Nada is not the only one who can see the alien invasion and controlling of society there’s a small group of rebels fighting back and they often broadcast a pirate underground news show to the public, and during one such broadcast, a speaker known as the Bearded Man reveals the truth that the sunglasses revealed. While the sunglasses appear to be a simple plot device to move the story along, in actuality it’s a brilliant metaphor that tells the audience to wake up and open your eyes to the truth, and once you strip away the bright colors of so-called reality, the black-and-white truth might be too shocking.

When a drifter named Nada (Roddy Piper) puts on a pair of sunglasses he finds in a besieged church, he discovers the world is being controlled by an alien race.

In a 2015 interview, Carpenter described “They Live” with the following: “You have to understand something: it’s a documentary. That’s why “They Live” has been a cult classic for close to three decades it tells an obvious truth about the world that we live in, and that no matter how much autonomy we perceive ourselves to have in a free society, we’re still being controlled by the powers that be without us even knowing it. Even if an alien race hasn’t taken control of our civilization, there is a global elite in our world that can substitute for the aliens. “They Live” presents a premise so dangerous and eye-opening that not only can the story be true, it actually is. On the surface, the film is a classic B-movie with unconventional casting by having a professional wrestler in the lead role, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously, though maybe that’s on purpose. The movie tells the story of an alien race that has taken control of humanity using subliminal messages embedded in billboards, magazines, and other media to brainwash society into submission, while cultivating a group of human elite that has sold out mankind for their own financial and material gain to help secure the alien’s grip on this planet.Ī small group of rebels are fighting back against this covert invasion by trying to wake up humanity, but at times it seems like a losing battle. “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubble gum.” The character John Nada, played by professional wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper, announces this line, armed with a shotgun as he prepares to blast away at aliens disgusted as human beings inside a bank in John Carpenter’s film “They Live”, released in 1988.

They live subliminal messages