"In 1953, Best Novel at the first Hugo Awards went to Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, a story where telepathy is common enough to have made murder nearly impossible. In 1957, Harlan Ellison's short story "Deeper Than Darkness" explored telepaths and telekinetic folks being arrested and weaponized by the military. It was one of sci-fi's most interesting tropes well before the X-Men arrived in 1963, but before Scanners,"
"That is the triumph of Scanners. We start in a busy shopping mall, where a homeless man, Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), causes a woman to have a seizure because she's saying horrible things about him. Later, Vale claims she was "doing it to herself," implying that the telepaths in this story - the scanners - can only really use what's inside a person against them."
David Cronenberg, known for body horror, demonstrates strong science fiction skill with Scanners. Stories of regulating and weaponizing telepaths date back to Alfred Bester and Harlan Ellison. Scanners opens in a shopping mall where Cameron Vale causes a woman to seize, suggesting scanners use what exists inside a person's mind. A private weapons firm, ConSec, houses Dr. Paul Ruth, who seeks to control scanners. Sadistic scanner Darryl Revok makes a man's head explode and organizes an underground group. Vale is recruited to infiltrate Revok's group. Funding issues forced filming to begin without a completed script.
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