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The what's up with April and the nuclear war? Some others here keep saying that the entire movie was a dream that George had rioght befor dying, but I see nothing to indicate that...do you?
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yes, the ending is very up in the air, part of what makes this a great story (I read the book many years ago and I don't think it explicitly explains the context either, and I think LeGuin does this on purpose). The very first sequence an atomic blast hits portland and george can be seen wandering through the rubble, suffering from radiation sickness, he falls asleep and wakes up in his appartment the night before he goes to see haber for the first time. Now when I first saw this when I was in high school in 1980, I thought the radiation sickness caused the effective dreaming and he dreamt the atomic blast never happened. This seems to contradict what he tells haber about his first effective dream, however, but maybe after the blast he dreamt that he'd always had this ability. The rather sadder interpretation is that everything after the blast was a dream, george's dying dream, and haber realizes this once he dreams using the super augmentor and goes nuts. The awesome thing about the writing is that it is open to viewer interpretation. How the film begins/ends is pretty much up to the viewer, it isn't spoon fed to us, a mark of all great abstract art.
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How did the aliens get into the antique store and aliens running hot dog stands? Who dreamt that?
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The integration of aliens into everyday life came about after haber has george dream peace with the aliens. They show up all over the place after that.
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Ok, so it's pretty clear that Haber can use George and "make" him dream stuff. So he made George dream that George can't effective-dream anymore and Haber can.
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Well, thats what haber said when he 'cured' george. But I was under the impression that the super augmentor had figured out all of george's effective dreaming brainwave patterns and thats what haber used to have his godlike first effective dream. The entire sequence where george interrupts the dream, or what ever happen there is not really explained in the movie and only visually described in the book. what happened there is completely up to the viewers interpretation. Maybe I will buy the DVD and see the extras to find out. Maybe there's some sort of Tao imagery going on there, I'm not sure. I do know that almost everything the aliens say is from the Tao.
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mentattodd
16 years ago
Not sure if you got around to buying the DVD or not since your message is a year old - but I just watched it and was a bit disappointed that there was hardly anything in the extras. There was a good interview with Ursula and in it she pretty much said what you said - it is all up to each individual's interpretation as to what really happened. She said she was not even sure what really happened.
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yagazuzi
16 years ago
I've always believed what we were watching, was George's dream as he lay dying of radiation poison, shown at the beginning of the movie.
I read the book too, still have it, but the movie(the PBS version) is priceless.
Chaos, Panic & Disorder! My work here is done.
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poofta1970
16 years ago
George does suggest to Haber that it would be good if everyone was doing it.
Perhaps the thought stuck in Haber's head and he dreamt that everyone had the power and the final dream is just George following his path through the collective grand Gestalt dream.
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