How Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dystopian action film predicted the future

The dystopian action film from 1987 The running man Stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a police helicopter pilot who, after being wrongly convicted of the mass murder of unarmed civilians, is sentenced to life in prison and then forced to be a contestant on America’s most popular television show, the diabolical game show The running manwhere Ben has to win to survive.

Set between 2017 and 2019, The running manbased on Stephen King’s 1982 novel of the same name, predicts the future accuratelyincluding the widening gap between rich and poor, a looming economic collapse and the increasing fusion of entertainment and politics. The film also anticipated the audience’s growing addiction to exploitation and violence as a means of escape from everyday life. Indeed, the film’s impact was most immediately visible in the competition series on television. American Gladiatorswhich was launched in 1989 as a virtual copy of The running manminus convicted participants and state-ordered killings.

The Running Man is not far from today’s reality

The running man

Release date

13 November 1987

director

Paul Michael Glaser

Duration

101

While The running man certainly made meaningful predictions about life in 2017 and 2019, the film’s dark vision of the future seems particularly apt and recognizable in 2024. In this context, The running man is, despite its various creative shortcomings, as visionary an achievement of the 1980s as Blade Runner And Robocop – The Wonderful World of Madness. The film is set in a dystopian United States where food and oil are scarce and the global economy is collapsing. The United States has turned into a totalitarian police state where dissent is punishable by death and television is controlled by the state. In a world where truth is obsolete, justice is treated like a sick game and the grand prize is not a steak knife but a human life.

Related

10 21st Century Movies You Should Watch If You Liked Running Man

1987’s Running Man was a dystopian film about a deadly reality show. Here’s what to watch if you like this Schwarzenegger film.

While the central concept of The running manof the powerful who manipulate entertainment and media to distract the rest of the population from their harsh reality certainly existed long before the film, This is more relevant today than ever before in historyespecially in view of the increasing spread of fake news and reality TV, between which it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish.

The Running Man predicted the rise of deepfake technology and fake news

The running man begins with police helicopter pilot Ben Richards observing a group of unarmed food rioters in Bakersfield, California. When he is ordered to shoot indiscriminately at the unarmed mob, Ben refuses and is eventually subdued by his colleagues. Since the footage of the ensuing massacre has been altered to make Ben look like a mass murderer, He was falsely accused of killing about 60 people and was sent to a labor camp with the nickname “The Butcher of Bakersfield.”

The next example of media manipulation in The running man takes place after Ben escapes from prison and enters the apartment of a woman named Amber Mendez, who takes Ben hostage. When Ben tries to board a flight to Hawaii with Amber, played by Maria Conchita Alonso, he is arrested at the airport and then arrested by Damon Killian, the creator and host of The running man game show to become a contestant. After Ben is taken into custody, A news report falsely claims that Ben shot several people at the airport.

Related

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “FUBAR” breaks impressive Guinness World Record at start of production of season 2

For anyone who believes that Arnold Schwarzenegger is larger than life, the “World Record” from the Netflix series “FUBAR” is proof enough.

After Ben is catapulted into the game zone, which is an abandoned part of Los Angeles, on a rocket sled, Who saw the fake news report? about the alleged airport shooting, discovers the original, unedited footage of the Bakersfield massacre, and realizes that Ben is innocent. Before Amber can reveal the truth, she is captured and sent to the game zone, where participants, or “runners,” are hunted by armed mercenaries with names like Buzzsaw, Dynamo, Fireball, and Sub-Zero.

Later in the film, when it looks like Amber and Ben will emerge as survivors, Killian calls in a retired stalker, Captain Freedom, to fight a stuntman posing as Ben in order to fake Amber and Ben’s deaths, which will be shown on television through digitally altered footage. After the network’s signal is hacked, all of the unedited footage is released to the public. When the truth comes to light, Ben, in keeping with today’s volatile media culture, is instantly transformed from a notorious mass murderer to a national hero.

Arnold Schwarzenegger became a political gladiator

One of the most accurate predictions in The running man is how entertainment and politics have become more and more intertwined. This was already evident in 1987, when former actor and now politician Ronald Reagan was nearing the end of his second term as President of the United States. But this connection is also clearly embodied by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was elected Governor of California in 2003While the idea that Schwarzenegger, who was re-elected in 2006, could succeed in politics seemed unimaginable in 1987, Schwarzenegger’s entry into politics preceded one of his The running man His co-stars include former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, who was elected governor of Minnesota in 1999 and served a four-year term.

The most shocking combination of entertainment and politics happened with the 2016 election of businessman and former reality TV star Donald Trump as President of the United States. Schwarzenegger debuted as host of Trump’s reality competition series The Celebrity Apprentice on January 2, 2017, less than three weeks before Trump, who hosted the series between 2008 and 2015, was sworn in as the first U.S. president in history. The running man is now streaming on Pluto TV.