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Post by Hellbound on Sept 29, 2008 18:34:03 GMT -5
It seems to me that since it turned out the spheres were made using the brains of the dead that they got a lot smarter. In the first two movies, they had a bad habit of missing their target and killing one of the Tall Man's henchmen, and on top of all that Mike made one attack the Tall Man himself. If these things really had brains I'd think that if they accidentally got lodged in a caretaker or a pall bearer that they wouldn't start drilling or tunneling or whatever. But in III and IV, they never seem to attack the wrong people. Sure, the Tall Man sphere kills Edna but that could easily be excused as an accident because he was traveling so fast.
If the lack of intelligence isn't the reason for all the "friendly fire", why do they seem to kill whoever happens to be around?
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Post by DustinM on Sept 29, 2008 18:38:35 GMT -5
Ah, but in III they do attack the wrong people. The Tall Man himself as the gold sphere blows right through the face of the Edna zombie in one of the coolest kills in the series. Glory be to Mark Shostrom for that.
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Post by cryptkeeper2529 on Sept 29, 2008 18:41:01 GMT -5
It's just a matter of making things up as they go along; Phantasm II they were clearly mechanical (or at least animated mythical objects) and The Tall Man is still trying to kill Mike. In Phantasm III, the spheres are animated by brains and The Tall Man suddenly wants to capture Mike. Once the brain idea was introduced, they probobly figured they had to be inteligent so they smartened them up and put in the mosolium scene in Phantasm III (where Tanesha dies) to fit in more with the first two in regards to their behavior.
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Post by cryptkeeper2529 on Sept 29, 2008 18:44:44 GMT -5
Ah, but in III they do attack the wrong people. The Tall Man himself as the gold sphere blows right through the face of the Edna zombie in one of the coolest kills in the series. Glory be to Mark Shostrom for that. I don't know about one of the coolest but it was deffinately one of the more amusing (but yeah, it was pretty cool). The gold sphere looked as though it was traveling at a really high velocity, and Edna looked to have been kinda shoved in the way so it was just kind of "whatever" in terms of what The Tall Man was doing.
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Post by Hellbound on Sept 29, 2008 18:45:48 GMT -5
Ah, but in III they do attack the wrong people. The Tall Man himself as the gold sphere blows right through the face of the Edna zombie in one of the coolest kills in the series. Glory be to Mark Shostrom for that. I didn't forget it, I mentioned that kill in my post. It's not like the other henchmen kills. It didn't produce any tools to kill her, it just blew right through her skull, and I took it as an accident due to the unexpectedness of having Edna pop up in it's path and the speed preventing it from stopping in time.
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Post by DustinM on Sept 29, 2008 18:50:17 GMT -5
Yeeeeeah. I've really gotta stop reading the forum while in class. My apologies for missing that in your original post.
You know, I see your point. I personally thought P1 and P2 did a fine enough job of showing the spheres screwing up their job. I want them to be scary from then on, a real threat and not something that can be easily tricked. Just my two cents.
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Post by feedmont on Jan 23, 2010 16:28:25 GMT -5
Is it me or was the Tall Man's brain ball seem much bigger than the regular spheres.
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briggs
Zombie
Unlucky Caretaker
sphere ball attack man throat
Posts: 337
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Post by briggs on Jan 25, 2010 11:55:45 GMT -5
Is it me or was the Tall Man's brain ball seem much bigger than the regular spheres. That is (Allegedly!) canon . I remember sometime back when there were detailed statistics/specifications on the spheres on some Phantasm site (Which noted that the tall man's ball was larger), but since then I believe people have lost track of it >.> As for the "friendly fire," aren't the spheres just made from some parts of the brain? I imagine when not under the tall man's "direction" or if they're put into "kill mode," the spheres just act on the "lizard" part of the brain which basically says to eat and kill (And in killing, it is eating. Come on, brains do need blood to function XD)
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Post by pumpmonkey on Jan 25, 2010 22:26:54 GMT -5
I had wondered why they seemed so different in their actions (drill, laser, blade, saw, etc.), but I just chalked it up to 'different' versions of the sphere's. The TM's 'factory' constructed them with superior micro-technology housed in the same spherical blue-print. Then... A brain was revealed within a sphere during P3. So then I surmised that it is the creativeness and adaptability of the brain housed inside the sphere that dictated its capability. So, aside from the entire dream-sequencing notion where it could be revealed that this is all Mike's inability to cope with Jody's death, The Tall Man could be after Mike because Mike's brain has the ability to manipulate the law's of physics as we know it (i.e. causing a gate to appear, etc.), making him either a suitable candidate for a very powerful silver sphere or perhaps even to a promotion to "Gold Status" for the next planet they decide to invade. Again, the groovy thing about the Phan-Films is the 'dream-sequencing'...a thought from here or perhaps Don could see/hear a snippet on some completely unrelated topic elsewhere and it could trigger a thought that could become inserted into the series.
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Post by feedmont on Jan 26, 2010 0:49:12 GMT -5
the spheres bring up such interesting, and engaging conversation.
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Post by gregmonster on Apr 25, 2010 17:39:13 GMT -5
the tall man never tried to kill mike if you look back at both the first and second philms
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Post by Hellbound on Jul 31, 2011 3:47:00 GMT -5
Isn't Mike already dead? He's got yellow blood and a sphere in his head, characteristics of the Tall Man's undead army. You have to die first before you become a member.
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Post by Natalie on Aug 2, 2011 20:51:55 GMT -5
I figured that Mike was just transforming throughout the films. At the end of Oblivion, I believe Mike died and then became a minion of the Tall Man. I think that his body was just an incubator and when Mike was lying on the ground dying, the Tall Man knew it was his time, and the sphere was ready, so he decided to take it.
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Post by lupus on Sept 13, 2011 10:25:29 GMT -5
As for the "friendly fire," aren't the spheres just made from some parts of the brain? I imagine when not under the tall man's "direction" or if they're put into "kill mode," the spheres just act on the "lizard" part of the brain which basically says to eat and kill (And in killing, it is eating. Come on, brains do need blood to function XD) Actually, I think that is the case! In a deleted scene from Phantasm II, when Mike sees how the second mortician got a mouthful of Gold Sphere(which has stopped chasing after them after killing the mortician), he says It doesn't stop until it tastes blood, meaning that spheres are programmed to stop when they have killed someone(unless someone - a new heat source for destruction - touches the sphere, like what Rocky did in P3) which explains the "friendly fire", I guess.
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Post by Kitty on Jan 13, 2014 9:13:10 GMT -5
Re the posts on Mike: I'm still confused over whether Mike is dead (or even has been throughout all four movies, or from the third one onwards) when the Tall Man stuck the Sphere in Mike's head. Particularly as he shows yellow "blood" when he peels back part of his scalp. Then there are the soulless eyes.
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