History Film / VanillaSky

* AsHimself: ConanOBrien makes a quick cameo. Spielberg's cameo might also be an example of this.

* LenoDevice: Benny the dog and his owner get interviewed by ConanOBrien.

* AbortedArc: [[spoiler: "The world is different now." unfortunately the viewer is never to see why or how.]]

* TropeMaker / OlderThanTheyThink: ''Vanilla Sky''[=/=]''Abre los Ojos'' beat ''{{Inception}}'' to the punch by [[strike:about nine]], more than ten years, in terms of exploring the idea of medically-induced lucid dreams.

Vanilla Sky is a 2001 psychological thriller starring TomCruise, and adapted and directed by Cameron Crowe. It is a close remake of the original Spanish ''Open Your Eyes'' (''Abre Los Ojos''), with the interesting fact that PenelopeCruz played the same character in both movies.

* IronicEcho: [[spoiler: Well, TheReveal is like this to a phrase said much, much earlier.]]
--> '''David''': My dreams are a cruel joke. They taunt me. Even in my dreams I'm an idiot... who knows he's about to wake up to reality. If I could only avoid sleep. But I can't. I try to tell myself what to dream. I try to dream that I am flying. Something free. It never works...
** One that could be interpreted as either this or a MeaningfulEcho: "I'll see you in another life, when we are both cats."

* LenoDevice: Benny the dog and his owner get interviewed by ConanOBrien.

* LighterAndSofter: Compared to the original ''Open Your Eyes'', which was darker, crueler and scarier. At least in terms of tone and characters.

Vanilla Sky is a 2001 psychological thriller starring TomCruise, and adapted and directed by Cameron Crowe. It is a close remake of the original Spanish ''Open Your Eyes'' (Abre Los Ojos), with the interesting fact that PenelopeCruz played the same character in both movies.

* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Sofia could be interpreted as such.

* TropeMaker / OlderThanTheyThink: ''Vanilla Sky''[=/=]''Abre los Ojos'' beat ''{{Inception}}'' to the punch by [[strike:about nine]] more than ten years, in terms of exploring the idea of medically-induced lucid dreams.

* RemakeCameo: As noted above, Penelope Cruz plays the same character she did in the original film. Additionally, the first words spoken in the film are "abre los ojos", the title of the original.

* StandardFiftiesFather: It is implied that David invented a father figure for himself [[spoiler:(Dr. [=McCabe=])]] in this mold, based on Gregory Peck in ''ToKillAMockingbird''. If you look closely in one scene, you can see the guard in the prison watching the movie on a television.

** "Tomorrow, I'll be dead." [[spoiler:From David's perspective, the following morning when Sofia wakes him up on the pavement is "tomorrow", but really he's already committed suicide and is inside a cryogenic chamber.]]

** "Tomorrow, I'll be dead."

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Subverte, leading to FridgeBrilliance. After the accident David mentions that, in addition to getting his face disfigured, he broke his arm, which affected his mobility thereof somewhat. He's later seen moving the arm in question rather awkwardly, and his medical team offer to do something about it when he complains about his facial disfigurement. Upon waking up the morning after the nightclub scene, however, his arm is never brought up again and he seems to have inexplicably regained full use of it, despite never receiving additional surgery on it. [[spoiler:This is a subtle hint that he is, in fact, dreaming.]]

* TextualCelebrityResemblance: In the nightclub, Sofia asks Brian where the bathroom is and he says it's over beside "the girl who looks like Creator/{{Bjork}}.

* [[spoiler:AllJustADream: An unusual example, in that different interpretations of the film tend to boil down not to whether the film is a dream or not, but rather to how ''much'' of it is. The most basic interpretation is that offered by tech support: after the nightclub scene, David never saw Sofia again, signed a contract with Life Extension and put himself into a coma in which he dreamed the events of the latter half of the film. The bizarre occurrences were glitches due to his repressed guilt over Julianna. In the end, David decides to wake up from the dream.]]

* [[spoiler:AllJustADream: An unusual example, in that different interpretations of the film tend to boil down not to whether the film is a dream or not, but rather to how ''much'' of it is.]]

* AllJustADream: [[spoiler:The ending explains that everything that has occurred after the nightclub. In real life, after that night, he signed a contract with a company that preserves its clients' bodies after death and keeps their brain waves active in lifelike virtual reality dreams, and then committed suicide. The bizarre occurrences are explained as glitches in the program. In the end, he decides to wake up from the dream program.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:

* ReferenceOverdosed: According to WordOfGod, there are 429 pop-culture references in the film, 428 of which were intentional. Bizarrely, many of these references actually directly influence the plot: [[spoiler: tech support explains that many of the characters and situations he created in his lucid dream were derived from the popular culture he experienced when younger]].

* ThrowItIn: The line "I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats" was something Penelope Cruz said to Cameron Crowe in a moment of frustration. He loved it so much he made it a key part of the movie.