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John Nada
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum."
Played By: Roddy Piper
An idealistic drifter looking for work who, through a pair of sunglasses, discovers the world is ruled by aliens and decides to resist against them.
- Adaptation Expansion: He's much more flashed out and given a backstory in the movie, whereas in the short story we don't know much about his past.
- Adaptation Name Change: In the original short story the name of the protagonist was George Nada, while John is his first name in the film, in the making-of featurette Roddy Piper refers to his character as "John Nada".
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While John going on a killing spree in a bank was very impulsive and short-sighted, George becomes an unhinged serial killer, bound and gags his girlfriend when slapping her doesn't "awaken" her from the alien signal and upon finding infant Fascinators, he mercilessly kills them.
- Adaptational Wealth: In the original story Nada lived in a small apartment with no mention of financial issues and had a girlfriend, whereas in the film he's a lonely drifter struggling during an economical crisis.
- Dark and Troubled Past: While talking with Frank, he equated the aliens and society in general to his abusive father, who started off as a nice enough guy, but became an abusive psycho who threatened to murder Nada and nearly slit his throat once.
- Deadpan Snarker: Nada tends to make sarcastic jokes and one-liners when faced with adversities.
- Defiant to the End: Even after being fatally shot by the aliens for destroying the satellite, the last thing he does as he dies is to give them the finger.
- Dies Different In Adaptation: In the short story Nada goes on his killing spree after a phone call informs him that he will die at 8 o'clock in the morning due to him snapping out of the alien signal's influence, and in the ending he dies of a heart attack at exactly 8 o'clock. In the movie he's instead fatally shot.
- He Knows Too Much: He's deduced as a threat by the aliens because he can see through their disguises with the sunglasses.
- The Hero Dies: Proudly. He decides to sacrifice his life so he can destroy the satellite that is covering up the aliens' lies on the human race.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Decides "Fuck it!" when it's between his life and the fate of humanity when the aliens and Holly have him at gunpoint. Hopefully thanks to his sacrifice humanity will wage war on the aliens and drive them away back to their home world.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He develops into one, becoming unhinged, ruthless, and hostile after discovering the aliens, but still being a good man who tries not to harm innocents.
- Meaningful Name: "Nada" means "nothing" in Spanish. John Nada starts off as little more than a blue collar nobody who only wants a day's pay for a day's work.
- Nice Guy: He starts off as one, being a friendly, idealistic man who tries to get along with everyone he meets.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Initially. Despite being down on his luck and jobless, he claims he believes in America and that things will work themselves out with the current system.
Frank Armitage
"Hey! You better find yourself someplace to hide and keep praying nobody ever finds you!"
Played By: Keith David
A homeless construction worker that Nada befriends.
- Eat the Rich: He expresses this sentiments and tried to feed it to Nada.Frank: The golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. They close one more factory we should take a sledge to one of their fancy fucking foreign cars.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Frank initially helps Nada find his place in the city but becomes hostile towards him believing that he's become unhinged for killing people (who were actually disguised aliens) and pestering him about putting on some sunglasses, escalating into a big brawl until he sees for himself the terrible truth. From that point on the two become a pair of alien busting Back-to-Back Badasses.
- The Hero Dies: Holly shoots him in the end of the movie when he's not looking.
- I Have a Family: Tells Nada he has a wife and kids back in Detroit.
Holly Thompson
"If you want me to look through your sunglasses, I'll look through your sunglasses. If I don't see what you see, I'm going to see it anyway."
Played By: Meg Foster
A woman Nada takes hostage while on the run from the aliens. She is later revealed to be a member of the resistance.
- The Dragon: It's revealed that she is in cahoots with the aliens and plays a crucial role in their invasion.
- Evil Redhead: She's an attractive evil redhead and a merciless ally of the aliens.
- Final Boss: At the climax, she points at Nada ordering him to drop his plan to expose the aliens by blowing up the satellite.
- Greed: She sided with the aliens for money; that way, she can enjoy a luxurious lifestyle of having a mansion and a high-ranking job as an Assistant Programming Director for Cable 54.
- Hero Killer: Shoots Frank.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Aliens are the evil force running our society's banks and police? That's believable. But a human woman actively helping the aliens win in favor of money? Downright crossing-the-line evil.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Nada shoots her down.
- Les Collaborateurs: To the aliens.
- Rich Bitch: She loves having things to be luxurious, even if it means siding with the aliens to plot the demise of her own kind.
Drifter
"What's the threat? We all sell out every day, might as well be on the winning team!"
Played By: George Buck Flower
A homeless guy who just wants to watch TV all day and then gets recruited by the aliens later on for some reason.
- Dirty Coward: He sided with the aliens for money, even after acknowledging he's scared of them.
- Karma Houdini: Zigzagged. He escapes Nada's grasp, but because Nada successfully destroyed the aliens' satellite, the empire will collapse and so Drifter's wealth won't last long so he'll have to go into hiding and become a homeless bum all over again at least without any humans knowing he was behind the aliens' plot.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He's likely homeless all over again after Nada sabotages the aliens' satellite.
- Lazy Bum: Even as a bum, he just wanted to watch TV all day. And had no intention of listening to the broadcast signal hijacker's calls for closing the wealth gap that the elite has over the lower class like him.
- Lower-Class Lout: Before getting promoted to Upper-Class Twit.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After being revealed to have sided with the aliens, he for some reason explains to Nada and Frank the entire procedure on how to undo the aliens' schemes and make the alien empire come crashing down.
The Aliens
"I've got one that can see!"
Played By: Jeff Imada; John E. Goff; Thelma Lee; Norman Howell; Michael Forino; Michelle Costello; Gunnar Magg
The titular aliens, who are consumerist parasites enforcing an oppressive caste that institutes them as the wealthy elite on many planets including ours.
- Adaptation Name Change: In the end credits it's implied that the members of this alien species are referred to as "Ghouls", while in the original short story the aliens were called "The Fascinators".
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed, but at least in the movie they're still Humanoid Aliens, compared to their short story counterparts who are described as being multi-eyed reptilians with blue-green blood that look like huge fat slugs in their larvae state, and in the comic they're repulsive masses of flesh, eyes and fangs.
- Alien Among Us: They use a satellite dish on the television network Cable 54 to disguise themselves as looking human.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Their sole purpose is economic exploitation. They're happy to pollute the planet and to use humans for whatever they want, so long as it generates a profit. It's even implied that the humans who join them will be abandoned once Earth is no longer profitable.
- The Bad Guys Are Cops: The aliens are the cops! (Well, most of them are...)
- Big Bad Duumvirate: They and their human collaborators are the movie's collective main antagonists.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The aliens implement spy drones on humans.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: We see two business executives (trainees?) at the grocery mart with one of them human and the other alien. Only the alien got a promotion, the human one is still at entry-level stuck with a lower salary and as the human complains to him, the alien tells him to shrug it off and wait for another opportunity. Yeah, right.
- The Grotesque: They look like zombies with red and blue skin and silvery bug eyes.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: The only way to see through their disguise is by putting on sunglasses that were engineered by an underground network of rebels who were able to tell that the TV and news stations were airing propaganda brainwaves. And the sunglasses only give a black-and-white showing of the aliens, who in color turn out to resemble blue skinless humans.
- Mars Needs Women: If the montage of scenes showing people waking up from the illusion and finally seeing the aliens at the end of the film is anything to go by, the alien males are very much into having sex with human women and pornography of them.
- Paper Tiger: While they're technologically advanced, the aliens are vulnerable (as Nada comments "So you bastards die just like we do!") and it's implied that they came on top primarily thanks to the steady support of easily corruptible humans who seek wealth and power above all else.
- Shapeshifter Default Form: It's implied that their uncloaked Humanoid Aliens look might not be their true form but only the shape they adapted for the Earth invasion.
- Upper-Class Twit: Aside from police officers and yuppies, the aliens also take the form of TV actors, politicians, wealthy newscasters and Nada observes some Rich Bitch aliens, like the beauty salon costumers, the gossipy alien woman shopping with her tired human servants and the one disguised as an elderly lady he insults at the convenience store.
Gilbert
"They sell out. Promotions, bank accounts, new houses, cars. Perfect, isn't it? We'll do anything to be rich!"
Played By: Peter Jason
A man working against the Aliens.- Big Good: He runs the shantytown providing shelter and food to people like Nada and Frank, in addition to being a Rebel Leader trying to expose the aliens for what they are.
- Character Death: When the SWAT team raids the hideout, Gilbert attempts to shoot them back, but is overwhelmed and killed.
- Only Sane Man: Despite how dire the situation is, Gilbert keeps order within the rebellion and makes its members focus on finding and interrupting the source of the alien signal instead of causing mindless bloodshed, especially since the aliens are recruiting a lot of humans in their forces.
The Street Preacher
"This world may have blinded me, but the Lord has let me see!"
Played By: Raymond St. Jacques
A local preacher whose church is used as a headquarters by the resistance, and who takes to the street preaching warnings.- Badass Preacher: He speaks against the kind of thing the aliens are bringing on the streets, and swings his cane in defiance while quoting Bible verses after being surrounded by the cops.
- Blind Seer: A scene where he is seen mouthing to a speech the others are playing on TV (complete with static breaks) raises some speculation about this, although he may have just had an earpiece in.
- Good Shepherd: He's deeply opposed to the greed and corruption associated with aliens and seems to have a good feel for people.
- Scary Black Man: He can come across as intense before the truth of what he and his allies are doing comes out.
- Voice of the Resistance: The Street Preacher makes stirring (albeit carefully worded) speeches to crowds of average citizens about how sinister forces control their lives.Street Preacher: Outside the limit of our sight, feeding off us, perched on top of us, from birth to death, are our owners! Our owners! They have us. They control us! They are our masters! Wake up! They're all about you! All around you!
- What Happened to the Mouse?: He's last seen being beaten up by cops and it's unclear if he was killed, arrested, or (if they didn't know his significance) merely let go with some injuries.
Bearded Man
"The under-class is growing, racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society, and we are their unwitting accomplices!"
Played By: John Lawrence
A man who tries to tell the truth about the aliens from a pirate TV station.- Harbinger of Impending Doom: He's the first sign of what kind of movie this is going to be.
- Voice of the Resistance: He hacks into the airwaves to try and warn people about the aliens.
Family Man
Played By: Jason Robards III
Another man at the shantytown who is later inducted into the Resistance.- Character Death: He and his daughter are gunned down In the Back by the SWAT team while trying to help Holly escape.
- Outliving One's Offspring: His daughter is shot a couple seconds before him during the raid on the resistance meeting. It's unclear if another young man from the shantytown (who he briefly hugged along with his daughter while hiding from the police) who survives the film and wasn't at the resistance meeting was meant to be his son as well.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The Family Man vengefully tells Gilbert to stop talking about the movement suffering and "It's time we started spilling some blood!" and the daughter and several rebels cheer him on in agreement before Gilbert calms everybody down.
