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Post by OblivionGoon on Jul 11, 2008 17:49:35 GMT -5
Towards the end of P3 The Tall Man is drilling and cutting on Mike's head. It appears that he has installed a sphere. What if the sphere has been there the entire time (from P1 on, or even before P1) and he is now retrieving the sphere, which he ends up doing at the end of the series.
This got the cogs working. I believe the reason The Tall Man has wanted Mike all along is due to his mental "sensitivity." Mike has mental powers, we see that as early as P2. The Tall Man obviously knew this long before, and wanted Mike to take his place or even join him.
The Tall Man had this plan from the jump, before P1 even began.
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briggs
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Post by briggs on Jul 11, 2008 18:42:40 GMT -5
This is just one of several possible theories, but I figure maybe PI and PII were tests. The tall man was aware of Mike's powers from PI, and tried to kill him to stop him from interfering. When he survived, he got "put in the running" to become the new tall man, and somewhere along the line; When he was unconscious in the beginning of PII, during his "treatments" in the mental hospital, maybe even during his coma in the beginning of PIII, he got the sphere put in him to be harvested later. Perhaps the "demon nurse" did it.
Honestly I think there is heavy evidence against the sphere being installed in PIII, mainly the line about "freeing him"... And the fact he was clearly trying to get it back in PIV.
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Post by 4barrelhemi on Jul 11, 2008 23:51:33 GMT -5
My only thing with that is this........ The Tall Man in P2 had Mike and Liz both and he threw Mike away for Liz.
Mike also in P2 says there are others.
I really have no idea about the sphere in his head or when it was put there I'd want to say it was put there at the end of P3 because the Tall Man had Mike earlier in the movie and could have just as easily taken it then.
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Post by Natalie on Jul 12, 2008 10:28:25 GMT -5
I always thought the sphere was in his head all along. The question about how it got there, I don't know, but after seeing Phantasm:OblIVion, when the Tall Man retrieves the sphere from Mike's head at the end, I figured that back in Phantasm III he was trying to get it out...in a more surgical way. The Tall Man says, "Now it's time for you to come back to me." and I am thinking, that might be somewhat of a hint that he's bringing something with him, the sphere in Mike's head, and he need to take it out. If not, why would he put the sphere in Mike's head just to take it out a little later?
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Post by Red Planet Minion on Jul 13, 2008 3:10:27 GMT -5
I always thought the Tallman had put it in at the end of P3, But that theory could be a little off because the events in Oblivion take place very shortly after III so it doesnt make since as to why the Tall man would put it in and take it out so quickly, Maybe the Harvesting process is very short.
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Post by OblivionGoon on Jul 13, 2008 19:06:48 GMT -5
I think the sphere has always been there. It helps explain Mike's "psychic" powers. How about Liz? Chances are she had a sphere in her head as well. She says in P2 "I don't know why he's after us" (paraphrasing). Also, why would The Tall Man only want her head in the beginning of P3.... Ah, it all makes sense now.
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Post by 4barrelhemi on Jul 14, 2008 7:28:30 GMT -5
Yeah but the Tall Man had Mike at the beginning of P3 he even had him at his Bunker. Why didn't he take the Sphere then?
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Post by The Never Dead on Jul 14, 2008 9:01:56 GMT -5
I think the sphere was in Mike's head the entire time.
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Post by OblivionGoon on Jul 15, 2008 1:34:46 GMT -5
This is something I decided to jot down tonight. It is imperfect and vulnerable. It's just an idea. Ignis Fatuus: An erroneous perception of reality: a delusion, hallucination, illusion, mirage, a phantasm. “All that is unknown, shall be known to you, once more” These are the infamous words of The Tall Man. Never were these words more ominous than just a few days ago when the entire chain of events played out in my head. Mostly these were not the events that happened on film in front of us, but rather in my mind, possibly my own incarnation or phantasm if you will. I had to ask myself the question, “What if Mike knew of this, subconsciously aware. What if that sphere we see in his head during Phantasm III, was there from the beginning, before Phantasm I even starts.” This swam through my head for a few days, trying to work out the kinks or even disprove it all together. I kept asking “what if, what if, what if.” Different scenes running like film off of a reel. I will start at the end and take us to the beginning. The ending events of Phantasm: oblIVion is somewhat confusing at first. We see The Tall Man remove a sphere from Mike’s head. Mike, lying there dying. The Tall Man simply gives a look filled with remorse with a sprinkle of satisfaction. Reggie jumps through the space gate. The camera zooms onto Mike’s face and then flashes back to scenes from Phantasm I. Before Phantasm IV, in Phantasm III, The Tall Man does what appears to be removing a sphere from Mike’s head. How did that sphere get there? Where did it come from? The idea that he is installing the sphere during that scene does not work. How would it benefit The Tall Man to install a sphere only to retrieve it a few weeks (possibly months) later? Keep in mind that Phantasm IV directly follows Phantasm III, no time gap. How much time has elapsed during Phantasm IV is unclear. The very last scenes of Phantasm IV are deleted scenes from Phantasm I. In these scenes a young Mike is standing on the sidewalk, he hears some faint voice in the air, his own voice. When Reggie picks him up they hear it again. Mike is hearing something from another dimension. He hears this but is able to cast it off as “the wind.” He knows what it is. He knows it is himself in another time, dying. Has Mike reinvented himself, has he mentally transported himself back to another time? I will jump to Phantasm II and the beginning of Phantasm III. In Phantasm II there are very minor storyline developments. One of the main plot developments deals with Mike’s psychic aptitude. Exactly where these powers came from is never explained. He suddenly has prophetic dreams and can speak telepathically with his squeeze Liz. Now that Liz is in the picture, there is really nothing groundbreaking to do with her until the beginning of Phantasm III. Like the other sequels, Phantasm III picks up where it’s predecessor left off. We begin with the hearse swerving an eventually crashing down the road. When Reggie arrives on the scene, dwarfs are seen ravaging Liz’s now dead body. As The Tall Man arrives the dwarfs give him the head of Liz. Only the head. We know that The Tall Man uses a full corpse to create a dwarf, so what would he want with only Liz’s head? Liz hits the nail on the head (bad pun, I know) when she tells Mike in Phantasm II that “there is something special about us.” There is something special indeed. Something I would like to discuss rather quickly has to do with the outside world in the Phantasm universe. Why is it that there is no real uprising of people to stop The Tall Man. Not once do we see any police force, military action or the like. All we are ever shown is small renegade soldiers fighting the forces of evil. I’m getting off track. The Tall Man carts away Liz’s head to do what I can only theorize about. I believe that there was a sphere inside of Liz’s head. We know from the end of Phantasm III forward that there is one inside of Mike’s head, we never see it installed, just removed. The Tall Man has no use for Liz’s body. All that he is concerned about is in her head, the sphere in her head. To further prove my theory, why would the nurse have a sphere in her head? The Tall Man is shifting his methods of operation. Instead of crushing down countless dwarfs, he has possessed the minds of people and turning them into spheres that are in hiding until they are needed. Why would he need an army of flesh that is susceptible to injury when he can have an army of spheres that are more agile and powerful than the human body ever could be. The operation we see The Tall Man performing on a dwarf in Phantasm III is not so much of a harvesting, but the re-invention of his process. He will take all of the dwarfs he currently has, amputate the brain and install it into a sphere. From then on he will simply amputate the brain of humans and reinstall the sphere into the head. Mike has had a sphere in his head since before Phantasm I even began. It was there when he was spying on The Tall Man, when he cut his fingers off, and even when he lured him into the mineshaft. Mike is simply resisting what truly is his destiny. The Tall Man states, “You have lived in this flesh construct long enough, it is now time for you to come back… to me.” He wasn’t speaking to Mike so much as he was speaking to the sphere in Mike’s head. The main struggle I have with this whole idea is a very obvious one. How did the sphere get into Mike’s head, and how about Reggie, does he have a sphere? These are questions that I simply cannot get my head around. This theory is very one-dimensional that would require revising to include other intricacies of the series. Phantasm is so very complex that one mere theory could never explain everything that occurs, it could never answer all of the questions. Some questions are never to be answered, not because we don’t want them to be answered, but simply because they just can’t be answered. It is this that has drawn us all to this magnificent study known as Phantasm. I seriously doubt that we would like all of the questions answered for the intrigue would be gone. I will end with the ever so eloquent words of Angus Scrimm. “We are not quite sure where we have been, where we are now, or where this may take us”
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Post by imperfectflesh on Oct 13, 2008 18:04:00 GMT -5
There's no question in my mind that the sphere's been in Mike's head since the beginning. I think that the reason the Tall Man's been after Mike since the first film is because of the sphere in Mike's skull--and he really could've put it in there at any time. P1 is so full of weird twists and turns that it could entirely be possible. There's no real time or space continuity in the first film--it jumps all over the place, from dreams to reality, back to dreams.... Further proof that Mike had a sphere in his head since P1: Right after Sally and Suzy get taken by the dwarves (in the infamous "screaming Volkswagen" scene), the camera cuts between Mike and Jody as if they have a mental link of some sort. Later, in P4, we find that the Tall Man took Jody in the first film! Although we find out later on in the same movie that he died in a car crash. And we all know what happens to you when you die...you go to the Tall Man! Of course the Tall Man woudl've put a sphere in Jody's head to help him get to Mike--although it took four movies for Jody to do the job. In P2, Mike and Liz have some sort of link as well--to the point where they can dream at the same time. In P3 (at the beginning), a dwarf brings the Tall Man Liz's head, as if that's all he wanted in the first place. Probably because there's a sphere in her skull, too. And then, of course, we find out in P3 that the Tall Man himself has a gold sphere in his head. Undoubtedly every single copy of him does. Don't even get me started on the Fortuneteller and her granddaughter! At this point, Reggie is pretty much the only guy who has a normal brain.
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cusackclass
Drilled
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Post by cusackclass on Nov 16, 2008 13:35:34 GMT -5
Those are all very interesting theories for such a confusing film series! I agree, I'm also not entirely sure about what went on with the sphere in Mike's head...but here goes... The line "You have lived in this flesh construct long enough, it is now time for you to come back… to me.” I think Mike back when he was a kid was in the same fatal car accident that killed his parents but survived (the cause of Mike's parent's death aren't clean but a car accident would be the best bet) The reason why Mike did survive was because The Tall Man came and put the sphere in his head so he would survive. Perhaps The Tall Man did this to different people all over the world over the ages...they were special people he saw he would have further use in as his warriors of the undead. Liz even said it in part II that they were special and there was a reason they had the link they did...and why the Tall Man had been after them for so long. It's simple...the Tall Man is growing older and weaker...perhaps even dying so he comes to collect for his stronger and more powerful undead warriors. In part I Mike begins to interfere with The Tall Man's plans on taking him so he takes Jody away and even attempts to kill him. Mike fights back and The Tall Man sees something now in him. He sees he can take over his job. So during part II, III, and IV The Tall Man tests Mike, taking away all his loved ones and making him more and more burned out so there's no hope. He plans on taking the sphere out and transforming Mike into the new Tall Man. That's at least what I think lol
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Post by cryptkeeper2529 on Dec 15, 2008 21:18:25 GMT -5
I personally think it was just something made up to make the series more interesting, instead of Reggie and Mike following The Tall Man around for another movie. I don't think it was blatently obvious that is wasn't true in the first two movies until 3 & 4 get into it. Kinda like how in the original Phantasm it's implied that The Tall Man was ALWAYS the motition for Morningside, especially when you take the moving picture into concederation. This was more than likely the fact of the first movie, but Phantasm II & III do the whole "on the road" thing and Phantasm IV: Oblivion re-addresses the matter of The Tall Man existing for so long, thus making something that was not true in the original movie now true in the series.
And if anyone wants to argue the exiced footage of The Tall Man coming to Morningside used in Phantasm IV, it was Mike's narration that addresses it, and thus there are two explanations: one being it was simply Mike and Jody hanging out and a shot of The Tall Man simply just coming back into town or diving along. The fact that he was diving and walked around town greatly support this and what I had suggested before about him always being Moningside's mortition. The second being that it was simply an alternate direction; 3 hours may have been shot for Phantasm but a LOT of it were alternate ending and alternate directions.
The Tall Man is clearly trying to kill Mike in the first movie and Liz additionally in the second. The third the whole plotline about Liz & Mike being equils and that thee are others like them is completely dropped because appaently attempted muder can easily be merged into capture and containment. Thats just me bitching but the sphere thing was just there to raise questions, and Oblivion, while it got into it more, failed to explain it simply because it was supposed to be a prelude to an explosive finalle. Not the case, so now we'e hee making theoies. not that thats bad but I feel that this is comething too major to be left loose.
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Post by OblivionGoon on Dec 23, 2008 14:53:37 GMT -5
Sure, maybe Coscarelli decided to pop a sphere in there to make it more exciting, but I can't count out the idea that he also made a decision to demand more thought and interpretation from the viewers.
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Post by pumpmonkey on Jan 31, 2010 12:32:26 GMT -5
Wow...good thoughts and opinions makes for some excellent reading~! I like much of what I've read, and there is one item that I'd like to point out. During P-IV, The Tall Man (TTM) had Mike on the table during in what appeared to be the Civil War. He was inserting a long tube up through the nose, presumably into the brain (presently, over half the brain can be reached through this method). When I saw that, my first impulse was to wonder if TTM was planting a seed in Mike...perhaps some off-worldly Bio-mechanical alloy that would encompass the brain, growing into a sphere. Since the meshing of mechanical/electrical/human components it nothing new, we can say (by loose definition), that the spheres and TTM could be classified as Cybernetic Organisms. Dreams are not necessarily in linear format, and in conjunction with the "Mike traveling though time" thought, I find any of these (and I'm sure others that are not mentioned) entirely plausible... a) Mike is still in a sanitarium, not able to cope with the loss of his family, and is having a lucid dream b) Mike is still in a sanitarium, and is extra-dimensionally projecting himself to combat TTM c) Mike and TTM really are engaged into a game of Cat-and-mouse here on Earth (why is a whole new bucket of theories~!)d)....and more... Also, while typing the above I suddenly recalled a couple of TWILIGHT ZONE episodes - One with ROSS MARTIN who was stuck in a loop, with their space-ship crashing time-and-again. The other I think had the main star on trial (I cannot remember who the main star was...sorry), who was yelling at all those around him that this is a repeating sequence...that although the people are the same, the roles they portray are different (which we see at the end when the sequence starts all over again). T-t-t-t-that's all folks~!
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briggs
Zombie
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Post by briggs on Feb 3, 2010 13:01:59 GMT -5
For the first years of his life, the tall man was trying to kill Mike; after part 2 however, he stopped! Why? ...Because Liz died . You see, Phantasm is like a modified Highlander, except instead of immortals killing each other for the title of bringing the world to peace or chaos, it's sphere-brains being killed by the tall man for the title of the last one standing being... well, who knows? XD
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Post by pumpmonkey on Feb 13, 2010 20:31:20 GMT -5
I just re-read this thread and I suddenly recalled a film called DEAD AND BURIED with Jack Albertson. By the end of the movie, everyone (except the coroner) is already dead...they just didn't know it.
PS - If you've seen it, then you'll know why I busted out laughing when the Sheriff hit the zombie with his truck!
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Post by prymal on Feb 18, 2013 22:47:21 GMT -5
It would seem to me that Mike created his own protagonist by venturing into the space gate in P4, "Careful what you look for...". What if Mike had not went back? Would Jebadiah Morningside went into the gate after him? What about the Civil War scene? Maybe scientist Jebadiah removed Mike's brain, put in some "steam punk-ish" sphere, and sent Mike back through the gate as a sort of "probe", only to rediscover him later and recover this "probe"...
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Post by Kitty on Apr 8, 2013 9:17:12 GMT -5
Holy crap! This is the same question I asked..! ;D
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