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 The President - a religious fanatic - has had the 22 Amendment repealed to be President for life.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.
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.
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.
Sorry, a capitalized President is typically used to mean the President of the United States. In context of the post, I used it directly after referring to the United States. I thought it was obvious.
“Saved the day” was a bit hyperbolic and ironic usage. He successfully retrieved the remote control from the opposition leader threatening to use it on the United States as an invasion force from many oppressed nations launched an attack. He managed to rescue the President’s daughter from her delusions of the glorious rebellion and brings her home to a man so thrilled to see his daughter he immediately sentences her to be electrified to purify her thoughts.
Of course, nobody else he tried to help in any way survived. Only Peter Fonda’s surfer dude survives - stuck in LA.
You are correct, triggering the EMP’s sets the whole world into complete electronic shutdown - back to The stone ages pre-industrial society. Yes, it likely leaves the tyrannical fascist government with the most resources to stay in control. Though by the strict reading of the plotline, they don’t have the means to stay a coherent group - no vehicles, no communications. They do probably have all the guns and ammo for however long those will last, but the “United States” as an entity is likely gone.
Yes, he plunged the whole world into immense hardship and death to prevent the President from being able to selectively use the tool. Not exactly heroic.
There is a whole lot to hate about this movie. Bad plot, bad dialog, bad special effects, bad acting, bad depiction of how the deportees to LA behave, bad make up effects, bad physics, bad antihero. I’m not sure there’s anything to not hate.
Well they did try, once they established he had succeeded. That’s when Checkhov’s plot device comes into play.
Thank you for that. I’ll have to try to find “They Live” to watch.
So Plissken stopped the tyrannical government from using the EMP by…using the EMP.
At the end of NY he destroyed the tape (cassette!) that had the presentation on “the discovery of the tritium” which was supposed to end the war. Instead, he probably prolonged the war. Maybe all the way up to the sequel.
But at least that was subtle. Plissken didn’t actually actively do anything to makes things worse, He maintained the status quo. He could still be a likeble (anti-?) hero. Not so in LA though!
One comment on the OP:
The country had already taken a fascist turn in 1997.
Also in both movies, however Pliskin screwed the world over by destroying the tape or launching the EMP device, I think it’s pretty clear the implication is that the USA isn’t the “good guys” and anything else might be better than the status quo
I hate to defend this movie, but he stopped the tyrannical government from using the EMP on everyone else by using it on everyone including the tyrannical government, which is… slightly better.
‘Snake’ Pliskin is also being sent to Manhattan Island National Security Penitentiary for robbing the Federal Reserve Depository, and (National) Police Commissioner Bob Haulk (played brilliantly by Lee Van Cleef) offers Pliskin “a full pardon for all crimes committed in the United States”, then has tiny explosive charges injected in his carotid arteries to prevent him from escaping. Pliskin does end up rescuing the President (who is pretty diffident about the deaths of Brian, Maggie, and Cabbie) but in the last scene is shown to have swapped the cassette tape with information about nuclear technology (described by Haulk as being critical to “…the survival of the human race, something you don’t give a shit about,”) taken from the cab and destroys the real tape. So, there are definitely no ‘good guys’ in this nihilistic movie about a decaying, autocratic United States in an intractable war with the Soviet Union and China.
Except as with all these dystopian fictional fascist presidents, our reality is way dumber. Namely…
The president in Escape from LA at least does a good job of acting like he believes the Christian fundamentalism he is enforcing. I’ve not seen it decades I’ve no idea whether his character is meant to believe in it or not, but he at least does a good of acting like he does. Unlike Trump who could not be more overtly unchristian in every respect, yet still manages to get the fundamentalist vote
For him to seize power in Escape from LA’s universe required an apocalyptic disaster (a massive earthquake that separates LA from the mainland). No such cataclysm was required for Trump to seize power, things were going basically OK if not perfectly.
There is one detail the OP missed that does predict our comically terrible reality. The president in Escape from LA moves the Whitehouse from DC to his hometown in Virginia
I agree… he leveled the playing field which in this scenario IS closer to a “heroic” thing to do.
I maintain this movie is just as good as Escape from New York which is also silly and weird. The problem is the fandom took Escape from New York very SERIOUSLY because of it’s New York grindhouse feel but it plays hard with wacky NY tropes…when looked at objectively I think it’s pretty clear its not supposed to be serious. Carpenter is having fun wih it. Escape from LA does the same thing just with LA tropes.
