"Extreme Space" (They Live, 1988) was later called the "B-Class Film Master" by the director John Carpenter (John Carpenter) at its peak, and the director produced it at low cost in the 70s and 80s, which is in line with mainstream movies. There is a difference. His style is good at using literary drama to explain the plot. Only at the climax does it become a conflict and hot scene. The director uses a slow pace to let the audience develop with the plot. His main themes are horror and science fiction, such as The Thing (1982), Escape from New York (1981), and Assault on Precinct (Assault on Precinct). 13, 1976), "Big Trouble in Little China" (1986) and "The Fog" (The Fog, 1980) are popular regardless of business and evaluation, and they are also called by movie fans over time. B-grade Cult film.
The protagonist Roddy Piper (played as Nada) is an unemployed person. In the film, he travels from the road to the city. During his walk, a priest in the park is on the street. He said that the society is still suppressing freedom. Nada is under surveillance by two police officers. The director used this opening method to show that the city has entered a world of dictatorship. This simple and direct method makes it easy for the audience to understand the theme of the movie. First of all, the priest's remarks aroused doubts from the police. It is enough to ironically that the police are a tool of totalitarian power. The police are ordered to perform tasks by those in power. They have no independent thinking and become slaves. As a B-level sci-fi cult film, they have boldly presented their style. At the same time, many B-level sci-fi Cult films in the 1980s also had similar situations. They were all satirizing the terrorist system of capitalism. The director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, 1987) also took the capital system Corruption, depraved big companies replace everything the government does. Without political correctness, the big film studios were tolerantly shooting the subject matter presented.
Director John Carpenter's previous work "Escape from New York" (1981) also stated that the capital system of New York in the future world has lost its civilization and order. When the strong build prisons and military land, New York will be abandoned. The city, let people resort to battle royale to survive and die. The director also hit the nail on the head to reflect the rapid demise of society, not bad for the theme of the film. When the protagonist, Nada, through his site work friend Keef David (played as Frank), can become a home in a slum area, where people from different grassroots live, and outside this area, high-rise buildings are colorful. The director's use of this lens may imply that the upper class is different from the grassroots. The director has not made it clear. From an onlooker perspective, he may want to say that the survival of the upper class is mainly rich, worldly and powerful in order to enjoy the rich and upper class life. But the grassroots society does not have this aspect, only the society gives up and lives in the slums and lives on its own. Looking at this arrangement, the director may want to enable the audience to reflect on whether the actions of those in power are willing to listen to people's voices? The director thinks of this way to make the audience discuss themselves.
In the film, the TV broadcast from the mainstream film, and suddenly broadcast the propaganda of the protesters. People in the slums wanted to change the channel and scolded them as troublemakers. It can be seen that the director uses simple arrangements, people still believe and sleep in life, and the protagonist Nada can see it. With every move of the protesters, it is possible that the protagonist is slowly thinking about the police violently clearing the scene in the slum area. Nada began to realize that society is not facing the problem squarely, but giving up the grassroots for social development? Leave it to the audience to think about. The film uses violence to expel people, unscrupulously, buried inhumanity to obey those in power to execute, and in dark corners, the police abused the protesters in private, tortured and forced confessions. In order to obtain confessions, they have lost their rational police duties. It resonates well with the current situation and remains unchanged.
Nada saw that there was a box of more black glasses. Nada took a pair and put it on to see another life. The picture was black and white, regardless of the simple words in books, publicity and promotional leaflets: "Submit, not think independently, sleep, watch TV more," "Unimaginable" and other words, and seeing the upper-class people become aliens, the mainstream TV newspapers announced the news, positive and positive, burying the facts, quite a conspiracy theory. From this moment on, Nada slowly almost awakened, but Nada's friend Frank is still standing by himself, as long as he works hard to be successful. Quite like many people like Frank in today's society, they also believe that everything the government does is always right. As long as they believe in their local executives, people will always sleep and cannot think, and stick to their duties. Although the director did not make this arrangement clear, with this arrangement, two people fighting with each other, must they act in front of them to show that they can awaken? Still choose silence? Of course Frank also awakened in the end. The director arranged this conspiracy theory to completely make the audience realize that the injunctions imposed by those in power are enough to make people brainwash.
The last two awakened and met fellow travelers on the way. They could have resisted the totalitarian rule, but for personal gain, they sent out the police to violently arrest the protesters. They were greedy by human nature and lived for their own future. The voices of appeals were also extinct, showing the dark side of human nature. Do everything to give up changing your place. The two broke into the TV station, destroyed the TV tower, and successfully awakened people. The ending is of course a happy reunion. The two sacrificed their lives in exchange for local change and freedom. If we look at what happened today, it will still happen. How people will deal with their own place is to rely on the different voices of reasonable people to speak to those in power. Can those in power hear the voices of the people in their own place, is it really so ideal? Leave it to the audience to think about it.
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