YMMV / Brainstorm

• Award Snub: A film like this should have guaranteed Academy Awards buzz, especially for its visual effects, cinematography and music score.
• Awesome Music: James Horner, as usual. This was his second major Hollywood project after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Interestingly, the score is unlike Horner's usual style, resembling Alan Silvestri's oeuvre.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Yes, Michael accomplished what he set out to do. Project Brainstorm's production line and tape library have been trashed, he has reconciled with his wife, their son is going to recover, he knows his friend Lillian has gone to Heaven and death isn't something to fear. But, he still has some very dangerous (and unhappy) people who might have traced his current location and could be coming for him as the credits began to roll. He, Karen and their friends have just trashed tens of millions of dollars worth of company property, have broken numerous laws and at best only set back Project Brainstorm by a few years. Even if whatever final command—"Goodnight"—might wipe out any software on the lab computer (or destroy it), the group still has all of Lillian's and Michael's paper notes, source code and schematics along with already-produced hardware and almost all the existing tapes in the library including Lillian's.
  • On the other hand, Jenkins and his group have broken just as many laws and could face scrutiny by the Government if Project Brainstorm became public.
  • Plus their chief reseacher is still a hack.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The military's idea of using the technology for psych warfare and torture seems less like science fiction, since The War on Terror.
  • The actor playing the character who died of a heart attack while watching Lily's tape would later die young of a heart attack.
  • At the end, Karen thought that Michael had died. It was a close call, in-universe. In Real Life, though, Natalie Wood died. Who saw her shortly before she died? Both Christopher Walken (Michael) and her husband Robert Wagner.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Michael's gift to Karen. Making the scene a tearjerker is that it was the last scene shot of Wood before her death.
    Karen: What is it?
    Michael: It's me.
    • And the subsequent memories we see. Not to mention one particular positive use of "The Hat". Karen records herself playing piano, we then see Michael playing.
    Michael: I never thought I could do this.
  • A small scene where, after the night that Michael and Karen reconcile, their son Chris discovers them and is happy to see them back together.
  Chris: Hi Dad.
  Michael: Hiya sport.
  Chris: (smiles) I knew you couldn't live without us.
  • The phone call that immediately follows the above scene. The next scene, we see Michael and Karen racing over to Hal's house and parking right on the lawn before rushing inside. While Karen comforts Hal's wife, Michael checks on Hal, finds out what's going on and shuts the loop off. Michael doesn't judge or say a word, but just comforts the guy as he comes back.
  • Michael smiles at how much he apparently meant to Lillian during the "good" parts of her memories of her life as she died. Also of note is that when Lillian suffers her heart attack, she immediately calls Michael and he in turn comes running.
  • When Michael visits Hal, the latter gives him a hearty hug and vows to do what he can to help him.
  • Michael reaching the end of the recording and knowing that his friend had made it to heaven and that one day he and everyone he loved will go there too.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The film ends with the line "Look at the stars!" Trumbull's next film, 2010: The Year We Make Contact opens with the line, "My God... it's full of stars!"
  • A tape that kills anyone who watches it isn't a new idea.
  • Michael finding Heaven at the center of the Milky Way.
  • This film features a brief glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge plus Christopher Walken petting a horse and wearing a hard hat. Wait a minute...
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Lillian, in her dying moments, recording her death in the name of science.
  • The really cool effects people got to experience.
• Narm: The sequence in which Michael hacks all of the robots on the production line in order to disrupt the output of more Hats. The robots engage in various hijinks and even mock the military men caught up in all of it, despite not being sentient or autonomous. The whole scene is almost cartoonish and feels out of place with the rest of the film.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • What the government group is doing with Project Brainstorm. This is just what is seen from Michael's POV on his terminal:
    PROJECT BRAINSTORM
    TECHNICAL EVALUATION SERIES - CLASSIFIED
    WARNING:    THESE ARE FULL SENSORY TAPES AND CAN BE EXTREMELY HARMFUL TO USERS
    
    TAPE INDEX —> COERCIVE IMPRINTING SERIES
    
    FEAR STATES
    EARLY TRAUMA - RANDOM
    EARLY TRAUMA - SELECTED
    DREAM STATES - NEG AND POS
    PHYSICAL PAIN THRESHOLD SERIES
    [SUBDIVISION - MODERATE TO HIGH]
    
    CATALYST SERIES - ANXIETY STATES
    [MODERATE TO INTENSE]
    NEGATIVE MEMORY RETRIEVAL
    [MODERATE TO EXTREME]
    PSYCHOTIC EPISODE
    [SUBDIVISION - MODERATE TO EXTREME]
    
    • Note that all those tapes had to be created from a real person who had been mentally ill and/or tortured. In other words, the group deliberately inflicted physical and emotional agony on some poor soul(s) to create those tapes.
    • And that's just one series of tapes. While the robotic autoloader is grabbing the "Psychotic" episode tape, the hand-written label above it says "TOXIC B1-Z", "SEQUENCE OSCAR" followed by "REMINISCE / SPIDERS".
  • Then we have Michael and later Chris playing "Psychotic Episode". Landan's introduction is quite chilling in how calm and straightforward he is. We then briefly see the actual person they recorded restrained in a chair and suffering a psychotic episode.
• Tearjerker:
  • Michael telling Natalie Wood's character "Look at the stars!", which is the last line of the film. "Heaven" is depicted as being in space, and Wood died during shooting, giving the line additional poignancy.
  • The very first successful test that records emotion has Michael playing back a snippet of Karen's thoughts. We find that Michael has been ignoring Karen and has been dismissive and rude. For the first time, he feels those things for himself which triggers his Character Development and makes him take a long look in the mirror.
  • Lillian's death from a heart attack. Her pained "Mike" was the only word she could get out. She had called him over the phone and though we don't hear him, one could only imagine the worry he would have as he raced over.
  • Chris accidentally playing the "toxic" tape and his father finding him and breaking down crying. At least he gets better.
    • Of particular note that's both a tearjerker and nightmare fuel is exactly what that "toxic" tape labeled "Psychotic Episode" is. According to an introduction by Landan, the tape "transforms your subconscious fears to your conscious awareness". For Chris, he apparently considered his father a selfish scary man who forcibly straps him into a chair and tortures him with a monstrous version of "The Hat".
  • Gordy's death when he is plugged into the death tape. He's clearly suffering from the biofeedback. Even before his death, we see him turned from an enthusiastic and fun-loving lab geek into a sullen and emotionless robot who doesn't even voice an objection to spying on his friends no doubt thanks to the group's experiments.
• Vindicated by Cable: The film was a Box Office Bomb, making only $10M in the box office with a budget of $18M. However, HBO helped make it Vindicated by History.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: It was directed by special-effects master Douglas Trumbull, so this shouldn't be surprising. For a film shot in 1981, the effects have not aged at all.

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