Total Recall is an American science fiction film released on 1 June 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 story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K.
Dick (whose work also served as the basis for Blade Runner,
Minority Report and A Scanner
Darkly). 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.
Taglines
- They stole his mind. Now he wants it back. Get ready for the ride of your life.
- Your mind is the center of your life. It is everything you hear, everything you see, everything you feel...It is
everything you ARE. You wouldn't know if you lost your mind...Would you know if someone STOLE it?
- What if you discovered somebody stole your mind...and there was only one way to get it back?
- In this world, they can steal your mind, erase your memory, and give you another identity. But the most dangerous thing
that can happen to you is...TOTAL RECALL.
- He'll show you a side of Mars that no one on Earth has ever seen before...He should be so lucky.
Plot
The movie is set in the year 2084. Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is a construction worker who has been experiencing dreams about exploring 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 buy a “vacation” on Mars
from them, one in which he will take a vacation from himself by becoming a spy. Rekall calls it an “ego trip.” Before buying the
vacation, Quaid is cautioned by a co-worker that Rekall are “lobotomizing people”, in reference to failed memory implants which
caused the recipients to suffer permanent brain damage. Quaid disregards this warning.
After the procedure starts, Quaid has a violent outburst and tries to break free, yelling incoherently about people who are
coming to kill everyone. At first, it seems as though he was merely acting out the "spy" portion of the memory implant; however,
when it's confirmed that they hadn't implanted that memory yet, the doctors at Rekall realize that someone else had previously
erased his memory. 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. While evading his assailants, he
receives a phone call from someone claiming to be a former friend of his who had been asked to deliver a briefcase if he ever
disappeared. The briefcase contains false IDs, money, weapons, devices, and a computer. Thanks to a video case he left to himself beforehand, Quaid starts piecing together his past on Mars as a secret agent. Pursued by Richter, a man working for Mars’s 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 air production, and that the poor workers in the city’s slums have been turned into
mutants from living within cheaply-produced domes that do not adequately shield against cosmic
rays (which Mars’s thin atmopshere does not shield against). He soon makes several allies, such as a cabbie named Benny and the
woman from his dreams, Melina, who reveals that his name is
actually Hauser, and that he used to be one of Cohaagen’s men but then switched sides and tried to join the underground
resistance.
Quaid is later 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. Quaid is now trapped in the ego trip and needs to let
them help him recuperate from the paranoia episode he is having. Edgemar convinces Quaid that his experiences to this point and
his future as the leader of mutant resistance are all part of the Rekall package he’d purchased. The Rekall man offers Quaid a
pill to wake up to the truth, the alternative being lobotomization since he’s still
hallucinating in the Rekall facilities. Quaid is convinced until he notices the doctor is sweating out of fear. Quaid shoots the
doctor in the head and a group of hitmen then storm the room and capture Quaid. Melina arrives shortly after to rescue him and in
the subsequent fight, Lori is killed by Quaid himself.
Melina and Quaid then flee and eventually meet resistance leader Kuato, who is revealed to be a mutant growing out of his own
brother’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. Kuato is killed and Quaid and Melina are captured, with the help of Benny, who is a traitor.
Cohaagen then reveals that Lori really was Richter’s wife and 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, was planned. Cohaagen provides another video that
Quaid’s alter ego, Hauser, left for himself. Cohaagen also reveals that the alien machine is real, and that he’s decided to
eliminate all the rebels by cutting off the air supply to their section of the city. He orders Quaid’s mind to be restored to
Hauser’s and Melina’s mind be altered to be subservient. Quaid refuses to go back to being Hauser, and manages to escape with
Melina. They hurry to reach the alien machine and activate it. As Melina and Quaid rush to the alien machine, Quaid kills both
Richter and Benny on the way. Quaid activates the machine over Cohaagen’s protests that it will destroy the planet. In the
struggle to activate the machine, Cohaagen is sucked out of the compound onto the airless surface of Mars where he dies of
asphyxiation and decompression. Quaid and Melina almost die from exposure to the atmosphere as
well, but the alien machine activates, creates a breathable atmosphere that saves them and the mutants just in time to see blue
sky on Mars.
As Melina says that it is like a dream, Quaid wonders if the whole thing has been real or if he is still in an implanted
fantasy. Melina replies “Well then kiss me quick before you wake up." Just as they kiss each other, a bright flash of white light
illuminates the screen, and the credits roll.
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 events actually happened, if the entire story is simply the memory purchased at Rekall gone terribly awry, or if in fact
Rekall had simply delivered on its original promise of “action” and “adventure.” This theme has been revisited since in
similarly-themed films such as The Matrix, eXistenZ, The Thirteenth Floor and Vanilla Sky.
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 (also from the DVD commentary) that would indicate that the story was not simply a figment of the protagonist’s
imagination is broached 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 (on which Schwarzenegger also comments) that
Quaid may indeed be 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. Verhoeven points this out as Quaid is going to
sleep. When Quaid/Hauser is confronted by his wife and the Rekall spokesman, Verhoeven is quick to point out that the spokesman
goes on to detail the entire second half of the movie. Verhoeven also says that the movie fades to white instead of the normal
fade-to-black, due to the fact that Quaid may be about to be lobotomized by the Rekall doctors at that point. Of course, Quaid
himself notes that he dreamt about Melina before ever going to Rekall, which is true: in the first scene of the movie he has a
dream in which he is climbing on the surface of the planet in a protective space suit, the glass helmet of which later breaks,
turning his dream into a nightmare. He is climbing with a companion, but it is not Lori (whom he wakes up next to), but Melina.
On the commentary Schwarzenegger disagrees with Verhoeven on the meaning of the ending.
Earlier in the movie, shortly before Quaid is about to be implanted with Rekall memories, a technician holds up a memory
capsule and exclaims, "oh look, here's a new one, blue sky on Mars!" At the end of the film viewers do indeed see blue skies on
Mars.
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 an 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]. In Poland it was called “Pamięć Absolutna,” which means
“Absolute Memory.” In Israel it was called “זיכרון גורלי,” which means “Fatal Memory.”
- Many parts of the film were filmed in Mexico City. The futuristic subway station and vehicles are actually part of the
Mexican public transportation system, with the subway cars painted gray and television monitors added.
- Due to the success of the movie, a sequel was written with the script title “Total Recall 2,” and with Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s character still Douglas Quaid, now working as a reformed law enforcer. The sequel was based on another
Philip K. Dick short story, “The 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. The novel and movie
correspond fairly well, although Anthony was evidently working from an earlier script than the one used for the film, and 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
were 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).
Comedian Andy Samberg played (a) Kuato in a skit on Saturday Night Live.
The ending of the South Park episode Asspen
references Total Recall.
Many shows and movies, such as Family Guy and Knocked Up reference the three breasted prostitute seen in the brothel on Mars.
Awards
| Academy Award |
Result |
| Best Sound |
Nominated |
| Best Sound Effects Editing |
Nominated |
| Special Achievement in Visual Effects |
Won |
2003 California governor 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 two-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
External links
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