I saw this a couple of years ago at the insistence of my uncle, who had made a recording of it from a TCM broadcast. And, honestly, some part of me is still trying to figure out what it all really meant...
Some parts were sloppily executed / not well done, like why was the villain picking off the other researchers when he knew who his target was?
My best guess about the meaning is a simple theme of getting through hardship. In the main character’s hero journey where he starts out kind of detached, pain is something he only experiments on others, then suddenly he has to endure pain and hardship himself and gets stalked by this overwhelming reality-bending power that can get into his head, and other people’s heads, and manipulate records… Through enduring it and taking all the punches, he realizes that the villain can be defeated after all and he himself as the power to defeat him… Sort of North By Northwest meets The Matrix
I saw this a couple of years ago at the insistence of my uncle, who had made a recording of it from a TCM broadcast. And, honestly, some part of me is still trying to figure out what it all really meant...
Some parts were sloppily executed / not well done, like why was the villain picking off the other researchers when he knew who his target was?
My best guess about the meaning is a simple theme of getting through hardship. In the main character’s hero journey where he starts out kind of detached, pain is something he only experiments on others, then suddenly he has to endure pain and hardship himself and gets stalked by this overwhelming reality-bending power that can get into his head, and other people’s heads, and manipulate records… Through enduring it and taking all the punches, he realizes that the villain can be defeated after all and he himself as the power to defeat him… Sort of North By Northwest meets The Matrix
Frank Robinson probably made the villain's motivation clearer in the original novel, but that got lost in the process of drafting the screenplay...