Talk:They Live

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Contents 1 Shouldn't Plato be mentioned as credited writer? 2 quote? 3 source of text? 4 Frank Armitage? 5 Cult film? 6 What "Television Pilot"? 7 Professionalism, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. 8 Skeptical of the Finger 9 Subliminal messages? 10 "Hofmann lenses"

[edit] Shouldn't Plato be mentioned as credited writer?

This is basically the Allegory of the Cave.

-G == hi my name is rachel i can't find where howlers live

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I think we should call attention to the fact that this movie is in fact perfectly true- except instead of aliens it's George Soros that's hiding amoung us.

The fact that SOAD's "BYOB" bares resemblance to "They Live" (which is dubious and highly debateable at best) can hardly be termed "trivia".

--Badharlick 07:16, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Fun factoid: The actor who plays the lead character, Roderick Toombs, was born in Saskatoon where the three IGA supermarkets recently converted into Sobeys... Life imitates art? ;)

[[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg -->]]

-- Limulus 29 June 2005 09:19 (UTC)

They Live reference in the July 4, 2005 webcomic [http://www.nothingnice.com/index.php?pageNum_Recordset2=271&totalRows_Recordset2=273 Nothing Nice to Say] --Limulus 7 July 2005 00:50 (UTC)

I think the movie They Live shows how greed can change people. Other wise it's a good movie with cool action scenes. -- Anon

"Single longest fistfight in all cinema"?! I have trouble believing this...what about every Bruce Lee movie ever?

....

Watch the scene, it really is a long old cut. I think it serves to show you metaphorically just how difficult it is to get someone to 'put on the sunglasses' so they see what you can see. ....

Among the numerous other "gleanings" by The Matrix... was the notion of sunglasses as symbolic of strength/enlightenment lifted directly from They Live?

Another Reference?

I'm pretty sure that in the game "Bart Vs The Space mutants" Bart can get special glasses that make the aliens visible, so should someone add that to the trivia section of the article?

References to They Live in the video game Deus Ex

There is a sequence in the video game Deus Ex where the main character (which you play) walks between TV monitors hanging over cubicles. The TV monitors flash normal stuff and then switch to flat text such as "OBEY", in the same font and style as They Live.

Kaerondaes 06:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] quote?

• isn't it "kick ass and chew bubblegum", not the other way around?
  • The chew bubblegum scene on Youtube Joerite 00:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
  • "It's time to kickass and chew bubble gum... And I'm all out of gum" is the Duke Nukem 3D version, which is of course a reference to They Live. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 03:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Just say this - the film uses "chew bubblegum and kick ass". I haven't looked into the origin of the quote. 70.15.116.59 (talk) 02:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] source of text?

It looks to me as if there's a good deal of commentary copied from this article: http://www.geocities.com/j_nada/carp/interview/theyliveretro.html - but I don't see any clue to where the article originally appeared. Could be copyvio. ←Hob 21:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe that is the original source, altho, it also appears, here Count Ringworm 13:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frank Armitage?

The linked article (Lovecraft's Dunwich Horror) reports that the character's name is Dr. Henry Armitage. 200.48.20.67 21:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll vouch for that, and I checked my copy. Googling 'Frank Armitage' shows the majority of results claim it is from Neuromancer, but there do not appear to be any references to Frank in the actual book. In the absence of sources, remove the claim? 219.110.244.23 15:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Armitage is all over Neuromancer and plays an integral role. He shows up as early as page 28 in the novel. See here. Count Ringworm 15:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cult film?

Why isn't this categorized as a cult film here on Wikipedia? I think it definitely fits into that classification. Javguerre 22:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that category may have been deleted. If not, it definitely belongs. Geoff B 01:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What "Television Pilot"?

A paragraph towards the end states "When They Live was released in 1988, Carpenter had hoped that it would have the same effect as his film's television pilot." Could somebody please clarify: What film's television pilot is being referred to, here? -- pedant 13:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, turns out that the strange phrase is a result of the bowdlerization of the original article (cited above) on the Erasing Clouds website. As far as I can tell, the whole essay is mostly lifted from that source. I corrected the reference, but lack the time to rewrite the whole thing so it becomes something less than thinly-veiled plagiarism. Who's up to it? -- pedant 13:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Professionalism, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

"He likes to look around at people and buildings and things a lot. A LOT."

This is just condescending and silly. Are there any other Wikipedia articles that have whole sentences in all caps? That's SHOUTING, and has been bad manners since WebTV days.

First, the main character, John Nada, is homeless or pretty close to it. Homeless, meaning very little to do which means walking around and looking at things when he's trying to find work, and it's clear he's doing what he can to find work and support himself. Part of the core of the story implied is that he will NEVER get ahead in life. Second, once he puts the glasses on, the stunning reality of the world becomes apparent to him. Wouldn't you amble around in a daze for a while too?

Shekwan (talk) 02:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Skeptical of the Finger

In a cable broadcast version of the show that was not obviously tampered with (judging by its last most memorable presentation of the Marry and Reproduce theme), the supposed "Finger" gesture was not very clear to me. You can see an index finger more curled and a middle finger less so, but it was not exactly the vigorous gesture familiar from popular sporting events; at best it was a sign for someone who'd used up all the Viagra for the month. What do you think? 70.15.116.59 (talk) 03:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's definitely the finger. See: Whalen, Tom (2002). ""This is about one thing--dominion": John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars". Literature Film Quarterly 30 (4): 4. Maryland: Salisbury University.  —Viriditas | Talk 00:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Subliminal messages?

It sits uneasily with me for the article to call the messages in the film "subliminal". I can't deny it's accurate in a way, yet ... the messages seem more like translations of the advertisements than irrelevant "secret messages". When someone advertises "a more transparent computing environment" - more transparent for who, really? Is the vacation ad truly just pulling people to the Caribbean, or promoting a life-style where people shrug off their Sisyphean burdens just long enough for a short romance so that they can commit to reproduction and get back to the daily grind? I feel that the audience is intended to walk out of the theater with their sunglasses still on. When Levi's, widely criticized for aggressive "testing" of RFID chips in consumer clothing, runs ads that show that you can't put on their jeans without a phone booth rising out of the floor, are they really only selling a product? What of another ad that shows a printer doing "scan copy print", then the operator taking time out to phone home? I think that is more what the movie is referring to. 70.15.116.59 (talk) 18:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What kind of changes in the article are you recommending? —Viriditas | Talk 02:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Hofmann lenses"

The sunglasses are at one point in the film referred to as "Hofmann lenses". Acidhead friends of mine have always taken this as a reference to Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD. --FOo (talk) 03:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)