Please explain , Vanilla Sky?

Answer 1

It's really not that difficult. Vanilla Sky is a re-make of quite possibly a better movie, which posed the essential question about what constitutes reality? "I think therefore I am" is one of the most quoted philosophers statements. However, in an era of croygenics, it's possible for 'reality' to be replaced by a virtual reality, or a lucid dream, potentially without the individual's knowledge.

This theme, of 'what constitutes reality' is the stuff of movie-makers pay-dirt. It's at the heart of the Matrix trilogy and to a lesser extent, in the form of belief systems runs right the way through the Star Wars movies. In Star Wars, for example, Luke Skywalker can only use 'the force' once he truly believes in a version of reality in which the apparently impossible, is possible. The same theme occurs in the Matrix - Neo can only jump over buildings and defeat Agent Smith once he has the strength to define reality to shape his own purposes and the belief in himself to sustain it.

Vanilla Sky plays upon the theme of what constitutes reality, and poses it's central character with a choice. Does he want to live in a virtual reality in which everything is perfect, and every sky is a Vanillia Sky out of a Monet painting. Or, does he wish to be resurrected from the dead and to experience 'reality' for himself one more time, even though the things that have sustained him for the past 150 years, the settings, the people, the money simply won't exist for him any more. (Tom Cruises' character died 150 years earlier when he committed suicide after a disfiguring accident, and so most of the time of the movie is in fact a lucid dream state)

Ironically, a similar paradox is posed in the movie Donnie Darko, in which the central character has to decide whether it's better to experience one version of reality in which he has a relationship with a girl of his dreams, but has to subsequently die when an aircraft engine lands on him during the re-instatement of the time paradox that allowed it to occur in the first place. Or, whether it's better to not allow that version of reality to occur in the first place by removing himself from his bedroom even though he knows it's about to be destroyed by the impending loss of an aircraft engine on the flight his Mother's flying home on. (Incidentally, Donnie Darko is a truly ingenious movie and uses a plot device that so few people seem to truly understand). Donnie Darko chooses to put himself directly into the path of the falling aircraft engine, because in doing so, he maintains the version of reality in which he fell in love. Immediately that the aircraft engine kills him of course, the time paradox is resolved, and the person he fell in love with has no knowledge that he even existed in the first place, but all the other terrible things that happened in his version of reality are also wiped out.

Vanilla Sky is just another movie which poses the question 'what constitutes reality', and if you were given a perfect version of reality, could you actually tolerate it. The theme is reflected in the Matrix trilogy when the architect of the original matrix informs Neo that the first version of the matrix, which was perfect, was in fact rejected by its human inhabitants, and so it was reconstructed with greater flaws, such as crime, inhumanity etc and re-wound back to the state of the world in the 1980's, some hundreds of years earlier.

Alternate realities are just a plot device, that's all. They feature everywhere from Star Trek through Star Wars, the Matrix etc. Essentially, they're ways of making the movie-going public challenge their conception of reality and ask themselves the question of whether another version would be better. After all, we know through quantum physics that there are several parallel universes out there (think of the TV series quantum leap). Movies such as Vanilla Sky require us to ask ourselves In which one do we want to live?

Answer 2

The name is taken from the sky in a painting featured in the movie. The movie Vanilla Sky is a remake of the Spanish movie Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) which is a really good movie.

Answer 3

I watched this on Sunday. It's about a guy(Cruise) who has a stalker (Cameron Diaz) who ends up having an accident in a car and she dies but he lives but with terrible facial disfigurement. The night before the accident he meets a girl (Cruz) and falls head over heels for her, he leaves and then has the accident. He can't bear life with his disfigured face so he sees this ad on the Internet for a company that freezes your body until they find something that will cure you/fix you. He signs the contract. As part of the deal they implant dreams so you feel as though you are alive and having dreams while you are effectively dead. He dreams about Cruz and their nice life together but then he starts having nightmares and Cruz keeps turning into Diaz, he ends up killing her and being stuck in prison trying to remember what happened with a shrink (Kurt Russel). He remembers its the dream sequence, there was a malfunction, he can go back into the dream where he lives happily ever after with Cruz or wake up about 200 years after he died. He wakes up. You only find out it was a dream sequence at the end, it just seems like hes going mad or somebody is playing tricks on him!

There you go. Simple.

Answer 4

It's quite simple. He buys a 'life after death' in a dream world, but it sort of short circuits and he ends up in both lives - the real one with Julia and the dream one with Sofia, and he keeps switching between the two without knowing it, which is why he is so messed up. In the end he finds out that he bought this 'dream life' and decides he doesn't want it, jumps of the building to go back to the real world...

Answer 5

It's good film (Honest) - I liked the music too, anyway... (Deep breath)

The opening scene of the film he (David - Tom Cruise) is asleep and dreaming, and then wakes up. He meets Sophia (Cruz), and Julie (Diaz) gets Jealous. She follows him back to Sophia's flat and when he comes out takes him for a deathrace across town, crashes her car off a bridge kills herself and severly injures him.

When he finally comes around from the coma he is unable to deal with life, and after Sophia rejects him, he signs up with a company to freeze his body untill his injuries can be cured. (He then Kills himself)

Whilst frozen he dreams out a fantasy life here he actually does get the girl, but the dreams start to go wrong and when he finally realises what is actually happening (with the help of Tech Support and his dream Shrink) he decides to end the dream and return to real life.

In the last scene he is waking from being frozen (or is the whole film a dream from start to finish and he is actually waking from the dream at the start of the film) - You decide!

The music is one reason to watch this film. Others are Diaz saying the dirtiest line in Cinema history, and learning what a pleasure delayer is.

Answer 6

from my understanding, everything after the Night Club scene, where he passes out on the sidewalk, it's all a dream. Everything before the night club was real... it is confusing because some of the flashbacks are part of his dream. Kind of a hard movie to get, saw it only once and really don't plan to again.

Answer 7

Nope, even however i've got seen it 1000 instances, I somewhat have in no way paid any interest to the somewhat action picture, by using fact i'm too busy watching Penelope Cruz, and wishing i ought to kill Tom Cruise.

Answer 8

I like this movie! lol...and watched it yesterday as a matter of fact

Basically, this man is the last remaining member of this RICH family and is running the family buisness, he is quite young and the older guys in the buisness want to take it off him....he is quite a fun dude and he has a lot of women lol......anyhow one woman played by Cameron Diaz gets stalkerish over him, because he slept with her once and she can't stand seeing him with other women - The dude meets this other woman, called Sophia who his best friend is into, she is played by Penelope Cruz, and falls in love with her but Cameron Diaz' gets really pissed off about this and takes the man into her car and drives off a bridge with him in the car still, killing herself and maiming the dude.

The man goes into this mental breakdown because of his face and arm being messed up. He has surgery and wears this mark prostetic but is a completely different person to who he was before. He is mean and unhappy and has no fun now. As well as this, Sophia seems to be going off with the dudes best friend which doesnt help.

Anyhow slowly, things start to go weird, like the man has surgery on his face and looks normal but he has dreams like he is not okay, he sees Sophia and thinks she is the woman who was once stalking him, things go crazy and make no sense - he ends up killing Sophia in a blind panic because she looks like the stalker in his mind.

He is put into a mental institute and is talking to his phschologist (This is how the story is narrated too, from in the institute) - he is wearing the mask, though his face is fixed. Things go from bad to worse because his phychologist has to stop working with him, and it would seem he has been abandoned by the world.

Near the end of the movie, the man is taken to this building, where he finds out that there is this company called "Life Extensions" who are cryogenising people until a time when there is no disease and they can be cured of any medical problems they have.

At this point he is told about this option available called "Lucid Dreams" where a person is cryogenised but can still dream - the dream is controlled by their mind, all the elements are made in the mind of the person whos dream is was. The man, it turns out, had this option done on him, and was creating all these things in his mind, the sky is like the paining VANILLA SKY by Monet, his relationships like movies and photos he's seen ... it was all created, but things went wrong because he felt bad about what happened in his real life.....which was up to the moment when he thought Sophia and his best friend were dating. He felt bad about not being nicer to the woman who killed herself and saw her in Sophia because of this. Everything in the dream went into a nightmare, and at this point, he has a choice.....either he can have his 'Lucid Dream' restarted or be un-cryogenised.

It has been 150 years since he was frozen, though....all his life has gone, Sophia in real life has died, as have all his friends...but in real life, he never killed Sophia, and he is told that Sophia was in love with him when she was alive. He has the choice, start life again or start the dream again..

He chooses real life....in the FuTuRe! lol

Answer 9

nononononoooo!

Very silly movie. I couldn't survive to the end. Think I put the kettle on, went on Answers, something like that. I think this is where both Cruise and Cruz discovered "annoying".

PS I was told in a creative writing class that ending a story with "and then he woke up and it was all a dream" was a sin bigger than putting ketchup on food cooked by your boss's mother in law.

Answer 10

It's about somebody who is experiencing a malfunctiion during a lucid dream; while being frozen so that they can be brought to life in the future.