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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Dr. Paul Ruth. While the revelation near the end indicates he's clearly a Mad Scientist and Abusive Parent who was willing to experiment on his own family, it's not really clear what became of his wife. Maybe she died in childbirth or maybe they just divorced, but it's not inconceivable that either of his psychic sons might have something to do with her absence. This would lend a lot more weight to Ruth's apparent resentment of Revok and Vale.
  • Awesome Music: Courtesy of regular Cronenberg collaborator Howard Shore. For a sample, here's the main theme.
  • Complete Monster: Braedon Keller is ConSec's treacherous head of security, secretly allied with rogue scanner Darryl Revok. Keller manipulates his position to gain security clearance for Revok, allowing him to commit devastating terrorist attacks, while weeding out anyone who might get in their way. When Revok's father, Dr. Paul Ruth, clues into their plot to drug pregnant women to create a scanner army, Keller gleefully takes permission from a reluctant Revok to kill Ruth and later goes against Revok's orders to attempt to kill Revok's brother Cameron Vale. With no regard for the lives he wastes, and none of Revok's regrets or redeeming qualities, Keller is prepared to help plunge the world into psychic bloodshed at the hands of Revok's scanner army to enjoy power and prestige in the new world order.
  • Evil Is Cool: Darryl Revok is a powerful psychic with a dream and plan to build an empire. He's also not hesitant to get into the fray, performing a daring infiltration of ConSec in order to embarrass them and assassinate the only scanner they have.
  • First Installment Wins: Did you know there's four more Scanners films? No? Not surprising, considering the sequelitis.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • "Nobody's ever 'switched off' a scanner before."
    • Arguably also the name of Dr. Ruth, considering this was just before that Dr. Ruth started becoming more well-known. Cronenberg possibly knew about her, as the Dr. Ruth in Scanners was once a biochemist researching drugs for pregnant women.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Darryl Revok is a powerful and dangerous scanner who seeks revenge on the society that created him, in particular his creator and father, Dr. Paul Ruth. Revok infiltrates a meeting at the weapons company ConSec to embarrass them publicly and eliminate the only other scanner still working for them, using his psychic powers to wipe out the security detail detaining him and escape. Together with his ally, ConSec security head Braedon Keller, Revok usurps control over the company's subsidiary Biocarbon Amalgamate to have them produce Ephemerol in huge quantities. Revok plans to create a whole new generation of scanners by prescribing the mutative drug to pregnant women and recruit them as his foot soldiers. Meanwhile, Revok actively seeks out his long-lost brother, Cameron Vale, so they can rule their new scanner empire together.
  • Memetic Mutation: The infamous Your Head A-Splode scene is frequently used as a reaction image, especially on Cracked and the late Topless Robot.
  • Narm: The sequels increasingly narm things up in general. Scanner duels also seem to gradually devolve into "whoever makes the weirdest face wins".
  • Sequelitis: The sequels did not involve any of the original cast or crew, and rapidly decrease in quality.
  • Signature Scene: Most people nowadays have heard of this movie because it's "that movie with the exploding head", and if they're watching it, it's so they can see the part with the exploding head.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome:
    • Dick Smith's makeup effects are still very impressive over thirty years after the film's release.
    • And, of course, the exploding head by Chris Walas, fresh off of doing similar effects for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • Watch It for the Meme: Many have sat down to watch the film purely for the head explosion scene.

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