MovieChat Forums > The Running Man (1987) Discussion > Fireball's Death

Fireball's Death

posted 12 years ago by sim75
11 replies | jump to latest

So, Fireball is eventually killed in what looks like a locker room in an indoor part of the Zone. So, either there are no cameras there and no-one in the studio audience can see what's going on, or people can see Arnie & Amber find the bodies and hear all the "last season's winners" "last season's losers" banter. If it's supposed to be edited so the audience can't see, what would have happended if Fireball had killed them straight away? Would they have had to to more CGI?

BTW Best line ever

"I choose Ben Richards, That boy's one mean *beep*

"In your face, space-coyote!!"

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] para_owl 11 years ago

I was thinking whoever makes/maintains the costumes for the stalkers must be p!$$3d. He's lucky he wasn't killed before. I'm guessing it wouldn't take a Ben Richards to disable his costume.

--Will.

[–] newuser48 10 years ago

i want to know where the box of flares came from

[–] dorcas607 10 years ago

And where did Mick's group get the Whitman, Price and Hidat footage to include in their 'Killian is lying to you montage' at the end? Love this movie but the whole Fireball sequence is fulla holes.

"TV says you got to shoot 'em in the head." - Bart

[–] Totemkauf 10 years ago

They probably faked the Whitman/Price/Hidat footage with digital manipulation like they did with Ben's fake death, or forced them to film that footage before hand.If that were the case it was probably pre-determined that they would kill these guys in secret but make everyone think they were winners so people wouldn't suspect nobody of ever winning. Every other runner death was probably on camera, and there's obviously was done in secret and they probably had more fake footage of them winning the game. That line in an earlier post about it being funny that the audience got to see all those different camaera angles of the footage makes me think about all the NSA hooplah and how in 2017 there could be a show like that with cameras everywhere lol

[–] pmac7902 8 years ago

I actually always thought they had already located them and had pictures of them. Wasn't the Underground hiding out in "The Zone" which was the ruins of an earthquake. I always figured they were hiding right under their noses. They had that whole set up when they took in Amber and Ben.

~~~"Who do you think you're dealing with? Guess again."~~~

[–] me-1523 7 years ago

The Underground already had all the footage. Their problem wasn't that they didn't have the evidence, their problem was that they couldn't get the evidence out to the world. The station controlled all satellites and communications.

That was basically the b-plot of the movie: Weiss getting the satellite uplink code so they could hijack the airwaves and broadcast the truth.

[–] pmac7902 8 years ago

The prop room.

~~~"Who do you think you're dealing with? Guess again."~~~

[–] d_henderson1810 7 years ago

I never even got why they had in the movie that they pretended that there were winners of "The Running Man", who got to take a holiday.

Now, the argument could be made that it would affect ratings if it was too predictable, and no contestant won. Except that, (a) these are meant to be the scum of society,(including "The Butcher Of Bakersfield" Ben Richards) so the viewers would tune in to see criminals "get theirs". Ratings would come from the viewers' bloodlust in seeing despicable people get killed, and (b) the stalkers had become heroes, and everyone had their favourites, so who cares if a runner ever won previously, as viewers would care more about it being their favourite stalker who gets the kill, or is it some other stalker.

Also, it isn't such a big achievement that Ben Richards won, if others had "won" before. Wouldn't it make it a bigger achievement if Richards had done the impossible- won "The Running Man"!

Thirdly, if this was a show contestants signed up for, then giving them a "chance of winning" would be important. But it seems that prisoners are put on the show, and have no choice whether to be contestants or not, so trying to entice people to come on the show as "runners" is not a factor, either.

My point is, they didn't need to have the plothole of the supposed "winners" being dead in the locker-rooms, as I don't think they needed to have the plot that some criminals won.

[–] PaladinNJ (20310) 5 years ago

I think it was simply to give the prisoners the impression that they could win and therefore take a chance. Also tells the audience that the game isn't rigged. (Which it was)