You know it is strange, there are two movies out that take this tack,
both apparently after the original 'Forbidden Planet'.
Sphere (with the sucky Dustin Hoffman acting job) involved an alien
artefact that let peoples thoughts manifest what happened around them.
Of course, they don't realize what is happening until their own thoughts
nearly kill them, particularly the one character who was reading Moby
Dick and when dreaming was manifesting all kinds of deep sea terrors.
Dark City was much more intriguing, with a bunch of humans living in an
artificial environment which was maintained and controlled (invisibly to
them) by a group of aliens studying human responses to various
situations and through injectable emotional filters. They called the
ability 'Q' and the act was referred to as 'tuning'. At midnight, all
time would stop, the aliens (inhabiting dead human bodies), would remove
specific people, inject a new pattern of memories and emotions into
them, then they would gather to collectively reformat the entire
structure of the city to match the new memories. The city would evolve
and change, morphing into an entirely different pattern....this under
the direction of the combined minds of the 'Q' gifted aliens to all TUNE
to reality at the same time, so that it MUST change....each alien had
one piece of the plan he was responsible form, like a matrix or jigsaw
puzzle....quite interesting movie...because they too had a huge machine
under the city which amplified their thoughts during these midnight
shenanigans to allow the alteration of time and reality....
I thought the premise was very close to what many of us discuss...kind
of wonder how many screenwriters read this stuff...<g>...
But I liked the idea that many minds focused on a common goal, even if
requiring amplification by hardware, could influcne or directly dictate
reality....'know ye not, ye are gods'.....notice the PLURAL???
-- Jerry W. Decker / jdecker@keelynet.com http://keelynet.com / "From an Art to a Science" Voice : (214) 324-8741 / FAX : (214) 324-3501 KeelyNet - PO BOX 870716 - Mesquite - Republic of Texas - 75187