Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

You seem to be forgetting the entire point of the whole experiment: To make Teddy feel like he was really investigating a real incident. This would require involving certain figures in the scheme. Especially the guards, and certain other figures in the institute playing their role. If they had not been involved, they obviously would have just up and said "HEY! Get back in your cell you deranged fuck!"
You'll also notice that more towards the beginning of the movie, when Teddy is walking through the facility... people look at him knowingly. It's very easy to spot in several scenes... but you, as a first time viewer, don't notice it because you don't know the ending. Watch the movie again. You'll see things you missed.
Also, the range of ability an involved personnel can actually stick to the details is variable at best, and this is one of the reasons I liked the movie is because they stuck to the human aspect where one knows what he's "supposed to say" but can make an error. The movie uses this error to create what you're now sodomizing as an ending that only exists in your mind... because that's what makes money after the fact.

Originally Posted by nonsubmissivewife

I know the thread title says it, but ***BIG TIME SPOILER***

OK...I just saw this movie last night, and here is what I personally think the end was all about.

During the movie, Teddy (or Andrew, if you will) is in fact insane. This explains (to me) why Dr. Cawley would never let him have access to the personnel files, why the nurses and orderlies seemed disinterested and laughed at him in the beginning of the movie, and why the cops were just milling around instead of actually searching to a body when he first gets there. It was like Cawley said...it was a huge role play to get him to remember the truth. So at the end Teddy/Andrew realizes the truth, admits it to himself. But he's told that this happened 9 months previous, and he ended up regressing again. Sooooo...I think at the very end, he was in fact still sane, in his right mind. But knowing that he might have to go through it all again, he willingly submitted to get the lobotomy done. He pretended to have reverted back, so that they would give it to him. It's like the real/fake Dr. Solando said in the cave...once you get that operation, you have no memories, no emotions, etc. I think that's what he wanted. The comment about "Is it better to live as a monster, or die a good man" was telling, said to me that he was in fact in his right mind. As well as the fact that he willingly went with them at the end. Surely he would have put up a fight had he still been delusional, right?

Anyway, that's my two cents....