Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Yaphet Kotto, Jim Brown, Maria Conchita Alonso
Ben Richards: I'm not into politics, I'm into survival.
Ben Richards: Damn that Killian!
Amber Mendez: What's wrong? You should be happy! We're officially dead, we can go anywhere, do anything.
Ben Richards: No! Don't you understand yet? They'll never let us out of here alive, they can't afford it! They'll get the police, the army, and hunt us down like dogs! Off camera, of course.
Continuity mistake: In the fight scene where Arnold is fighting the hockey goalie, he gets cut on barbed wire and leaves a bloody tear on the chest of his fancy spandex bodysuit. In the very next scene the suit is clean and the rip is gone.
Trivia: When Killian is talking about the next possible contestant, he points out he's 120 pounds and wouldn't last 30 seconds. This is somewhat making fun of how they used Arnold Schwarzenegger to portray Ben Richards. In the book "The Running Man" (which has a very different structure), Ben Richards is described as "scrawny", the complete opposite of Arnold.
Question: At the very beginning of the movie, Ben refuses to fire on anyone even though he was under orders to do so. I can understand him being court-martialed for this but, why would they alter the video to show him killing innocent people with orders not to? And why send him to prison for allegedly killing innocent civilians?
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Answer: They needed a scapegoat, someone to blame. The government controlled the people through violence, but at the same time tried to convince the people the government was fair (i.e. Runners who made it through were given their freedom when in fact they never left the arena alive). The people at Bakersfield were still massacred (that part wasn't made up) by the government in order to control the riot, but just not by Ben. But people would just riot more if they knew the government ordered their killing, so the footage was faked to make people think Ben acted alone and against orders. And to continue the ruse, they convicted him to appease the people and prevent them from rioting.
Bishop73