welcome to the abyss
I am a huge fan of the two original Predator films, and I love the hell out of Prey so this news has made me very happy! Want to hear something very cool? It is set to take place during WWII. That’s right, we are probably going to see some Nazis get their skulls and spinal cords ripped out of their bodies! Hooray! There is no set date yet, so I will give an update when the news leaks.
EDIT: Just noticed that I actually wrote about this film earlier so I guess this would be a part 2? That must mean I really like it.LOL
Before I get started talking about this film I want to let my new readers know that I don’t do strict film reviews. I like to talk about the social ramifications of films, what they can teach us and how they fit into our current dystopian hellscape. There will be SPOILERS.
I am a John Carpenter fangirl who loves his films and his music. With that being said this is my all time favourite film of his, because I feel like it actually ‘gets’ me. It takes a very sharp look at capitalistic consumer culture and what it does to a society who lets it take control of their lives.
This is not a very complex film, in either message or tone. A group of people living in poverty learns that the world around them is being controlled by Aliens who, through the use of subliminal messaging, bombard them with words such as obey, sleep and reproduce. When you think about it it’s an ingenious way for an alien species to invade Earth. Instead of having a military battle, in which many lives would be lost, they slowly tighten their grip upon society until people are so brainwashed they they really don’t care what is going on. If they can buy their new car, pop out a baby, and stuff themselves with food then everything is fine.
I was a teenager in the 80’s when this film came out and to say that the 80’s was a decade of conspicuous consumption is an understatement. If you were poor in any part of that decade you were made to feel like you were totally crap for not having the nice shiny things that everybody else had. Yes, this has happened throughout history, however it really peaked during that decade. I remember once wanting a pegged legged type of jeans and the only pair I could find were by Guess. As soon as I got home I ripped the label on the back pocket off. When I wore them to school people were asking me why I ripped the label off. No joke, people were befuddled as to why I didn’t want to wear clothes with blatant labels. I didn’t want to be in the part of society that worshipped brand names like they were gods.
The downtrodden rebel group in the film start making sunglasses that allow people to see what is really going on around them. When worn you not only can see the subluminal messages, you can also see what the aliens really look like. The aliens have disguises that allow them to look human and they are everywhere; bank tellers, politicians, policemen,etc… They have infiltrated into every facet of life in a capitalistic consumerist based society, and their presence assures that things will stay exactly the same. People in the society are so conditioned not to question authority that when offered the sunglasses they will fight to the death rather than accept the chance to see what is really going on.
The themes in this film still hold true today. A whole segment of society will believe whatever they are told without question, and if somebody has a worse life than them it’s their own fault for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Since these people don’t have the money to buy nice shiny things then they should be forgotten. In this film people actually sell out and turn on their fellow humans because the aliens promise to make them wealthy for doing so. Gaining wealth is so important in that society, and in this one, that people will do anything to achieve it.
The 80’s was a very wealth obsessed decade, but with the advent of the internet new ways to perpetuate this line of thinking have come to fruition. ‘Influencers’ on social media perpetuate all of this. They basically want to be famous for not having any sort of talent, other than getting others to buy the products that they are promoting. They are capitalist consumer conmen. They promote products to their wide eyed audience as if they too can be an influencer someday if they also buy the product. Aspiring to be an influencer is seen as an actual career path by some of these people. Why go to school when you can get cash and free shiny things while having no discernable talent? Remember folks, acquiring shiny things makes you a vital part of society and better than those who don’t have them. The aliens in this film would be very happy about this state of affairs.
John Carpenter has stated that he made They Live as a statement against Reaganomics. He saw the American middle class being harmed by economic policies that only helped the wealthy and felt that he had to say something against that. What he ended up making is now considered to be a cult classic, a film that is as relevant today as it was over thirty years ago.
This is definitely one of the films that shaped me into the post-apocalyptic loving weirdo that I am today. I am going to assume that everybody who is reading this has seen this film already, especially since it’s approaching its 40th anniversary fairly soon. If you haven’t seen it in a while it’s up on Prime for free. Since we are in the midst of living in a dystopian hellscape I find this film to be rather comforting. Yeah, the world really sucks at the moment but at least we don’t have marauding cyborgs hunting us down to extinction. Sometimes you have to look on the bright side of things.
There is one huge question that this film poses. Would you really want to live through a nuclear war? Machines hunting you down is bad enough but having to live in absolute squalor while being dosed with fatal levels of radiation really brings the reality that this film creates to a whole new level of misery. The aftermath of a nuclear war that this film depicts is in no way sanitized or glorified. It looks depressing, because more than likely you would be scavenging for food and dressed in rags. Personally, I would only want to live in that timeline if I was located far away from a major population centre.
This was made near the end of the Cold War, a time in which nuclear annihilation was a real possibility. Back in 1984 the truly sci-fi aspect of the film was the depiction of cyborgs and drones going around hunting people. The really scary thing to me is that we now live in a world in which drones fly around dropping bombs. Drones controlled by humans who are thousands of miles away from where the action is taking place. These machines look a whole lot like the ones depicted in the film, which freaks me the hell out sometimes. Recently there has been news that the British MOD have created a drone that is equipped with dual shotguns that uses AI to assess targets in dangerous situations. Who the fuck thought that this was a great idea? People who have obviously never seen this film.
Would humans from around the world really band together to try to save all of humankind? The current pandemic has taught us that there are governments out there who just really don’t give a shit about their own citizens let alone people located in different countries. If there was a threat of a nuclear war the heads of such governments will bunker down and leave all the survivors to fend for themselves. I think our current situation has proved that when it comes down to it you have to prepare for emergencies because the government won’t be willing or even able to help you when the time comes. Be a Sarah Connor.
One of my favourite scenes in the film is the entire police station sequence, because it really shows how arrogant the police can be. The police think they are at the top of the food chain and that they can easily defeat anything thrown their way. Then a T-800 series of Terminator enters the picture and slaughters pretty much the entire station. If the film were to be re-released right now that scene would probably get a standing ovation. When the film was made it was still widely believed, by white Americans in particular, that the police were the good guys. These days it has been shown again and again that they are anything but the good guys, so it is only natural to cheer for the T-800.
Some people may find this film a little dated but I think it is actually timely when it comes to the crap we are living through right now. Always keep an eye on the news so that you aren’t totally surprised when something horrible happens. In other words always be aware of your surroundings, whether it’s your neighbourhood or the country that you live in. The rise of the machines in the film took people by surprise and that is why Skynet had such an easy time annihilating humans. Our current pandemic took a lot of people by surprise because they weren’t paying attention to the reports coming out of China. Reports that were fairly easy to find online. I, and a lot of others, knew about the virus even before our governments made official announcements about it.
As you can tell I am a huge fangirl of this film and for me it really stands the test of time because, as I have shown, its theming can easily apply to the times we are living through right now. If you have somehow never seen this film do yourself a favour and watch it because it is definitely one of the best post-apocalyptic themed films ever made.
WARNING…….SPOILERS This isn’t strictly a film review, instead it’s a conversation about the meaning behind the film’s events,etc…
I have seen tons of post-apocalyptic films through the years and Cherry 2000 is definitely one of the best to come out of the 80’s. Mostly because there is a woman lead character, Johnson, that doesn’t need constant saving. She is a total badass.
What is unique about this film is the theming. It looks obviously 80’s, but that aesthetic is blended with others to denote different locations in the film. You have the pick-up bar in which everybody has 80’s hair and make-up but with kind of a futuristic sci-fi bent. Then you have the town of Glory Hole which is 80’s meets westerns. Finally you have the enclave of Sky Ranch which is firmly planted in the 50’s with Hawaiian shirts and games of hokey-pokey. Visually it makes everything more interesting, rather than almost every character in every area wearing very similar clothes.
Speaking of visuals, I think the the guys who made Fallout 3 definitely watched this film before making the game because there are some similarities between the two of them. Specifically the enclave of Sky Ranch. In Fallout 3 there are small enclaves in the wasteland that are 50’s themed, that sometimes happen to be filled with cannibals. In Cherry 2000 we see a cookout going on in Sky Ranch in which they are grilling some meat and you have to wonder where the heck did they get the meat if they are in the middle of the wasteland? Yep, I think they are cannibals!
The film is set after the ‘border wars’ are fought. Who fought who? We aren’t given an answer, which is actually okay because we don’t really need to know. It’s a society where single people do one of two things for companionship; buy a sex robot or go to a singles bar. If you go to the singles bar and want to hook up you have to sign a contract of what will and will not happen, and lawyers are there to make sure everything is agreed upon. Sam, our lead male character, prefers his robot, a Cherry 2000 model. When she glitches and fries her circuits Sam goes to the town of Glory Hole, hires a tracker named Johnson and off they go into the wasteland of Zone 7 to find him yet another Cherry 2000.
The future portrayed in the film is kind of similar as to what is going on right now. Everybody recycles everything and there is a 40% unemployment rate. Yes, our current unemployment rate isn’t quite that bad yet, but we are heading in that direction this winter. Everything seems very soulless and people are very self-centred. If I had to live in the time of this film I would head out to the border town of Glory Hole, because at least life there doesn’t seem as manufactured. Yes, they have sex robots for hire there, but people aren’t playing it as safe. They are living life on their own terms, instead of living how society tells them to. There is something life affirming about that.
When Johnson and Sam finally arrive in Las Vegas things will look a little familiar. That’s because Blade Runner 2049 used some of the same visual landmarks. Others have argued that Blade Runner 2049 also stole the idea of a non-human companion. I wouldn’t go quite that far, because it’s a bit of a step from robots to holographs. However, I do think that Denis Villeneuve, who directed Blade Runner 2049, had seen Cherry 2000 before he made that film.
This film is pretty much a ‘falling in love’ story set in the wasteland. Sam, who only wants a Cherry 2000 for company, slowly realises that Johnson has something that a robot can never have; a soul. Cherry only ‘lives’ for Sam, does everything that he wants her to do. While Johnson does as she pleases and isn’t afraid to tell Sam when he is wrong. I think Sam realizes that Johnson actually cares about him, rather than being programmed to do so. This whole aspect of the film doesn’t feel forced, rather it feels like something that would naturally happen.
Feel like taking a trip through the wasteland? Then Cherry 2000 is definitely the film for you!
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