Key Takeaways
- Director’s Preference: Bong Joon-ho prefers Escape from L.A. over the original Escape from New York.
- Unique Elements: He appreciates the vibrant energy and unique elements like basketball and surfing in Escape from L.A..
- Film Context: The original film is set in a dystopian 1997, while the sequel takes place in a severed Los Angeles in 2013.
- Future Projects: A “requel” of Escape from New York was planned but appears to be on hold.
If you ask any John Carpenter fan which is better, Escape from New York or Escape from L.A., you’d be hard-pressed to find one who prefers the sequel over the original, but director Bong Joon-ho is one of those people.
During a special screening of Carpenter’s The Thing in Los Angeles earlier this year, Bong told Carpenter that he “was talking with a friend of mine who’s another huge cinephile, and I was telling him that I actually like Escape from L.A. over Escape from New York, and he got furious. He was like, ‘how could you?’ He was very angry, I don’t know why. It’s my choice. Maybe some of you in the audience don’t agree. I respect everyone’s opinion.“
Bong added, “There’s such a distinct sense of colour and life, and energy and excitement in Escape from L.A..” He also mentioned the novelty of seeing basketball and surfing in a sci-fi movie, which Carpenter said was all about including things from L.A. “Who could resist Kurt Russell and Peter Fonda surfing?” When asked if he surfed, Carpenter replied, “Hell no.“
Although I don’t think Escape from L.A. is a bad film, it doesn’t come close to Escape from New York for me. The original movie took place in the futuristic year of 1997 and found Manhattan having been turned into a giant maximum-security prison. When terrorists hijack Air Force One, the President of the United States makes it to an escape pod, which crashes in Manhattan. Desperate to recover him, the government turns to Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell). The sequel jumps forward to 2013, with Los Angeles having been severed from the mainland after a major earthquake. When the president’s daughter steals the control system for a new superweapon and escapes to L.A., Plissken is the only man for the job.
A “requel” of Escape from New York was in the works from Radio Silence, the filmmaking group consisting of Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, and Chad Villella, but the project seems to have been shelved for the time being.
Do you side with Bong Joon-ho? Do you like Escape from L.A. better than Escape from New York?
