TheIceCreamMan
Graver
I'm an ice cream vendor by trade
...and now..I'm a soldier.
Posts: 178
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Post by TheIceCreamMan on Jun 8, 2008 18:14:24 GMT -5
Thank you, IceCreamMan. That was very kind of you. I've had (ahem) 29 years to dwell on this and still turn it over in my mind from time to time. I first saw "Phantasm" on June 15, 1979. The Tall Man is one of those tremendous characters that you can never quite forget . Mr. Scrimm is such an awesome actor. I wish I knew the actors like you do!!! I agree the Tall Man leaves a lasting impression!!
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Post by Red Planet Minion on Jun 9, 2008 0:11:45 GMT -5
I always thought it was pretty clear that The Tall Man was an Alien, And I also thought that when Jebediah crossed through the space gate he was killed by the alien(Tally) and it took his form to come back here, Jody does say Jebediah Morningside never came back.
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Post by bcg1969 on Jun 9, 2008 3:29:51 GMT -5
he is from another dimension, basically the personification of death itself. if hell existed it could be just another dimension all together and that would be very alien to anyone to brush up against it. basically i view him as a number of things rolled into one but cannot be readily explained in basic terms. perhaps a bit beyond the human minds ability to fully comprehend.
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Post by spherical on Jun 12, 2008 13:54:04 GMT -5
There's a matrix somewhere. A matrix which incorporates the Jebediah Morningside template into a basic techo-organic "plaster caster".
"The Tall Man" is just a duplicate of the Matrix. You can't talk about "one" Tall Man, but infinite Tall Men obtained by the matrix.
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Post by gopher in heat on Sept 30, 2010 23:26:30 GMT -5
OLD THREAD RESURRECTION!
So anyone have any new theories on the origins of the Tall Man's super human strength? Has anyone's previous guesses changed?
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Post by lmsunshine on Oct 1, 2010 3:44:49 GMT -5
OLD THREAD RESURRECTION!So anyone have any new theories on the origins of the Tall Man's super human strength? Has anyone's previous guesses changed? We've been training together...jk...have to think about this one.
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Post by pumpmonkey on Oct 1, 2010 10:02:43 GMT -5
Well...if we go on the premise that this is *not* a Phantasm/dream sequence of Mike or Reggies, then I'd say that the strength of The Tall Man is due to his genetic make up. Because he was not JEB in the first movie, he was even then not of this world, and although his form is humanoid, what lies within may not entirely be. Case in point - P1 - He loads a coffin on his own into a hearse & His dismembered finger becomes a horsefly with a pituitary problem. P2 - He takes a sphere to the head, pulls it out, and crushes it. Then some sort of tentacle-thing comes out to play.
More in P3 & P4 as well. It is in P4 that we discover (through the evolution of the characters and plot) that the human named Jeb went through the "Dimensional Fork", and what returned - was not him.
What did return to the laboratory is for Don to decide. However, I would not cast away the thought that JEB himself is on 'the other side' somewhere. Held prisoner, and being kept alive to allow the entity on the other side a model to use as a clone. (just a thought)
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Post by prymal on Oct 3, 2010 12:14:29 GMT -5
I think that The Tall Man is JB. I think that when JB stepped through the gates, something big happened (obviously) and i don't know what that something was. Maybe he saw or experienced something so evil or transforming, he forever changed into the Tall Man, in effect "killing" JB forever. I think a clone or something alien is the easy way out. I think a real "transformation" from someone good to something so evil is much more frightening and perhaps(?) realistic. I believe the ability to exist on different planes simultaneously (hence one Tall Man dies, another appears) is simply a byproduct of that evil or power that JB awoke, learned from, or became.
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Post by prymal on Oct 3, 2010 12:17:25 GMT -5
OOPS!! above JB is supposed to be JBM =Jebediah Morningside!! And maybe we're all wrong. maybe JBM just hittin' the roids, lol!
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Post by Natalie on Oct 4, 2010 20:32:18 GMT -5
I sometimes think that when Jebediah went through the gate, maybe some evil force took him over and transformed him into what he is now. Something like what the Tall Man is trying to do to Mike. He is trying to transform Mike. Maybe something did to Jebediah what the Tall Man is doing to Mike. If Mike completes his transformation, maybe he will go on in search for a new person for him to transform. But the thing is, we don't know who or what transformed Jebediah in the first place.
Also, perhaps traveling through time and the gates itself reconstructed his body and structure. Kind of like in Willy Wonka where the kid goes through the tv or something. He is broken down into millions of atoms, and is reconstructed to become smaller. As for the Tall Man, he's travelled through the dimension fork countless of times, and that most likely would break down his structure to reappear somewhere else. It's a possibility that some of his abilities grew, such as his strength We must also take into account the gravity on the Red Planet. It has a different gravity and he may have lived there for countless of years. His body could have adapted to that gravity. Like if we were on Jupiter, our weight is significantly larger than it is on Earth.
EDIT:
I am also reminded in the book "Stranger in a Strange Land", Valentine Michael Smith was a human and had human physiology, but grew up on Mars and had a Martian's psychology. He developed telekinesis and mind-reading from the Martians, things that humans think are impossible. I think it is possible that the Tall Man learned his other powers in a similar way.
Again, I may sound confusing...
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Post by prymal on Oct 5, 2010 17:40:53 GMT -5
Not at all. well said!!! I agree 100% !!
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Post by pumpmonkey on Oct 8, 2010 12:46:40 GMT -5
I Grok what you're saying Natalie....
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Post by tallman3 on May 18, 2011 20:02:30 GMT -5
Early in Phantasm we see the Tall Man lift a casket into his hearse single-handedly with no effort. Being that he is just a man(Jedediah)....where does this superhuman power come from? He is Jedediah Morningside's body inhabited by an alien from the red planet with gravity 12x greater than the earth's gravity and high temperatures, therefore, the alien would naturally be much stronger than an average human from earth. I like to think that the Tallman was from the deserts on Jupiter from some reason, but Phantasm never really shows where the Red Planet actually is in the universe.
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Post by lupus on Sept 5, 2011 6:09:39 GMT -5
I like to think that the Tallman was from the deserts on Jupiter from some reason, but Phantasm never really shows where the Red Planet actually is in the universe. Lol, Jupiter is a gas giant, it doesn't have deserts. Also, wasn't it implied that the Red Planet is not actually even in this universe, but in another one? As for how the Tall Man is so strong, don't forget, he merely looks like an elderly but creepy human. I've always assumed the Tall Man was actually some Lovecraft-style abomination, whose real form was still partly stuck in the space between universes, even though part of it had taken the form of Morningside. The creepy little creatures that his severed body parts turn into give a bit of a glimpse of what he may actually look like.
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Post by Kitty on Apr 15, 2013 6:19:57 GMT -5
Sounds about right - Jedediah Morningside went through the Spacegate and The Tall Man emerged from the other side. So how come everytime he 'dies', another one emerges from the Spacegate?
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