If you ask any John Carpenter fan which is the superior film, “Escape from New York” or “Escape from L.A.,” the answer will almost always be the same: the 1981 original wipes the floor with its 1996 sequel. But Bong Joon-ho? He’s in the very small minority that prefers the much-maligned follow-up.
During a special screening of Carpenter’s “The Thing” in Los Angeles, Bong confessed his controversial opinion directly to Carpenter:
I 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 elaborated that he finds “Escape from L.A.” more colorful, energetic, and alive, citing the absurd pleasures of basketball duels and surfing sequences in a dystopian sci-fi film. Carpenter, ever the dry wit, admitted that the movie was essentially about throwing in all things L.A. for the sake of it. When asked if he actually surfs, Carpenter shot back: “Hell no.”
Now, let’s be honest. “Escape from L.A.” is atrocious —it’s campy, chaotic, and only occasionally inspired, and to say it tops Escape from New York? That’s madness. The original remains one of the great high-concept sci-fi action movies of the ’80s, with Manhattan transformed into a maximum-security prison and Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken sent in to rescue the President after Air Force One crashes. It’s gritty, inventive, and unapologetically pulpy.
By contrast, the sequel, set in the futuristic “2013,” strands Snake in earthquake-ravaged Los Angeles, where he’s tasked with retrieving the President’s runaway daughter and a stolen superweapon. The film is tonally all over the place, with cartoonish satire undermining the tension.
That said, Carpenter has always insisted that “Escape from L.A.” was more of a self-aware parody than a straight sequel, and if you look at it through that lens, it makes more sense.
Now that I think about it, there are some surprising similarities between Bong’s “Mickey 17” and “Escape from L.A.” Both films lean into a kind of pulpy, satirical sci-fi energy that mixes dystopia plotting with absurd, almost cartoonish flourishes. Neither film plays their premise completely straight—they use exaggeration and odd tonal swings to comment on the worlds they build.
So the question remains: do you side with Bong and ride the surfboard with Escape from L.A., or do you stay loyal to the moody, dystopian brilliance of Escape from New York? For me, it’s no contest, New York wins by a landslide.