THEY LIVE series coming?!?!?!?!?

[MikeWB]

Man, I just read this:

Quote:They Live The Series?
Date : July 19, 2007 Posted By : Adam Weeks

Consider this an interesting rumour for the moment, but in the latest edition of "Empire" magazine, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper drops an interesting little tidbit that John Carpenter is in talks with the Sci Fi network to turn his cult classic 1988 flick "They Live" into a regular series on the channel.

It wouldn't be the first time Sci Fi have run with a concept like this, they managed to turn "The Dead Zone" into a long running show, and after dropping a line to Piper's representatives, they let us know that he would definitely be involved with any small screen effort that goes ahead - now if only they can get the "Hell Comes To Frogtown" 6 hour mini-series up & running...

Whoa... this is one of my fav sci-fi movies ever! I think that David Icke saw it and just ripped it off. Or maybe this reptilian meme is based in reality somehow or is much much older. Anyone know?

Anyway, I came across this interview with John Carpenter, director and writer of They Live.

Quote:They Still Live

Over ten years on from the heydey of the Reagan era, 'me me me' capitalism and the sickening yuppie phenomenon, and They Live still packs an impact. Is it the fact that the social satire is so well delivered in the skin of an action-sci-fi-buddy movie; or is it simply a great film to crack open a 6-pack to? JDP Lafrance has written a fantastic retropspective examining this film -

CAPITALISTS FROM OUTER SPACE!
by J.D. Lafrance

"I'm disgusted by what we've become in America. I truly believe there is brain death in this country." (Swires 37)
-- John Carpenter

Filmmaker John Carpenter has always considered himself as an outsider in Hollywood. Like Sam Fuller before him, Carpenter makes genre films that are usually regarded by critics as simple thrill rides. However, underneath the surface lurks a strong, often savage social commentary on what Carpenter believes to be the problems that plague the United States. This approach is readily apparent in They Live (1988), a two-fisted science fiction film whose "premise is that the 'Reagan Revolution' is run
by aliens from another galaxy" (Swires 37). Admittedly, it's a pretty far out idea but Carpenter makes it work with a film that is both exciting and thought-provoking.

Nada (Roddy Piper) is a drifter, an amiable blue collar guy looking for steady work in Los Angeles. He eventually finds a job and befriends a fellow worker named Frank (Keith David), a man who is clearly tired of Capitalism ("The Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules."). Nada is more optimistic. He believes in playing by the rules ("I deliver a hard day's work for my money, I just want the chance."). But this faith in the system begins to change when the squatter's camp the men are staying at is suddenly bulldozed by the police one night. At first, there seems to be no reason for this unprovoked attack but gradually, Nada begins to get some answers.

One day, while rummaging through some garbage, he comes across a pair of sunglasses that allow the viewer to see things as they really are: the world is seen in black and white where the colour facade disappears and billboards reveal their true messages: "OBEY," "MARRY AND REPRODUCE," and "SLEEP," while certain people turn out to be aliens in disguise. The
glasses are a clever play on the notion of subliminal advertising and capitalism as the root of all evil. From this point, They Live kicks into high gear as Nada and Frank form an uneasy alliance and decide to stop this secret alien invasion.

The idea for They Live is based on two sources: a futuristic story, involving an alien invasion a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955), called "Nada" from the Alien Encounters comic book. This story came from a short story called "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson that was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the '60s. Carpenter describes it as "a D.O.A. type of story. A fellow is put in a trance by a stage hypnotist. When he awakens, he realizes that the entire human race has been hypnotized. Amongst us are alien creatures who are controlling our lives. He has only until eight o'clock in the morning to solve the problem" (Swires 37). Carpenter acquired the film rights to both the comic book and the short story and wrote the screenplay using Nelson's story as a basis for the film's structure.

The more political elements came from Carpenter's growing distaste with the ever-increasing commercialization of popular culture and politics. As he once remarked in an interview, "I began watching TV again. I quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something...It's all about wanting us to buy something. The only thing they want to do is take our money" (Swires 37). To this end, Carpenter thought of sunglasses as being the tool to seeing the truth, which "is seen in black and white. It's as if the aliens have colorized us. That means, of course, that Ted Turner is really a monster from outer space" (Swires 38).

Since the screenplay was the product of so many sources: a short story, a comic book, and input from cast and crew, Carpenter decided to use the pseudonym, "Frank Armitage," a subtle allusion to one of the filmmaker's favourite writers, H.P. Lovecraft. Frank Armitage is in fact a character in Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." Carpenter has always felt a close kinship with Lovecraft's worldview and his influence can be felt in other Carpenter films -- most notably, The Thing (198?) and In The Mouth of Madness (1995). According to Carpenter, "Lovecraft wrote about the hidden world, the world underneath. His stories were about gods who are repressed, who were once on Earth and are now coming back. The world underneath has a great deal to do with They Live" (Swires 43).

After a budget around three million dollars was established, Carpenter began casting his film. For the crucial role of Nada, the filmmaker surprisingly cast wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper whom he had met at Wrestlemania III. For Carpenter it was an easy choice: "Unlike most Hollywood actors, Roddy has life written all over him" (Swires 39). Carpenter's gamble pays off as Piper does a fine job playing a everyman-type hero who, at first plays by the rules, but once he realizes that it's all a sham, decides to fight back. Piper's performance is not going to win any acting awards but it is a solid job that suits the film.

Carpenter was impressed with Keith David's performance in The Thing and needed someone "who wouldn't be a traditional sidekick, but could hold his own" (Swires 39). To this end, Carpenter wrote the role of Frank specifically for the underrated actor. David does a great job as the perfect foil for Piper. The two men have this intense relationship that oscillates between outright distrust and grudging respect.

This rather volatile alliance reaches critical mass in a wild, seven and half minute fist fight between the two men over a pair of the special sunglasses. The brawl starts off serious but eventually transforms into an absurd free-for-all. Carpenter remembers that the fight took three weeks to rehearse. "It was an incredibly brutal and funny fight, along the lines of the slugfest between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in The Quiet Man" (Swires 38).

One of the reasons why They Live works so well is the film's pacing. It starts off like the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers with the threat of alien invasion being implicit at first. Everything seems normal enough but after a half hour into the film, the threat suddenly becomes shockingly explicit when Nada puts on the sunglasses. From there, the film's pacing speeds up and They Live begins to incorporate the action film into its science fiction premise.

And yet, throughout the film, there is always thought-provoking commentary. This is represented by the pirate TV broadcasts which, initially, seem like some lone conspiracy nut but eventually his ravings are revealed to be right on the money. His presence is the first sign that something is amiss. The television is presented as an electronic sedative in They Live. It's a drug to the masses. When the TV pirate appears, the mind-numbing routine is broken and people get headaches as a result.

When They Live was released in 1988, Carpenter had hoped that it would have the same effect as his film's TV pirate. Alas, it was not a commercial success. Carpenter sees the failure of his film as a result of "people who go to the movies in vast numbers these days [who] don't want to be enlightened" (Swires 43). It's a shame because They Live is far from being an overtly preachy film. On the contrary, it is always exciting and entertaining first, and a scathingly social satire second.

However, Carpenter sees the real tragedy to be the lack of humanity in society. "The real threat is that we lose our humanity. We don't care any more about the homeless. We don't care about anything, as long as we make money" (Swires 43). If They Live is about anything, it's a strong indictment against the capitalist greed that was so fashionable in the 1980s. It's sentiment that still exists in the '90s. This makes Carpenter's film just as relevant today as it was ten years ago.

[Nietzscheric]

Again, awesome post my man!

I would be thrilled if this show popped up on the SciFi channel! I hope it stays true to the original and comments on how MUCH MORE fascist this country has become since it's release.

[freeon]

Quote:Again, awesome post my man!

I would be thrilled if this show popped up on the SciFi channel! I hope it stays true to the original and comments on how MUCH MORE fascist this country has become since it's release.

SciFi channel has done more to destroy sci-fi than promote it. If this show is produced it will NOT be allowed to promote a truth-oriented plot. It will be converted into brainwashing as all modern day television is.

[Shinobi]

freeon the man who knows, thankyou.
saved me from saying so myself.

[solar]

Quote:[...] Whoa... this is one of my fav sci-fi movies ever! I think that David Icke saw it and just ripped it off. Or maybe this reptilian meme is based in reality somehow or is much much older. Anyone know? [...]

My understanding is that David Icke did not see it until a few years ago ...

... and when he did see it ...

... was blown away that Carpenter had released this in 1988.

Apart from David Icke, I would imagine that if one were in PSY-OPS that one would probably read a lot of science fiction ...

... why re-invent the wheel ?

Thanks, for the "heads up", Mike W. B ...

... I hope the Sci-Fi channel doesn't ruin the concept.

A while back, I had read an interview with Carpenter in which he stated that he wanted to re-film THEY LIVE ...

... and that of all of his movies, THEY LIVE was his favorite.

Carpenter admitted that the special effects were pretty cheesy ...

... but that the movie worked because of the socio-political context, which he stated was the whole point of the movie.

In the re-make, he wanted to use the same socio-political context ...

... but have a substantially different story line.

Carpenter wanted to re-film THEY LIVE with superior and stunning special effects ...

... and wanted to utilize current computer graphics technology ...

... technology which just wasn't available in 1988.

Carpenter felt that current motion picture computer graphics technology would give THEY LIVE the "punch" it deserved ...

... while "scaring the tar" out of current movie audiences.

Frankly, I would rather see Carpenter re-make THEY LIVE as a movie ...

... not a TV series.

Ray Nelson (now deceased) wrote science fiction, and even collaborated with fellow science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

John Carpenter’s movie THEY LIVE was based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING.

It has all the elements science fiction readers love: shapeshifting reptilians, covert mind control, ubiquitous totalitarianism, a reluctant freedom fighter.

Enjoy !

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EIGHT O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING

At the end of the show the hypnotist told his subjects, "Awake."

Something unusual happened.

One of the subjects awoke all the way. This had never happened before.

His name was George Nada and he blinked out at the sea of faces in the theatre, at first unaware of anything out of the ordinary. Then he noticed, spotted here and there in the crowd, the non-human faces, the faces of the Fascinators.

They had been there all along, of course, but only George was really awake, so only George recognized them for what they were. He understood everything in a flash, including the fact that if he were to give any outward sign, the Fascinators would instantly command him to return to his former state, and he would obey.

He left the theatre, pushing out into the neon night, carefully avoiding any indication that he saw the green, reptilian flesh or the multiple yellow eyes of the rulers of the earth.

One of them asked him, "Got a light buddy?" George gave him a light, then moved on.

At intervals along the street George saw the posters hanging with photographs of the Fascinators' multiple eyes and various commands printed under them, such as, "Work eight hours, play eight hours, sleep eight hours," and "Marry and reproduce." A TV set in the window of a store caught George's eye, but he looked away in the nick of time. When he didn't look at the Fascinator in the screen, he could resist the command, "Stay tuned to this station."

George lived alone in a little sleeping room, and as soon as he got home, the first thing he did was to disconnect the TV set. In other rooms he could hear the TV sets of his neighbors, though. Most of the time the voices were human, but now and then he heard the arrogant, strangely bird-like croaks of the aliens.

"Obey the government," said one croak. "We are the government", said another. "We are your friends, you'd do anything for a friend, wouldn't you?"

"Obey!"

"Work!"

Suddenly the phone rang.

George picked it up. It was one of the Fascinators.

"Hello," it squawked. "This is your control, Chief of Police Robinson. You are an old man, George Nada. Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, your heart will stop. Please repeat."

"I am an old man," said George. "Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, my heart will stop."

The control hung up.

"No, it won’t," whispered George.

He wondered why they wanted him dead. Did they suspect that he was awake? Probably. Someone might have spotted him, noticed that he didn't respond the way the others did. If George were alive at one minute after eight tomorrow morning, then they would be sure.

"No use waiting here for the end," he thought.

He went out again. The posters, the TV, the occasional commands from passing aliens did not seem to have absolute power over him, though he still felt strongly tempted to obey, to see things the way his master wanted him to see them.

He passed an alley and stopped. One of the aliens was alone there, leaning against the wall. George walked up to him.

"Move on," grunted the thing, focusing his deadly eyes on George.

George felt his grasp on awareness waver. For a moment the reptilian head dissolved into the face of a lovable old drunk. Of course the drunk would be lovable. George picked up a brick and smashed it down on the old drunk's head with all his strength. For a moment the image blurred, then the blue-green blood oozed out of the face and the lizard fell, twitching and writhing.

After a moment it was dead.

George dragged the body into the shadows and searched it. There was a tiny radio in its pocket and a curiously shaped knife and fork in another. The tiny radio said something in an incomprehensible language. George put it down beside the body, but kept the eating utensils.

"I can't possibly escape," thought George. "Why fight them?"

But maybe he could.

What if he could awaken others? That might be worth a try.

He walked twelve blocks to the apartment of his girl friend, Lil, and knocked on her door. She came to the door in her bathrobe.

"I want you to wake up," he said.

"I'm awake," she said. "Come on in."

He went in. The TV was playing. He turned it off.

"No," he said. "I mean really wake up." She looked at him without comprehension, so he snapped his fingers and shouted, "Wake up! The masters command that you wake up!"

"Are you off your rocker, George?" she asked suspiciously. "You sure are acting funny."

He slapped her face. "Cut that out!" she cried, "What the hell are you up to anyway?"

"Nothing," said George, defeated. "I was just kidding around."

"Slapping my face wasn't just kidding around!" she cried.

There was a knock at the door.

George opened it.

It was one of the aliens.

"Can't you keep the noise down to a dull roar?" it said.

The eyes and reptilian flesh faded a little and George saw the flickering image of a fat middle-aged man in shirtsleeves. It was still a man when George slashed its throat with the eating knife, but it was an alien before it hit the floor. He dragged it into the apartment and kicked the door shut.

"What do you see there?" he asked Lil, pointing to the many-eyed snake thing on the floor.

"Mister ... Mister Coney," she whispered, her eyes wide with horror. "You ... just killed him, like it was nothing at all."

"Don't scream," warned George, advancing on her.

"I won't George. I swear I won't, only please, for the love of God, put down that knife." She backed away until she had her shoulder blades pressed to the wall.

George saw that it was no use.

"I'm going to tie you up," said George. "First tell me which room Mister Coney lived in."

"The first door on your left as you go toward the stairs," she said. "Georgie ... Georgie. Don't torture me. If you're going to kill me, do it clean. Please, Georgie, please."

He tied her up with bedsheets and gagged her, then searched the body of the Fascinator. There was another one of the little radios that talked a foreign language, another set of eating utensils, and nothing else.

George went next door.

When he knocked, one of the snake-things answered, "Who is it?"

"Friend of Mister Coney. I wanna see him," said George.

"He went out for a second, but he'll be right back." The door opened a crack, and four yellow eyes peeped out. "You wanna come in and wait?"

"Okay," said George, not looking at the eyes.

"You alone here?" he asked as it closed the door, its back to George.

"Yeah, why?"

He slit its throat from behind, then searched the apartment.

He found human bones and skulls, a half-eaten hand.

He found tanks with huge fat slugs floating in them.

"The children," he thought, and killed them all.

There were guns too, of a sort he had never seen before. He discharged one by accident, but fortunately it was noiseless. It seemed to fire little poison darts.

He pocketed the gun and as many boxes of darts he could and went back to Lil's place. When she saw him she writhed in helpless terror.

"Relax, honey" he said, opening her purse, "I just want to borrow your car keys."

He took the keys and went downstairs to the street.

Her car was still parked in the same general area in which she always parked it. He recognized it by the dent in the right fender. He got in, started it, and began driving aimlessly. He drove for hours, thinking--desperately searching for some way out.

He turned on the car radio to see if he could get some music, but there was nothing but news and it was all about him, George Nada, the homicidal maniac. The announcer was one of the masters, but he sounded a little scared. Why should he be? What could one man do?

George wasn't surprised when he saw the road block, and he turned off on a side street before he reached it. No little trip to the country for you, Georgie boy, he thought to himself.

They had just discovered what he had done back at Lil's place, so they would probably be looking for Lil's car. He parked it in an alley and took the subway. There were no aliens on the subway, for some reason. Maybe they were too good for such things, or maybe it was just because it was so late at night.

When one finally did get on, George got off.

He went up to the street and went into a bar. One of the Fascinators was on the TV, saying over and over again, "We are your friends. We are your friends. We are your friends." The stupid lizard sounded scared.

Why? What could one man do against all of them?

George ordered a beer, then it suddenly struck him that the Fascinator on the TV no longer seemed to have any power over him. He looked at it again and thought, "It has to believe it can master me to do it. The slightest hint of fear on its part and the power to hypnotize is lost."

They flashed George's picture on the TV screen and George retreated to the phone booth. He called his control, the Chief of Police.

"Hello, Robinson?" he asked.

"Speaking."

"This is George Nada. I've figured out how to wake people up."

"What? George, hang on. Where are you?" Robinson sounded almost hysterical.

He hung up and paid and left the bar. They would probably trace his call.

He caught another subway and went downtown.

It was dawn when he entered the building housing the biggest of the city's TV studios. He consulted the building directory and then went up in the elevator. The cop in front of the studio recognized him. "Why, you're Nada!" he gasped.

George didn't want to shoot him with the poison dart gun, but he had to.

He had to kill several more before he got into the studio itself, including all the engineers on duty. There were a lot of police sirens outside, excited shouts, and running footsteps on the stairs.

The alien was sitting before the TV camera saying, "We are your friends. We are your friends," and didn't see George come in.

When George shot him with the needle gun he simply stopped in mid-sentence and sat there, dead. George stood near him and said, imitating the alien croak, "Wake up. Wake up. See us as we are and kill us!"

It was George's voice the city heard that morning, but it was the Fascinator's image that the city saw, and the city did awake for the very first time and the war began.

George did not live to see the victory that finally came.

He died of a heart attack at exactly eight o'clock.

[Tblacksheep]

Quote:I think that David Icke saw it and just ripped it off. Or maybe this reptilian meme is based in reality somehow or is much much older. Anyone know?

I cant remember the name of the book, but i do seem to remember alien/reptillian theme being alot older... might have been an Arthur C Clarke book, but cannae remember ATM. Icke is disinfo IMHO.

[MikeWB]

Thanks solar! Loved the story!

[MikeWB]

Torrent: http://www.mininova.org/tor/604147

[solar]

Quote:Thanks solar! Loved the story!

Thanks, Mike ...

... always a pleasure !;)

[Ognir]

Excellent flic, one of my favorites

However, version 2 couldn't ever replace the 88 version imo

[Dr.Druid]

Hmmm interesting stuff, it will probably be crap, like the Dead Zone or something.

That aside I think Icke just used the film as a metaphor like he used the Matrix.

When ever I think of the reptilian agenda I can't help but see it in a symbolic way - on many levels.

To take it literally would be a pretty large leap, I don't think Icke is disinfo but I couldn't say for sure.

[synergy777]

its cool film. i like dark city aswell, another great sci-fi classic. the biblical fallen (omitted book of enoch/nephilm) are the reptiles/aliens of popular culture.

[SerialExpLain]

Quote:its cool film. i like dark city aswell, another great sci-fi classic. the biblical fallen (omitted book of enoch/nephilm) are the reptiles/aliens of popular culture.

Speaking of the biblical fallen, Fallen (1998) is one of my favs. In this movie, Azazel is formless and
cursed to roam the Earth and is able to switch bodies by mere contact.

Denzel Washington's performance is beyond brilliant in this movie.