oh, none of them were people.

Nic

You crazy.

Steve

You know? Yeah. They start fighting and this is the longest two person fight in the history of movies. Yeah, it is. It goes for 5 minutes and 20 seconds. It's too long. It's too long.

Nic

I think the too longness is what makes it good, I feel. Because it's like there's three or four points at which you think like, okay, well, this is for sure over.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And. And I was watching it this morning. My wife came and. And was sitting with me and she was just like, this is ridiculous. What? This is still, she couldn't handle it. So I definitely understand where the too long camp comes from, but I do love the strategy of I will keep punching you until you believe me.

Steve

Yeah, no, that's very, very WWF mentality. A couple of great suplexes in there. I think there might have been a backbreaker. There's like a lot of wrestling, dirty fighting.

Nic

I mean, busting out like a 2x4, kicks in the nuts and everything.

Steve

And I read a little about this fight in preparation for today, and apparently Keith David and Rowdy Piper practiced. Rehearsed the choreography for this fight for two months. They. They rehearsed in the backyard of the production of Carpenter's production company offices, basically. And you know, Keith David has been. Has gone on record in the past saying basically that Rowdy Roddy Piper. Piper acted as choreographer for that fight. Showed him how to. How to take punches, how to limb. Everything was as real as a wrestling match.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So for Keith David, that was a very different day of.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

At work for him as an actor, but for Piper, I mean. Yeah. So it's like everything but the groin and face shots where they just punched each other in the way wrestlers do, and then they react bigger than the actual punch. But it's not actually pulled the way Hollywood stunt fights tend to be, where the punches are pulled or whatever. They were actually hitting each other and suplexing and doing all this stuff. And it was all kind of under the direction of Piper and his wrestling experience and. And knowing how two performers can work together to sell a fight.

Nic

Yeah, basically.

Steve

And it really showed. I do think it was too long, but I don't think it needed to be 30 seconds. I think it needed to be like three and a half minutes instead of five and a half. Like, it was. There was just too much of it. I kind of like, by the end of it, I'm like, yeah, okay, I get it, I get it. But, yeah, I literally wrote. My note is. Put on the fucking glasses, Frank. Like, just put them on. You know what I mean? Like, move forward here. And again, in a movie, it was only like 92 minutes or whatever long. Where I already feel like we don't get enough plot and there's not enough that happens. Having a 5 1/2 minute long fight in the middle of everything is like, this is dragging ass. Like, we gotta get the plot going. Like, what like, let's keep moving forward.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So it's not. To me, it was like, not the way I wish the filmmaker had chosen to use his time.

Nic

I guess it's a metaphor, though. Sometimes. Sometimes instead of moving forward, you just feel like you're getting punched in the face for five straight minutes. I do think that Carpenter letting Roddy Piper have the leeway to kind of do what he does best in this movie is a super smart idea. And it works like we talked about with Dennis Leary basically getting his stand up and Demolition Man. If you have someone who has a transcendent skill that is not necessarily, you know, acting, figure out a way to get it in there because you're gonna. Yeah, it's gonna stand out. It's gonna stand out.

Steve

I mean, actors put that kind of stuff on their resumes, like, oh, I can roller skate, I can horseback ride. I can choreograph realistic wrestling fights.

Nic

Like, Right, that's. That's huge.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So he finally, finally nada. Roddy Piper beats Frank to the point, right, and puts the sunglasses on his head and then kind of of like sits him up. Frank does an incredibly half assed job of trying to take them off. Like, he looks like his arms are just rubber, so, you know, he's pointing his head at the billboards. And then we get one of my favorite scenes of just these two guys, the absolute shit beaten out of them, lumbering down the street with their sunglasses on. Roddy Piper's cheeks are so swollen.

Steve

Oh, yeah, both of them fat lips.

Nic

But I just love the weariness of it. And the score fits so well, I think, with like that feel. Feeling.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, we get more of the. Yeah, no, it's very good stuff. And so, yeah, they get a room just to sort of like lay low and kind of regroup and recharge, whatever. And they, you know, they're talking more about what all this means, you know, and reality, now that they understand it differently. I think at this point, this is when they decide to go look for the. They got the card from. From Gerald, right? Like, right, to kind of like, join us if you're ready or something. So they decide, yeah, we got to go figure out what the hell is this, you know, who. Who knows about this? What are they doing about it, where this sunglasses come from, like all this stuff. And so they go and they do find, like this, you know, this resistance movement that, as it turns out, includes not only like the Blind Preacher and Gerald from Justice Phil, but also like that family, you know, the. The sort of 30, 35 year old dad with 25 y old children. They're there. And a few other people we've seen, seen. And when they arrive, they are told, hey, you can take your sunglasses off. We're all human here. Like, this is only humans. Also here we have contacts now.

Nic

So convenient. I love that so much.

Steve

I cringed so hard when they put those contacts without washing their hands. Like, I had contacts for like 25 years until I got Lasik. And like, to put a pair of contacts into my eyes without washing my hands would have driven me insane. Like, it was like, oh, my God, guys, you got to wash your hands. You got to wash your hands. But no, they just raw dog those contacts right under their eyeballs.

Nic

It looked like he just held the contact holder up to his eyeball.

Steve

Maybe kind of which you used to be able to do, but this is the thing. You used to be able to do that. But these were like the little like compact carriers, like the 80s, if it was the 70s. They had those little like applicator things where it was like. Because the, the contact was solid glass almost or whatever it was, but it was like not flexible at all. Yeah. And so it had to be like placed just right. So, yeah, there was sort of this little like applicator thing you can see in some movies, especially older ones, and this was not that, though. So I'm not sure how that would work. And the whole thing freaked me out. To me, the scariest thing in the entire movie is putting context.

Nic

I would rather just not see aliens than have to touch my eyeball with a dirty finger.

Steve

Put me back in the, in the battery pack. Put me back in the Matrix. I'm okay.

Nic

To me, though, the glasses to contacts is one of the all time most, most convenient things for the filmmaker to happen in the movie where it's like, okay, now our stars are not hiding behind sunglasses anymore, but it's like on a space movie where the guy will just like pop his helmet off, be like, oh, we can actually breathe on this planet. Oh, you got to show the star's face more in the movie in a helmet.

Steve

Yeah. It also signaled, I believe, the end of the black and white scenes. So now whenever they see the aliens, they just see the aliens. I think. I can't remember now.

Nic

I think it's black and white.

Steve

No, I guess it is. That's true. But yeah, I guess we just don't see the sunglasses anymore because they're. They're wearing contacts now.

Nic

But yeah, so, so they have their con. And I guess most Importantly is they're not detectable as people who have ability to see the aliens.

Steve

Not as easily, right. Until they start acting like they see reality. But yeah.

Nic

So they end up, let's see, they're kind of being told that the creatures, they're referred to as the creatures by one of the guys, they're recruiting humans. So it's not just us against them. They're also making offers to humans. We're basically a resource to them. But they're able to get some people on their side. Holly is at the meeting, right?

Steve

The woman that he kidnapped.

Nic

And I do want to say Holly's look. And I know that's just how the actress looks, but it is such a creepy look. She has this kind of Nancy Mace, like, Republican fembot type look. You know that like I said about the eyes are just.

Steve

She has incredibly light blue eyes, which is just like a look. It's like a whole vibe on its own. And then she is playing it. And again, I think this is the act. These are the act. This actress making choices. She's playing it very dead, dead eyed, very sort of almost lifeless. Like things are not affecting her. She's playing very, very down the middle of the road. And I feel like that that's important because when I. So again, bear with me not having seen this movie, as I realized through the beginning, I hear her talking. So Nada goes up to Holly and is like, hey, you're here. You know about this. And she was like, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that you were like with everybody. And I'm thinking to myself, bullshit, you know what the sunglasses are? He had them with him. He explains, hey, I see these things, you know, exactly what. Now that he's here, you say you're sorry. And it's seemed very strange to me at the time, but not obviously why, and we'll get into that later. But as he's talking about.

Nic

But he trusts her too much for.

Steve

Like, oh, God, ridiculous. First of all, all. All you are, all she is to you is your kidnapping victim who tried to kill you. Like, this is not someone that you've like had a meet cute with, right? This is not Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and you've got mail. Like you are actual mortal enemies potentially. Now, she showed up here, so now he believed, you know, she's in on the resistance and everything, right? But maybe not surprising at all. As they're chatting, the wall explodes, right? Boom, the cops are here. They are assaulting the resistance meeting and killing everyone. Basically Everybody.

Nic

Yeah, they're just come in blasting, taking everybody out. One sighting I had in this scene. The cops are kind of coming down an alleyway and they're blasting everybody out, out. Classic silhouette pops out from the alleyway, takes a couple shots at the cops and ducks out of the way. The long haired, kind of balding Asian guy, Al Leong, he's like an extra. He gets killed in like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard very briefly.

Steve

Really I missed him.

Nic

I missed a little glimpse of Al Leong. So I really like to see that. So the cops are basically backing everyone down and Frank and Nada are in this alley and they're kind of screwed. Like, there's a million cops coming. And Frank has this watch which they were talking about as some teleporter thing, but it's broken. And all of a sudden a Looney Tunes hole appears for them to escape through. So they're able to escape through that and they end up in one of the hallways of the Oakland Coliseum.

Steve

Yes, it very much is like that. Sorry, that tickled me. Yeah, Wait, but before they jump in the hole, I just want to point out when they're fighting in the alleyway, they're like back at the back of this alley, right behind a couple boxes, which is like terrible cover to be with, you know, leaning out, shooting, not hitting anyone. Leaning out, shooting, maybe hitting one person. But like the, the. They're not the best marksman. Okay, that's fine. But then after Frank jumps into the Looney Tunes hole that the watch opens up, Rowdy gets up and he's got this like large automatic rifle that he decides he'd be better off shooting with one hand and. Yeah, and killing like three guys in a row. Like, he's literally more accurate with this like one handed Rambo three look.

Nic

And it's like, it's like going out of control. Almost like, it's like, are you celebrating a wedding or are you trying to kill somebody? Because it's almost like halfway between that. Yeah, that is good. But he was probably like, hey, I would look cool she shooting this thing, right?

Steve

I mean, it did look cool.

Nic

It looked great. So they end up in the hole and now they're in this concrete hallway and it just seems kind of this endless industrial whatever. It's hard to figure out. But then there's rooms that are like ballrooms, like the ballroom that Richard Kimball comes in in the Fugitive here. And they end up basically overhearing it for a minute. And they walk in, in. They're in their street clothes, they're you know, bloodied and battered and stuff and standing there. Nobody's really batting an eye that they're there because it seems like, well, if you have access to the Looney Tunes hole, then you belong here.

Steve

Yeah. And because human helpers are part of the system, it's not weird for them to be nearby.

Nic

Right. And then they're approached by this guy who we had seen earlier. Justice Villain. I think this guy is kind of a John Carpenter movie.

Steve

Definitely been in a few and.

Nic

And you know, he was kind of what we'd call like a. Like a wino or bum type character before. And now he's in a tuxedo and he has a glass of champagne.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know, exactly like every bum's vision of them getting rich. Right. Like in a cartoon. And he's like, oh fellas, I didn't know you guys joined us. You know, so super credulous immediately. No skepticism at all about these two. He's like, oh, oh, here you are. Hey, let me show you around.

Steve

I knew we had a lot in common, you know, that kind of thing.

Nic

Some friends from out of town, they wanted me to come show them the lab and. And he's able to take them to an incredible amount of places, just feed them information. And this is kind of like. Yeah. Maybe 20 more minutes of some of this stuff being revealed to us in different ways might have built the movie up a little stronger.

Steve

I don't know if that's the thing. For me it's more about like they're just. There just isn't like enough plot. There's just not enough of a, you know, act structure and, and things for these characters to do and goals for them to accomplish. Right. Like that's. I think my. Which is. Which would mean really kind of coming at it from a different angle probably altogether storyline wise. And that's, you know, my. Obviously my opinion. John Carpenter would disagree with me. Yeah. You know, but. But that's sort of my take is that there's just so much fantastic world building. Especially when we get to this point and we're. Now are we underground? Are we not? There's like literally an open to space like teleporter room. Like it is a weird third dimension, whatever we're in or fourth dimension kind of thing. And so it's very cool. I will say it was a little strange that the communicators that all of the security guards under there, down there using are actually Egon Spengler's PKE meetings. But they are, they're walkie talkies. Apparently, that's the alien tech. But yeah, so, you know, they're kind of being shown around by this guy, and they get brought to. To basically the television studio where, you know, the broadcast is being made that is controlling everybody. He's like, hey, can we go inside? And the security guards, you know, like, no, you know, we can't do it. Oh, come on. These are buddies of mine. Let him inside. No, you know, we can't do that. At which point? Or do you have a pass or whatever? Right.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, we need your passes.

Steve

Here's our passes. And they got a couple of Desert Eagles and just start blowing people away.

Nic

So that. That's good. They're. They're taking out the guards, and at the same time, they're looking for Holly.

Steve

That's right. Yeah.

Nic

Right. So they're kind of going through these offices and not. I mean, to their credit, they're not just opening fire every time they get to a floor. So they're in the news office. They end up finding Holly. At one point, he goes up to this woman in the break room who's very pregnant and holding an entire pot of coffee, and he's like, where? You know, where's Holly's?

Steve

It's like the worst possible person to interrogate.

Nic

No, seriously, like, she should. There's a million reasons why none of this should be happening. She should be on maternity leave. She shouldn't be drinking that coffee.

Steve

I do love. As they're heading down some hallways, you would just get this thing where it's like, you know, two guards pop out of, like, a cross corridor and they shoot them.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

They walk for a little bit, and then two more pop out, like, very video game like. It also made me think of those Lonely Island SNL sketches. Laser cats. It was very much set up like a laser cat sketch, or just, like. Just enough people show up at a time for you to shoot them, and then you move down. You know, it was that or it was the Contra levels where you were going up towards the top of the screen instead of across is very much what it felt like.

Nic

Yeah. So. So they make it through their laser cats, and they're killing various guards and aliens. They end up finding Holly, and immediately it's. It's not, hey, how come the second you showed up to the secret meeting, the cops raided us? It's, hey, come on, friend, come with us.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And pretty girl, very quickly. I mean, they. They do speed through this part.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Cause it's like, oh, we found Holly. Come on, Holly. Let's go shut it down. And then Holly shoots Frank in the head. Doesn't show it, but we know that it happens. And now they're on the roof. Basically, they're trying to find their way to the roof to destroy the satellite, which is putting the signal out.

Steve

Yeah. The transmitter. Yeah.

Nic

Interrupt the signal, and he says, oh, where's Frank? And she's like, oh, Frank couldn't make it, or whatever. And, you know, Holly shoots Nada. Nada shoots the satellite.

Steve

No, Nada shoots Holly. And then the satellite is what happens. And then he is shot by the helicopter. There's, like, a helicopter. Yeah, but not until he shoots the. He shoots the satellite dish. Yeah.

Nic

Kind of like in Terminator 2, where we were a little unsatisfied that he blew up the liquid metal guy with just, like, his handgun. Right. That it seemed like it should have been a bigger thing. Like, in all this, he's had shotguns, he's had different things. He's had grenades. It would have been nice for a little bit more of an explosive rocket launcher at the satellite.

Steve

In the words of Vinnie Jones, this is Desert Eagle. 50. So, you know, it is a pretty big handgun.

Nic

So he destroys the satellite, and we see the. That Nada is obviously dying. He's been shot by the police helicopter and musters a middle finger at the last minute, which is a good. Good way for this. This guy to go out. And as a result, now we're kind of shown a few seconds of the world without the signal.

Steve

Oh, man.

Nic

Which is cool. I think this is a very fun way to end it.

Steve

Yeah, it's. It's very cool. And I almost like. I feel like this should have been the end of Act 2. And now in. And have not to survive. And then now.

Nic

Now how do you, like, what do you do?

Steve

What do you do next? How do you start the revolution or whatever, you know what I mean? It doesn't even have to show us, like, the whole thing. That would be too much. You know, that would kind of air in the other direction, but, like, something more. I did like that Holly ended up being the traitor because it made the interaction from her apartment to the resistance meeting and her whole like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know, like, that then became intellectually, like, consistent. You know what I mean? Because she's a traitor. Okay, cool. Like, so that. Because I was, like, watching it at the time, I'm like, that's ridiculous. How would she not know that? Doesn't make any sense. Oh, yeah. Oh, she's been in on it with the aliens. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Got it. Yeah. So. But that is the end of the movie.

Nic

Oh, and just a couple shots that we get at the end, which is cool. So the signal's out and we have, like, a TV broadcast. And all of a sudden, sudden the newscasters are shown as these aliens. And you hear one of the production guys off screen say, like, what's happened, Sheila? You look like shit. Like, just shouted it out. One of the things they were talking about TV directors and they were saying, like, oh, yeah, filmmakers like George Romero and John Carpenter, which is kind of cool. It has a group of people watching TV at a bar. And then all of a sudden, one of the aliens is revealed. Revealed to be an alien. Everyone kind of turns and looks at him. And then the last scene, which, look, I'm pro. Gratuitous nudity, but it almost feels like the. Oh, well, you're gonna give us an R rating anyway.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

Because I don't see a ton during this movie that really merited, like, that hard of an R rating.

Steve

I mean, there's some good violence, good people getting shot and stuff, but, yeah.

Nic

So we have this topless woman, obviously, like, having sex with a man whose face we can't see. And she's like, oh. And then she looks down and she, like, starts screaming, and it's an alien. And he's just looks. He's like, what's wrong, baby? And then that's the end of the movie.

Steve

So, I mean, I could see Carpenter being like, I'm not making a PG13 movie. I don't care what it takes.

Nic

Yeah, I could definitely see that as well. But, yeah, it is kind of funny. A lot of times, like, when you only see nudity at, like, one extreme end of a movie, it seems like, oh, do you just, like, shove that in. In there?

Steve

And I. I'll be honest with you, I like it much better this way than Pacific Heights, where we get topless Beverly D' Angelo in the first, like, 20 seconds or whatever. And then no more nudity throughout the whole movie. Because I feel like if you're going to give it to me first thing, you're setting me up for an Andy Sedaris film. This should be like Hard Ticket to Hawaii or something, where it's just gratuitous boobs left and right. Yeah. If you're going to do it right at the end, it's like, oh, okay, at the end there were some boobs.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Moving on. But, like, it was weirder in Pacific Heights. Where it's like, let's open with like this real sexy kind of thing and then not even get close to that vibe for the rest of the movie.

Nic

Then that's it. Yeah. So at least they saved the best for a very, very funny gag to end the movie on.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So that is. They live.

Steve

That is. Yes.

Nic

And I'm glad. I'm glad you saw it for the first time. And it is kind of a movie that you would feel like you'd seen it even if you hadn't seen it. Because there's so much out there that's familiar.

Steve

It's so unique that if you're familiar at all with the concept, you know, it's this, like, this isn't like a vampire movie that's been done 20 times or a zombie like Romero, right? Yeah. I'm not sure which of John Romero, George Romero's zombie movies I've seen. I know I've seen some of them. I haven't seen all of them. All of the. Of the living dead or whatever. Right?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But this was like, this is such a unique concept that it's like, yeah, of course I've seen they. And it's like, oh man, I never actually did get around to watching this. So it's. That was great. I really am glad I did. I do love John Carpenter's work. Roddy Piper was great. I love Keith David in anything and he was great in this, you know, but like I kind of said before to give kind of my wrap up thoughts on it. Like, the movie's too short. Short. It not enough happens. It doesn't have enough plot. The world building is fantastic. Carpenter does a great job of setting us up to understand this world and to watch our main character discover, you know, what. What is going on and kind of we discover with him. It was all really freaking cool. Like, I loved all that. I desperately want Netflix or Hulu or HBO or somebody to do like a 10 episode miniseries or something out of this movie's concept. Yeah, like, give me a John Carpenter's. They live on, you know, Netflix and do it, you know, full TVMA. Right. And do it, but do it over 10 hour installation installments. And you know, give me more like, let me understand way more about like, how did we get here? You know, why is the world like this? How long has it been like this? What happens? How does the resistance gain size? You know, know, they really, they really put the kibosh on this particular, you know, cell or whatever. But was this. It was this LA group all the Resistance that exists in the world. Nobody else knows what's going on. Where did the sunglasses come from? What kind of technology is. Is in the contacts and glasses? Like, how do the lenses do this? Like, all that stuff is fascinating. We get none of it. And I think in general, the plot to this movie, this movie takes so much time to give us all that, which is fantastic, that it doesn't have enough time to. To ref. Really give us a lot of story. And I think that's my biggest problem with the movie is that it just isn't great as a movie. It's fantastic as a story setup, it's fantastic as a premise, but I don't actually love it as a movie. So I am 2 stars, 2 out of 5 on they live because I just think it's a lot of kind of missed potential in a lot of ways. But I want more and I want John Carpenter involved in more.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know what I mean? Like, get. But yeah, if he could get on the Carpenter still. Carpenter still alive.

Nic

Yeah, he's still around.

Steve

He did something just a few years ago, something for like a series, I think even Suburban Scares or something like that. It was like an anthology series, dude. Get on the horn with your agent and get to like Netflix or HBO or somebody and make a. They live. Because in today's day and age, all this stuff, like the sort of, you know, example in reality of like social media and like all the kind of like, ways that that has changed since 88, like, could be very interesting and take the same premise and give us a modern take on it and a much longer, more fleshed out story. It could be fantastic.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Yeah, that's my take.

Nic

No points well taken for sure. And especially, you know, about the story, about this being structured as like a filmed story. It's definitely lacking as far as like, you know, caring about the characters and whatever. I think as something that sticks with me and the reason I'm going to give this a better rating is this is something I think about all the time. And it's kind of rare that there's a movie where I'm thinking about parts of it, like the world that it's built. Think about it all the time. Like, there's a unique twist on it. And I think that what Carpenter maybe was trying to do, the Roddy Piper character, the fact that there's like no development of this character at all, it's just showing this is you're the average person with nothing special against about you. What can you do? Yeah, I don't Know, meet some people who are seeing the same stuff as you're seeing and then, you know, maybe go blow up a satellite dish. It's almost like he's like a, like a drone, like a bee, honeybee drone or something like that as just like. Well, it doesn't matter what his backstory is. Like we're flinging guys like this at the problem. You know, we're punching the problem in its face until it agrees with us. I like the fight scene. I, I like Keith David so much. He's good in everything. His voice is great. I'm really happy he was in this. The, the woman who played Holly, you know, really most of a lot of the other actors kind of like could do with or with or without them. Although there is like something to the distance that she played that character with that she was like a little bit non human with what she did. I love Carpenter. And yeah, so I think if listeners out there, hopefully you've seen the movie, if you're listening to this podcast, if you're talking to somebody else about it, I think it's definitely worth seeing because it's going to show you something different than most movies show you. And again, hour and a half, not a big time commitment and you get a little bit delighted by Roddy Piper's acting. I think the way he played it was smart. It was within his limitations.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But I think he also like did make some choices that led to his character being effective. That he wasn't like a non actor doing a bad job of acting. Like this is someone who is on stage every day for 20 years of his life, like doing wrestling shows and stuff. I'm gonna give this movie a 4 out of 5.

Steve

Nice.

Nic

I love Carpenter. I love Roddy Piper. Rest in peace to Roddy. Definitely see this one. This is a lot of fun and very fun to think about outside. But Steve, I'm with you. When that Netflix series comes out, I'm gonna be the first one in line on my couch to watch that.

Steve

There you go. I do think, and I said this to my wife after I watched the movie, like I stand by the rating. I think that it is the movie kind of is weak as a movie in a lot of ways. I also think you should see it. I think like if you haven't seen they Live, like watch it. It really is, is so unique and inventive and interesting that even if I don't think it actually works super well as a self contained movie, the world it builds and the premise that it posits is, like, so fascinating. And there is nothing about the movie that's, like, so bad that it's, like, not worth watching. And like you said, it's like a quick watch, you know, So I definitely liked it and think people should watch it. I just, like, can't give it a very high score, personally. So we're six out of ten from the two Dads on They Live from John Carpenter. And. Yeah, I think it's.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. What do you have coming up for us next week, Steve?

Steve

Okay, next week we're gonna go from the late 80s. We're heading to the mid-90s, and we're looking at a movie that really was, like, the breakout performance for someone who became a comedy kind of superstar of the 90s and maybe early 2000s, and, you know, then his life changed a little bit and he's not really in movies anymore. But this is the movie that put Chris Tucker on the map.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

This is the movie that showed us that Ice Cube is not just a rapper and an actor, but also a filmmaker because this was his screenwriting debut. We're going to go watch 1995's Friday, like, one of the most quotable movies of all time.

Nic

Oh, my God. I think the POD is going to be us just firing quotes back and forth. Yeah. Oh, I've seen this one so many times, like, back from when it came out. And I can't wait to talk about this one.

Steve

It's going to be fun. So if you're listening and you like what you hear, and hopefully you do, head on over to Apple or Spotify, give us a five star review. It really helps people find the show. If you want to drop us a line, you can do that at the show@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two. And the number one. This has been they Live. This has been another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you all so much for listening and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.