That's the point of the movie. Nada got played, and he played himself. It was sound and fury, but it signified something, because it's a movie, not a documentary or fable. Sometimes there's not a sensible ending. Nada didn't get a good guy ending because good guys don't exist the way Nada thought they did.
Nada is not smart. He's a useful idiot. I think that like The Thing, They Live is pretty ideological and subversive, but it's also just a weird campy movie. It's a genre flick, but there's a reason it's a cult classic. Just like Zizek and his guide to cinema, Carpenter knows how to make iconic quotable expressions involving a camera.
> start really strong and then just descend into pointless violence
Nada is not smart. He's a useful idiot. I think that like The Thing, They Live is pretty ideological and subversive, but it's also just a weird campy movie. It's a genre flick, but there's a reason it's a cult classic. Just like Zizek and his guide to cinema, Carpenter knows how to make iconic quotable expressions involving a camera.
> start really strong and then just descend into pointless violence
So it goes.
Artists tell the truth by first telling a lie.