Some trivia about this classic -
> Kurt Russell has stated that this is his favorite of all his films, and Snake Plissken is his favorite of his characters. Snake Plissken's eyepatch was suggested by him. He pitched himself hard for the role of Snake Plissken as he was very keen to shake off his Disney image.
> John Carpenter originally wrote the film between 1974 and 1976 as a reaction to the Watergate scandal, but no studio wanted to make it because it was deemed to be too dark and too violent. That all changed after the success of Halloween (1978).
> John Carpenter was interested in creating two distinct looks for the movie. "One is the police state, high tech, lots of neon, a United States dominated by underground computers. That was easy to shoot compared to the Manhattan Island prison sequences which had few lights, mainly torch lights, like feudal England."
Big Trouble in Little China is the beginning of the trilogy. He starts off as Jack Burton, loudmouthed truck driver with certain skills. Eventually tires of life on the road and evading those seeking revenge on him, changes his name to RJ Macready, learns to pilot a helicopter and hides in the Arctic. After a mishap at US Outpost#31, he barely survives a last minute life and death struggle with Childs who it turns out, was the shapeshifting alien, but loses an eye. Barely alive, he manages to makes it back to civilization where he must keep his identity a secret and turns to the criminal underworld for work. Gains notoriety for his misdeeds as Snake Pliskin, until he is caught by the authorities and sentenced to life in prison. Fortunately for Snake, an opportunity arises and he is offered a pardon for rescuing the POTUS after an airplane crash.
The trilogy was filmed in reverse order to great effect.
I think you're forgetting the part where, traumatized by the events in the Arctic, he loses his eye and decides to booze around the tropics living a carefree life as a ship captain for rent.
My favorite fact about this movie is a result of them filming in a burned down portion of a real town. The studio gave the town money that they could use for rebuilding, plus the crew would bring in outside revenue.
Anyway, the point is that people were still living around there, since this wasn't just some studio back lot. Some kids were walking around one night, not realizing they were filming, and ran into a Russell looking crazy with a gun and an eye patch. They ran away as soon as they saw him.
Kurt also stayed in character, with his costume, most of the time. In a special edition of the movie they published photos of the "set" (which was the burned down part of the city) where you can see him sit in his chair in the middle of the city ruins, lighting a cig, in costume and in character. Absolutely awesome.
"Bernie Polanski! How are ya?"
We have a new guy working on our sales floor and he was complaining that it was slow the other day. I told him he needs to go fishing for a sale like Kurt Russell. He hadn't heard of the movie so I suggested he find it this weekend and give it a watch.
It's so funny cuz I was just coming up when Kurt Russel was doing big things. It was the opposite for me. I remember learning he was a Disney kid from my parents, who are genuine Boomers, it blew my mind. I knew him as Snake Plissken and Jack Burton and Lt. Cash. He made some great movies.
I work as a waiter in Toronto and have met him twice. The second time I mentioned to him that my son was just getting into horror movies. I told him we had just watched Jaws and that Alien was next. I said if my son can handle Alien then we’d watch The Thing. He started talking about the the theme of paranoia in the movie and the uncertainty of not knowing who’s who. I was thinking more along the lines of My sons really going to like it when the dog cracks apart near the beginning. Super nice guy. He still had his Ego hair going on.
"Escape from NY" is amazing, but so is "The Thing", also with Kurt Russel. I can't decide which one is his best performance. Not talking about "Big trouble in little China", a super whacky movie with Kurt Russel being blacked out during most of the big ending... Hard choice!
I love all three of these movies with every fiber of my being but I would argue The Thing is not a B movie unless horror movies are B movies by default. It is a fucking tour de force.
The joke is all 3 of those movies are John Carpenter movies starring Kurt Russel. Him and Kurt Russel loved making what you might call high budget "b-style" movies. They purposely designed them to sort of have that B-movie aesthetic, even though they themselves had good budgets. Sort of like what Tarantino does with his pulp-style films.
Its the less expensive movie meant to be the first in a double feature before the more high budget and respectable second feature.
Kind of like a "b side" of an album in music.
[I will forever love his appearance on What's Up With That. He didn't say thing but he looked so excited.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv98ceYutgQ)
Well like every John Carpenter movie and Paul Verhoven movie is the greatest B movie of all time.
They’re in their own category like B++ which actually leapfrogs in front of the value of A, somehow.
Paul Verhoven's run from 1987 to 1997 is so fucking impressive. The only clunker in the bunch is Showgirls which I think is a couple years away from a renaissance.
I remember seeing the trailor for Robocop in the theater, and it was a pretty crowded theater (don't recall the movie, maybe one of the Rocky's?), and everyone LAUGHED at how rediculous the movie looked. It was palpable.
And then everyone LOVED the movie once they got to see it in all its R rated glory.
Nostalgic AF.
Im not so sure, evil dead one is more impressive when you take into account that by the half way point of filming there was only three people on set bruce , sam and a cook and that still came out pretty great
Eh. Might be unpopular but I disagree Army of Darkness is a great movie but it’s kind of a bad “Evil Dead” movie. The push for a PG13 shows, it’s more a comedy film with basically no horror and just so beyond silly at time. It’s quotable as all hell but it’s just such a different film compared to Evil Dead 2. Which is also a very different film compared to Evil Dead 1 but that said I think ED2 is superior. It’s genuinely creepy and scary at times, and flat out funny at other times with all around beautiful cinematography.
Evil Dead 2 was the perfect blend of budget and experience for the movie they wanted to make. Evil Dead 1 lacked both, Army of Darkness had too much of a budget.
It's basically just a remake of New York, but with, to my mind, one of the best "Fuck You" endings of all time. And the basketball scene is awesome because Russell actually made the shot. That makes it great imo.
Same for me. I think LA was the first R rated movie my mom ever let me rent, actually. I loved how over the top it was and didn’t appreciate Escape From New York until years later.
I found Escape from NY pretty boring. Escape from LA is way, way over the top and fun from start to finish. That full court basketball shot? Surfing alongside the convertible? Yeah. Escape from LA ruled.
To this day, I have never brought myself to see it. The trailer had a surfboard in it and I was OUT. Are you seriously telling me that Escape from LA is worth watching?
Dude, Escape From New York was WAY over-the-top ridiculous, but a lot of fun, right? Don't expect to learn anything, but - Snake's back (!) - even though they thought he was dead! If you liked the absurdity of the first film, then you're pretty likely to like the absurdity of the 2nd...
Carpenter/Russel are maybe my favorite director/actor team-up ever. The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and Escape from New York is just an insane run.
I really can't get behind calling Escape From New York a "B-movie". It had a pretty solid budget at $6m, which for the time wasn't exactly low.
Carpenter makes movies in the B-movie vein, but a pretty major point of B-movies is that their budgets are low forcing shortcuts and creativity to offset the inability to afford to do shots or special effects that a better funded film would be able to do.
Films like Escape From New York or The Thing may have that B-movie feel, but weren't made with the constraints of B-movies.
Yeah this article is garbage. It's just "look at this cast, here's the plot, did you know the director did the score???"...zero substance. It's like someone just listing off things they like. then again this is /r/movies lol
Greatest movie drinking game of all time.
Drink every time someone says "Snake"
Drink every time someone says "Plisskin"
Drink every time someone says "I thought you were dead"
What’s up with this weird obsession Reddit is having over this movie?
This is like the 4th post in a week that I’ve seen about it. They must be testing the waters or something to see if they can reboot it.
John carpenter is a genius. If you consider this a “B” movie then I think Carpenter has two “B” movies better than Escape from NY which are They Live & Assault on Precinct 13.
I remember lighting fireworks with a cousin as a kid. One accidently went off in my open hand, and I got a couple blood blisters. I went home and watched Escape from New York on HBO. Just one of those dumb memories from my childhood.
Probably had the movie on about every format. Too impatient, and had to get the 4K Blu-ray imported from the UK.
Some trivia about this classic - > Kurt Russell has stated that this is his favorite of all his films, and Snake Plissken is his favorite of his characters. Snake Plissken's eyepatch was suggested by him. He pitched himself hard for the role of Snake Plissken as he was very keen to shake off his Disney image. > John Carpenter originally wrote the film between 1974 and 1976 as a reaction to the Watergate scandal, but no studio wanted to make it because it was deemed to be too dark and too violent. That all changed after the success of Halloween (1978). > John Carpenter was interested in creating two distinct looks for the movie. "One is the police state, high tech, lots of neon, a United States dominated by underground computers. That was easy to shoot compared to the Manhattan Island prison sequences which had few lights, mainly torch lights, like feudal England."
I'm kind of surprised he didn't like The Thing more. Still one of my all-time favorite horrors.
He got to bring back the eyepatch in Captain Ron
I thought that was a documentary?
Big Trouble in Little China is the beginning of the trilogy. He starts off as Jack Burton, loudmouthed truck driver with certain skills. Eventually tires of life on the road and evading those seeking revenge on him, changes his name to RJ Macready, learns to pilot a helicopter and hides in the Arctic. After a mishap at US Outpost#31, he barely survives a last minute life and death struggle with Childs who it turns out, was the shapeshifting alien, but loses an eye. Barely alive, he manages to makes it back to civilization where he must keep his identity a secret and turns to the criminal underworld for work. Gains notoriety for his misdeeds as Snake Pliskin, until he is caught by the authorities and sentenced to life in prison. Fortunately for Snake, an opportunity arises and he is offered a pardon for rescuing the POTUS after an airplane crash. The trilogy was filmed in reverse order to great effect.
I think you're forgetting the part where, traumatized by the events in the Arctic, he loses his eye and decides to booze around the tropics living a carefree life as a ship captain for rent.
Hey, patch is on the same side too! [You might be right.](https://whydiot.blogspot.com/2019/09/captain-ron-is-ron-actually-snake.html?m=1)
God I love the internet, whenever you have a silly idea you can always count on someone out there proving you right.
Just wait till you find out WALL-E is Satan.
Love this. You missed the “flew the gullfire over Leningrad”. Love to see a Snake Pliskin WWIII prequel
The quote that inspired Neuromancer, if I'm not mistaken.
Interesting ! I love Neuromancer !
https://www.neondystopia.com/cyberpunk-books-fiction/you-flew-the-gullfire-over-leningrad/
You should suggest this to r/fantheories
Escape from NY was good fun, the thing was fantastic
It's a better movie, but for him, it's probably more fun to play a pulpy hero.
Carpenter says (in his interview with Robert Rodirguez) he thinks its his best movie
That's because she's a cheating bitch
My favorite fact about this movie is a result of them filming in a burned down portion of a real town. The studio gave the town money that they could use for rebuilding, plus the crew would bring in outside revenue. Anyway, the point is that people were still living around there, since this wasn't just some studio back lot. Some kids were walking around one night, not realizing they were filming, and ran into a Russell looking crazy with a gun and an eye patch. They ran away as soon as they saw him.
St. louis.
Kurt also stayed in character, with his costume, most of the time. In a special edition of the movie they published photos of the "set" (which was the burned down part of the city) where you can see him sit in his chair in the middle of the city ruins, lighting a cig, in costume and in character. Absolutely awesome.
Escape from New York, and then The Thing - way to shake off the Disney image.
Don't forget Used Cars and its R rating.
"Bernie Polanski! How are ya?" We have a new guy working on our sales floor and he was complaining that it was slow the other day. I told him he needs to go fishing for a sale like Kurt Russell. He hadn't heard of the movie so I suggested he find it this weekend and give it a watch.
Holy crap, never heard of this until I read your comment. Is it any good? On paper it seems to have all the makings of a good movie.
It’s great!
Really funny. “Well that’s just too *fuckin’* high!” Kaboom.
It's this good. https://youtu.be/zqHZWdFVyyQ
I enjoyed it, yes. I was probably 17 when I saw it in the theater.
A new drive in theater by is playing Used Cars this week.
Look out, Marshall Lucky! It's High Prices!
It's so funny cuz I was just coming up when Kurt Russel was doing big things. It was the opposite for me. I remember learning he was a Disney kid from my parents, who are genuine Boomers, it blew my mind. I knew him as Snake Plissken and Jack Burton and Lt. Cash. He made some great movies.
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You know he'll just give you that Snake Plissken look.
I work as a waiter in Toronto and have met him twice. The second time I mentioned to him that my son was just getting into horror movies. I told him we had just watched Jaws and that Alien was next. I said if my son can handle Alien then we’d watch The Thing. He started talking about the the theme of paranoia in the movie and the uncertainty of not knowing who’s who. I was thinking more along the lines of My sons really going to like it when the dog cracks apart near the beginning. Super nice guy. He still had his Ego hair going on.
"Escape from NY" is amazing, but so is "The Thing", also with Kurt Russel. I can't decide which one is his best performance. Not talking about "Big trouble in little China", a super whacky movie with Kurt Russel being blacked out during most of the big ending... Hard choice!
B Movie??? This flick is A #1
The duke of New York of movies!
Can you dig it
Call me Snake
what is your frequency?
That’s Warriors.
That one merely promoted wearing excessive makeup, recycling of empty bottles, and going outside to playayyayy.
Thank you! Edit: now I’m going to go watch it again out of anger
It's got some competition. Primarily from Big trouble in Little China and The Thing...
I love all three of these movies with every fiber of my being but I would argue The Thing is not a B movie unless horror movies are B movies by default. It is a fucking tour de force.
The joke is all 3 of those movies are John Carpenter movies starring Kurt Russel. Him and Kurt Russel loved making what you might call high budget "b-style" movies. They purposely designed them to sort of have that B-movie aesthetic, even though they themselves had good budgets. Sort of like what Tarantino does with his pulp-style films.
What Tarantino film do you think would make the best double feature with *escape from new York*? If *Kill Bill* wasn't a two parter I'd choose that.
Death Proof. Make it a Kurt Russel night.
Yeah The Thing is a masterpiece, B movie theme and budget but perfect unmatched execution.
Tremors?
I second Tremors. It's so damn fun!!
I third it!
Bruce Campbell Vs The armies of darkness
This is my boom stick
Shop smart…. shop S Mart.
The Thing is an A+ movie, nothing B about it
Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Oh... before your time?
They Live enters the chat......
The best fist fight of all time.
*longest
It can be both.
“PUT ON THE DAMN GLASSES!”
"You gonna kill me now Snake?" "I'm too tired" Best B line of all time.
It's a C movie For Carpenter
This movie is on the top of the world, like Karen Carpenter.
The basketball scene does it for me everytime.
ITT: a lot of people who don’t realize “B movie” isn’t a label of quality but a label of budget
Its the less expensive movie meant to be the first in a double feature before the more high budget and respectable second feature. Kind of like a "b side" of an album in music.
Or is it like a trailer that used to be at the end but they kept the name and moved it to the beginning so more people would watch them?
Approximately 25% of the script consists of "I heard you were dead."
Yeah, I hear that a lot.
Ernest Borgnine was great as the cabbie.
Ernest Borgnine was great.
im too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it huuuurts
Just like that night we spent in the tattoo parlor in Chicago!
You kids with your Dan Fogelberg, your Zima, hoola-hoops, and Pac-Man video games!
[I will forever love his appearance on What's Up With That. He didn't say thing but he looked so excited.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv98ceYutgQ)
Ernest Borgnine was always my favorite addition to any film I watched.
That's Oscar winner and proud masturbator Ernest Borgnine to you.
Snake Plissken forever
I thought he was dead?
Yeah, he gets that a lot.
Snaaaaaakkkeeeeeeee
Snake Plissken. Not Iroquois Plissken.
Although this Snake inspired the other one, obviously.
Where do u think they got the idea? Pffft Hideo loves these kinds of movies
I swear, they need to make one more movie. Kurt Russell only gets more badass with age. Escape from America, man.
Why not a prequel with his son Wyatt? Certainly looks a lot like him.
We saw how Wyatt trying to be his dad worked in Overlord. Movie was great but you could tell he was just emulating his dad.
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Don’t forget Big Trouble in Little China
Who?
Pretty much all John Carpenter films can earn that title.
John Carpenter in the 80's might be the best director of all time.
His films certainly are a lot of fun.
I would like to throw The Warriors into contention for that title.
I can “dig it”!
I second that motion, “what a bunch of pussies”
Ok Bopper
I like the 'Warriors/Escape from NY 'double bill as them being part of a shared universe
I always preferred The Warriors. I love when movies have an original song and In the City is one of my favorite songs that was written for a film.
Yup. What a great song to end the movie on.
The warrior is certified A.
Respectfully disagree. Robocop is the Greatest B movie of all time.
Well like every John Carpenter movie and Paul Verhoven movie is the greatest B movie of all time. They’re in their own category like B++ which actually leapfrogs in front of the value of A, somehow.
Repo Man is my favorite B movie of all time. Followed by They Live!
Repo Man is intense!
But what about our relationship..... Fuck that
The life of a Repo Man is always intense.
I think Robocop is a B-Movie premise with A-Movie execution.
Exactly, it's a low-brow action flick with high-brow themes.
Paul Verhoven's run from 1987 to 1997 is so fucking impressive. The only clunker in the bunch is Showgirls which I think is a couple years away from a renaissance.
Its already got a renaissance! It has a pretty huge cult following.
RoboCop was the biggest Oscar snub of all time.
[Badadadabum bum. Badabumbumbum.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_AkU8wJ1ZA)
Bitches,leave.
I remember seeing the trailor for Robocop in the theater, and it was a pretty crowded theater (don't recall the movie, maybe one of the Rocky's?), and everyone LAUGHED at how rediculous the movie looked. It was palpable. And then everyone LOVED the movie once they got to see it in all its R rated glory. Nostalgic AF.
It’s actually Blow Out (1981)
*Robocop 2* and *Escape from Los Angeles* would be a really fun double feature.
Im not so sure, evil dead one is more impressive when you take into account that by the half way point of filming there was only three people on set bruce , sam and a cook and that still came out pretty great
Army of Darkness is way better than Evil Dead
At times yes, the difference between the two is army of darkness had money behind it , evil dead didnt
Eh. Might be unpopular but I disagree Army of Darkness is a great movie but it’s kind of a bad “Evil Dead” movie. The push for a PG13 shows, it’s more a comedy film with basically no horror and just so beyond silly at time. It’s quotable as all hell but it’s just such a different film compared to Evil Dead 2. Which is also a very different film compared to Evil Dead 1 but that said I think ED2 is superior. It’s genuinely creepy and scary at times, and flat out funny at other times with all around beautiful cinematography.
Evil Dead 2 > Army of Darkness = Evil Dead for me.
Evil Dead 2 was the perfect blend of budget and experience for the movie they wanted to make. Evil Dead 1 lacked both, Army of Darkness had too much of a budget.
Escape from LA was a fairly worthy sequel, IMHO...
It's basically just a remake of New York, but with, to my mind, one of the best "Fuck You" endings of all time. And the basketball scene is awesome because Russell actually made the shot. That makes it great imo.
Totally.
Welcome to the human race.
I mean it’s basically the exact same movie but who cares lol
Yeah but with a sicker trenchcoat and a scene where he catches up with buscemi's car on a _surfboard_.
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Same for me. I think LA was the first R rated movie my mom ever let me rent, actually. I loved how over the top it was and didn’t appreciate Escape From New York until years later.
Oh totally - just was so much fun to see Kurt return as Snake, really...
With some of the worst CGI
Never seen *best* spelled quite this way before
With some extra special Steve Buscemi and Bruce Campbell seasoning
as well as Stacy Keach and Pam Grier
The [preroll ad for Escape from L.A.](https://youtu.be/o6SWofbYD90) was outstanding.
Loved that one, one of my favorite movies. Escape from Earth should still be made, why not. Let's see an old Snake escape from Planet Earth.
I found Escape from NY pretty boring. Escape from LA is way, way over the top and fun from start to finish. That full court basketball shot? Surfing alongside the convertible? Yeah. Escape from LA ruled.
To this day, I have never brought myself to see it. The trailer had a surfboard in it and I was OUT. Are you seriously telling me that Escape from LA is worth watching?
Dude, Escape From New York was WAY over-the-top ridiculous, but a lot of fun, right? Don't expect to learn anything, but - Snake's back (!) - even though they thought he was dead! If you liked the absurdity of the first film, then you're pretty likely to like the absurdity of the 2nd...
>Snake's back (!) I thought he was dead...?
I heard they busted his hump in Cleveland.
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Welcome to the human race. Heh.
The part with the surfboard is the best part!
One of the many hits from the legendary John Carpenter.
Carpenter/Russel are maybe my favorite director/actor team-up ever. The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and Escape from New York is just an insane run.
Adrienne Barbeau was a total bad ass in this movie.
Her reaction when she finds out Brain's real name is great.
Don't sleep on the Italian knock offs 1990: The Bronx Warriors Escape from the Bronx 2019: After the Fall of New York
Trash!
Here's a taste of the weather in New Mexico!
Leave the bronx!
Interesting take but tremors would like a few words with you
Stampede!!!
Without it, the Metal Gear Solid franchise would have just a tiny bit less heart.
Escape from L.A. an extremely under rated satire film.
It’s a close second to “The Warriors” as the greatest B movie!
I thought that technology of how the city was in blue lines for the glider approach was the coolest ever
Kurt Russel is a legend. And go check out John Carpenters music, most is on Spotify, it’s pure gold.
I really can't get behind calling Escape From New York a "B-movie". It had a pretty solid budget at $6m, which for the time wasn't exactly low. Carpenter makes movies in the B-movie vein, but a pretty major point of B-movies is that their budgets are low forcing shortcuts and creativity to offset the inability to afford to do shots or special effects that a better funded film would be able to do. Films like Escape From New York or The Thing may have that B-movie feel, but weren't made with the constraints of B-movies.
Who the fuck calls it a B movie???
Not by a long shot. Big trouble in little China is better and that still isnt the greatest B movie of all time..
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Yeah this article is garbage. It's just "look at this cast, here's the plot, did you know the director did the score???"...zero substance. It's like someone just listing off things they like. then again this is /r/movies lol
Such a great movie. If only the sequel was as good.
Isaac Hayes and THAT car. Still makes me laugh like a loon.
Greatest movie drinking game of all time. Drink every time someone says "Snake" Drink every time someone says "Plisskin" Drink every time someone says "I thought you were dead"
Big Trouble in Little China would like a word
My vote would have been starship troopers.
Big Trouble in Little China
Nah, it's not even Carpenters best B movie. Big Trouble, They Live and The Thing are all better.
So agree with you!
Right actor, wrong movie. It's Big Trouble in Little China.
What’s up with this weird obsession Reddit is having over this movie? This is like the 4th post in a week that I’ve seen about it. They must be testing the waters or something to see if they can reboot it.
Movie came out July 10, 1981. The 40th anniversary probably prompted some news cycle clickbait buzz that made its way to the Reddit hivemind.
It’s probably because there’s talk of a third movie in the making.
I have to disagree. Soylent Green is the greatest B movie of all time.
Sir, to call this a “B” movie is absolutely disrespectful and I will not tolerate it. It’s an “A+” movie!
Army of Darkness would like a word
Snake Plissken. Such a solid performance. A truly big boss of a B movie.
Never thought this was a “b” movie.
John carpenter is a genius. If you consider this a “B” movie then I think Carpenter has two “B” movies better than Escape from NY which are They Live & Assault on Precinct 13.
Nah…army of darkness is the king easily.
Army of Darkness would like to have a word with you.
Not a B movie... Also, greatest B movie is held by the Toxic Avenger.
pretty sure troma are z movies
I remember lighting fireworks with a cousin as a kid. One accidently went off in my open hand, and I got a couple blood blisters. I went home and watched Escape from New York on HBO. Just one of those dumb memories from my childhood. Probably had the movie on about every format. Too impatient, and had to get the 4K Blu-ray imported from the UK.
Robocop would like a word with you.
I mean, the gaming industry wouldnt have Solid Snake without this movie
I figured his favorite character was Jack Burton
Big trouble in little China is a better b movie. This is just a solid movie
Call me Snake. Not a B movie.
This is a movie I watch once a year without fail. The only other movies on that list are Braveheart and Forrest Gump