The Case for a "They Live" Series
Sep. 29th, 2015 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeast[Note: Special thanks to Chris the Cynic for starting me thinking on this one.]
They Live is a classic, low budget movie about an every-man character, trying to find construction work and survive in a very unfriendly economy. The main character, George Nada played by Roddy Piper, happens upon a pair of sunglasses that shows him an unfiltered reality that subliminally controls humanity.
If you haven't seen it, go ahead. It's fun for low-budget schlock entertainment. It's good for discussion on economic and political perspective. You don't have to agree with the movie's perspective, you'll still be entertained at the very least.
There's still room for improvement.
Within the movie, the subliminal messages and methods of the aliens are incredibly unsubtle. They outright command people to worship money, to consume, to obey power, and to passively let others make the societal decisions. The metaphor is about as subtle as several bricks to the head. Admittedly, it doesn't need to be subtle and any exploration has to be limited to that which can be introduced, explained, and explored within a single movie with no planned sequels.
That's why I think the remake should be a series. A series allows for more exploration of the setting, more exploration of the characters, and, most importantly, more exploration of the conspiracy/invasion plan of the aliens. Note: The invasion/conspiracy is more important than the aliens, themselves. That's no excuse to make them too simplistic, but just a note on where the priorities should lie.
The first season of the series should follow along the lines of the movie. Establish the harsh economy, the search for jobs that are low-income, the poverty, and also the standard excuses/poverty-blaming. "They should have gotten an education." "They need our vision instead of our opponents promise of free stuff." Then, slowly reveal the fact of an alien presence through the main character.
The fixes would, mainly, be on the level of expanding exploration. In the movie, there's a brief moment when an alien offers George Nada the possibility that this could benefit him. It's very quick, and he rejects very quickly, but it's the option to work for the aliens in exchange for wealth and position. I think this scene deserves its own episode, in part to show that it wouldn't be a blatant matter of selling one's soul.
Not only is it a case of needing money in order to care for loved ones, money that it might be unconscionable to reject out of a needless sense of moral purity. But, this scene, expanded into an episode, could be used to show that the aliens, themselves, are not a mindless evil. They are people with loved ones of their own, and even a culture and philosophy that, honestly or self-deceptively, believes that they are doing good for the people of Earth. These aliens aren't just an evil force, they are people, people who have children with medical problems.
Another improvement would be that the aliens have more than just wealth-worship to their focus. They're involved in churches, where they're very clear on how Jesus wants men to be manly. They're helping the MRAs with their talking points. They're wherever they need to be in order to help maintain divisions that keep us distracted and fighting among each other.
They're even part of how civil rights groups can so readily distrust each other (various civil rights causes have... had poor histories in regards to the civil rights of each other). One big rule should be that no organization is pure, not purely human and not purely controlled by aliens.
The win won't be as easy as in the movie. Even if the transmitter is taken away, making it so that people see without the filter, the problems aren't fixed. These aliens have been with us for generations, potentially centuries. They're citizens. And, unifying isn't as easy as saying that we have an enemy, now. Old divisions have to be settled. A trans-woman shouldn't have to be satisfied being a man until this whole "alien invasion" thing is settled, particularly when it's likely it never will be. Progress is exhausting. It takes meta-cognition and learning new things and new words and seeing how easily one can be, and even has been part of big problems that one never noticed.
For those with any amount of privilege, it's just easier and more comfortable to let things go on as they have, even to join with the aliens if only to return to a way that's less scary and different. It's not only because of the constant subliminal push from the filtered aliens that we can be so tempted to just SLEEP.
They Live is a classic, low budget movie about an every-man character, trying to find construction work and survive in a very unfriendly economy. The main character, George Nada played by Roddy Piper, happens upon a pair of sunglasses that shows him an unfiltered reality that subliminally controls humanity.
If you haven't seen it, go ahead. It's fun for low-budget schlock entertainment. It's good for discussion on economic and political perspective. You don't have to agree with the movie's perspective, you'll still be entertained at the very least.
There's still room for improvement.
Within the movie, the subliminal messages and methods of the aliens are incredibly unsubtle. They outright command people to worship money, to consume, to obey power, and to passively let others make the societal decisions. The metaphor is about as subtle as several bricks to the head. Admittedly, it doesn't need to be subtle and any exploration has to be limited to that which can be introduced, explained, and explored within a single movie with no planned sequels.
That's why I think the remake should be a series. A series allows for more exploration of the setting, more exploration of the characters, and, most importantly, more exploration of the conspiracy/invasion plan of the aliens. Note: The invasion/conspiracy is more important than the aliens, themselves. That's no excuse to make them too simplistic, but just a note on where the priorities should lie.
The first season of the series should follow along the lines of the movie. Establish the harsh economy, the search for jobs that are low-income, the poverty, and also the standard excuses/poverty-blaming. "They should have gotten an education." "They need our vision instead of our opponents promise of free stuff." Then, slowly reveal the fact of an alien presence through the main character.
The fixes would, mainly, be on the level of expanding exploration. In the movie, there's a brief moment when an alien offers George Nada the possibility that this could benefit him. It's very quick, and he rejects very quickly, but it's the option to work for the aliens in exchange for wealth and position. I think this scene deserves its own episode, in part to show that it wouldn't be a blatant matter of selling one's soul.
Not only is it a case of needing money in order to care for loved ones, money that it might be unconscionable to reject out of a needless sense of moral purity. But, this scene, expanded into an episode, could be used to show that the aliens, themselves, are not a mindless evil. They are people with loved ones of their own, and even a culture and philosophy that, honestly or self-deceptively, believes that they are doing good for the people of Earth. These aliens aren't just an evil force, they are people, people who have children with medical problems.
Another improvement would be that the aliens have more than just wealth-worship to their focus. They're involved in churches, where they're very clear on how Jesus wants men to be manly. They're helping the MRAs with their talking points. They're wherever they need to be in order to help maintain divisions that keep us distracted and fighting among each other.
They're even part of how civil rights groups can so readily distrust each other (various civil rights causes have... had poor histories in regards to the civil rights of each other). One big rule should be that no organization is pure, not purely human and not purely controlled by aliens.
The win won't be as easy as in the movie. Even if the transmitter is taken away, making it so that people see without the filter, the problems aren't fixed. These aliens have been with us for generations, potentially centuries. They're citizens. And, unifying isn't as easy as saying that we have an enemy, now. Old divisions have to be settled. A trans-woman shouldn't have to be satisfied being a man until this whole "alien invasion" thing is settled, particularly when it's likely it never will be. Progress is exhausting. It takes meta-cognition and learning new things and new words and seeing how easily one can be, and even has been part of big problems that one never noticed.
For those with any amount of privilege, it's just easier and more comfortable to let things go on as they have, even to join with the aliens if only to return to a way that's less scary and different. It's not only because of the constant subliminal push from the filtered aliens that we can be so tempted to just SLEEP.
