History Film / Brainstorm

* AdultFear: Finding your curious child had hooked him up to a machine that is inducing a psychotic break because you had foolishly left the system on and tape cued up. We even get to see what happens inside Chris' mind. He has a vision of his father forcibly strapping him into a ''very'' scary-looking chair and in a monstrous-looking version of his lab.

-->'''Michael''': What are you DOING?! Take that off! (yanks off the headset and hugs his son, voice breaking) Chris? (crying) Don't scare me.

* BrokenBird: At the start of the film, [[spoiler: Gordy]], who works as a test subject for Michael and Lillian, is pretty laid back and enthusiastic. By the time of his death, he's emotionless and doesn't question being plugged in to observe his friend's death tape.

-->'''Dr. Landon Marks''': I think we got it... (suddenly the lights and power in the lab goes out while the computer continues to function)

-->'''Dr. Landon Marks''': Goooooodddd damn ''HIM!'' (goes to yank on some delicate cabling on the lab computer)
-->'''Alex Terson''': (calmly) Let go Landon. Just let go.
-->'''Dr. Landon Marks''': (he comes to his senses and just sits down).

* AngerBornOfWorry: Michael finds his son Chris had put on a headset and was playing back one of the "toxic" tapes that his father had come across. It quickly breaks down to tears.

* CuttingTheKnot: When the electronic locks end up jammed, they break through the doors with fire extinguishers and furniture and a gas-powered grinder to cut through a lock. They also try cutting power to the lab computer and production line when they can't regain control.

The remainder of the story revolves around Michael honoring his late friend. He's determined to finish playing a particular tape that his colleague and friend, Lillian, had made of her own death from a heart attack, and he attempts every effort to be able to see it because the tape doesn't end with her death - it keeps recording her experience as she enters the afterlife.

* BloodyBowelsOfHell: Michael sees a brief vision of this on Lillian's tape.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Alex Terson ''tries'' to be this throughout the film. He encourages his people to innovate and is supportive. Later, when the group that funded the project starts to take over, he does his best to keep things on track and the original developers in the loop. But as the group takes more and more control, he finds himself overridden and outmatched by both sides. He does regain some small measure of reasonable authority in the end when he calmly stops Landon from trashing the lab computer out of frustration.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Alex Terson ''tries'' to be this throughout the film. He encourages his people to innovate and is supportive. However, later when the group that funded the project starts to take over, he tries to keep things on track and the original developers in the loop. But as the group takes more and more control--Lillian dies, Michael's personal experiments get increasingly dangerous, and the group unwittingly causes a death--he finds himself overridden and outmatched by both sides.

** The security people Jenkins has following Michael and Karen are total incompetents. For starters, they fail to notice the two large hard-sided cases containing two very specialized computer terminals. They completely buy the couple's staged "blow-out" and subsequent make-up phone call and keep watching Michael and allow Karen to leave their sight.

** Jenkins has a technician actively monitoring the computer system. He caught Michael and immediately called in Jenkins. They were fully aware of Michael's first break in to Project Brainstorm. They could've simply locked him out but instead just let him go right in--Jenkins wanted to see how far he gets and how good he is--and find out everything about the project. Jenkins even allows him to play one of the "toxic" tapes despite it serving no purpose other than to further violate security and a KickTheDog moment that ultimately backfires.
** Later on when Jenkins has people following Brace, they buy the couple's staged "blow-out" and subsequent make-up phone call. They completely ignore Karen and allow her to hack into Xavier / Xian's computers and wreak havoc. The people shadowing Michael and Karen also fail to notice the two large hard-sided cases containing two very specialized computer terminals.

-->'''Dr. Landon Marks''': Arggh, god damn him! (goes to yank on some delicate cabling on the lab computer)

-->'''Dr. Landon Marks''': (he comes to his senses, complies and just sits down).

* PhoneTraceRace: When Jenkins realizes that the Michael has to be hacking everything from telephone contact with the lab computer, he has Dr. Landon Marks do a phone trace. It's subverted as Michael doesn't know or care about the trace. Though they do get a phone number and solid location, it's not established whether that's the payphone Michael is using or Hal's home phone as there are two active phone connections to the lab computer at the same time.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Alex Terson ''tries'' to be this throughout the film. He encourages his people to innovate and is supportive. However, later when the group that funded the project starts to take over, he tries to keep things on track and the original developers in the loop. But as the group takes more and more control, Lillian dies, Michael's personal experiments get increasingly dangerous, and the group unwittingly causes a death, he finds himself overridden and outmatched by both sides.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: During the above PhoneTraceRace, Jenkins' people are able to trace the phone call to a specific phone number in the area where Michael might be, but it's not clear if the call they traced came from the payphone at the Wright Brother's Memorial or Hal's land line at the country club.[[note]]There is at least one country club located in the Kill Devil Hills area on the Outer Banks making it plausible that Landon traced the wrong call.[[/note]]

** This is justified somewhat as Xavier / Xian is a cutting edge technology company and the lab computer, production line and locks were all networked together; a round-the-clock security technician was supposed to actively monitor the equipment and intervene in the event of a breach. On top of which, Dr. Landon Marks, the project leader that replaced Michael (whom Lillian describes as a "hack") doesn't entirely understand how the technology works. It also helps that Michael is one of the people who actually built the Lab Computer in the first place and would know exactly how to access everything.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: During the above PhoneTraceRace, Jenkins' people are able to trace the phone call to a specific phone number in the area where Michael might be, but it's not clear if the call they traced came from the payphone at the Wright Brother's Memorial or Hal's land line at the country club.[[note]]There is at least one country club located on the outer banks and Hal and his wife were last seen executing a final command on their still-connected terminal.[[/note]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: During the above PhoneTraceRace, Jenkins' people are able to trace the phone call to a specific phone number in the area where Michael might be, but it's not clear if the call they traced came from the payphone at the Wright Brother's Memorial or Hal's land line at the golf club.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: During the above PhoneTraceRace, Jenkins' people are able to trace the phone call to a specific phone number in the area where Michael might be, but it's not known if the call they traced came from the payphone or Hal's home phone.

* ArmiesAreEvil: The government group with clearly military connections are very interested in the technology for use in defense and training programs -- [[MindProbe as also a means of psychological torture.]]

* BrainComputerInterface: The Hat is this, allowing people to review other people's memories.

** Also justified in that the lab computer had to be networked and accessible remotely as all the terminals relied on it to process the recording and playback of the tapes. Michael and Karen use that computer to not only play Lillian's tape but to get into all the other systems. It's Jenkins who realizes that they must be making telephone contact through that system and asks for a phone trace.

** Jenkins has a technician actively monitoring the computer system. He caught Michael and immediately called in Jenkins. They were fully aware of Michael's first break in to Project Brainstorm. They could've simply locked him out but instead just let him go right in (to see how good he is) and find out everything about the project. Jenkins even allows him to play one of the "toxic" tapes despite it serving no purpose other than to further expose the project and a KickTheDog moment that ultimately backfires.
** Later on when Jenkins has people following Brace, they buy the couple's staged "blow-out" and subsequent make-up phone call. They completely ignore Karen and allow her to hack into Xavier / Xian's computers and wreak havok. The people shadowing Michael and Karen also fail to notice the two large hard-sided cases containing two very specialized computer terminals.
** That same technician seems to be the only person monitoring ''everything'' at Xavier / Xian. So he and Jenkins are completely focused on surveilling Michael and completely ignore Karen and their friends.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: During the above PhoneTraceRace, Jenkins' people are able to trace the phone call to a specific phone number in the area where Michael might be, but it's not known if they have the right caller.

** This is justified somewhat as Xavier / Xian is a cutting edge technology company and the lab computer, production line and locks were all networked together; a round-the-clock security technician was supposed to actively monitor the equipment and intervene in the event of a breach. On top of which, Dr. Landon, the project leader that replaced Michael (whom Lillian describes as a "hack") doesn't entirely understand how the technology works. It also helps that Michael is one of the people who actually built the Lab Computer in the first place and would know exactly how to access everything.

* PhoneTraceRace: When Jenkins realizes that the Michael has to be hacking everything from telephone contact with the lab computer, he has Dr. Landon do a phone trace. It's subverted as Michael doesn't know or care about the trace. Though they do get a phone number and solid location, it's not established whether that's the payphone Michael is using or Hal's home phone as there are two active phone connections to the lab computer at the same time.

** Also justified in that the lab computer had to be networked and accessible remotely as all the terminals relied on it to process the recording and playback of the tapes. Michael and Karen use that computer to not only play Lillian's tape but to get into all the other systems. It's Jenkins that realizes that they must be making telephone contact through that system and asks for a phone trace.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: During the above PhoneTraceRacde, Jenkins' people are able to trace the phone call to a specific phone number in the area where Michael might be, but it's not known if they have the right caller.

** Later on when Jenkins has people following Brace, they buy the couple's staged "blow-out" and subsequent make-up phone call. They completely ignore Karen and allow her to hack into Xavier / Xian's computers and wreak havok. The people shadowing Michael and Karen also fail to notice the two silver hard-sided cases containing two very specialized computer terminals.

* ScientistVersusSoldier: The Hat project is taken over by the military once it's been perfected and ordered to be mass-produced for military training and [[MindRape enhanced interrogation]] [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique for intelligence purposes]].

* EverythingIsOnline: The "Project Brainstorm" facilities -- everything, including security doors, the build line for the Hats and terminals, fire control, and the memory tape library -- can be accessed by Michael through a couple of portable terminals and acoustic couplers. What is crazier is that in the middle act of the film he tries to access Lillian's recording and we see that part of the memory library has a human operator that must physically turn the reader and its auto loader on, but when he hacks into the facility at the climax, not only is he able to raise all kinds of hell and destroy the Brainstorm production line, but he's also able to order the computer to play Lillian's recording automatically while keeping people from entering the library to prevent it and spoofing a PhoneTraceRace.
** This is justified somewhat as Xavier / Xian is a cutting edge technology company and the lab computer, production line and locks were all networked and accessible via the phone lines; a round-the-clock security technician was supposed to actively monitor the equipment and intervene in the event of a breach. On top of which, Dr. Landon, the project leader that replaced Michael (whom Lillian describes as a "hack") doesn't entirely understand how the technology works. It also helps that Michael is one of the people who actually built the Lab Computer in the first place and knows how everything is connected.
** Also justified in that the lab computer had to be networked and accessible remotely as all the terminals relied on it to process the recording and playback of the tapes. Michael and Karen use that computer to get into all the other systems and it's lampshaded by Jenkins that they must be making telephone contact through that system.
** It's also TruthInTelevision in that some vendors install electronic locking and CCTV systems and set them up incorrectly making them ''fully accessible from the Internet''. The same is true of automated production lines and electrical control systems. This is decades before hacking was a concern and the Internet was common. On the other hand, we are talking about a Government group whose project leader is a "hack" and air gapping those systems from one another didn't occur to them.

** Jenkins has a technician actively monitoring the computer system. He caught Michael and immediately called in Jenkins. They were fully aware of Michael's first break in to Project Brainstorm. They could've simply locked him out but instead just let him go right in (to see how good he is) and find out everything about the project. Jenkins even allows him to play one of the "toxic" tapes despite it serving no purpose other than to further expose the project and a KickTheDog moment.
** Later on when Jenkins has people following Brace, they buy the couple's staged "blow-out" and subsequent make-up phone call. They completely ignore Karen and allow her to hack into Xavier / Xian's computers and wreak havok.
** That same technician seems to be the only person monitoring ''everything'' at Xavier / Xian. So he and Jenkins are completely focused on surveilling Michael and ignore Karen and their friends.

* EverythingIsOnline: The "Project Brainstorm" facilities -- everything, including security doors, the build line for the Hats and terminals, fire control, and the memory tape library -- can be accessed by Michael through his portable terminal and an acoustic coupler. What is crazier is that in the middle act of the film he tries to access Lillian's recording and we see that part of the memory library has a human operator that must physically turn the reader and its auto loader on, but when he hacks into the facility at the climax, not only is he able to raise all kinds of hell and destroy the Brainstorm production line, but he's also able to order the computer to play Lillian's recording automatically while keeping people from entering the library to prevent it and spoofing a PhoneTraceRace.
** This is justified somewhat as Xavier / Xian is a cutting edge technology company and the mainframe computer, production line and locks were all networked and accessible via the phone lines; a round-the-clock security technician was supposed to actively monitor the equipment and intervene in the event of a breach. On top of which, Dr. Landon, the project leader that replaced Michael (whom Lillian describes as a "hack") doesn't entirely understand how the technology works. It also helps that Michael is one of the people who actually built the Lab Computer in the first place and knows how everything works.
** Also, the Lab Computer had to be networked and accessible remotely as all the terminals relied on it to process the recording and playback of the tapes.
** It's also TruthInTelevision in that some vendors install electronic locking and CCTV systems and set them up incorrectly making them ''fully accessible from the Internet''. On the other hand, we are talking about a Government group whose project leader is a "hack".
** The same is true of automated production lines and electrical control systems. This is decades before hacking was a concern and the Internet was common.

** This is justified somewhat as Xavier / Xian is a cutting edge technology company and the mainframe computer, production line and locks were all networked and accessible via the phone lines; a round-the-clock security technician was supposed to actively monitor the equipment and intervene. On top of which, the project leader that replaced Michael (which Lillian describes as a hack) doesn't entirely understand how the technology works.

** It's all but clear that this is what motivates [[spoiler:Lillian]] to record her death.

** This is justified somewhat as Xavier / Xian is a cutting edge technology company and the mainframe computer, production line and locks were all networked and accessible via the phone lines; a round-the-clock security technician was supposed to actively monitor the equipment and intervene. On top of which, the project leader that replaced Michael (which Lillian describes as a hack) is utterly incompetent at securing anything and probably made various changes off-screen that only made things easier for Michael to play the tape.
** Also, the Lab Computer had to be networked and accessible as all the terminals relied on it to process the recording and playback of the tapes.
** It's also TruthInTelevision in that some vendors install electronic locking and CCTV systems and set them up incorrectly making them ''fully accessible'' from the Internet. We are talking about a Government group whose project leader is a "hack".

** Jenkins has a technician actively monitoring the computer system. He caught Michael and immediately called in Jenkins. They were fully aware of Michael's first break in to Project Brainstorm. They could've simply locked him out but instead just let him go right in (to see how good he is) and find out everything about the project. Jenkins even allows him to play one of the "toxic" tapes despite it only violating the security of the project even further.
** Later on when Jenkins has people following Brace, they buy the couple's staged "blow-out" and subsequent make-up phone call despite the fact that they already knew everything and Michael was planning to do ''something''.
** That same technician seems to be the only person monitoring everything at Xavier / Xian. So he and Jenkins are completely focused on surveilling Michael and ignore Karen's hacking.

Michael's curious son plays it and has a psychotic break that sends him to the hospital.

The lab's general manager, Alex Terson (Cliff Robertson), wants them to develop a recording that would "knock his socks off," so they do, developing one where it shows some amazing experiences, including eating, hang gliding, flying a jet, driving a race car and riding a roller coaster. The people funding the lab are, shall we say, very impressed, because apparently it has significant uses in a variety of fields.
Later we get the obligatory {{Anvilicious}} sermon because we find out that the military is funding the lab to develop new ways to do a variety of horrible things.

The remainder of the story revolves around Michael. He's determined to finish playing a particular tape that his colleague and friend, Lillian, had made of her own death from a heart attack, and he attempts every effort to be able to see it because the tape doesn't end with her death - it keeps recording her experience as she enters the afterlife.

During the first playback, the management decides to have someone monitor the tape Walken is experiencing. A technican tries to warn their project leader about the changes Michael had made to his output but is ignored, and their test subject dies of a heart attack. Michael eventually is able to play the tape in its entirety before waking up from it, overwhelmed and touched.

* AnotherMansTerror: When Michael plays back Lillian's final recording, he experiences everything she did when she died. And as Michael says himself, "It's a chance to take a scientific look at the scariest thing a person ever has to face."
* AppliedPhlebotinum: The video "tape" used to record a full virtual reality experience, like an optical film, about four inches wide.
* ArmiesAreEvil: The military is very interested in the technology for use in defense and training programs -- [[MindProbe as also a means of psychological torture.]]

* BrokenBird: At the start of the film, [[spoiler: Gordy]], who works as a test subject, is pretty laid back and enthusiastic. By the time of his death, he's emotionless and doesn't question being plugged in to observe his friend's death tape.

* CassetteFuturism: The equipment of Project Brainstorm is huge, with the "portable" terminals being the size of a large suitcase and equipped with acoustic couplers, and the recordings being on huge reels of silver computer tape.

Dr. Michael Brace (Creator/ChristopherWalken), Lillian Reynolds (Creator/LouiseFletcher), and Michael's wife/co-worker Karen Brace (Wood), develop a device called "The Hat", which can videotape one's experiences while you're having them, then play the tape back to anyone.

The lab's general manager, Alex (Cliff Robertson), wants them to develop a recording that would "knock his socks off," so they do, developing one where it shows some amazing experiences, including eating, hang gliding, and riding a roller coaster. The people funding the lab are, shall we say, very impressed, because apparently it has significant uses in teaching people too. Of course, later we get the obligatory {{Anvilicious}} sermon because we find out that the military is funding the lab to develop new ways to train soldiers.

The movie goes on to push other problems with the development of this technology, some good, some bad. The consequences of being able to receive others' experiences is not always so good. During the film, one of Michael's co-worker's becomes addicted to the bootleg video where another co-worker taped himself and his girlfriend having sex. One particular tape was so bad, so black that it would cause psychosis if you saw it; of course, his curious son plays it and has a psychotic break that sends him to the hospital.

Michael's hypocrisy of becoming addicted to seeing a particular video becomes evident when his colleague, Lillian, videotapes her own death from a heart attack, and he attempts every effort to be able to see it because the tape doesn't end with her death - it keeps recording her experience as she enters the afterlife. The management decides to have someone monitor the tape Walken is watching, and despite the warning to disable the feelies, goes ahead and runs it straight, and nearly drops dead of a heart attack before waking up from it, overwhelmed and touched.

An interesting effect of this is, the experiences, which required a kind of very shiny metallic-optical tape about four inches wide, could be transmitted using an acoustical coupler modem over a phone line going to a pay phone. So we're not talking about DSL, folks. That's right, [[TechnologyMarchesOn they can do the entire virtual reality experience over a voice-grade line at about 23590 bps!]][[note]]Then again, they're only taking a ''few'' kilobytes of data, since there's no translation, just where and when the simulation occurs on the brain.[[/note]]

A well-known TroubledProduction due to Natalie Wood's tragic death in 1981 before the film was finished. The film was nearly canned by the studio, but director Douglas Trumbull said the film could still be completed, and it took about two more years of re-shoots and editing to work things out and finish the movie before it was finally released in 1983. The stress of finishing the film after Wood's death pushed the director away from moviemaking as well. It's an interesting film nonetheless, even if the idea that they can do a full virtual-reality experience, video, sound, touch, smell, taste and even ''sex'', over the bandwidth available ''on a telephone'' was a big stretch of the willing suspension of disbelief.