In the game of TranscendenZ, the players never know when they are in reality or in the game, because of how realistic the game feels to them and how close it is to real life. In the same way, Plato’s view of reality states that those who are not living in the truth are never really aware that they are not. According to Plato, we will go through layers to get to the truth and reality. Like plato, the movie ExistenZ has many layers in it: the first layer being the reality or truth which is outside of the games (real life), the second layer is the game TranscendenZ which is the first game the players enter into, the third layer is the game that the players enter into after they are already in the first game. According to Plato, this would be like a Schizophrenic state such as watching a movie. The second layer would be the state that all non-scholars are in without knowing the truth. And finally the first layer would be reality.
In the movie, Ted Pikol comes back from the second game into the first game (him not knowing its still a game) and states in the bedroom, that he is not sure, after being to the other game, what is real and what is not. According to Plato, this is exactly how the man who went out of the cave felt at first when he went out to reality. Another scene of the movie where it relates to Plato’s view of reality is where Pikol and Geller were sitting in the restaurant and Pikol just finished making the bone gun. He then stood up and pointed the gun at Geller and she asked him why he was trying to shoot her. He stated that he wasn’t in control and that he had no choice. This is just like the men in the cave in Plato’s vision. The men had no choice but to believe what was put in front of them and so they did, but when someone came and told them it was wrong they got very angry, as did Geller.
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