The prophecy of Escape From LA

Cafe Society
1

I stumbled across a showing of Escape From L.A., which I mistook for Escape From New York. Turns out it was a sequel from the mid-90s with appropriately era CGI.

What struck me was the seeming prophetic nature of the plot. Now I realize much of this is observation bias, but it’s amusing to me.

The setting is the US in 2015, and the country has taken a fascist turn. The President - a religious fanatic - has had the 22 Amendment repealed to be President for life. The police force has been nationalized and have these Eagle badge logos. In this future, an earthquake caused LA to be separated from the mainland. The US established a wall around the bay and strips criminals and moral degenerates of their citizenship and deports them to LA.

The plot has the President’s daughter steal a top secret briefcase with a remote to control a ring of EMP satellites, and ran off to LA to hook up with the opposition leader.

The rest of the plot is pretty cheesy and the special effects are weak and the dialogue dreadful and the plot turns telegraphed.

But the turn of the country to a religio-fascist empire under a heartless cowardly President self- appointed for life and then oppressing the population under the name of “Freedom” feels very apropos.

At least Snake Plisskin saves the day.

2

Not John Carpenter’s best work even as a commentary on dystopian post-capitalist fascism. They Live really saw the future except I still haven’t found the sunglasses.

Stranger

3

I don’t agree with that. I think what he did was selfish and plunged the whole country into hardship. I actually hate the movie.

4

President of what?

5

Put them on!

6

“You’ve got two options: Put on the glasses, or start eating that trash can.”

7

Pliskin was a complete nihilist by that point, far worse than the anti-hero he was in Escape from New York. IMHO though, it was a major irritation for the regime - sure, their high tech has failed, but they presumably have some hardened facilities, and plenty of troops and guns. And it’ll give them a perfect excuse to come down harder on everyone else.

Of course, it’ll help Pliskin get out of their clutches, but it’s surprising (plot holes) that after his prior actions, they didn’t shoot him without warning after he succeeded. But as the OP stated, that movie was really poor in terms of plotting and far too many telegraphed and stupid moments.