They Live
You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong.
![Video for the film They Live — They Live (1988) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zLQ2d89vCiw/sddefault.jpg)
Country
Genre
Budget
$4 000 000
Box office
$13 008 928
Director
Actors
Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, George Buck Flower, Peter Jason, Raymond St. Jacques, Jason Robards III, John Lawrence, Susan Barnes, Sy Richardson
All actors and roles (10)
All actors and roles (10)
Scenario
Producer
Larry J. Franco, Andre Blay, Shep Gordon
Camera operator
Gary B. Kibbe
Composer
Artist
Audition
Editing
Gib Jaffe, Frank E. Jimenez
Whole Team (151)
Whole Team (151)
Short description
Nada, a wanderer without meaning in his life, discovers a pair of sunglasses capable of showing the world the way it truly is. As he walks the streets of Los Angeles, Nada notices that both the media and the government are comprised of subliminal messages meant to keep the population subdued, and that most of the social elite are skull-faced aliens bent on world domination. With this shocking discovery, Nada fights to free humanity from the mind-controlling aliens.
What's left behind the scenes
- A simple fight scene between Frank and Nada over Frank's refusal to wear the "magic glasses" turned into a 5-minute brawl, instead of the director's intended 20 seconds.
- The main character’s name is never mentioned in the film, and in the credits, Roddy Piper’s character is listed as “Nada” (likely as a surname) – which means “nothing” in Spanish.
- The role of Frank was written specifically for Keith David.
- The film is based on Ray Nelson’s short story "Eight in the Morning."
- In the scene in the bank, where the protagonist Nada selectively shoots aliens visible through the glasses, he says: "I come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, but I’m all out of bubble gum." This phrase later appears in a game series named after the protagonist, Duke Nukem. In fact, this phrase belongs to the lead actor, Roddy Piper, who is also a well-known athlete in the world of wrestling, having competed in Wrestlemania III, where he was noticed by John Carpenter.
- The main character's name is never mentioned in the film, and in the credits, Roddy Piper's character is listed as "Nada" (likely as a surname)—which means "nothing" in Spanish.
- The plot of the music video "Can You Feel" (1999) by the German electronic group SQ-1 is based on the plot of the film. Similarly, the music video "Into Your Eyes" (2005) by American artist Armand Van Helden is also based on this film.
- In the underground corridor, the security guards' radio looks like an anomaly detector from the film "Ghostbusters".
- In the bank scene, where the main character, Nada, selectively shoots aliens visible through his glasses, he says: "I come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, but i’m all out of bubble gum." This phrase can later be heard in the game series named after the main character, Duke Nukem. In reality, this line belongs to the lead actor, Roddy Piper, who is a well-known professional wrestler. He competed in Wrestlemania III, which is where John Carpenter first noticed him.
- The plot of the music video for the German electronic collective SQ-1’s “Can you feel” (1999) is based on the film’s plot. Similarly, the music video for American artist Armand Van Helden’s “Into your eyes” (2005) is also based on this film.
- Before the fight with Neid, Frank throws his bag on the ground, and it then disappears; the spot where it fell will be empty in subsequent frames.
- In the scene where the main character first meets an alien he can distinguish through the glasses, the alien is buying a newspaper. If you pay attention, you can see him receive change twice (before and after Nada puts on the glasses).
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Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
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Кастинги в Україні
