This article is about the David Cronenberg movie. At present, we do not have an article on the computer hardware, nor do we really need one.
Scanning is not mind-reading. It is the merging of two nervous systems, separated by space.
— Dr. Paul Ruth
A drifter is arrested at a train station for, somehow, putting a woman into convulsions.
A seminar attendee evades arrest for
blowing up the speaker's head.
The drifter, Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), is delivered into the custody of Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan of
The Prisoner), who informs him that he is a scanner. A scanner is a person born with a derangement of their brain, giving them
telepathy. They can scan you. Unfortunately, this telepathy is very much of the
Blessed With Suck variety: most scanners can hear your thoughts,
and can't block them out. They get
Psychic Nosebleeds. They can alter your bodily functions. A particularly powerful one, like
Big Bad Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside) can
blow up your head.
Revok is a psychotic
scanner-supremacist who wants to
Take Over The World (reportedly, some of the later characterization for
Magneto was based on him), and, with his terrorist sect of scanners, probably could. Now the question remains: Is Vale a badder dude than Revok?
Scanners is
David Cronenberg's 1981 sci-fi thriller outing, full of the standard Cronenberg trademarks: brilliant special effects, constant unease, the battle between mind and body, and of course, generous helpings of
Body Horror.
Scanners provides examples of:
- All Of The Other Reindeer
- Anti Hero
- Authority Equals Ass Kicking (The scanner terrorists' leader is one of the most powerful scanners around)
- Badass Longcoat (Cameron Vale)
- Bald Of Evil (Revok's hair is thinning a bit.)
- Bizarre Baby Boom
- Blessed With Suck
- Brain Bleach (Revok tried to drill a hole in his skull to let the voices out. This is referenced in X Men 2)
- Berserk Button (Don't tell Revok he sounds like Dr. Ruth. Even though Dr. Ruth has one of the coolest voices ever.)
- Bizarre Baby Boom
- Calling The Old Man Out ("That was Daddy.")
- Canada Eh (Pierce lives in a cabin in the woods, and Revok and Keller can be seen meeting at what is clearly the Yorkdale subway station in Toronto. Both Cronenberg and Michael Ironside are Torontonians.)
- The Chosen One (Vale. Chosen by Ruth.)
- Crazy Awesome
- Deconstructor Fleet
- Duel To The Death (A Body Horror version of this happens at the end of the film and a pretty awesome one, too. "Awesome" in both the slang and literal senses of the word.)
- Dull Surprise (Cameron has no personality whatever, which makes Stephen Lack's job easily mistaken for simple bad acting.)
- Establishing Character Moment (Revok's famous opening scene)
- Evil Is Cool (Revok, that Magnificent Bastard)
- Explosive Instrumentation (Kinda justified)
- Eye Scream (Ewwwww.)
- Fetus Terrible (A major clue in unravelling the mystery)
- Heroic BSOD / Villainous BSOD (Some kinda BSOD, anyway, is suffered by Dr. Ruth)
- The Heros Journey (Deliberately set up by Dr. Ruth)
- Hilarious In Hindsight ("Nobody's ever shut down a scanner before.")
- In Medias Res ( We eventually learn that Vale has been "on ice" for his entire life.)
- Left Hanging ( Either Vale successfully pulled off a Grand Theft Me on Revok, or Revok successfully ate Vale's consciousness.)
- Mad Artist (Inverted by Benjamin Pierce, whose art keeps him sane. Well, sane-ish. Although his art is pretty friggin' weird.)
- Master Of Illusion (Obrist briefly causes a security guard to collapse in tears by turning into his mother.)
- Mind Rape
- The Mole ( Braedon Keller)
- Names To Run Away From Really Fast (Vale, Revok)
- Present Day: (Unusually for a film about super-psychics, this doesn't take place in the future.)
- Psychic Nosebleed (Quite possibly the Trope Maker)
- Psychic Powers (Well duh!)
- Psycho Serum (Ephemerol)
- Power Incontinence
- Puberty Superpower
- Red Right Hand (Revok's Scar)
- The Reveal ( At the end, Revok reveals that both he and Vale are the sons of Dr. Ruth.)
- Self Made Orphan (Benjamin Pierce tried this)
- Sequelitis (The sequels did not involve any of the original cast or crew. And there is a remake coming... from the Saw guy.)
- Bond James Bond ("Revok! Darryl Revok!")
- Stuff Blowing Up (When Vale is disconnected from the computer, both the computer and the gas station from where Vale hacked into it.)
- Technopath (Vale psychically hacks a computer.)
- True Art Is Incomprehensible (Subverted: Pierce's art at first looks like this, but if you know he's a scanner, it all makes sense.)
- Utopia Justifies The Means (Revok seems to believe this)
- We Can Rule Together
- Wicked Cultured - A moderate example: Revok has a nice, tasteful apartment with some interesting modern art, where he is seen drinking Scotch toward the end.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity
- White Haired Pretty Girl (Kim Obrist is prematurely grey)
- Your Head A Splode (The Most Triumphant Example)
