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Total Recall (1990 film)

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For other meanings, see Total recall (disambiguation).
Total Recall
Film poster
Directed byPaul Verhoeven
Written byRonald Shusett
Dan O'Bannon
Jon Povill
Gary Goldman
Produced byBuzz Feitshans
Ronald Shusett
StarringArnold Schwarzenegger
Rachel Ticotin
Sharon Stone
Michael Ironside
and Ronny Cox
CinematographyJost Vacano
Edited byFrank J. Urioste
Music byJerry Goldsmith
Distributed byTriStar Pictures
Release dates
June 1, 1990 (USA)
Running time
113 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$ 65,000,000 (est.)

Total Recall is an American science fiction film released on June 1, 1990, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill and Gary Goldman. It won a Special Achievement Academy Award for its visual effects. It was based on the novelette We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick (who also wrote "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the novel which served as base for Blade Runner). At the time of its production Total Recall had the largest authorized budget for a film produced by a Hollywood studio.[1] The film's success confirmed Schwarzenegger as a major box office draw and relaunched Sharon Stone's career.

Plot

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The movie is set in the year 2084. Douglas Quaid is a construction worker who has been having dreams about being on the planet Mars with a sexy brunette. After seeing an ad from Rekall, a company that sells imaginary adventures by implanting memories, he decides to get a 'vacation' on Mars from them, one in which he will take a vacation from himself as a spy: the ego trip called "Blue Skies on Mars."

After the procedure starts, the doctors at Rekall discover that his mind has already been altered. Quaid starts behaving erratically while trying to break free from the Rekall mind device. After narrowly subduing him, Quaid is returned home with no memories of ever going to Rekall, but then he is attacked by his friends and even his wife, Lori. She tells him that everything he remembers, including their marriage, is false— only implanted memories. Thanks to a video case he left to himself beforehand, Quaid starts piecing together his mission to Mars as a secret agent. Pursued by Richter, a man working for Mars' administrator Vilos Cohaagen, Quaid travels to Mars to discover the truth.

On Mars, Quaid finds out that Cohaagen rules an airtight city via his monopoly of oxygen production, and that the poor workers in the city's slum have been turned into mutants from living within cheaply produced domes. He soon meets the woman from his dreams, Melina, who reveals that his name is Hauser, and that he used to be one of Cohaagen's men but he switched sides and tried to join the underground resistance. With her help and that of a mutant named Benny, Quaid meets Kuato, the leader of the resistance, who turns out to be a mutant with telepathic powers. Kuato reads Quaid's mind and discovers why Cohaagen had Hauser's mind erased — he had discovered that Cohaagen had found an ancient alien terraforming machine that could make Mars' atmosphere breathable, which would ruin his monopoly. Quaid, Melina and Benny then set out to find and activate the machine.

At one point, Quaid is confronted by Lori and Dr. Edgemar, the man from the Rekall commercials, who try to convince him that the adventure he's had, has been part of the 'vacation' he bought at Rekall as a spy to Mars. Now he's trapped in the ego trip and needs to let them help him recuperate from the paranoia episode he is having. Posing as a psychiatrist, the Rekall man describes future events to Doug that will happen to him that turn out to be accurate, such as being the savior of the rebel cause, and then discovering that his connection to Cohaagen because these are all from his implanted memory as a secret agent. The Rekall man offers Quaid a pill to wake up to the truth, otherwise Quaid will just end up lobotomized since he's still hallucinating in the Rekall facilities. He's almost convinced, until he notices the doctor is sweating out of fear, although this could also be a part of his delusion. Quaid shoots the doctor in the head and then a group of hitmen storm the room and capture Quaid. However, immediately after that Melina arrives to rescue him and in the subsequent fight Lori is killed.

File:Totalrecall.jpg
Debbie Lee Carrington with a gun.

Melina and Quaid then flee with the aid of Benny and eventually meet up with Kuato who is revealed to be a mutant growing out of a man's stomach. With Kuato's psychic help, Quaid sees a mysterious alien machine in the Martian mines but then Cohaagen's forces storm the resistance hideout and kill Kuato and capture Quaid and Melina due to a traitor — Benny. Cohaagen then makes the revelation that Hauser willingly had his mind wiped in order to gain Kuato's trust- the whole incident, with the exception of Richter's maniacal pursuit of Quaid (Lori was Richter's wife), was planned. Cohaagen provides another video case message Quaid, as Hauser, left for himself. Cohaagen also reveals that the alien machine is real, and that he's decided to get rid of all the rebels by cutting off the air supply to their section of the city. He then orders that Quaid's memories be returned, and Melina's mind be altered. But Quaid refuses to go back to being Hauser, and manages to escape with Melina. They hurry to reach the alien machine and activate it before the mutants die. In this sequence, the three main villains are killed. Benny is impaled with a mining drill, Richter has his arms severed by an ascending elevator while fighting Quaid and falls to his death, and Cohaagen is sucked out into the Martian atmosphere where he dies from exposure. Quaid and Melina almost die from exposure to the atmosphere as well, but the alien machine activates, creates a breathable atmosphere and saves them and the mutants just in time to blue skies on Mars.

In the end, Quaid wonders if the whole thing has been real or if he is still in an implanted fantasy. The movie ends with him and Melina kissing, with no definite answer although earlier in the film it is expressly stated that the artificial memories had not been implanted. This however could well have been part of the 'secret agent fantasy' that Quaid purchased.

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Cast

Themes

The film explores the question of reality versus delusion, a recurrent theme in Philip K Dick's works. The plot calls for the lead character and the audience to question whether the character's experience is real or being fed directly to his mind. There are several visual and informational clues which point in both directions. Verhoeven and Dick play up the intentional ambiguity to the very end and the viewer is left wondering whether or not the entire story is simply the memory purchased at Rekall gone awry. This theme has been revisited since in similarly-themed films such as The Matrix, eXistenZ, The Thirteenth Floor and Vanilla Sky, along with Schwarzenegger's own The Sixth Day.

On the special edition DVD commentary by director Paul Verhoeven, he states that using Arnold as opposed to others who had been considered (Richard Dreyfuss, Patrick Swayze) leans more towards the film being real, as audiences would not want Arnold in an action film that turned out to only be a dream.

In an interview with Starlog magazine, Schwarzenegger stressed the challenge of acting in the film, "Because you're not coming in with the same character that you're going out with. Hauser's an interesting character, but Quaid's just this big program..." Schwarzenegger's reference to Quaid as a 'program,' an unreal personality designed to hide Hauser, suggests that the events and revelations on Mars were real.

One last idea that would indicate that the story was not simply a figment of the protagonist's imagination (also from the DVD commentary) is when director Verhoeven and star Schwarzenegger discuss how they wanted to do a sequel (which later became Minority Report), using Quaid as the hero of a firm that uses psychics (Martian mutants brought back to Earth for the proposed Verhoeven/Schwarzenegger sequel, Precogs in the Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise film) to solve crimes before they happen. If the events on Mars in the film hadn't been real it would be impossible to have Quaid star in a sequel.

Early on in the film it is suggested that if one's mind cannot adjust to the implanted reality resulting in a Schizoid Embolism, a lobotomy is the only solution. Verhoeven has suggested that if the film is a dream, Quaid may receive a lobotomy, as represented by the white light that ends the film.

In the end Verhoeven states quite clearly in the special edition DVD commentary that Quaid is indeed on the table at Rekall living out a fantasy. He points out that the imagery on the screen at Rekall show the alien machine, the girl of his dreams that he asked for and a blue sky over Mars. Verhoven points this out as Quaid is going to sleep. When Quaid\Hauser is confronted by his wife & the Rekall spokesman, Verhoven is quick to point out that the spokesman goes on to detail the entire second half of the movie. Verhoven also says that the movie fades to white instead of the normal fade-to-black due to the fact that Quaid is lobotomized by the Rekall doctors at that point. It is noteworthy that a sequel to Total Recall, with Schwarzenegger due to return as Quaid was being planned, but the idea was eventually scrapped. It is uncertain how the explanation of a implant gone awry would have fit into the story of the sequel.

Development, reception, distribution, and sequels

  • Dino De Laurentiis was originally listed as the producer, and between 1983 and in 1984 David Cronenberg was attached to direct with studios in Rome and locations in North Africa. According to Cronenberg every major director had looked at the project but fell out with Shusett who wanted a pure action adventure, described as "Raiders of the Lost Ark on Mars." Cronenberg quit the production after writing 12 screenplay drafts that were all rejected by De Laurentiis. When the adaptation of Dune flopped at the box office, De Laurentiis similarly lost enthusiasm for the project.[2]
  • The film grossed $261,299,840 worldwide, a box office success. Critics, such as Roger Ebert, gave the film mostly positive reviews.[3]
  • Many critics considered the film excessively violent.[4]
  • "Total Recall" was translated as "El Vengador Del Futuro" ("The Avenger Of The Future"), in Latin America.[5] In Spain and Portugal it was called "Desafío Total",[6] which means "Total Challenge". In Turkey it was called "Gerçeğe Çağrı",[7] which means "The Call For Reality". In Italy it was called "Atto di Forza", which means "Act of Strength".[8]
  • Due to the success of the movie, a sequel was written with the script title "Total Recall 2" and Arnold Schwarzenegger's character is still Douglas Quaid, now working as a reformed law enforcer. The sequel was based on another Philip K. Dick short story, Minority Report which postulates about a future where a crime can be solved before it's committed - in the movie, the clairvoyants would be martian mutants.[9] The sequel was not filmed, but the script survived and it was changed drastically and contained greater elements from the original short story. The film was eventually directed as a sci-fi noir thriller as Minority Report by Steven Spielberg and opened in 2002 to box-office success and critical acclaim.

Other media

The movie was novelized (ISBN 0-380-70874-4) by Piers Anthony, noted for his Xanth fantasy series. The novel and movie correspond very well, although Anthony was criticized for the ending of his book which removed the ambiguity whether the events of Total Recall are real or a dream. In addition, the novel had a subplot wherein the aliens planted a failsafe device within their Mars technology, so that if it was misused or destroyed, the local star would go nova and therefore prevent the species from entering the galactic community. It coincided with a comment earlier in the novel that astronomers were noticing an abnormal number of recent supernovae, giving some indication that the aliens seeded their tech as part of some galactic experiment in technological maturity.

A video game was made based on the movie, featuring 2D platformer scenes and top-down racing scenes; a version was released for popular 8-bit home computers (Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC), and the popular 16-bit home computers (Amiga and Atari ST). The game was developed and released by Ocean Software. There was also a much-maligned NES version which was notably different from the others, being developed by a different team (Interplay).

Awards

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; Best Sound and for Best Sound Effects Editing. Though it did not win in either of those categories (the awards went to Dances with Wolves and The Hunt for Red October), the film received an Oscar for Special Achievement in Visual Effects.

2003 California gubernatorial recall election

Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for Governor of California during the 2003 California recall of Gray Davis used the title.[citation needed]

Television spin-off

In 1999, there was a television series named Total Recall 2070. However, the show had far more similarities with the Blade Runner movie (also inspired by a Philip K. Dick story) than with its own namesake. The 2-hour series pilot, released in VHS and DVD for the North American market, borrowed footage from the film, such as the space cruiser arriving on Mars.

See also

References

  1. ^ Trashcity.com Review 2002
  2. ^ Review at Moria.co.nz, 2005
  3. ^ Review by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, June 1, 1990
  4. ^ Review by Janet Maslin of the NY Times, June 1, 1990
  5. ^ Total Recall listing on Dvdventas.com
  6. ^ Total Recall's Spanish entry at Estoescine.com
  7. ^ Total Recall's Turkish entry at Beyazperde.com
  8. ^ Total Recall's Italian entry at FilmUP
  9. ^ Overview of Total Recall DVD audio commentary at DVDtimes.co.uk
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