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00:00In 1982, the heavyweight champion of horror writing, Stephen King, dropped a prescient piece of science fiction called The Running Man.
00:08Writing under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, King portrayed a near-future world of scarce resources, authoritarian, government, and a state-run TV network that keeps the public distracted with gladiatorial game shows.
00:20Before Edgar Wright got hold of the book for his 2025 adaptation that stays much closer to the novel's plot, The Running Man got the Schwarzenegger treatment in 1987.
00:30Which is what we're going to talk about today.
00:33Well, why didn't you say so?
00:35Let's make this a proper reboot of a deadly reality show where people compete for the basic necessities, shall we?
00:42I'm your host, Clint Gage, and our running man for this episode is our old Cinefix pal, Casey Redman.
00:48Hey, thanks folks.
00:49Casey, what brings you to The Running Man?
00:50Parking tickets. Got a load of unpaid parking tickets.
00:53Some guy showed up at my house, said a lot of stuff about my debt to society, and we've got your family and blah, blah, blah.
00:59So, without further ado, and no restraint on spoilers.
01:02It's time to start running!
01:12Alright, hang on. The guys that have my family said I need to read this ad copy.
01:17Today's episode of What's the Difference is brought to you by Chainsaws.
01:21No motorcycle is complete without a dangerous chainsaw.
01:25Right.
01:26Okay, so let's start with the setting.
01:28Both the book and the movie take place in a dystopian near future.
01:32In the film, the global economy has collapsed and resources are scarce.
01:36America has become a police state, controlling every bit of information on television, as well as censoring other forms of art.
01:43Meanwhile, the book takes place in a similar dystopian.
01:45It's the year 2025, and income inequality has left a very wide gap between the haves and have-nots.
01:51There are even two different kinds of money.
01:53Old bucks for the impoverished, and new dollars for the employable well-to-dos.
01:58Television comes exclusively through the freebie, and while it's a government mandate to have a freebie in your home,
02:03it's still legal to not watch it.
02:05Fair.
02:05The Compulsory Benefit Act of 2021 just missed the two-thirds majority to pass into law by six votes.
02:13By the way, this difference is brought to you by Loud Hawaiian Shirts.
02:17Stand out in a crowd, even if you don't want to.
02:19Wonderful.
02:22So, moving on to our runner.
02:23In the movie, Ben Richards, as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger at his most Schwarzeneggery, is a former cop.
02:30The movie opens with Richards refusing to fire on a group of unarmed civilians.
02:33I said the crowd is unarmed.
02:35There's lots of women and children down there.
02:37All they want is food, for God's sake.
02:38A few fisticuffs later, and Richards is carrying massive steel beams in a prison work camp before the opening credits are even over.
02:45But, don't worry, our hero also escapes before we're done with the opening credits.
02:49We next see him hiding out with some of the resistance, idealistic musicians like Mick Fleetwood, who might actually be playing himself.
02:56Ben, however, is a loner and wants nothing to do with the resistance.
03:00Meanwhile in the book, Ben Richards lives in poverty.
03:03He's been blacklisted because he complained about working conditions.
03:06So, unable to find work or afford medicine for a sick baby daughter, he turns to the Games Network.
03:11The state-sponsored network features games like Treadmill for Bucks, where folks with bad hearts or asthma try to answer trivia questions while keeping pace with an ever-quickening treadmill.
03:21Or, Dig Your Own Grave, which is pretty self-explanatory.
03:24And, of course, The Running Man.
03:26Book Ben is not quite the loner that his movie counterpart is.
03:29He's got a wife and daughter, for one, but he's also still politically motivated.
03:33He's bitter and resentful at the current regime, rightfully blaming the government and their freebie for the current state of affairs.
03:38Now, let's talk about the differences in the game itself.
03:41In the movie, The Running Man is cast with criminals.
03:44Sensational.
03:45Perfect contestant.
03:46I want him.
03:47If they can survive for three hours and make it through all four game quadrants, they get a full government pardon.
03:52The arena, made up of neighborhoods which were destroyed and abandoned in the Great Quake of 97, is also populated by stalkers.
03:58Killers with outlandishly themed costumes, somewhere between wrestling gimmicks and American gladiators.
04:04Like Professor Sub-Zero and Buzzsaw and Captain Freedom.
04:07The stalkers are even cast with former wrestlers and professional athletes, which is a freaky little glimpse into the future.
04:13A society in which celebrity is earned exclusively through violence and physical dominance, while artistic expression is censored and made illegal, doesn't seem like such outlandish science fiction anymore.
04:25Look at this.
04:27They're all on a censored list.
04:29Meanwhile, in the book, The Running Man is a very different game, beginning with the casting process.
04:33First, it starts with people volunteering.
04:35The whole point of the games network is to make the impoverished masses feel like they have a chance to win some new dollars.
04:41So lines full of meek and desperate people file into the network games building every day, hoping to land on a show that pays out.
04:47After a medical, physical, and mental screening program, the applicants are weeded out or assigned to a show.
04:53Ben Richards, considered an anti-authoritarian dissident in reasonably good physical condition, makes it through a three-day application process.
05:00The game itself is also very different.
05:02Contestants 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.
05:08And it's not broadcast live, either.
05:10Richards is required to record and then mail in video cassettes every day, otherwise he forfeits.
05:15Meanwhile, The Hunters, led by the notorious Evan McCone, who...
05:19Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what's that?
05:21They're hunters.
05:22Yeah, but why is that one a mop?
05:24He's not actually a mop, he's a mop guy.
05:26He kills you and then cleans it up.
05:28Great sponsorship opportunities.
05:30Okay, but in the book, The Hunters don't have fun themes like they do in the movie.
05:34They're just regular human bounty hunters.
05:37Since 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.
05:42I know, I know.
05:43Mop guy stays, though.
05:45All right, fine.
05:46Look, regardless of who The Hunters are, they're good at their job.
05:49The current record for a Running Man staying alive is around eight days.
05:52But for every hour he manages to stay alive, Richards will earn 100 new dollars.
05:57He also gets bonuses for killing cops, and if he makes it the entire 30 days, he wins the grand prize of 1 billion new dollars.
06:04This difference brought to you by the number 1 billion.
06:07Unless you're talking about stars or sand or Skittles or something, it might as well be a made-up number.
06:13Look at all those zeros.
06:14In the movie, The Running Man is produced and hosted by Damon Killian, played amazingly by The Family Feud's own Richard Dawson.
06:22Again, the choice to cast an actual game show host makes the world of The Running Man feel that much more realistic.
06:28And who loves you?
06:29And who do you love?
06:31Damon!
06:32One more time!
06:34Damon!
06:35Yes!
06:36Yes!
06:36In the book, however, Dan Killian is just the show's executive producer, not the host.
06:42As far as the book is concerned, though, he's still Richards' main antagonist.
06:46And once Richards is in the game, he's completely on his own.
06:49His stint on The Running Man takes him from Co-op City, which is somewhere like Cleveland-ish,
06:54to New York, Boston, and of course, because it's a Stephen King novel all over Maine.
06:58Including the fictional town of Derry, where Pennywise the Clown lives.
07:02Richards poses as an old man with buck teeth, and later as a mostly blind priest.
07:07He also blows up a YMCA in Boston when the hunters get the drop on him.
07:11Then some kids in a local gang help him escape, but not before educating him on the current state of pollution.
07:17Turns out the gang sneaks into libraries for rich folks and learns all kinds of stuff about the government's actions,
07:22and how they're literally poisoning people, as well as how they're covering it up.
07:26Richards even records a few rants about the problems on his daily cassettes that the network re-edits,
07:31in the way that ICS frames Richards in the movie.
07:33Which is a monstrous move, putting different words in somebody's mouth to make it seem like
07:38they're saying something they're really not saying, so that they seem like the bad guy.
07:43It's another prescient little bit of sci-fi that's on par with things like deep fakes and AI that we're dealing with today.
07:49It's a valuable lesson in being able to question the things that you're seeing,
07:54and the source from which they're coming.
07:57We would never do anything like that here on Cinefix.
08:01Nor do we think anybody in any position of authority would try and pull any shenanigans.
08:06Everything is fine.
08:08You know what I mean?
08:09It's almost as bad as forcing us to put a mid-roll ad right here.
08:14Did you get one or is your...
08:17Sometimes they skip them.
08:18Movie Richards, meanwhile, is saddled with Laughlin and Weiss,
08:23the two members of the resistance he escaped from prison with,
08:26as well as Amber Mendez, the woman he took hostage earlier in the movie,
08:29who got busted while trying to swipe the video evidence that proves Richard's
08:33Butcher of Bakersfield video was edited to make him look like a killer.
08:36Ooh, I got a copy of that, too.
08:38Okay.
08:39This difference brought to you by Labels.
08:41Clearly labeling your incriminating evidence since sometime in the 1800s, probably.
08:46That's a good one.
08:47I love labels.
08:48Yeah, yeah, who doesn't?
08:49So now we get to the interesting stuff, the why of it all.
08:53In the movie, Ben and his resistance buddies track down the source of the network's broadcast signal.
08:57It was in the Running Man arena, which is why the resistance couldn't find it before.
09:01Ben, seeing a chance to do some good, decides to stop being a loner
09:04and joins the aged-up drummer of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Fleetwood Mac
09:08to take down the network and their fake news.
09:11Meanwhile in the book, Ben never finds a new mission.
09:13He never has any illusions that he'll ultimately survive the Running Man.
09:17His purpose is to solely live long enough to earn money that will go back to his wife and daughter.
09:22He, like his movie counterpart, holds a woman hostage, forcing Amelia Williams to drive him through Maine.
09:27And it's here that Ben proves to be a cagey and resourceful runner.
09:31He uses the network's media coverage against them,
09:33basically publicizing his whereabouts and the fact that he's got a hostage.
09:36When everybody turns out to watch the motorcade O.J. Simpson style,
09:40a class war breaks out between the rich on one side of the street
09:43and the poor on the other and the cops in between.
09:46And this is really the difference between these two versions of the story.
09:49In the movie, Ben Richards is a reluctant hero for a resistance
09:52that's just trying to get the truth on the airwaves again,
09:56fighting against a network that's pacifying a bloodthirsty audience into submission.
10:00Don't touch that die.
10:01The book, meanwhile, goes a whole level deeper.
10:04The game's network is designed to keep men like Ben Richards down,
10:07to make sure dissidents are seen as enemies of the state,
10:09while the state continues policies that literally kill the poor.
10:13Ultimately, movie Ben gets a happy ending.
10:15He kills the bad guy, gets the girl, and walks off into the sunset, er, hallway.
10:19But for book Ben, his ending isn't so happy.
10:22He makes his way to the dairy jet port, where he bluffs his way onto a jet,
10:26claiming to have a whole crap ton of explosives,
10:28when it's actually just Amelia's purse stuffed into his jacket.
10:31And as he makes his final stand on the jet,
10:33he learns that his wife and daughter were killed by an angry mob over a week ago,
10:37almost immediately after Ben started his run.
10:39So without a reason to keep running, Ben decides he's done.
10:42He kills the plane crew, including chief hunter Evan McCone,
10:46hands up to beating while he does it.
10:48His guts are literally spilling out of his belly by the end.
10:51Ben pilots the jet into the Games Network building,
10:53and Killian, in the split second before the plane reaches his office,
10:56can swear that he sees Ben Richards giving him the finger.
11:00So what are we left with?
11:01The film version is pretty standard 1980s action fare,
11:04with some surprisingly prescient themes about the power of information.
11:07If you control the message that reaches the masses, you control the masses.
11:11But movie Ben actually wins.
11:13The book has a less hopeful ending,
11:14changing the message of the novel to something more like,
11:17it might be too late.
11:18There might actually be no real win for the little guy
11:21against an authoritarian regime.
11:26Casey, that is your next line.
11:29Oh, sorry, I tuned out there when I got super depressed about stuff.
11:32Hey, can I hide out here for a while
11:34until this whole parking ticket thing blows over?
11:37Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you need, man.
11:38The couch folds out.
11:40Well, that'll do it for us.
11:42Be sure to subscribe for more Cinefix,
11:44wherever you like to watch.
11:45Cinefix.
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