Richards: "Sure you do." (breaks Donahue's head open with the coffee maker)
Ben Richards desperately requires money to get medicine for his ill daughter, Cathy. To stop his wife Sheila from continuing to prostitute herself to pay the bills, Richards turns to a state-sponsored television network, which runs several TV game shows that put contestants at risk of severe injury or death. Contestants win money by surviving challenges such as Treadmill to Bucks, where a person with a heart or respiratory condition runs on a treadmill, or the self-explanatorySwim the Crocodiles. After an extensive screening process, Richards is selected for the country's most popular and dangerous game, The Running Man.After being declared a public enemy on the show, Richards is given $4,800 cash and a pocket video camera and turned loose. His family will win $100 for every hour he stays alive; if he can survive for 30 days, he wins the grand prize of $1 billion. He also gets a 12-hour head start before the network sends out a team of trackers known as "Hunters" to find and kill him. He can travel anywhere in the world, and each day he must videotape two messages and courier them to the TV show. Without these videotaped messages, he loses the prize money but the Hunters will continue their search. Despite the producer's claims to the contrary, as soon as the Network receives a videotaped message, the Hunters immediately know from the postmark the runner's approximate location. Viewers can earn cash rewards by calling the network with tips on his whereabouts. To date, there have been no survivors - and the producer frankly states that he never expects there to be any.The story, written by Stephen King under his Pen Name of "Richard Bachman", is better known for its film version with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Dawson, which turned the story into one of a Blood Sport played by condemned criminals, and Richards' reason for entering the contest changes — he was framed for a massacre that he was actually trying to stop.
The book provides examples of:
Downer Ending: When Ben Richards with his last ounce of strength flips the aeroplane into autopilot and crashes it into the Games Network skyscraper. Also, the few allies Richards makes in his journey are heavily implied to die, his warnings about the mega corps poisoning the air being the cause of all the cancer spreading among the low class citizens are censored, and his wife and daughter are revealed to be dead since the beginning of the hunt.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: The book mocks reality television show like Hard Copy that demonize people to make the audience hate them.
The film provides examples of:
Adaptation Decay: Ben Richards in the book is "scrawny" and "pre-tubercular". Schwarzenegger... isn't.
Actor Allusion: Just before he's launched into the Zone, Richards promises that "I'll be back." To say nothing of Richard Dawson's role as a game show host.
The Cast Showoff: When Dynamo (Erland van Lidth) sings the aria from Act III of The Marriage of Figaro, he's actually singing in that scene. Presumably after he got cast, someone found out he could sing opera and decided they had to throw that in somewhere.
Catch Phrase: What would an Arnie movie be without at least one utterance of "I'll be back"?
Gaia's Lament: Earth's resources are severely drained.
Game Show Host: Killian. Lampshaded to a certain degree by being played by Richard Dawson, who has been characterized at times as a bit of an egotist behind the scenes.
Let's not forget that the game show itself is hosted by Newkirk.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Each Stalker is killed with his own weapon. Killian himself is doomed by being launched into the Zone, as he had done to so many before.
Home Game: Given to members of the Running Man studio audience. How it's supposed to work is anybody's guess.
Idiot Ball: Even though Richards was already throughly discredited as "The Butcher of Bakersfield," the Government still insists on making up murders at the airport in order to blame them on him. This is what convinces Amber that he was framed and ultimately causes her to discover the truth. Keeping the unedited footage around was pretty dumb too.
In Name Only: All that's left is the name of the hero, the last name of the main villain, the name of the show involved and a couple of plot elements - the totalitarian dystopic society and Richards kidnapping a woman and taking her to an airport.
Karmic Death: All the Stalkers except Sub-Zero and Captain Freedom.
Large Ham: Dynamo. A fat man with blinking lights all over him driving after you in a go-kart while singing opera does not inspire fear. It's easy to say that while he's wearing pants...
Released To Elsewhere: Whitman, Price, and Haddad. Last season's winners. "No, last season's losers."
Could be an inversion of Fridge Horror, as it's unlikely that those three were innocent like Richards, who was an exception to the show's "no political prisoners" arrangement with the justice system. At least if they're Released To Elsewhere, they've not been set loose to resume whatever crimes got them the death penalty in the first place.
Run For The Border: Played with when Richards tries to flee to Hawaii, instead of trying to escape the country entirely.
Hawaii may be a different country in this setting. It may be a Shout Out to Heinlein's If This Goes On... where someone PRETENDS to by trying to escape to Hawaii (which is a separate country) as part of a plan to make his pursuers think he's dead.
Trashcan Bonfire: The outdoor scenes with crowds betting on the game.
We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future: The government uses edited footage to frame Richards. Later, the producers edit footage of Richards being killed in an attempt to salvage his victory over the Stalkers.
What Could Have Been: Dolph Lundgren and Christopher Reeve were both considered for the role of Ben Richards. Can you imagine Ivan Drago or Clark Kent taking a chainsaw to a guy's genitals?
Andrew Davis was originally going to direct the film (after three previous directors pulled out) but was fired a week into production due to going overbudget and being four days behind schedule. Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky from Starsky & Hutch) finished the film.
He quit partway through the film because he became bitter about what the game had become. Granted, it's very anticlimactic, but serves as possible foreshadowing for Sven doing the same thing later at a key moment.
Who's Laughing Now?: Awesomely thrown back in Dynamo's face by Amber, of all people.
Dynamo:Thought it was pretty funny out in the zone, didn't you? What's the matter, bitch? Why aren't you laughing?
Amber: Because there's nothing funny about a dickless moron with a battery up his ass.
Your Head A Splode: Richards and his fellow prisoners in the military prison. If Chico had just waited 20 more seconds at the beginning of the movie...
Both the book and the film provide examples of:
Big Bad: Killian. Arguably the people as a whole, as it's their blood lust that Killian tries to satisfy in the first place. But then "the people" experience a Heel Face Turn...
Bread and Circuses: The Running Man gameshow that the book and film focus on provides a large amount of money for the contestant's family, attracting men in a desperate situation who would otherwise get political. Also, a large part of the game involves encouraging the populace to report any sightings of the contestant for a monetary award. And obviously, the show keeps the citizens entertained.
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