I think it was a healthy formative influence for me and primed me for rejecting fads / peer pressure, distrusting authority, etc. Probably also helped me to resist the more unhealthy aspects of a religious time/place, and I was even doing light reading on Cartesian skepticism a few years later, which got me into math. Didn't figure out the name of the movie until years later when it was a big meme.
This is not advice but I definitely advise you to show your small children this movie before they are old enough to think it's corny. They may have a schizophrenic episode or descend into solipsism sure, but they may also get scared as hell by monsters and learn some mental judo, and thank you for it later.
Basically skeptical of common forms in modernity, that is very clearly the intention. However, I have also seen that in extreme far-right communities this film represents how Jewish people control the world... somehow I don't think that is what Carpenter was going for.
Alas, once your works are in the wild it is out of the creators control in how they end up being used.
Avoiding groupthink is another slightly different positive spin on (my read of) the underlying message. There's such a thing as toxic individualism too, but if there's a "bad" way to be a free-thinker then you could say it usually has a pretty limited blast radius for society in general and it isn't a contagious kind of madness either
Do you know the difference between a conspiracy "nut", and a rational person?
For a "conspiracy nut", understanding that there is sufficient incentive (also implies a lack of deterrent) for X to do Y is proof enough that X is doing Y.
For a "mainstream" person, that is not enough. They require real, solid proof to consider that X is doing Y.
Note that this is about deciding their own behavior, and not about handing capital punishment for X.
I ll let you decide who is smarter...
Beyond the somewhat "obvious" message (for a grown up) it's just an eminently entertaining movie.
I've been watching Andor as a instructional manual recently and this seems like a good addition to the reality based manuals out there.
Idiocracy, War INC etc.
Other entertaining films =3
"The Great Dictator" (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
https://archive.org/details/the-great-dictator-disc-01-title...
"Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951)
https://archive.org/details/day-the-earth-stood-still-1951
"Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" (1956)
https://archive.org/details/invasionofthebodysnatchers1956_2...
"The Man in the White Suit" (1951)
https://archive.org/details/the-man-in-the-white-suit_202105
"The Twilight Zone" (1959)
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-01-e-00...
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-01-e-00...
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-03-e-15...
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-03-e-15...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/artificial-cl...
it replaces terms used to exalt Artificial Intelligence to what they really mean, and some tongue in cheek jokes against things that are used to pass billionaires/tech as friendly (e.g. replacing bill gates with his actual name)