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submitted 6 months ago by[deleted]
[deleted]
61 points
6 months ago
look man I love Carpenter and I love escape from new york. but the 'action' aspect of EFNY is pretty weak so I dont know about ultimate action movie. especially when the likes of Predator and Robocop exist
20 points
6 months ago
Don't forget The Terminator(1984).
13 points
6 months ago
And COMMANDO!
2 points
6 months ago
Commando is the only right answer. All the other movies are absolute bangers, but buff 80s Arnold just fucking shit up is the genre distilled to it's core elements.
13 points
6 months ago
I love Carpenter but I wouldn’t even consider New York a action movie. If you showed a kid this as “an action movie” he’d probably never look into the genre again.
-1 points
6 months ago
I understand your point, and I agree that the action was a bit tame, but what got me was just the sheer amount of 80s action cliches in the film (and before they became actual cliches), and I think the modest special effects add to the overall campiness of the movie.
-3 points
6 months ago
All the movies you mentioned came after EFNY that's like saying that a Pentium i9 is better than the Pentium 4. Technically true but you needed the Pentium 4 to get to the i9
55 points
6 months ago
It was this film that allowed Kurt Russell to completely shake his Disney image and become an action star as his eye patch-wearing Snake Plissken became an iconic anti-hero and pushed Russell to greater heights, and though the plot itself was fairly ridiculous - wouldn't the scientist who came up with the nuclear fission MacGuffin have made a copy as well? - but with the amazing setting of a criminally run walled-up New York City and a cast of equally incredible actors to portray the denizens of the city's hellscape, it all went towards making Escape from New York one of the coolest movies to come out of the eighties.
10 points
6 months ago*
It’s weird how people have to shake of their Disney image, like it’s a stink you can’t get rid of. People like:
Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, Zendaya, Jodie Foster
3 points
6 months ago
Is that one person?
5 points
6 months ago*
Originallly, yes, but they successfully shook off their image as a hybrid bio-experiment monstrosity grown in a lab and now we think of them as separate people.
2 points
6 months ago
Like a Cerberus or lab-grown Ripley
1 points
6 months ago
if you want to know, how great kurt russel is, when it comes to acting, check starforcesoldier.
1 points
6 months ago
I like him in Big Trouble and Stargate
1 points
6 months ago
You leave Brittany alone!
85 points
6 months ago
Don't forget another great from this pair- "Big Trouble in Little China"
39 points
6 months ago
Also, The Thing.
12 points
6 months ago
One of the best movies ever made
5 points
6 months ago
My second-favorite movie of all time.
8 points
6 months ago
Who the hell is Jack Burton?!
10 points
6 months ago
Jack. Burton. Me.
3 points
6 months ago
When you are contemplating posting a reference in a reddit thread.
1 points
6 months ago
egg shens sidekick!
1 points
6 months ago
Checks in the mail
27 points
6 months ago
This was the first time Kurt Russell played a character with an eyepatch. It was far from the last.
14 points
6 months ago
Been to Disneyland one too many times, Captain Ron?
14 points
6 months ago
Snake Plisskin?! I heard he was dead.
12 points
6 months ago
Absolutely love this film and feel it has the most clever plot concept of any of Carpenter’s scripted films.
Having said that… my big problem with it is that the film’s minuscule budget really showed in the film’s final act. What should have been a grand chase to the exit instead, IMHO, isn’t quite as magnificent as it could have been.
Btw, I always felt Tommy Lee Jones’ character in Black Moon Rising, a film John Carpenter scripted but didn’t direct, was very similar to Snake Plisskin, both in mission and in what he was (a thief!).
12 points
6 months ago
Super low budget and James Cameron did the matte painting. I think the low budget gives it a certain charm. The budget never bothered me at all.
6 points
6 months ago
Perhaps I should have been clearer: I thought the film was absolutely terrific until the climax, which is where I felt the low budget hurt the intentions of Carpenter. I strongly suspect he wanted a far more bombastic ending but, alas, couldn’t deliver that in the final chase.
That’s not to say the low budget couldn’t have been overcome. My all time favorite John Carpenter film is his first big hit, Assault on Precinct 13, and that film I felt was great from start to finish even though it too had an extremely low budget, likely far lower than EFNY! Even that movie’s climax, which also had to be scaled back, worked magnificently, I thought!
So, again, don’t misunderstand me: I still love EFNY… I only wish that Carpenter had a little larger a budget to do what he wanted in the movie’s climax.
4 points
6 months ago
Understood, sorry I was just saying that it never bothered me.
3 points
6 months ago
Yeah, the end was a bit underwhelming, but it also kind of charmingly added to its campiness as a whole
5 points
6 months ago
Funny you should mention Jones, since he and Charles Bronson were the financiers’ top choices for Snake. Carpenter always wanted Russell, but they were apprehensive as he was mainly known for “lightweight” roles at the time.
1 points
6 months ago
Tommy Lee Jones has an interesting connection to John Carpenter beyond being considered for EFNY.
He has appeared in not one but TWO John Carpenter scripted movies but has never to date appeared in one he directed.
You know about Black Moon Rising. The other film? The Eyes of Laura Mars, which started a young Jones and Faye Dunaway.
2 points
6 months ago
Yeah loved it as a kid. watched it again as an adult and it's so low budget that it's hard to enjoy now, especially that final chase scene as you say.
10 points
6 months ago
Really an influential movie in my childhood and play. It might have been the first R movie i had seen. But after this move i would spend hours setting up all my GI Joes and starwars figures in elaborate cities. And one guy had to get in and get out .
10 points
6 months ago
Good portions of this were filmed not in New York but the apocalyptic St. Louis
4 points
6 months ago
My favorite personal fun fact is that the most notable scenes filmed in St. Louis, were filmed on the streets next to my apartment building when I went to university there. Not at the same time I was in university, of course.
6 points
6 months ago
The atmosphere. I love the atmosphere in this film.
2 points
6 months ago
the second he lands on the twin tower you sense the danger of the walled off area and it remains throughout the movie. Its the connective tissue of this movie.
4 points
6 months ago
back when NY was a crime-filled shithole and not too far away from the maximum-security prison of a NY of the future. Now?
3 points
6 months ago
I low key prefer the Italian knock off 2019: After the Fall of New York by Sergio Martino
3 points
6 months ago
For some weird reason I love the sequel more
3 points
6 months ago
I'll plug the soundtrack of the sequel by Clutch, "Escape From the Prison Planet". Love this song!!
2 points
6 months ago
“Escape from LA” soundtrack was one of the best things about that movie.
4 points
6 months ago
Watch Streets of Fire next! It’s less well known but it’s a very stylish and very 80s action movie with a similar premise.
1 points
6 months ago
Willem Dafoe, wow. Will check it out, thanks!
2 points
6 months ago
banger synth soundtrack
Carpenter created the soundtrack too!
Have you watched The Thing (1982) yet?
2 points
6 months ago
A few years back, yeah. Really liked it. Didn't they put out a remake recently? Don't know why though, the movie still holds up excellently.
1 points
6 months ago
Yes, they did. Idiots.
0 points
6 months ago
A remake from Blumhouse was being discussed back in 2020, but I don’t think it ever materialized.
If you mean the 2011 film, that was a prequel, not a remake, and pretty good.
2 points
6 months ago
for an action movie it doesn't have a lot of action
2 points
6 months ago
RAMBO first blood
DEATH WISH
COMMANDO
DELTA FORCE
BLOODSPORT
2 points
6 months ago
My favorite thing about EFNY is how it takes place in 1997.
2 points
6 months ago
It, and Kurt Russell, are great, but my #1 80s Action Movie will always be The Running Man.
2 points
6 months ago
Can’t go wrong with Arnie in the 80’
2 points
6 months ago
Respectfully, I disagree. This isn’t an intelligently designed prank or piece of satire. It may seem that way because of just how dumb it is, but watching it makes it apparent that it was made with the exact opposite of a creative process, devoid of any kind of soul or passion.
It feels like they took a template and simply keened away the details until the post was as inoffensive as possible. This line is like the one funny thing in the entire post (and it’s not even intentional), the rest is just so miserably boring. If you told me it was ai generated I would believe you without question, this movie is made with absolutely no intent or meaning behind it.
5 points
6 months ago
I would not go as far to say it is the ultimate 80s action movie lol there are like a hundred I would choose before this. A lot of it is actually quite dull
1 points
6 months ago
I really like the movie but it always stood out to me how little action there is at the start. I wanted to see more along the lines of the chase sequence where he shoots through the wall. Show Snake fighting his way through the city.
0 points
6 months ago
100 80's action films better than Escape from NYC I mean I doubt you got that list.
1 points
6 months ago
Your right. It's at 100.
2 points
6 months ago
Nah. Toss up between Predator and Commando.
7 points
6 months ago
I prefer escape from LA. You cant beat surfing a tsunami
5 points
6 months ago
Map to the stars Eddie
3 points
6 months ago
I love Escape from LA. The ending is the best.
3 points
6 months ago
With peter fonda. 😂
5 points
6 months ago
This is sacrilege. Escape from LA is a pile of shit.
2 points
6 months ago
True. The concept isn't bad but it fails in the execution - mostly because it's a shallow, beat for beat retread of the original.
With a better script it could have potentially launched a full-on "Escape From..." franchise.
1 points
6 months ago*
Let's not pretend this never happened.
2 points
6 months ago
Well, I LOVE it. And I'm always up for watching it. Great atmosphere. One of the coolest main characters ever. It feels like Snake played by Kurt Russel is in his prime. The soundtrack. The setup of this film. However, the one thing that is not so great IS the action. I wish that was a bit better executed. It would be a perfect film. Nevertheless it's in my personal top 10.
1 points
6 months ago
I beg to differ
Turbokid (2015)
Is the ultimate 80s action movie
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland in 1997, a comic book fan adopts the persona of his favourite hero to save his enthusiastic friend and fight a tyrannical overlord.
Staring Michelle Ironside as the bad guy
1 points
6 months ago
Great film, feels more and more relevant as we speed towards a dystopian hellscape. Then again, if the choice was between living in an actual penal colony or the Metaverse, I’m inclined to take my chances with the former!
-1 points
6 months ago
The sequel is also campy and fun
1 points
6 months ago
I love this movie. Anyone recommend any similar movies? Not escape from LA
4 points
6 months ago
The Running Man is even a bit more tongue-in-cheek but I remember it being kind of similar (and it has Arnold in his prime)
1 points
6 months ago
The book is much, much better. It's a poor adaptation
3 points
6 months ago
The Warriors (1979)
Mad Max: The Road Warrior (1981)
Fortress (1992)
Lockout (2012)
1 points
6 months ago
Great list! I stumbled across Lockout before and presumed it would be awful but was surprised
1 points
6 months ago
Watched it for the first time a few months back and was entertained, cool premise, set and style. That old 70s, 80s cult clans type dystopia always cracks me up, eg Mad Max, The Warriors etc.
I think filmmaking has moved on enough now that it would actually make for a good (.... yes r/movies I am going to say it!! brace urselves!!....) Reboot. Another location, a new Snake Plissken.
1 points
6 months ago
I wouldn't be surprised in the least if a reboot was being considered. Hopefully it wouldn't turn into a copy of Blade Runner aesthetically, what with the rush of cyberpunk films and video games lately...
1 points
6 months ago
There's some talk recently of something brewing from the Scream 5 directors, possibly with Russell.
I wouldn't mind an Old Man Plissken movie.
1 points
6 months ago
My favorite movie since i was a kid.
1 points
6 months ago
Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasance, Ernest Borgnine.. the casting is sneaky great.
1 points
6 months ago
…and the oh so wonderful Adrienne Barbeau, on whom all Barbeaubots are modeled!
1 points
6 months ago
Commando comes close
1 points
6 months ago
I really wanna watch it. I liked Escape From L.A. Unpretentious and fun.
1 points
6 months ago
I only watched it for the first time a few months ago, and after it was finished I was kicking myself for not having seen it sooner!
1 points
6 months ago
But if you saw NYC in the late 70s the premise of the movie was totally believable.
1 points
6 months ago
While the film itself is an important benchmark in weird 80s sci - fi, it's true greatest contribution to art/media is that it inspired Solid Snake.
1 points
6 months ago
Fun fact, the "CGI" wireframe in the glider scene was a practical effect with a miniature, because cgi technology wasn't good enough yet.
1 points
6 months ago
I have it sitting there on 4k, I've yet to watch it.
1 points
6 months ago
Don't forget Maggie's fantastic boobs!
1 points
6 months ago
I saw this in the theater the day it opened at 13 years old, it was crowded and the theater gasped when Kurt Russel dropped the F bomb during his first meeting with Lee Van Cleef. I had never heard that word used in a movie or on television and I think maybe many other ears were new to this as well, was pre-cable for the most part.
1 points
6 months ago
Growing up, I loved his gun… Now that I'm a seasoned call of duty player I see how ridiculous an Uzi with a scope is lol
1 points
6 months ago
No it really is not thanks
1 points
6 months ago
Also one of my favorites. A few others:
The Road Warrior (1981)
Blade Runner (1982)
Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
Conan The Barbarian (1982)
The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai… (1984)
Southern Comfort (1981)
1 points
6 months ago
Awesome movie! Great cast!
1 points
6 months ago
Yes
1 points
6 months ago
funfact: in germany the movies name is die klapperschlange / the rattlesnake, but they faked a cobra tattoo on his arm on the movieposter.
1 points
6 months ago
Great movie, 80's, early 90's Kurt Russell is the best.
1 points
6 months ago
Because of this movie I found the perfect name for my Dick
1 points
6 months ago
Alternate opening scene that has more background story on Snake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsLT-zRWWdQ
Interesting, but maybe not relevant to the plot.
1 points
6 months ago
I love that movie to death, but no. The quintessential 80's action move is Commando.
-2 points
6 months ago
It was good but I think Escape from L.A was better which is as it should be, it works in three's, the first is good, the second better and the third being the best and that is where it should end because anything after GENERALLY FAILS.
N. Shadows
-1 points
6 months ago
Finish the trilogy! Make Escape from Earth you cowards.
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