My own theory on Disney/Pixar’s Cars: there actually are people everywhere. We don’t see them, because we see what the cars see. And in the cars’ demented imaginations, they are the dominant lifeform. They can’t see the humans, because they don’t fit in the fantasy world they live in. They believe that their actions are voluntary, but they’re actually just being driven around. Everything we see happening in the movies is actually directed by unseen humans, with the deranged minds of the sentient cars filling in the gaps.
The Fight Club / A Beautiful Mind theory that “X character is just a figment of Y’s imagination” is kind of approaching played out, but…
In the Godfather, Michael’s brothers are pretty clearly representative of different aspects of one’s situational analysis and reaction to confrontation/challenges. Sonny is emotional reactions, Tom is logical reactions, Fredo is relational reactions. Fredo is driven by the desire to be liked and be validated. Tom thinks about what makes the most sense, Sonny is driven by what he feels.
Each sacrifices the other two emotional categories in their actions. (Tom doesn’t “Fredo” in his advice by focusing on what others will think, he only processes based on the big picture. He directly confronts Sonny numerous times on Sonny’s raw emotional responses. Fredo doesn’t react emotionally to Moe Green abusing him the way Sonny would, doesn’t apply Tom’s brand of logic to Hyman Roth’s scheme, etc.)
Michael, through 1 and 2, basically has to decide if he wants to be “a Sonny”, “a Tom”, or “a Fredo”. Michael, I think wants to ultimately pull on the best of all three — as must we all.
BUT, Sonny dies, Fredo dies, and only the logical brother is left. Make what you like of the fact that the one that’s left is the one he’s not actually related to. And ultimately Michael’s downfall is his inability to properly maintain relationship (a la with Kay) and his inability to properly emotionally react to things (like Fredo’s betrayal), so his maladjustment is in his balance between the three… he’s erring towards cold logic — erring towards the one remaining brother.
So, since this calls for crazy theories, I’ll just throw it out there.
Sonny, Fredo and Tom are actually just figments of Michael’s imagination as he mulls his options, manifested.
Course, I dunno what to do with Connie. But then neither did Carlo.
Total recall (the original)
I think that whole thing was part of the recall experience. After the credits roll, ol’ Hauser finds himself still married to Sharon Stone and working on the construction crew.
That’s not really that crazy since it’s the option being advanced by the antagonists. And there are coincidences that support it. E.g. before going under the recall treatment, one of the techs mentions that the scenario ends with a blue sky on Mars. This is exactly what happens after the alien terraforming machines create an instant atmosphere. Also, every time Arnold is about to give in to the idea of it being a simulation, a sudden burst of violence comes in from nowhere to send him running again. It’s like his subconciousness deliberately sabotages any attempt to give in by generating an interruption and keep him from carefully considering the subject.
Bert in Mary Poppins reminded me a lot of Travers Goff in Saving Mr. Banks. HE represents the kind, imaginative, and engaged Father Figure P. L. Travers wanted for Jane and Michael; and HE is the man she wanted Mr. Banks to be. And who Mr. Banks becomes at the end of the film.
(Since the real Mary Poppins was Travers Goff’s sister-in-law, this explains the author’s insistence that there be no hint of romantic involvement between the characters.)
Heh. This has been my theory for years. If we take Gene Roddenberry’s statement’s about the Federation at face value (no poverty; everybody has everything they need; everybody is “evolved” or enlightened or whatever), then really the Federation starts to sound like a communist uptopia. My theory is that the Federation is basically a futuristic Soviet Union. Picard and probably most of the other high-ranking officers in Starfleet believe the propaganda about how wonderful life in the Federation is. In truth, life in the Federation (for anyone who doesn’t get to fly around on a spaceship) is probably boring and restrictive. Consider that one of the side-effects of using replicators is that whoever programs the replicators (presumably, some government agency) has total control over what items the people are allowed to possess, and when they can get them.
Also, there’s the large-scale movement of people to offworld colonies. It was going on during TOS (there were references to ships containing “settlers”) and by the time of later series Earth itself seems to be rather sparsely populated. The cities we see all appear to be fairly small & compact, with vast swaths of green space around them. The only way you could accomplish this would be forcable relocation of many millions (billions?) of people. No way that could occur in any kind of free society. We also heard plenty of hints that life in offworld colonies is much harder than life on Earth, so it’s pretty hard to imagine that you could get a sizeable fraction of Earth’s population to go there voluntarily.
Once, I calculated how much energy would be required to replicate a cup of coffee, using E=mc[sup]2[/sup] and assuming perfect efficiency. It was equivalent to the entire electrical output of the United States (c. 2005 or so) for about 1.5 days. For 1 cup of coffee, plus the coffee mug (the way it would be done on Star Trek). Then consider that people in the Federation seem to replicate everything. The energy consumption in the Federation must be many orders of magnitude beyond anything we can even imagine today. No wonder they use plasma conduits instead of electricity!
My theory is that the Federation is probably chewing thru its resources at an alarming rate, and needs to keep expanding so it will gain access to more resources.
Don’t forget World War Three and the Eugenics Wars—those might have killed off a sizable portion of the population.
That works both ways. Just put a de-replicator in the bottom of each toilet (Does the Federation have toilets?) and every time Picard wants a cup of tea just zap the equivalent mass of shit out of existence.
Now calculate how much energy controlled anti-matter/matter generators produce. Or harnessed singularities (whatever that is)
Also the transporter can’t be turning things into energy, how would you store that? There’s gotta be some hoja-wooja technobabble explanation like ‘subspace pattern’.
“All matter carries a quantum subspace pattern, we disintegrate the matter, beam up the quantum subspace pattern, and using hydrogen, we turn the hydrogen into the matter.”
So, yes they are disintegrating people.
Don’t forget the under-explained Transtator. The one piece of trek-tech that ties all of the processes together. (See “A Piece of the Action”)
I’m pretty sure the movies themselves say this when The Architect talks to Neo about the nature of reality. Zion is like a “safety valve” for the Matrix.
Well, yeah, but if you had perfect efficiency you would get it back by converting the resultant human excretions back into energy.
Though Star Trek as a high-tech Soviet Union makes a fair amount of sense.
I thought that was pretty standard thinking, I was going to post that my crazy theory was: it all really happened and all the mistakes that people point out to support their theory that it was a Rekall experience are just that: mistakes. The only evidence I have to support my theory is that was what the original story was about.
I don’t see why this is a problem. If Cameron can dream up Ferris, why can’t he dream up a family for him, including a sister and even a love interest for the sister. Hell, Ferris actually is the figment of someone’s imagination: the screenwriter. If John Hughes can come up with a sister and the charlie sheen character, why couldn’t Cameron. He’s got nothing to do all day but spin out this elaborate fantasy in his head.
Because once the story reaches its emotional high point for Cameron, everything shifts focus to the Bueller family.
Aside from the car freakout, there’s nothing to point to the “it was all a dream” theory in FBDO. And if that’s all your proof, pretty much every movie qualifies as “it was all a dream.”
“It’s a dream, Alex! You can do anything you want to!”
It took me years to realize that, but you’re correct and it’s stated in the opening part of the movie when they’re created by “genetic engineers.”
To use a Star Trek metaphor, they’re not Data, they’re Khan.
Of course they were biological. Ever notice the name of the book that Blade Runner was based on?