Same phenomena as crop circles. Aliens are encoding our money to get control of our brains. Submit. Marry and reproduce. Conform. Obey. No independent thought. This is your God. Sleep. Consume. Do not question authority.
I LOVE that movie; can easily watch it repeatedly and STILL feel the excitement! CAN'T watch "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers"; far too creepy and lacks all the tongue in cheek humor of "They Live". To be fair though, "Invasion" WAS made as a 1950's metaphor for a Communist (Russian?) invasion from within.
Then I guess the aliens have been with us a long, long time, since this has basically been the pattern of human behavior for the entire span of our recorded history.
"Plan 9 from Outer Space" is a true classic; it almost single-handedly manages to define the term "so bad it's good." Now, "Forbidden Planet", on the other hand... By the way, I originally saw these movies at the Stuttgart Vaihingen, Germany, Patch Barracks theater were a Walking Liberty (geez, I wish I had even ONE of those still now) would get me admission, popcorn, a coke and a Liberty Dime in change.
Well in defense of Plan 9 he didn't have any money to work with at all. I think he scraped up $60,000 to make that film.
No defense needed. Purposely or inadvertently so, he ended up making one of the most famous science fiction films of all time. Quite a legacy, and on a tight budget!
It's just that people list it as the worst film or worst sci fi film ever, and that is going against films with multi million dollar budgets. You really can't compare. I was in a film about 30 years ago (straight to video). I think the budget was 250K? There are so many expenses making a film it's difficult/impossible to do on a shoestring.
There are oodles of films of all genres out there that were made for budgets in the tens upon tens of millions of dollars and they are total and absolute dreck. There is no per se correlation between production budget and final product, with the exception for me personally that I always find it to be especially gratifying to see a small money film end up making a really big, artistic and popular impact.
Perhaps this is because he did so well in the movie, and honestly, I myself can't even imagine anyone BUT Roddy Piper in the role. For my money, and at least for that one movie, he was a perfect, natural fit.
