Red PIll?

[plutherus]

I'm watching Total Recall, and as you'll recall (no pun intended) if you've seen the movie, at one point Neo.. er, I mean, the Governor of California, is approached by the psychologist from reKall. He is told he is in a machine-and-drug-induced hallucination making him believe he's a secret agent on Mars. In order to wake up and go back to the real world, he is offered a red pill. If he takes it, he'll wake up, be in the real world. Refuse, and he stays in the hallucination.
Is there some kind of tradition regarding the Red Pill? Was the scene in the Matrix an homage to Total Recall, or was it just coincidence? Anybody out there know?

Comments

[das-prompt.livejournal.com]

I googled it and found a couple tinfoil hat theories.

My faves:

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/05/24/the-red-pill/
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/aitem.php?message=46864&show=1204

[poezamattik.livejournal.com]

Every day I think about taking the Red pill, but the Blue pill just tastes better with my orange juice. And so does Lindsay Lohan.

Shit! Did I just say that out loud?

[casfic.livejournal.com]

You know, increasingly I've been thinking about taking the red pill. The way things are going, surely reality can't be worse. Can it?

[reynard52.livejournal.com]

Probably just a "homage". Tradition-wise, wasn't there something in "Alice in Wonderland" about different colored or different sized something or others? Ah...the catapillar's mushroom springs to mind. One side made Alice grow, the other side made her shrink. There were other things too, as well as stuff in "Through the Looking Glass", but I'm blanking at the moment. Blue and red have traditionally been used to represent opposites, like black and white. It could also be a placebo thing in the Matrix. If Neo thought the red one meant something, it did. Focused will.

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

I know that "blue pill" is the name for the special cartridges that are used for proof-testing a firearm. So names because the bullet is painted blue to indicate that it is a high-pressure load.