Blue-collar / working-class Sci-fi flicks: List them here

In my recent viewing of a lot of Weird West flicks, I came upon 'Outland,' having never caught it before. Got me wondering. Sci-fi flicks have been the realm of space opera or clinical science since the beginning, but how many of what could be termed blue-collar stuff is out there? James Cameron has(had) a thing for them, probably coming from his truck driver past.

Examples I can think of:

Outland
Alien
Aliens(very much from a grunt-level perspective)
The Abyss
Moon

Armageddon

though it's a TV show and not a movie, red dwarf definitely has a working-class/blue-collar vibe about it.

And I want to narrow this to films, b/c stories & novels don't nec. need that high glamor aspect to them to get sold, I think.

Dark Star, surely. Buncha bored working stiffs in outer space going nuts, etc.

Firefly/Serenity probably would go into this category.

Holy crap, Dark Star is up for free streaming in its full version. I love this world:

http://www.amctv.com/videos/b-movies/?bcpid=13332913001&bclid=14056329001&bctid=14095584001

don't forget the late Dennis Hopper in Space Truckers.

The first part of Otomo Katsuhiro's Memories (available for streaming on netflix)

Silent Running

star wars

And SpaceBalls!

"They Live", surely?

Also The Thing. Carpenter has a lot of form here.

Tremors

SHit I didnt even realise They Live was a Carpenter joint, ha.

But yeah. thats def his vibe.

Saturn 3?

Nah, the 3 protagonists in that are all kinda exotic iirc

Def agree on Firefly btw, which is what I loved about it.

I suppose you could tenatively put Babylon 5 in this category. They certainly allow a lot of working/homeless classes in the show.

Primer

eh, it has a gritty vibe but they is educated white-collar engineers.

They're working out of a garage. It's about as blue-collar as technology startups get.

They're wearing white shirts so they have white collars CASE CLOSED

I think we're waltzing right into a big grey area here.

It's humorous the way they wear their whit collared shirts everywhere and always. It's not just their clothes, it becomes like a costume. There's a definite commentary about class intended there, I think.

They're blue-collar and in deep denial.

I wouldn't put this on the list, but it makes me think of the way that Goldblum in The Fly has several sets of identical clothes. He does it do save the time he would spend deciding what to wear; they do it because it's what guys like them wear.

xp Do they work their glistening, taut muscles almost daily in practical application? No? Then they're white collar. (See unusual details wikipedia thread.)

Grey area. Grey collar. (ew.)

OK now you guys are just being nerdy pedants.

and?

touche my dear.

He does it do save the time he would spend deciding what to wear; they do it because it's what guys like them wear.

I hope I'm not the only guy on ILX this describes perfectly. I'm pretty sure it covers a pretty high % of guys irl anyway.

Brazil has a clerical worker hooking up with a truck driver

Terminator. Sarah Connor just a hard workin' waitress, Kyle just a hard workin' resistance fighter, T-101 just a hard-workin' killer robot.

Gordon Gocko's pretty hard workin, is he blue collar?

Gordon Gocko, whatta guy huh

http://oakey.net/decals/images/Elvis%20TCB%20Band.jpg

"A Clockwork Orange"

No.

Eh?

Poshos

Yarbles

Tom D., I'd be interested to hear your case for that. But it seems clear to me that Alex is supposed to be an over-privileged little snot.

Repo Man

In fact, the whole movie takes place in this vaguely futuristic place where almost everyone is over-privileged, and if you're not, you're living in a tunnel waiting to get the shit kicked out of you by snots like Alex. It's kind of part of the plot. At any rate, it ain't blue collar.

Repo Man is excellent, yes.

Tom D., I'd be interested to hear your case for that. But it seems clear to me that Alex is supposed to be an over-privileged little snot.

Lives in a tower block. Parents seem fairly w/c. Northern accent. One of his friends is Warren Clarke!

There are British-specific overtones that I do not understand, clearly.

one planet was home to the rebel princess tho

my favorite fanboy argument about star wars is the claim that by blowing up both death stars, the rebels are just as guilty as the empire is of committing mass murderer, since think of all the janitors/maintenance workers/blue collar dudes who are working on the death star keeping it running & functioning, they probably had no ill will towards anybody and were just conscripted by the empire, won't somebody think of the children!!

3po would have sold his droid bros out -- total class traitor -- did you see how quickly he maneuvered himself into exploiting ewok religion to make himself queen of the ewoks? don't weep for 3po.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw

Feudal system was v. different from slavery, sunshine

The only evidence for a supposed slavery of droids is the scene in the A New Hope where they're selling the droids on the market, but maybe Luke just lives on a backwater planet that hasn't yet abolished droid slavery. Nothing in the movies suggests Leia thought the droids were her slaves.

my favorite fanboy argument about star wars is the claim that by blowing up both death stars, the rebels are just as guilty as the empire is of committing mass murderer, since think of all the janitors/maintenance workers/blue collar dudes who are working on the death star keeping it running & functioning, they probably had no ill will towards anybody and were just conscripted by the empire, won't somebody think of the children!!

^isn't this from Clerks?

xpost

She did solder a HAYYYYYULP message into his guts

have never watched clerks xp

since think of all the janitors/maintenance workers/blue collar dudes who are working on the death star keeping it running & functioning, they probably had no ill will towards anybody and were just conscripted by the empire

The prequels supposedly explain this away by revealing that they're all clones. Though why a sentient clone's life should be worth less than anyone else's, I have no idea.

She did solder a HAYYYYYULP message into his guts

So you think all those bike messengers on the streets are slaves?

they used boba fett clones to clean toilets? seems like a waste

xp

xpost

they have to swallow their messages?

oh wait, they probably had droids to clean toilets

xp

Now you're being antropomorphic. R2 didn't "swallow" anything, it was just its version of a messenger bag.

The prequels supposedly explain this away by revealing that they're all clones. Though why a sentient clone's life should be worth less than anyone else's, I have no idea.

not enough midichlorians

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/b/b9/Lobot_btm.jpg

This guy has the worst of it -- looks human, but named LOWbot.

I heard they almost got him to star in death of a salesman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zd_khk6zXo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFKhV_X6-cg

apparently George Lucas addressed the matter in the DVD commentary to one of the prequels.

Jay and Silent Bob are not in Clerks. Well, ok, except for kind-of.

I can understand the confusion there, certainly.

Isn't it Lobot? As in lobotomy?

You're right! Poor lobot! Why they gave you a lobotomy? Maybe you wanted too much freedom.

I heard they almost got him to star in death of a salesman

― real eyes realize real truffle fries (dyao), Friday, June 4, 2010 1:52 PM

more like Death Star of a Salesman

Yeah, but C3PO is a "protocol droid", i.e. built for a white collar job. Can you imagine him doing manual work?

"My last job was programming binary load-lifters, very similar to your vaporators!"

the original trilogy doesn't really show any of the Empire's supposed oppression.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/14/OwenBeru_dead.jpg

"My last job was programming binary load-lifters, very similar to your vaporators!"

c3po just bragging how l33t his coding skills are, but whenever they need to hack empire security, notice it's always R2 who steps up.

3po would have sold his droid bros out -- total class traitor -- did you see how quickly he maneuvered himself into exploiting ewok religion to make himself queen of the ewoks? don't weep for 3po.

― Philip Nunez, Friday, June 4, 2010 1:40 PM Bookmark

But 3PO initially demurs, claiming it would be against his programming to impersonate a deity. He gets browbeat into this idea by, if I recall correctly, the princess.

Thread probably needs some distinction between "has blue collar character in it" and "blue collar sensibility." Like, it's hard to find ANY Hollywood picture where every character is a rich snot who only occasionally tips at restaurants.... whereas Alien is really interested in imagining what the bold new future really looks like to the delivery people and Marine draftees.

"My last job was programming binary load-lifters, very similar to your vaporators!"

Me at every job interview ever.

which one is Aunt Beru and and which one is Uncle Owen?

xxxp

Posted this thread as a response to Star Wars, as a sense, which is space opera only in a scruffier universe. Ridley Scott took that look and mixed it with the 70s bits of trucker films, Dark Star, Silent Running, et al, and did his own.

"My last job was programming binary load-lifters, very similar to your vaporators!"

Me at every job interview ever.

― Eighteen straight. I think that's a record. (kenan), Friday, June 4, 2010 3:28 PM Bookmark

LOL

"They Live" is the ultimate blue collar scifi film.

'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' - i.e. Richard Dreyfuss' character.

Non blue collar sci-fi = Wyndham

I haven't seen it since it aired in 1993, but I remember Space Rangers as going for an Alien inspired blue collar atmosphere

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/Space_Rangers_cast.JPG

Does 12 Monkeys ever tell you what Cole's job was before he was put in prison?

I think Starcraft 2 fits in this category. Interesting mix of backgrounds, too, as you have the hero with his southern/hick/redneck drawl vs the lambchopped mechanic with a strong NY accent

You can't have a white collar/blue collar distinction in slavery

In the pre-Civil War U.S. south, there were house slaves and field slaves.

I suppose someone should mention the Planet Express delivery team.

Hmm, true, tho the vibe I always got from them is more white collar/90's corporate/kinko's/fed-ex like

but I guess Scruffy would have harsh words for that

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Scruffy_2_9337.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5cAwTEEGNE

this was a solid thread, well done everyone

"the island", while indefensibly shitty, was ultimately pretty working class

"indefensibly shitty, was ultimately pretty working class"
haha that's all of michael bay's movies.

Playing Borderlands 2 this weekend and realized that both this game and Guardians of the Galaxy(much like Starcraft I & II) had great depictions of sci-fi rednecks/hillbillies. Yet again, I posit that Michael Rooker will probably never get the full credit for what he contributes to GotG.

Ha, and I completely forgot this thread had this exchange:

Yeah, but C3PO is a "protocol droid", i.e. built for a white collar job. Can you imagine him doing manual work?

"My last job was programming binary load-lifters, very similar to your vaporators!"

I guess we can add Elysium / Total Recall(remake) to this list, and also Edge of Tomorrow, which pointedly highlights the contrast between grunt & pretty-boy officer

I'm watching Snowpiercer right now. Definitely counts.

that repo men flick from a few years back. terrible, but working class, even trying to say something abt it.