They! They? Who are... THEY? They are everyone who has ever lorded over others. They are the ones who benefit most in a society. They are the elite, the rich, the powerful. And they are - according to John Carpenter, director - aliens from outer space. Indeed? This rates as one of the most unusual alien invasion tales in Sci-Fi, a blaring attack on Reagan America, a decade in which some feel that corporate powers masked extreme greed with 'feel good' propaganda about capitalism.
It's nothing new, really. This theme goes all the way back to H.G.Wells and his parable on the rich vs. the poor (the upper class vs. the worker class), in
The Time Machine; it's all about how a select few get all the rewards on the backs of the many. But I've rarely seen such a subversive reworking of our reality as I did here. This film was shouting at us to wake up, to take off our blinders, to see the world as it really is. Above all, maybe we're right to mistrust politicians and wealthy lawyers. See also
The Arrival (1996), another alien invasion tale with similarities but with less the blatant commentary on our preoccupation with money.
Now, I've long had a problem with Hollywood elites telling the rest of us who or what we should watch out for. They tell us to watch out for the upper class, yet they themselves are a part of this upper class. So, their message is actually: watch out for a certain kind of upper class, just not us, the messenger; we're the 'good' upper class and the rest are the 'bad' upper class. It's simplistic, of course, and, ironically, similar to the control attempted by these alien invaders in
They Live.
Rather than the standard invasion of destruction and/or enslavement, the invaders here go for a more subtle approach. They either trick most of us into a submissive role or coerce a few of us with bribery. Thus, our world is invaded & enslaved, yet we don't even know it. The weapon is subliminal messaging. All our communications apparatus - TV, billboards, magazines - has been subverted; we think we're watching a TV show or reading an article but, in reality, we are receiving subliminal messages instructing us on how to behave: work, sleep, obey, do not question.
It's a crazy idea, yet not so crazy. It sure is different and creative for a Sci-Fi film. I can only judge by personal experience on how well the film worked after I first saw it in a theater. For the next couple of hours after watching it, I was in a different world; I regarded everything a bit differently. Was that really a signpost I was looking at now or was it a message from some alien masters? Was that really what I was seeing on TV at the moment? Was there a special reason why I felt lethargic sometimes?
The power of suggestion plays a large role in this film. It's mostly conveyed by the main character of Nada (Piper); he's a laborer who goes city to city looking for work, such as at construction sites. He stumbles on to this big secret (THE Big Secret) after his curiosity nets him a box of strange sunglasses. These glasses were manufactured by a small organization of people who are aware of the secret invasion and refuse to give in to the aliens. It's a great moment in cinema when Nada first dons the glasses, which enable him to see past the subterfuge engineered by the aliens. Then he gets an even greater shock when he sees his first alien. Welcome to the revolution. At this point, Nada decides it's time to chew bubblegum and kick some you-know-what.
http://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/data/movies/sounds/tlscbubl.wav But his greatest test is convincing a fellow Earthling (David) to try the sunglasses.
Roddy Piper, then a well-known TV wrestler, was new to the acting business and it does show, especially in his movements. Carpenter, for example, had him move backwards in a few scenes and Piper's technique was too mannered, as if he knew a camera was on him and he was playacting. But, in many scenes, he is well suited to be the rough everyman who is forced to become an action hero / alien executioner. He instantly hates the aliens when he becomes aware of them and when they try to make a deal with him (rather than just kill him, as other aliens in other films would do), his contempt for them becomes a driving force for the rest of the film.
Ra-TA-TAT!Critics accused the final third of this film as degenerating into simple, almost mindless gun-play, and there may be a point there, but overall it's an unusual, even fascinating Sci-Fi thriller. So the next time your boss speaks to you or your friend gives you a strange look, think about it. Are they really who they seem to be?
BoG's Score:
9 http://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/pages/themovies/tl/tl.html
