Five colors stands out : green, yellow, blue, red and purple.
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Yellow/green
One color, or rather a pair of colors, that engulf the whole movie are green and yellow. These two can be pretty hard to discern once yellow is darkened a bit, since dark yellow is basically green, so I chose to kind of bring these two into a common point.
We could say yellow alone may represent Benson though. Benson is wearing his fluffy dark yellow/greenish cardigan, and that goes along with his Chrysler and its sand color that we may qualify as yellow to some extend. We also get to see him with a predominant yellow wall behind him once.
Besides the artistic choice behind it, the overall color scheme bringing the movie together in terms of photography, both of these colors are a heavy presence that I found may actually mean something. Especially in contrast to the final climax scene. Green is in the tint of lights, on Benson and Randy outfits, and it follows them through their journey in the car with the landscape’s colors. Benson also picks a green girafe to decorate (and considering how he customs it, how it all tells us so much about the nature of his trauma). Green may represent this state of stagnation in their lives, how haunted they are by their trauma(s).
At the burger fastfood Randy and Benson stand in green lights. Green is also the color of the jacket Benson gives to Randy. This could be a metaphor about Randy being forced to see how drowned he is by his trauma, the same way his lean body swims in the green jacket, hides in it. And once he gets rid of it, it’s only when he makes the move to act, to make a choice. He abandons it right before calling the police, and leaves it behind him in the restroom at the restaurant. He won’t be stuck in it anymore. At the end we see Randy have kept Benson’s jacket. Of course it means he doesn’t want to put all that happened behind. Benson has been the only one around him capable to see him, the real him buried under all the self inflicted punishment, and to pull him out of his situation. But if we keep the symbolic in mind, it may also represent the fact that he’s capable to live with his trauma now, he can leave it aside for a moment to enjoy life again, make his choices, and then carry it around with him, draped over his arm instead of disappearing under it. (This brings me so many feels, help)
Later, they go to the Animal Fun-Stuff Workshop, which is fully green, yellow with touches of red and blue, and a very few purple ones. The fact that the place Lisa work in is dedicated to children activities just echoes with the traumas Randy and Benson are carrying. Everything brings them back to childhood, and that choice is so brilliant. They stood out so much in this place. Both looking so different compared to the clean and vibrant colors.
The woman welcoming them at the school wears a full green outfit. If I stretch things a bit here again, it could symbolise how Randy feels, coming back here, seeing this woman who was probably already there when he was a kid, just another person reminding him of it all. And then, at miss Beard’s house, when she receives the call from the school, she goes into her kitchen and learn about Benson’s doing, where the lights are yellowish. Benson’s color.
And last but not least, the color of the vice principal clothes. It’s so close to the shade of Benson’s cardigan. It tells us everything we need to know.
Blue
Blue is another color that follows us through the movie, making appearances in the form of colors touches rather than lights that bath the place. At first we see Randy waking up, still in the dark of his room, his grey shirt appearing blue. It’s light, yes, so that’s probably just a stretch from my mind. In this scene, adult Randy is presented to us in a greenish room, little red details around him.
Then we get to see Randy’s car, who’s a light blue, with a very thin red line running along the sides of it (this detail may have its importance when we’ll get to that color).
When Randy is at the fastfood restaurant, he’s not wearing any blue, but blue elements are placed around him, somehow linking it to him. We can spot those blue spots during the morning “motivational” speech from the manager, when he speaks to the Manager in his office, and the head of the spray bottle he uses to clean things. Later, Randy will be wearing a grey Motorhead t-shirt, with a blue and red logo on it. He also chose to pick a blue crocodile to custom at the plushies store. At this point, I believe blue could represent Randy. Plus, in the final scene, we see him with a blue shirt and omg look at our babyboy, he’s wearing his own color like he found himself again ಥ_ಥ
I like how the blue’s presence can hold meaning sometimes. Like when they sit at the plushies store, and Benson is sitting in front of a blue wall, it kind of feels like by the presence of that blue Benson is retreating literally and figuratively from the moment, leaving it to be Randy’s moment. Plus, the moment he goes by their table to interrupt, the yellow is bright and takes a lot of the background space behind him. He’s back in charge. Green being the color separating both of their colors on the walls is making me a bit weak. Like, they are meeting and mix a part of themselves together, lines blur, and the result is green. The color of stagnation in life and struggle and being haunted. Their common ground. Like, oof, right in the feels, man.
Red
When we see red, it’s hard not to think about blood. And there is quite a lot of blood in this movie. So, yes. But it’s also one of the colors we get to see in the decor, always so noticeable. Quite vibrant. To me it could represent the trauma(s) itself. The few elements in Randy’s room. The line along the side of his car. Little red notes of objects in Benson’s car. So much red inside Benson’s home. The objects in the plushies store. The red on the facade of the elementary school, along with blue, which to me screams RANDY and TRAUMA. And the vice principal’s car a cherry red color that stands out.
Purple
This. Color.
Damn do I love how it’s used.
Well first, I’ll speak about miss Beard. As explained earlier, she’s the embodiment of recovery and hope. To me this color is so heavy with symbolism in the way it’s used. I see change, healing, facing and taming trauma, and why not a return to reality.
So miss Beard is wearing a complete purple outfit, so of course it’s a choice. It makes her stands out in such a nice, soft and meaningful way. Even her flip phone is purple. The very cell phone Randy will use to call the cops. I mean… CHANGE. HEALING. And I love it. I love it. I love it. And little note on her necklace, the tiny blue flower, I have a hard time not assimilating it to Randy. And UH it breaks my heart a bit. In this warm and peaceful setting, Randy faces his trauma and the consequences of it. It’s a stark contrast in intensity of the scene at the restaurant.
And of course we have the final climax scene. Literally bathed in purple light. So saturated and intense. Change will happen here. And sure enough, change occurs. Randy decides to make a choice. He confronts Benson. He tries, really tries to open Benson’s eyes too. And we know by now that Benson’s trauma is something still tearing him apart. The color intensity feels just as raw as Benson’s inner turmoil. It’s suffocating.
When Randy stands up and faces Benson, he’s fully in the purple lights. While Benson is standing with purple on one side, and green on the other. He’s struggling so hard. He’s blinded yet he’s forced to face the reality of what he did. There is no more pretending that he knows what he’s doing, that all this will lead somewhere. He’s trapped. He will never step out of this realization, of this purple light, alive.
Last tiny point, the person sitting in the restaurant the first time Benson and Randy goes there, wearing purple, along with the neon light circling the roof, like a sign of the scene to come at the end of day. And let’s not forget Marsha with her purple work uniform, who will play an important role in the climax scene.
And this is it! If you’ve read all of this, well first, thank you! And I hope you enjoyed all this rambling :)
“Star Trek: the Rebel Universe” (1987) was a unique adventure game originally released for the Atari ST (Atari’s unsucessful desktop computer), though there was a DOS and Amiga port. The game involved clicking between different menus, with each character having different controls and options.
