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Post by darrell on Oct 6, 2016 18:03:18 GMT -5
Been reading all those reviews you guys posted in the thread here, and just can't understand what open ending you're all talking about?)
If I got it right the ending of the Ravager means that all the stuff in the previous series was just some kind of Reggie's hallucinations (that's why the movie's called PHANTASM after all!) and when he dies in the hospital and Mike and Jody hold his hands – this is the only thing that's real, and when he dies in reality, he continues to live on in his hallucinations, that's why the moment Mike and Jody are shown together in the hospital is interacting with the moment the trio reunites in the car in Reggie's dreams. And when Reggie dies – in his dreams he fights on with his best friends beside him. And the TALL MAN that Reggie believed really existed, was just his neighbor with the name Jebediah on the other bed. That's all. And sorry for my bad English, that's not my basic language) Your thoughts?
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Post by xscrimshotx on Oct 6, 2016 19:19:27 GMT -5
Been reading all those reviews you guys posted in the thread here, and just can't understand what open ending you're all talking about?) If I got it right the ending of the Ravager means that all the stuff in the previous series was just some kind of Reggie's hallucinations (that's why the movie's called PHANTASM after all!) and when he dies in the hospital and Mike and Jody hold his hands – this is the only thing that's real, and when he dies in reality, he continues to live on in his hallucinations, that's why the moment Mike and Jody are shown together in the hospital is interacting with the moment the trio reunites in the car in Reggie's dreams. And when Reggie dies – in his dreams he fights on with his best friends beside him. And the TALL MAN that Reggie believed really existed, was just his neighbor with the name Jebediah on the other bed. That's all. And sorry for my bad English, that's not my basic language) Your thoughts? Your English is good! I think what we were seeing were parallel universes. Mike suggested this to Reggie when they were sitting in the park and I remember the tall man telling Reggie something similar. I'd like to think the reality where Reggie is in the hospital was an alternate reality, and the Reggie driving off with Mike and Jody at the end is "our" Reggie. One thing that's tough to ignore is that instance when Mike went to the hospital and wanted to talk to Reggie about that dream he had. Like, for some reason, "our" Mike and Reggie's experiences were bleeding into "alternate" Mike and Reggie, and maybe somehow THAT Reggie's dementia amplified what he could see. Didn't A. Michael Baldwin say this is the thinking man's Phantasm? I tend to highly agree with that. Then again, they all make you think...:-)
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Post by darrell on Oct 7, 2016 2:02:34 GMT -5
Well, if the reality where Reggie's in the hospital is just another alternate reality, what was the purpose to show it at all? But I won't be much surprised if it is so, because, honestly, in my opinion Ravager's missing an adequate plot and in one minute the midget's character blows himself up with 4 grenades and the next minute he's here again with just one hurt arm. After all I think even creators are not sure what they wanted to say with all that was shown in Phantasm series, and in Ravager especially.
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Post by krakenslayer on Oct 7, 2016 16:27:00 GMT -5
It's completely up to interpretation, just like the question of whether or not Phantasm is just Mike's grief-fantasy.
It could all be a confused delusion in Alzheimers Reggie's mind. But then why does it continue after he dies?
It could be like what Mike talks about in the garden outside the hospital: membrane theory... all the different versions of Reggie and the guys are real, all the different universes are real. They are separate, but in places they overlap, and Reggie's consciousness is fractured across several of them due to his travels in time and space and the games of the Tall Man. Dimension-warrior Reggie is sharing his consciousness with a version of himself where he never battled the Tall Man: the Alzheimers Reggie. When that version of Reggie passes away peacefully in his bed surrounded by his friends (an event that overlaps with Dimension-warrior Reggie reuniting with all his old friends), Dimension-warrior Reggie is "freed" of him and heads off into the sunset with Mike, Jody and Rocky to continue the battle with the Tall Man eternally.
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Post by Natalie on Oct 7, 2016 19:20:56 GMT -5
I keep going back to what the Tall Man said to Reggie in Oblivion. I always speculated what he meant when the Tall Man said “ice cream man, it's all in his head”. Who was this “his” referring to? Forever I tough he meant Mike. Since the first film, everything has been about Mike and the Tall Man wanting to transform him into his kind. Mike also showed telekinetic powers, which by definition, is psychic, all in his head. Since Ravager's release, there is a whole new story. Should I accept this instalment as canon, this completely changes everything that I believed before. This leads me to a few different theories. The first theory is that the Reggie in the rest home is the real Reggie and that everything we have seen is a hallucination. We see several of Reggie's timestreams alternating throughout the film. In one of them, Reggie is in a rest home. It is this reality which I believe is the true reality. During that timestream, it was said by Mike that Reg was diagnosed with dementia. It is also during this timestream, Mike suddenly disappears, leaving a confused Reggie. This also hints that Mike is a hallucination. There is another point when Reg collapses on the lawn in front of the home while the timeline jumps. Mike shows up through a dimension fork, and tosses the quad barrel to him. The entire dimension transforms from the peaceful home to destruction with the gravediggers. While that transitions occurs, the nurses and caretaker do not seem fazed by what's in front of them. This alludes to something that only Reggie can see. Going back to the scene with Mike sitting on the bench, he says that Reg has always been there for him when Jody died. However, in the last scene of Reg in the hospital on his deathbed, we see Mike and Jody. Well, didn't Mike say Jody died? That leads me to believe that Reg was hallucinating Mike and Jody this entire time, and putting the two of them by his side is his brain trying to comfort him any way it can just before he dies. Another theory is that the Tall Man is successful in conquering the dimensions. With him doing so and messing with all of the timelines, the walls between all of the realities are collapsing in on themselves. Jebediah, as shown in Oblivion, creates a dimension fork, goes through, and comes back as the Tall Man. But when he went through the fork, he cracked the world around him, leaving the entire surface of the dimension splintered. That is why they're called parallel universes, because they are never meant to touch or cross over. That's how the space gates can appear everywhere. They are bleeding through the cracks between the Tall Man's dimension and the different timestreams surrounding it. Every time the someone passes through the gates, the cracks become more unstable to the point the surface will break. This is why Reggie is experiencing all of his other selves. Since he is directly involved with the Tall Man, he is first experiencing and remembering his alternate realities as they are bleeding through. At one point when Reg is in the rest home, Mike walks into his room saying he was having Reg's dreams of the Tall Man. This proves Mike is now experiencing his other selves and realities collapsing in on each other. My final theory is the one I myself am starting to lean towards the most. When a person dies, the human brain still has a few minutes left of activity before it is completely deprived of oxygen. There is a chemical called dimethyltriptamine (DMT) that is found in trace amounts in humans. It is a psychedelic compound which causes us to dream when we sleep. It is theorised that upon death that this chemical is released into the brain. It is during those last minutes of brain activity this chemical causes us to hallucinate, which some people describe as their life flashing before their eyes. Well, upon re-watch of the first Phantasm, towards the end, Reggie is stabbed by the Lady in Lavender and is presumed dead. Mike and Jody killed the Tall Man in the mine shaft and saved the day. Hurray! However, the ending shows Reggie and Mike sitting in front of a fireplace talking about having a bad dream. It was never explained how Reg survived and it was just inserted into the narrative that Jody died in a car wreck. Perhaps Reg really did die when the Lady in Lavender stabbed him and everything from the fireplace scene to Ravager is really just all a hallucination from the last minutes of brain activity as he lies dying. But there are also the events that took place that are impossible to come from Reggie's point of view. Those events could be metaphorical constructs representing psychic attacks to piece together those events to his point of view to form a solid dreamscape.
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Post by xscrimshotx on Oct 12, 2016 2:56:51 GMT -5
Well, if the reality where Reggie's in the hospital is just another alternate reality, what was the purpose to show it at all? But I won't be much surprised if it is so, because, honestly, in my opinion Ravager's missing an adequate plot and in one minute the midget's character blows himself up with 4 grenades and the next minute he's here again with just one hurt arm. After all I think even creators are not sure what they wanted to say with all that was shown in Phantasm series, and in Ravager especially. It's completely up to interpretation, just like the question of whether or not Phantasm is just Mike's grief-fantasy. It could all be a confused delusion in Alzheimers Reggie's mind. But then why does it continue after he dies?It could be like what Mike talks about in the garden outside the hospital: membrane theory... all the different versions of Reggie and the guys are real, all the different universes are real. They are separate, but in places they overlap, and Reggie's consciousness is fractured across several of them due to his travels in time and space and the games of the Tall Man. Dimension-warrior Reggie is sharing his consciousness with a version of himself where he never battled the Tall Man: the Alzheimers Reggie. When that version of Reggie passes away peacefully in his bed surrounded by his friends (an event that overlaps with Dimension-warrior Reggie reuniting with all his old friends), Dimension-warrior Reggie is "freed" of him and heads off into the sunset with Mike, Jody and Rocky to continue the battle with the Tall Man eternally. krakenslayer put it way better than I could...Agreed especially on the part in bold. Natalie, good points. Especially about him meaning Mike, when he told Reggie the "it's all in his head" thing.
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Post by garmonbozia on Oct 13, 2016 9:17:19 GMT -5
Terrific post Natalie! Your theories line up well with my own ideas about the series.
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Post by bigphan1990 on Dec 7, 2016 0:10:37 GMT -5
You know, I'm going with my gut and say the real reality is the one where Reggie doesn't die and The Tall Man is destroyed.
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Post by Kitty on Dec 27, 2016 17:11:17 GMT -5
Natalie is amazing!
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Post by jjrakman on Dec 31, 2016 0:50:15 GMT -5
I'm going to have to watch this several more times, and with the other 4 films before I'm able to comment more detailed.
But my first impression with the ending in Ravager is simply, that Reggie died, and went to heaven.
Even though what we see looks like an apocalyptic hell, for Reggie, heaven is his friends being alive again and all being together.
Then again, maybe they're all dead and in the afterlife together.
Just some initial thoughts after only one viewing.
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Post by phantasmal on Jan 2, 2017 21:46:17 GMT -5
Darrell wrote:
Your English is great!
I came to the same conclusion. I don't see how anyone could possibly come to any other conclusion. It seemed as obvious to me as is humanly possible. And given how much Coscarelli became obsessed with Reggie and turned him into the main star of the movie(s), I don't see any other interpretation making much sense.
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Post by phantasmal on Jan 2, 2017 22:00:56 GMT -5
Xscrimshotx wrote:
I'd argue that they did not make the case for alternate or parallel universes at all. It seems obvious beyond words that Coscarelli pushed the interpretation that it was all Reggie's dementia all along. If we look at the movie closely (and it's been months since I've seen it, with only 1 viewing, so bear with me), very early on we see Reggie in the hospital. Michael is there to visit him. Michael explains that Reggie has dementia and is imagining all this "Tall Man" stuff. Reggie keeps having his fits of delusion, of hallucinations, but keeps coming back to the hospital setting. Mike is there to comfort him and at some point tells Reggie that he read a book about alternate realities. That's the entire premise for parallel universe - Mike tells Reggie he read a book about parallel realities. Big deal. Maybe he was just saying that to comfort Reggie. He looks very sad when he says that. In the end of the movie, the Pearson brothers are there, crying as their friend dies. The last thing we see is Reggie in the car with the others. In other words, he's dead, and we're seeing his last slip into delusion - i.e. a lame attempt at a pseudo-happy ending where the trio continues their exciting battle against the Tall Man, at least in Reggie's final delusion. It's very pathetic and sad.
I forget even what the dream was. But in any case, the movie did not provide an adequate explanation for what happened. I'm always open to different interpretations, and I believe people can reach different ones here. However...I think the intended interpretation (i.e. Coscarelli's intent) is that it was all Reggie' dementia. I don't see how anyone can in all honesty question that.
As I've said before, just making an incoherent mess that is hard to make sense of does not make it a "thinking man's" movie. Anyone can slap together some semi- or nonsensical tripe and claim it's got "deep meaning".
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Post by phantasmal on Jan 2, 2017 22:07:25 GMT -5
Darrell wrote:
Which to me shows that the movie as a whole was simply a disaster of bad planning and lack of purpose. This one does not evoke the sense of wonder and fun confusion/speculation the earlier ones did. This one is like watching a very poor amateur filmmaker throw stuff on film without thinking out what he was trying to do. If I had to watch this movie without knowing who wrote and directed it, or anything else about it, I'd have to assume it was done by a student who flunked out of film-making school.
Agreed. I think there was always some level of "make it up as we go along" to the series. And that was part of the fun. But Ravager was just a mess. A bad, bad mess.
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Post by phantasmal on Jan 2, 2017 22:18:06 GMT -5
Krakenslayer wrote:
I'd argue that this interpretation is valid for the first film only. Even there, at the end, it's sorta obvious it wasn't just his grief-fantasy. This reality gets cemented in Phantasm II, when Reggie realizes that the Tall Man is real and they go up against him. From Phantasm II at least, the premise seems to clearly be that the Tall Man is real. I don't see anything in Phantasm II, III or IV that invalidates the premise that the Tall Man is real. The details aren't all clear, but the premise is. The Tall Man exists, and he is after Mike.
It seemed obvious to me that the scene was intended to serve two purposes. First, we see Reggie's final hallucination as he dies. And second, it's a lame attempt at a happy ending, i.e. the trio are still fighting the valiant battle against the Tall Man - though this is actually just a sad hallucination, making it all the more depressing. It's hard for me to think of a film with as depressing and pathetic an ending as Ravager.
I wish I could buy all that, but the film failed to establish the existence of alternate/parallel universes. The overpowering narrative I (and many others) got was that Coscarelli intended this to all be Reggie's dementia, with a bittersweet ending where the brothers are there with him in the end, with a sloppily tacked-on attempt at a happy ending via the viewing of his final hallucination.
God, the more I think about this movie the more I come to hate it. The only positive thing I can cling to is that the main cast acted their hearts out and gave us performances worth of an Oscar.
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Post by phantasmal on Jan 2, 2017 22:25:27 GMT -5
Natalie wrote (a lot of great stuff, but focusing on this):
Very, very interesting! And I'll take that any day over the depressing ending of Ravager.
And that right there is my whole issue. If we do accept Ravager as canon, it requires a complete re-interpretation of the first 4 movies, all of which were to a large degree internally consistent.
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Post by fantasyball on Jan 7, 2017 15:39:09 GMT -5
I think the main problem here is the "Reggie's quest" or what ever the plot was called from the beginning.
We would probably all be much happier if at least Michael was lying on his death bed, than his cool action hero sidekick that Ravager completely circles around "all of a sudden".
The first four films still made us believe it was all about Michael, even though most of the fun was centered on Reggie. The failure here is the ultimate Reggie-centrism at the eleventh hour... Whyy? --- The death of the hero is maybe just a tame try to end it all somewhat, and make a final end to it. But still let us see it continue in an alternative universe to keep the quest going for fans who prefer a more open ending. Don probably couldn't choose so he went for both.
An all winner scenario became an all loose scenario.
This will probably spit phans on two sides of canon or not-canon, as I see it. It's a bit sad.
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Post by phantasmal on Jan 8, 2017 4:29:38 GMT -5
Darrell wrote:
This, perhaps more than anything else, made me wonder whether Coscarelli even bothered to view the film before releasing it. I mean please...this violates Continuity 101. A third-grader would catch such a bizarre mistake. It just makes me wonder: What the hell was going on?" (during filming and post-production).
Fantasyball wrote:
What disturbs me the most is that I and others here have offered numerous and far more satisfactory endings. I suspect if we ask 30 other Phantasm fans, we'd get 30 more far better final movies scripts. So how did Coscarelli manage to screw this up so horribly? Did he just stop caring? There really are no excuses that I can think of that aren't totally disturbing.
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Post by fantasyball on Jan 8, 2017 5:51:13 GMT -5
I don't think he actually bothered to make a -- in a phantasm-sense -- serious film... Must also guess he didn't read this forum that close to actually fetch good ideas here, sorry. Instead he brought in an extra guy on the guns in directing the film, to help him make any sense out of it. And maybe the two of them became too ironic together.
Bad writing isn't the issue if you ask me; the first film didn't have an ending pinned down, and they had several endings to choose from. I think the mining shaft-end is kind of lame, and a proof of early bad writing. What with p.II, III and IV is a show case in good writing? It depends on WHAT you write... a comedy or something more suspense with a comedy element in it... OR if you all of a sudden makes EVERYTHING phans has thought about it false 30 years later!
The final proof for not taking it all too seriously is that Chunk survives. It's just an over-proof that he didn't care too much for how it all ended. The movie, as I see it, tend a lot towards comedy - more than just a sparse ingredient as in earlier installments. I guess it's because it's all about Reggie this time.
It's a fun movie, yes, I do laugh and smile and enjoy it, but it could have stayed more in line with the earlier films that's for sure.
I think the conversation between Tall Man and Mike and Reggie at the end on the red planet is paramount. Here Tall Man looks on Mike and says Mike is his "subject" and looking upon Reggie saying he is his "amusement". In a way that fixate Mike as the center of attention, if you like.
Yes, this entry is focused on amusement, more than Mike's existential issues we all have identified us with before.
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Post by pharrout on Jan 24, 2017 20:41:18 GMT -5
God, the more I think about this movie the more I come to hate it. The only positive thing I can cling to is that the main cast acted their hearts out and gave us performances worth of an Oscar. Yep, me too. The more i write about it/think about it, the angrier I get. Like, did Ravager really happen? How did they manage to screw this up so bad? My conclusion... this film doesn't exist, it is not canon, it can't be. It's the equivalent of Star Wars Episode 9 coming out, and we realize that Obi Wan dreamed it all on Tattoine. I would feel cheated. All the amazing stuff that happened with Anakin and the focus on Luke Skywalker's story to become a Jedi and restore the Republic. His quest to confront Darth Vader (villain). The relationship and dialogue between Vader and Luke, only to find out that it was really Obi-Wan's dementia. Obi-wan is a fan favorite, just like Reggie, but it was established from episode 1 that he was not the "chosen one." It was to be the Skywalker lineage. After 40+ years, fans would riot at the box offices--if lucasfilm/disney pulled something like that. Fans would say "Too much has happened in the Star Wars Universe for it to be a product of the mind of Obi-Wan (a side character)." And thus, be attributed to poor writing. This sums up how I feel about Ravager. Too much has happened for it to be a product of the inner-mind workings of Reggie. So, I will agree with others (in order to not go mentally insane) that Ravager is not official canon. Now i can go on with my life. (Although this board and writing out my thoughts is stress-relief, lol)
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Post by phantasmal on Jan 31, 2017 4:45:59 GMT -5
Your Star Wars analogy is perfect! I cannot and will not consider Ravager to be related in any way to Phantasms I-IV. And certainly not canon. I'll eventually order it on DVD. No hurry though.
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