MovieChat Forums > Life on Mars (2006) Discussion > Graveyard scene: He’s NOT crazy

Graveyard scene: He’s NOT crazy


The graveyard scene in the finale was obviously meant to make viewers (and Sam) question whether he is actually in a coma or just crazy. The problem is that it does not work; he is definitely in a coma. If he were simply crazy, that might explain a lot of thing, but not the presumably tremendous amount of knowledge of the future that he has attained over his 30-something years of life.

To believe that he just made it (all!) up would require believing that he is the most scientifically and artistically brilliant person in the history of the world. That is the only way he could have invented things like the notion of iPhones, Britney Spears (we heard her song Toxic), Margaret Thatcher becoming PM, and so on. Yes, brains invent a lot of stuff when we dream, but the massive number of details he would have known would be absurd (remember he knew who won the horse race).

That said, there is one, narrow scenario that could potentially work for the crazy theory: he did not actually know all the things that he has learned about the world from 1973-2006. Since viewers don’t have no access to his mind, we cannot know what he actually knows or not, so we could theoretically believe he’s crazy. However that would still be a stretch because Sam is aware of what he knows. In his place, I certainly would wonder how I came up with such a quantity of supposedly invented, yet detailed knowledge.

(Plus, if he really were just crazy in 1973, then he should jump at the opportunity to make a killing with all the future knowledge he has.)

reply

[deleted]

The graveyard scene in the finale was obviously meant to make viewers (and Sam) question whether he is actually in a coma or just crazy. The problem is that it does not work; he is definitely in a coma. If he were simply crazy, that might explain a lot of thing, but not the presumably tremendous amount of knowledge of the future that he has attained over his 30-something years of life.


Maybe Im not understanding your post but it sounds like you are of the belief he is in a coma and not crazy (that's what I think too). Is that what you are saying here?

Perhaps the writers even discredit the impression I got at the end: that he never came out of the coma. The train tunnel was a symbolic passage back, and like everything else in 1973, nothing more than a creation of his mind - he still believed it's what he wanted. At least for me it is more satisfying to believe his inability to feel anything was the clue he needed to realize he was still in a coma, free to pick either imagined reality. His jump from the roof was nothing more than a trigger (like the train tunnel) to switch back to the past, where he could feel real.


Wow. That never occurred to me. I need to reflect a little on this. Right now at this moment I like the he woke up from a coma but longed for 1973. But Give me some time, this idea certainly has some legs.

reply

Then how did they have his voice recordings/notes in ashes to ashes? He had to have come back to make those.

reply

I choose to believe that Sam never wakes out of his coma, and when he dies in the real world he symbolically jumps from the real world (jumping from the police station) to Gene's. For this plot to work, the ENTIRE beginning of Ashes (from opening scene to when she meets Gene and Co) must taks place in Alex's mind after the gunshot to her head, so the info about Sam is part of Gene's universe, not the real world.

reply