John Carpenter's Escape from LA

Nope, still not good.

No it doesn't.

I must concur with Jake and Phil on this one. It's like John Carpenter had an idea for an even better way to end 'Escape From New York', so he just decided to remake the entire film and add the new 'and improved' ending to it; however, the beats are all wrong and the acting is disinterested (at best) and awful (at worst). The special effects are laughably bad; EFNY's effects may be dated, but they still come off better than the garbage that we're subjected to in EFLA.

Yep, it has a great ending. So what?

For all the film's flaws and they are, sad to say, legion, I just can't not like Stacy Keach in this. Along with being a sucker for the prologue, basketball game and the ending, it's really why I coughed up the 5 bucks for the (decidely un-anamorphic...fuck you, Paramount!) dvd.

Here's what I always say about this movie:
I WANT A RUSSELL/CARPENTER COMMENTARY!

I remember Carpenter's wife posting on some movie message board about how cute it was that John kept falling asleep on set. Yeah. Real cute.

I hated this movie the first time I saw it, but then I got it, and though the CGI is terrible, I love the basketball sequence, etc. You might argue the first film was gritty and dark, and all that, and they ruined it here, but I think both films traffic in abusrdities.

Ugh. You "got" it. The filmmakers cracked their spines making sure everyone "got" it; that's part of why the movie sucks. There's some kind of observer effect at play in the sequel, where the movie spends its entire running time letting you know how in on the joke it is. Playing the goofiness straight in the original makes it palatable.

Agreed. Whereas the goofiness worked in the original's favor, the sequel just seemed to be trying way, way too hard. "REMEMBER THIS FROM THE FIRST MOVIE WHAT ABOUT THIS HOLY SHIT AND THIS ISN'T THIS BETTER DON'T YOU LIKE IT MORE?!?!" It's like the coked-up guy I used to work with trying to get me all amped up about Coldplay - I ended up disliking the end product more than I would have in the first place due to the amount of effort wasted trying to get me into it.

I can't recall most of the details, but I remember thinking that LA was an almost identical remake of New York. The ending was pretty funny though.

It was. Oh wait, no, there was surfin' Fonda and Beverly Hills Surgeon General Bruce Campbell! Original! Striking!

"You may have survived Cleveland, you may have escaped from New York, but this is LA, Puto, this town can kill anyone."

Confession: I kinda like that line.

And the CG shark... never forget the CG shark!

I still want to see "Escape from Cleveland."

omg it totly skewers los angeles!

VATO!

And the movie is really lazy, but I like some of the absurd stuff Carpenter threw in there (greenscreen surfing with peter fonda, basketball death game, hangliding into disneyworld with machineguns, etc)

It's a copy of Escape From New York, but I still like it a lot. I especially love the "horror scene" where they confront Bruce Campbell as the Surgeon General Of Beverly Hills. "My God they're real!"

Yeah, it's maximum stupid. I got what I wanted out of it.

Never Forget!

If they made them, I'd watch 10 variations on that same story with Russell. I assume the same exact thing happens to Snake every few years in a different city, like the Olympics.

Yeesh Saw this in the theater with my dad and brother (we saw EFNY in the theater as well). All three of us hated it. Never felt the need to revisit it

And what's so great about the basketball scene? It's just Snake having to dunk baskets or he gets killed, right? That's a far cry from the death match with the Killer Wrestler from the first movie

It's incredibly stupid. Again, I think both films are a reflection of their towns. I would put this on and watch it right now if I hadn't sold it in anticipation of the Blu-ray. These are the same guys who made Big Trouble in Little China. I get a lot of that vibe from it. Snake Plisken was always a caricature of the man with no name. It may be more over the top, but whatever.

I've never seen this film, but your guys discussion intrigues me, Cg sharks, surfing, Kurt dunking to save his life? Surely as bad as it maybe, it's also watchable? So I'll check it out.

But even Big Trouble isn't as self-aware as Escape From LA. (They Live comes closer, but it's still a different story.) It's that broad, obvious nudge-nudge-ness of EFLA that kills it for me.

ESCAPE FROM L.A. has the stench of the Post-Tarantino/Smith/Rodriguez world on it. It's trying to be clever, inside and rock 'n' roll with a heavy dose of geek chic. Bruce Campbell, Peter Fonda, Steve Buscemi...all appearing in the world of Snake Plissken? it's like a video store clerk's wet dream. And that's the problem. It should have been an ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK fan's wet dream. That's what I was hoping for, anyway. Not a tired retread desperate to be hip (circa 1996.)

GREMLINS 2 is how you intelligently parody your previous film. ESCAPE FROM L.A. is how you shit all over it.

Wasn't the shark originally from the Universal Studios 'ride'...and isn't it still?
The original script had it in.

...and, fuck it, I'd rather see 'Escape from Detroit'.

I consider Doomsday a better sequel to New York than L.A.

This is the correct response.

Refresh my memory: did EFLA ever address the ramifications of Snake destroying the audio tape in the ending to EFNY?

No. It barely mentions the events of the first film. Which is fine.

Fuck anyone who tries to logically add value to this movie. I wish to remain blindly irrational in my hatred for it, thank you very much.

Then 'Escape from Earth' probably would have ignored the ending to EFLA or written it off in a voice over stating that underground backup generators saved the planet. Fuck this movie indeed.

Considering everything that's come from Carpenter since, dontcha think we can forgive Escape for being a rehash/parody? At least it was fun, the last time JC pulled that off. Kurt Russell in Snake mode, even slightly silly Snake mode, makes up for alot. (Movie wins me over with Peter Fonda alone!) Like T3, the ending deserved a better movie, but still pretty great.


Best thing that came from it though, was HAM's (I think) post back in the day about "escaping" with the Snake Plissken lobby display. Remember cracking up over that.

Feast your eyes!

The justifications for this movie make me feel like I'm reading a Transformers 2 thread on Superherohype. The scene with Peter Fonda? Really?

I suppose I won't start that revisionist take on GHOST OF MARS thread, then. I'll spare you, Jake.

On the commentary for EFNY, I seem to remember Kurt Russell and John Carpenter briefly mentioning EFLA in a positive light -- something to the effect of "It's the same, but different" and how the fans "got it." I'm of course paraphrasing and possibly misremembering slightly, but it amused me. I'm thinking, "No, Escape from LA is just a bad movie, guys."

Like Phil, I'd still watch Escape from Earth though...

The only thing that works for me (and this is minor) is Cliff Robertson because he's essentially playing Joe Cantwell.

So bascially I can get through Escape from L.A. by imagining it as a quasi-sequel to The Best Man; which works better than watching it as an actual sequel to Escape from New York. Hell, it even has a Fonda in it! My thesis is proven!

I seem to have no problem enjoying, deeply enjoying, this movie and yet I find myself pretty much agreeing or, at least not refuting, any of the criticism levelled aganst it. Talk about cognitive dissonace

So I just bought this on Blu Ray. And I already own the dvd.
EAT IT TWO TIMES, PHIL!

What can I say, I've always enjoyed the ridiculousness of it. LA never OUTRAAAAAAAAAGED me because I've considered EFNY a classic or even a great film. I watched NY recently and it dragged a lot more than I remembered. Lots of footage of Snake wandering around aimlessly and looking uncomfortable with that MAC-10. I've always thought Snake was a cool character, though. And Russell basically plays Snake straight while things get more and more ridiculous around him in LA.

Sorry Phil.
I did buy EFNY on blu ray before I bought EFLA.

WHAT DID YOU SPEND ON THAT BLU RAY

I have a soft spot for it and once it's as cheap as EFNY I would probably get it.

The special effects must look awful on Bluray. One of the unfortunate, unintended consequences of HD.

I'd like to see that. I thought it was a fun movie.

And about EFLA, its okay fun. It seems the people really ragging on it are the same people that watch EFNY (a very good, somewhat schlocky action movie) on a nostalgia smeared pedestal.

"Welcome to the human race." FUCK YOU, Snake. Give me my money back!

I can't completely hate a film that allows Snake Plissken to kill Lewis Skolnick, but yeah, it's not good. Also, to correct the first post in this thread, Snake never says "I need a cigarette", he's too cool for such a pedestrian request, it's "Got a smoke?"; the Napoleon Wilson school of cool.

I'm waiting for the Blu-ray to go down in price so I can give my Dad my non-anamorphic dvd of Escape From L.A.

I still remember being hyped to see it, and my parents took me to see the first showing on the first day back in 1996. Still like it.

Carpenter’s not completely to blame for LA. 10 days into shooting the budget was slashed from $75 million to $40million. According to Drew McWeeny, who knows Carpenter fairly well, the original script is a dark, funny satire of LA. Which Carpenter knows as he lived there all his life.

That said, some of it doesn’t work, and probably wouldn’t even with a bigger budget.

What can I say? I love this film. I first saw it on TV when I was watching whatever happened to be on in an effort to tucker myself out for bed one evening. I was in a motel room with my dad, and he'd taken me on a trip to Gettysburg to visit various civil war sites. I didn't know any of the local stations, so I was just flipping through the channels when I came across EFLA, and the weirdness on display along with Kurt Russell's impossibly cool persona instantly hooked me.

As soon as I got back from my vaca I made it a point to go rent the film (on VHS!). I was quite fond of it and found it to be pretty clever. I enjoyed the characters and the story. I then went on to watch EFNY. I liked it less. There were individual sections that I prefered to their counterparts in EFLA (I recognized back then that EFLA was essentially just a remake of EFNY), but over all I felt the movie was kind of lifeless and slow, and lacked the zany energy of the other one

Anyway, I like EFLA. I like that Michelle Forbes has a prominent role, as does Stacy Keach. It's a cool little flick and it's hard not to smile when Snake lights up that smoke in the dark.

Maybe if I'd seen EFNY first I'd feel like it was a pointless retread, but instead since I caught LA first, I'm fond of it despite the hate for it that exists in some circles

PS I love Kurt Russell's leather outfit. It's pretty rad!