So, at the end of the rain-planet vignette, Steiger gets to a "sun dome."
Inside is Ms. Bloom (the sun dome whore?). He smiles; she hands him a towel; zoom in on her face, and dissolve back to the camp site.
WTF is going on? What kind of ending is that? Anyone read the story and can fill me in?
Thanks.
That wasn't Bradbury's ending. In the story, the colonel just makes it to the sun dome, and that's that. No one else is there.
The story is about the experience of survival. The filmmakers just tossed in the bit with Claire Bloom to tie it into the rest of the movie, in which they'd established a relationship between Steiger and Bloom. So perhaps that was meant to suggest that their relationship transcended space and time.
Or something like that.
The book just used the Illustrated Man as a framing device for a collection of stories. The movie expands some of this to fill out the feature.
"You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere." --- William Burroughs
Thanks much for the explanation, Pninson,
The film is weird in just cutting away once Steiger gets to the dome and sees Bloom. OK, I understand that they have this connection, but what is her purpose at the dome? What is the purpose of the sun domes (just to give shelter)?
I just may have to read the book.
Thanks again.
"Funny like a clown? I amuse you, I make you laugh? I'm here to f--kin' amuse you?"
I guess he just made it. I read the book like 20 years ago and that's what i recall. A sort of a happy ending. Remember that they were supose to be rescued after a month or something.
shareI read the rain-story a few years ago and no, there wasn't a happy ending. It ended with him reaching the Sun Dome alone, only to discover it was abandoned and soaked in rain!
Bradbury was toying with us throughout the whole story, talking about what a wonderful place the Sun Dome is, and it the end that illusion is shattered. You can really feel the frustration. A very atmosphearic story I recall!
Actually, bosnian is wrong. Bradbury's story DOES have a happy ending -- similar to the film's version, but with unidentified "other men moving toward him (the lone survivor)" vs. a smiling sexy woman. At least he is finally out of the rain.
I found it here: http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=P4YAURAZ&p=1
"Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady, man."
Thanks for the link. I viewed the ending of the movie sequence as his final hallucination before losing his mind and dying peacefully in the rain miles from the second dome, but the original story's ending is less clearly cut to me. It seems that it can be read both ways, depending on whether the reader prefers a happy ending or a chilling one. I think Bradbury achieved a perfectly balanced ending which can fall either way depending on the mood of the reader.
From what I can remember (it's been many, many years) the original Bradbury story implied that the sun dome he finds at the end is a mirage. Definitely didn't flat out say that, but implied.
shareTwo words... ...tight budget.
(You'll notice a lot of the actors are repeated in diff stories.)
I am - SUPERFLUOUS!!!
Pninson had it right. filmmaker was trying to tie all three characters together throughout all the stories, as well as the basic framework story of the movie.
shareI enjoyed the movie to a certain extent,although it was very creepy and I really didn't get what was going on.Why did she tattoo him,was she some kind of witch.does anyone have a brief summary of the whole story.Rod certainly was scary..
shareI don't recall the back story in the novel but it was over 40 years ago.
In any case I would rather they would have used more of the other stories.
BTW there was talk some years back of making a TV series based on this concept.
See some stars here
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I saw that scene today. I took it to mean that the intact dome he sees over the hill is a mirage. The rain has finally driven him mad, like the other men, and he begins to hallucinate the things he wants to see. When he stands under the dome, and the cylinder is coming down around him, as the sound of the rain fades away, that is the final step in him completely losing his mind. He's finally at peace and free of the incessant pounding of the raindrops, because the survival mechanism in his brain has at last become strong enough (through insanity, unfortunately) to ignore them.
The fact that he sees the beautiful woman is more wish-fulfillment on his part; he's happy and comfortable in his own head; we have to assume that sooner or later the planet's environment will take its toll on him physically and he will die, too. But at least his end will occur peacefully, warm and dry and dreamily loved in the dome located deep in his own mind.
(Plus there's no way that they could have walked the twenty miles from the ruined dome to the intact dome in such a short time over only a few hundred yards at most.)
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