The Running Man: 1987's Vision of a Familiar Future.
Everybody loves the Snapchat and Instagram filters that give you cute dog ears, an instant makeover or a total face swap. You may have seen the viral video going around of Steve Buscemi's face swapped with Jennifer Lawrence - yikes. You may have even heard the warning last week from the intelligence agencies warning of people using this kind of technology to impersonate officials and make fake news.
This kind of taking a live video feed and adding animations or mapping one image on top of another in real time like (face swapping) is called augmented reality. It was first seen in the mainstream with apps like Pokémon Go. These days it can be found in all kinds of stuff like the aforementioned Snapchat filters, games, and avatars. The Google A.I. Deep Dream program promises to bring even more types of applications like this.
There is concern about where it will go from here as this technology becomes more powerful and widespread. There is trepidation across the board with celebrities concerned with people swapping their faces on adult films, businesses concerned with identity fraud, and the public concerned with extreme fake-news. There is one more super creepy concern too. Governments, foreign or domestic are using this kind of technology as a means to “Wag the Dog” their way into totalitarianism. Spooky huh?
Real life is imitating the movies now as this kind of face mapping and augmented reality was a key plot point of 1987’s the “Running Man.”
This is a flagship Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick that is somehow not as well known as some of his other films. In this 80’s vision of 2017, America suffered disasters and economic collapse years before and began to recover, but as an authoritarian government. The population is being brainwashed by State controlled TV with realistic looking fake news to prevent an uprising.
The top TV show is called “The Running Man.”
This is a deadly gladiator type game show with convicted criminals fighting for their lives against executioners known as Stalkers in a giant battle zone created in a section of Los Angeles destroyed in an earthquake.
In the unlikely event, the convict or “Runner” escapes all the Stalkers, they win their freedom. This show is portrayed as being quite popular, despite being used as a propaganda tool to send a message about the power of the state.
Though this sounds very serious, the “Running Man” show has more of a Wrestle Mania meets the Super Bowl type feel with larger than life gladiators, gambling fans and Solid Gold Dancers.
Arnold plays Ben Richards, a helicopter pilot cop who gets charged with opening fire on a group of protesters in Bakersfield, which earns him the moniker “the Butcher of Bakersfield.” In actuality, Richards was ordered to open fire and he refused. The other officers subdued him, carried out the order and framed Richards for it.
After a prison escape, meeting a woman named Amber Mendes, taking her hostage, and trying to flee the country; Richards gets recaptured and ends up a contestant on the “Running Man.”
Richard Dawson of the old school Family Feud gameshow plays the diabolical host of the “Running Man”, Damon Kilian. He has a fun persona on the show but is evil behind the scenes as he picks the convicts and whatnot. During the portion of the show where Killian shows the crimes of the Runners, it’s made apparent from a video from the helicopter that the night of the Bakersfield attack was manipulated with digital technology so that it appeared that Richards opened fire on his own. This is so the State can blame Richards for the attack as a way to cover up their secret agenda to crush opposition to their authoritarian regime.
Outfitted in a snazzy yellow uni-tard, Richards is sent into the game zone via rocket sled in a huge tunnel along with some of his friends. The game zone is a huge ruinous area of Los Angeles. It’s set up so the Stalkers can stalk the Runners in a WWE / American Gladiators-like match to the death.
Each Stalker has a weapon of choice like Fireball has a flamethrower/jetpack, Subzero has a deadly hockey stick, Dynamo shoots bolts of electricity, sings Opera and has a slick LED covered suit of armor complete with a glowing Mohawk. Things get more complicated when his friend discovers a way to hack the system and Amber Mendes, his former hostage ends up being captured and put in the game as a Runner.
No matter though, in classic Arnold style he starts to wipe out the Stalkers one cheesy catch phrase after another; usually using their own weapon against them in a grizzly way.
Here’s where the face-mapping similar to Deep Dream augmented reality really comes into play. Arnold escapes the game zone, so the Running Man producers decide to use the face swapping technology to make it appear that he was killed in the ring fighting the former champion Stalker turned announcer, “Captain Freedom” (awesomely played by Jesse Ventura). So it comes as a shock to the gameshow audience when Arnold comes bursting in, revealing the true scope of the technology and how the public has been lied to.
I won’t reveal too much more, but it’s a really fun ride and worth a watch. There’s a lot the movie got right in the tricky art of predicting the future; or our present.
When we first meet the woman he takes hostage when he’s on the lamb, Amber Mendes, she had a device hooked up to a TV that’s connected to something resembling the internet (if the internet was a 1980’s video game). It looks old fashioned but Richards is able to book plane tickets, a familiar internet function today. In fact, when Amber first arrives home she starts speaking to a home assistant Alexa type device to turn on the lights, TV, and make coffee etc.
The shows portrayed in a commercial break on the TV are for other mean spirited game and reality shows not unlike today's. Shows like “Climbing for Dollars” where contestants climb a rope with cash attached while vicious dogs menace from below. Tell me that doesn’t seem like a basic cable show. It’s fun to see familiar ideas and technology of today presented in such a stylistic 1980’s fashion.
So as we hurtle closer towards Totalitarianism every, and augmented reality/face swapping technology grow more accessible every day, one has to wonder; will face mapping and deep dream make it impossible to tell fact from fiction leading to mass corruption? Is there a deadly gladiator game show with deadly consequences and Solid Gold Dancers on the horizon? Only time will tell.
The Running Man is Currently Available on Hulu and Amazon Video.
Thanks for reading,
Mike Olguin
Feb. 8, 2019
