(Music)
Welcome back to the Cinefix Infotainment Network.
This week we're going all the way back to 1987 to take a look at
what they thought 2018 would look like.
It's time for your favorite show, The Running Man.
(Applause) >> I'm Clint Gage.
And co-hosting this month, you know him, you love him.
He was gone for a while, but now he's back, Casey Redmond.
>> Hey, thanks folks.
>> What brings you back Casey?
>> Parking tickets,
I got a load of unpaid parking tickets.
Some guy showed up in my house with a lot of stuff about my debt to society and
we've got your family and blah, blah, blah.
So, I'm here to talk about Stephen King's 1092 novel written under
the suitor name Richard Bachman The Hein's and Bachman fans.
>> So without further ado and
no restraint on spoilers. >> It's time yo start running.
(Music)
>> All right, hang on,
the guy's that have my family said I needed to read this ad copy.
Today's episode of What's The Difference, is brought to you by Chainsaws.
No motorcycle is complete without a dangerous chainsaw.
(Sound) >> Right, okay, so
let's start with the setting.
Both the book and the movie take place in a dystopian near future.
In the film, the global economy has collapsed and resources are scarce.
America has become a police state,
controlling every bit of information on television as well as censoring other
forms of art. >> Meanwhile,
the book takes place in a similar dystopian.
It's the year 2025 and
income inequality has left a very wide gap between the haves and have-nots.
There are even two different kinds of money, old bucks for
the impoverished and new dollars for the employable well-to-do's.
Television comes exclusively through the Free V, and while it's a government
mandate to have a Free V in your home, it's still legal to not watch it here.
The Compulsory Benefit Act of 2021 just missed the two-thirds majority to pass
into law by six votes.
By the way, this difference is brought to you by Loud Hawaiian Shirts.
Stand out in the crowd, even if you don't want to.
(Sound) Wonderful. >> So
moving on to our Runner, in the movie Ben Richards
as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger at his most Schwarzeneggerly, is a former cop.
The movie opens with Richards refusing to fire on a group of unarmed civilians.
>> I said the crowd is unarmed,
lots of women and children down there, all they want is food for God's sake.
>> A few fisticuffs later and
Richards is carrying massive steel beams in a prison work camp before
the opening credits are even over.
But, don't worry,
our hero also escapes before we're done with the opening credits.
We next see him hiding out with some of the resistance,
idealistic musicians like Mick Fleetwood, who might actually be playing himself.
Ben however is a loner and
wants nothing to do with the resistance. >> Meanwhile in the book Ben Richards
lives in poverty,
he's been blacklisted because he complained about working conditions.
So unable to find work or afford medicine for
his sick baby daughter he turns to the Games Network.
The state sponsored network features games like treadmills for bucks,
where folks with bad hearts or asthma try to answer trivia questions while keeping
pace with an ever quickening treadmill.
Or dig your own grave which is pretty self explanatory and
of course The Running Man. >> The movie meanwhile has a similar TV
show. >> Hey,
read this copy. >> Right, okay.
(Sound) This difference is brought to you by Climbing for
Dollars, a dark, satirical look at the future of competition based reality TV.
Climbing for Dollars.
Don't let those dogs kill you.
>> Thank you. >> Yeah, sure.
>> But Ben is not quite a loner than his
movie counterpart is.
He's got a wife and daughter, for one but he's also still politically motivated.
He's bitter and resentful at the current regime,
rightfully blaming the government and their freebie for
the current state of affairs. >> Now,
let's talk about the differences in the game itself.
In the movie, The Running Man is cast with the criminals.
>> Sensational, perfect contestant,
I want him. >> If they can survive for three hours and
make it through all four game quadrants, they get at full government pardon.
The arena, made up of neighborhoods which were destroyed and
abandoned in the great quake of 97, is also populated by stalkers.
Killers without landishly themed costumes somewhere between wrestling gimics and
American gladiators.
Like Professor Subzero in Buzzsaw and Captain Freedom.
The stalkers are even cast with former wrestlers and
professional athletes which is a freaky little glimpse into the future.
A society in which celebrities earn exclusively through violence and
physical dominance while artistic achievement is censored and
made illegal doesn't seem so far fetched. >> (Cough) Sorry,
something got into my throat.
We can't talk about that, they're listening.
(Cough) Meanwhile in the book The Running Man is a very different game.
Beginning with the casting process.
First, it starts with people volunteer.
The whole point of the Games Network is to make the impoverish masses feel like they
have a chance to win some new dollars.
So lines full of meek and desperate people file into the Network Games building every
day, hoping to land on a show that pays out.
After a medical, physical and mental screening program,
the applicants are weeded out or assigned to a show.
Ben Richards considered an anti-authoritarian dissident and
reasonably good physical condition makes it through a three day application
process. >> The game itself is also very different.
Contestants in the book version of The Running Man have to survive for
30 days but they're allowed to travel literally anywhere in the world.
And it's not broadcast live either.
Richards is required to record and
then mail in video cassettes everyday otherwise he forfeits.
Meanwhile, the hunters led by the notorious Evan McCon, wait, wait, wait,
wait what's that? >> They're hunters
>> Yeah, but why is that on a mop?
>> He's not actually a mop,
he's a mop guy.
He kills you and then cleans it up.
Great sponsorship opportunities. >> Okay, but in the book the hunters don't
have fun themes like they do in the movie, they're just regular human bounty hunters.
Since the game takes place out in the world,
they have to blend in with the population in order to sneak up on the Running Man.
>> I know, I know, mop guy stays though.
>> All right,
fine, look regardless of who the hunters are, they're good at their job.
The current record for a Running Man staying alive is around eight days.
But for every hour he managed to stay alive, Richards will earn 100ND.
He also gets bonuses for killing cops and if he makes it the entire 30 days,
he wins the grand prize of 1 billion ND. >> This difference brought to you by
the number 1 billion.
Unless you're talking about stars or sand or skittles or something,
it might as well be a made up number.
Look at all those zeros. >> In the movie The Running Man is
produced and hosted by Damon Killian.
Played amazingly by the Family Feud's own Richard Dawson.
Again, the choice to cast an actual game show host makes the world of The
Running Man feel that much more realistic. >> (Cough) Dude,
you gotta stop doing that.
They have my family.
In the book however, Dan Calion is just the shows Executive Producer not the host.
As far as the book is concerned though, he is still Richard's main antagonist.
And ones Richard is in the game he is completely on his own.
His stunt on the Running Man takes him from Co-Op City which is somewhere
like Cleavelandish to New York, Boston, and of course,
because it's a Stephen King novel, all over Maine.
Including the fictional town of Derry where Pennywise the Clown lives.
Richards poses as an old man with buck teeth and later as a mostly blind priest.
He also blows up a YMCA in Boston when the hunters get the drop on him.
Then some kids in a local gang help him escape, but
not before educating him on the current state of pollution.
It turns out the gang sneaks into libraries for rich folks and
learns all kinds of stuff about the government's actions and
how they're literally poisoning people as well as how they're covering it up.
Richards even record a few rants about the problems on his daily cassettes,
the network re-edits.
In the way that ICS frames Richards in the movie.
>> Which is a monstrous move,
putting different words in somebody's mouth to make it seem like they're saying
something they're really not, so that they seem like the bad guy.
It's a valuable lesson in being able to question the things that you're
seeing. >> We
would. >> Never.
>> Do anything like
that. >> Here.
>> On Cinefix.
>> Nor do we
think.
>> Anybody. >> In any
position. >> Of
authority. >> Would
ever. >> Do that.
You should probably just. >> Believe.
>> What you
see. >> All the time.
>> Okay?
Thanks, bye. >> So please take everything that I've
just said very seriously. >> Movie Richards meanwhile is
saddled with Laughlin and Weiss, the two members of the resistance he escaped from
prison with as well as Amber Mendez.
The woman hits the passage earlier in the movie who got busted while trying to swipe
the video evidence that proves Richard Butcher of Bakersfield video was
edited to make him look like a killer. >> I got cap of that
too. >> (Cough) Okay,
this difference is brought to you by Labels.
Clearly labeling your incriminating evidence since sometime in
the 1800s probably. >> That's a good one.
I love label. >> Yeah, yeah, who doesn't?
So now we get to the interesting stuff, the why of it all.
In the movie Ben and
his resistance buddies track down the source of the networks broadcast signal.
It was in the Running Man arena,
which is why the resistance couldn't find it before.
Ben, seeing a chance to do some good, decides to stop being a loner and
joins the aged up drummer of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, Fleetwood Mac to take
down the network and their fake news. >> Meanwhile in the book,
Ben never finds a new mission.
He never has any illusions that he'll ultimately survive the running man.
His purpose is to solely live long enough to earn money that will go back
to his wife and daughter.
He, like his movie counterpart,
holds a woman hostage, forcing Amelia Williams to drive him through Maine,
and it's here that Ben proves to be a KG and resourceful runner.
He used the network's media coverage against them,
basically publicizing his whereabouts and the fact that he's got a hostage.
When everybody turns out to watch the motorcade OJ Simpson style, a class war
breaks out between the rich on one side of the street, and the poor on the other, and
the cops in between. >> And
this is really the difference between these two versions of the story.
In the movie Ben Richards is a reluctant hero for
a resistance that's just trying to get the truth on the airwaves again.
Fighting against the network that's falsifying a blood thirsty audience into
submission. >> Don't touch that die.
>> The book meanwhile there's a whole
level deeper.
The games network is designed to keep men like Ben Richards down, to make
sure dissidents are seen as enemies of the state, while the state continuous policies
that literally kill the poor. >> Ultimately,
in the movie Ben gets a happy ending.
He kills the bad guy, gets the girl, and walks off into the sunset or hallway.
But for Book Ben, his ending isn't so happy.
He makes his way to the Derry jet port, where he bluffs his way onto a jet,
claiming to have a whole craft ton of explosives.
When it's actually just Amelia's purse stuffed into his jacket.
And as he makes his final stand on the jet, he learns that his wife and
daughter were killed by an angry mob over a week ago.
Almost immediately after Ben started his run.
>> So without a reason to keep running,
Ben decides he's done.
He kills the plane crew including chief hunter Evan McCone and
takes a beating while he does it.
His guts are literally spilling out of his belly by the end.
Ben pilots the jet into the Games Network building and
killing him in the split second before the plane reaches his office can swear that he
sees Ben Richards giving him the finger. >> So what are we left with?
The film version is pretty standard 1980s action fare with some surprisingly
prescient themes about the power of information.
If you control the message that reaches the masses, you control the masses.
But, movie Ben actually wins.
The book has a less hopeful ending,
changing the message of the novel to something more like it might be too late.
There might actually be no real win for
the little guy who gives the authoritarian state that.
(Sound) Are you not going to clear your throat and
cut me off? >> What?
Sorry I tuned out there when I got super depressed about stuff.
Hey, can I hide out here for a while until this whole parking ticket thing blows
over. >> Yeah, yeah,
yeah, whatever you need man.
The couch folds out.
That will do it for this episode but me sure to subscribe to Cinefix for
more What's the Difference? >> This episode of What's the Difference
is brought to you by fold out couches,
letting your deadbeat buddies hide out til the heat soft and I don't know.
Hey, when did they invent the fold out couch?
What no, we've had them longer than that.