Total Recall

Original Total Recall

They are remaking Total Recall! With Colin Farrell! There is even a new trailer, which I have to say looks pretty brilliant and can be seen at the bottom of this post. First though, a bit of intro in case you have wasted your life and not seen it.

Total Recall was a 1990 film wherein a heavily musled construction worker (Schwarzenegger) who is dissatisfied with his tedious life goes to a company that implants memories so that he can at least have something of interest to look back on. Unfortunately the implant goes wrong as there some messed up implants in there already. Violence and mayhem ensues.

Total Recall has Schwarzenegger in one of his greatest ever roles. It also has Paul Verhoeven directing a violent scifi epic – what he’s best at (see Starship Troopers too). It even has Michael Ironside as the baddie, which is always good as the man is a legend, especially as a baddie. As a bonus there is even Sharon Stone showing a nipple and a triple breasted mutant Martian whore, which is something you don’t see in most films . And it is all based on a Philip K. Dick story. Absolutely brilliant.

Total Recall is based on the story We can remember it for you wholesale. Philip K. Dick tales are nearly always awesome as the man was a genius and one of the greatest science fiction writers ever. Like a lot of his work, the principal theme being dealt with is reality and our perceptions of it. If it seems 100% real does it actually matter that it isn’t?

Schwarzenegger’s protagonist Quaid has no life. (Although he does have an inexplicably hot wife – Sharon Stone.) He always dreams of adventures on Mars in much the same way that I always dream of zombie apocalypse or being abducted by fun, sexy aliens. To rectify this, he goes to a company called Rekall that can implant the memory of the most perfect holiday on Mars – one that will be indistinguishable from other memories. They also have a new option: you don’t even have to go as you. You can be a sports star, playboy, or even a spy. Quaid opts for spy because let’s face it, that is what most red blooded males would do. He picks a randomly generated love interest from Rekall’s databanks and they begin the procedure. But there is something already implanted and that fucks things up.

It turns out that Quaid was already a spy from Mars and that his current life has all been a fake. Or has it? Is the spy bit the Rekall dream? Or isn’t it? Perhaps it is? Maybe not though. This has been much debated and it is answered here.

From what I can see from the new trailer, the new Total Recall follows a pretty identical story. Which is cool. It’s a shame that it won’t have Michael Ironside as the bad guy (that guy is just class) but you can’t have everything. Hopefully it will be ambiguous and leave things open and not have the Hollywood need for wrapping things up nicely (I’m looking at you, Spielberg).

Anyway, here is the trailer:

 

3 thoughts on “Total Recall

  1. well first off: total recall means getting your memory back!!!
    Second…quaid/hauser understands that it is not a dream when one of the doctors who is trying to convince him its just a dream drops a pearl of swett from his forehead…this.makes quaid/huser understand that it is not a dream.

    Thirdley…it is not very nice of the total recall center to involve his wife in the dream if it is a dream…why…well hauser kills her and falls in love with his “dream girl”…how nice of the recall center to do that….and when he wakes upp his relationship is ruind….i dont think so.

    All the other bullshit you are talking about is just bad eddeting and misstakes in the first movie….the do however not exist in the remake.
    In the remake however it is not his docter that reveals it…its his girl…with her tears…..now…A.I dont cries 😉

    So…it is not a dream 😉

    1. 1/ I know what Total Recall means. The title of a movie doesn’t necessarily explain exactly what happens in the film.

      2/ The doctor with a drop of sweat symbolizes his rejection of reality. Quaid wants this life as a spy to be real.

      3/ If someone has lost touch with reality, it is likely they would get in someone who knows him to try and make him see sense and that he is delusional. Not being nice is no proof. They bring wives to hostage negotiations to talk with gunmen or, as in this case, to talk sense into their loved one when they go a bid mad. If anything, his wife is a tragic figure and a victim of his mid-life crisis.

      The blue sky on Mars and picture of Molina on the screen can’t be an edit mistake. They actually filmed the shot and the actor said the line. That has nothing to do with editing. There is lots more proof that it is a dream.

      The allure of the film is that you (Imean all of us), like Quaid, want it to be real.

      So it’s a dream. I guess we beg to differ.

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