• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Total Recall: Read This, Then Get Your Ass to Mars.

Status
Not open for further replies.
Wii said:
When do we start building the golden statue of PhoncipleBone?
AowNS.jpg


And I could never take out T2 or the original. The one that I almost removed was True Lies. I would swap that with Conan, but it would be tough. Predator, Total Recall, and Terminator 2 are the no questions asked choices.
 
Top 5 Arnold Movies

1. Predator
2. Conan The Barbarian
3. Commando
4. Total Recall
5. Pumping Iron

Terminator 1 shouldn't really even count, even though its a fantastic film, i don't think it's starring Arnie per say. T2s a good choice, but I prefer these 5.
 
See you at the party, Richter!

Dammit, Cohagen, you got what you want, give these people air!



Love the thread titles for these Arnold movie threads, BTW. True Lies next? Official thread of "Here is My Invitation!"
 
Its for sure a dream. He chooses the kind of woman he wants and to be a secret agent, and the program is refered to as blue skies on mars. Everything starts happening to him after he leaves Recall.

Are we supposed to ignore all of that because of one bead of sweat?
 
God this movie is so awesome. What happened to stupid action flicks that are just pure entertainment? I loved the A Team movie for the same reason I love Total Recall and Commando etc... but I seem to be the only one.
 
siddx said:
God this movie is so awesome. What happened to stupid action flicks that are just pure entertainment? I loved the A Team movie for the same reason I love Total Recall and Commando etc... but I seem to be the only one.
Total Recall has its moments of just stupid action, but as a whole it is a great mindbender of a movie. I love paranoid sci fi like this.
 
siddx said:
God this movie is so awesome. What happened to stupid action flicks that are just pure entertainment? I loved the A Team movie for the same reason I love Total Recall and Commando etc... but I seem to be the only one.
I adore the A-Team. Perfectly cast, delightfully tongue in cheek, funny, self aware action movie. They don't make those anymore. My favorite movie of 2010, honestly. I need a sequel to that underappreciated gem.
 
nitewulf said:
i also love The Running Man.

what happened to Sub Zero?
Arnie: he had to split
That was Buzzsaw.:D

Sub Zero became Plain Zero. :D

And the OP for Running Man is done for tomorrow night. I gotta give these threads time to breathe a lil bit. The Conan thread died once the Commando one was up, and Commando quickly went down once the Predator one was up. Now Total Recall has sunk them all.

I think one new one a day will be plenty.
 
SlipperySlope said:
I don't understand the conversation about sweat.
The doctor from Rekall claimed that he wasn't afraid for his life because he knew he was merely a program implanted in Quaid's dream to deliver a message for his own good.

When Quaid saw the doctor sweating with fear, he concluded that the doctor's story was a lie, and what he was experiencing was all reality.

But Quaid was supposedly unconsciously altering the dream, running slightly out of control in ways that made the dream more awesome but created problems that would be near impossible to fix, like twisting his work buddy into the role of a villian and then killing him, or establishing that his sexy wife was a lying, murderous whore. So Quaid himself might have been the one who forced the image of the implanted doctor to sweat, because he was confronted with a dilemma and needed some answer one way or another.


IIRC, the hints at Rekall (blue sky on Mars?) aren't definitive and could still be coincidence. For one thing, their program ideas were supposedly lifted from current events and were led to feed Quiad's obsession with/memories of Mars. If you write believable fiction about a place in the news, it's not really a big surprise to bump into some of those "life imitates art" moments.

Also, as a work of fiction, there's no way Quaid could have ever succeeded in his mission to give Mars an atmosphere, because that would create a massive discontinuity that he couldn't help but see when he wakes up.

Rekall having a picture of Melina as a sexy, athletic spy for him to meet up with in his fiction isn't a huge problem, if Rekall used actors and models for their characters. It would make sense for them to use a whore from another planet, because there would be less chance of bumping into that person in real life and giving Quaid a headache, and whores would be more likely to sell nude body scans to research scientists so strangers can potentially have sex with their images in fantasy dreamlands.


I think when it comes down to it, Quaid had no way to make a reasoned choice about what was happening to him, his only choice was to keep fighting and maybe get screwed, or lie down and be a pussy quitter and maybe get screwed anyways, so he made the only call he could make, because he's not a pussy quitter.
 
ruby_onix said:
Rekall having a picture of Melina as a sexy, athletic spy for him to meet up with in his fiction isn't a huge problem, if Rekall used actors and models for their characters. It would make sense for them to use a whore from another planet, because there would be less chance of bumping into that person in real life and giving Quaid a headache, and whores would be more likely to sell nude body scans to research scientists so strangers can potentially have sex with their images in fantasy dreamlands.



Way too much of a stretch and no way I would buy that. At that point you have to think that the entire experience is absolutely an implanted memory.

However there is always the possibility that the picture we see on the screen is generated from Quaids own imagination. That is why it is so important for him to answer the questions honestly as it helps the computer zero in on what his fantasy girl looks like.
 
I <3 Memes said:
Way too much of a stretch and no way I would buy that. At that point you have to think that the entire experience is absolutely an implanted memory.

However there is always the possibility that the picture we see on the screen is generated from Quaids own imagination. That is why it is so important for him to answer the questions honestly as it helps the computer zero in on what his fantasy girl looks like.
And when it is happening, the drugs are starting to take effect.

Ahh, one of the things I love about this film. The question of what is and isn't real.
 
i fully support, endorse, and get creepy over this thread. verhoeven made such awesome movies back then. idk what he's done recently?
 
Mr_Appleby said:
i fully support, endorse, and get creepy over this thread. verhoeven made such awesome movies back then. idk what he's done recently?

Wrote a book about a non-magical Jesus, the culmination of decades of personal study. May one day be filmed.

siddx said:
God this movie is so awesome. What happened to stupid action flicks that are just pure entertainment? I loved the A Team movie for the same reason I love Total Recall and Commando etc... but I seem to be the only one.

Total Recall is in no way stupid.
 
Count Dookkake said:
Wrote a book about a non-magical Jesus, the culmination of decades of personal study. May one day be filmed.

just looked it up, sounds like an interesting read.

and, apologies for the quality but it had to be done.

kimjongrecall-ngafs6oz.jpg
 
Verhoeven is big into the Jesus Seminar stuff these days. It's basically a tiny group (but well-known) for ultra-critical bible study, by and for self-described 'liberal Christians'.

His best achievement in film remains Total Recall. He somehow manages to hit all the right notes throughout the film, blending his tendency to drift into damp camp with Dick's excellent little story. Compare it to Starship Troopers and Robocop, and Total Recall seems like it was made by a completely different dude.

Except for the ultra-violence however. Verhoeven has alway had an eye for the ultra-violence.
 
Ahnuld time is best time. Yesterday I watched Conan the Barbarian, today I´ll watch this.

Never seen Total Recall before, I´ll annoy you gys with my opinion later.
 
Binabik15 said:
Ahnuld time is best time. Yesterday I watched Conan the Barbarian, today I´ll watch this.

Never seen Total Recall before, I´ll annoy you gys with my opinion later.

Oh man, I wish I could watch this for the first time.
 
Count Dookkake said:
1) Best Schwarzenegger movie.

2) Much better than alleged classics with similar themes.

3) Functions as a critique of the action film genre.

4) No crying about the poster. IIRC, this was one of the first giant blue head posters.
in b4 some wiseass posts a picture of Fantastic Planet.

5) Verhoeven is a god.

this is truly /thread worthy.
 
ruby_onix said:
Also, as a work of fiction, there's no way Quaid could have ever succeeded in his mission to give Mars an atmosphere, because that would create a massive discontinuity that he couldn't help but see when he wakes up.

But that would probably be the problem : Quaid's imagination running wild took the initial scenarios to improbable extremes, that would drive him crazy when he wakes up. Killing his friends and wife was already bad, changing a whole planet is the final touch.

I <3 Memes said:
However there is always the possibility that the picture we see on the screen is generated from Quaids own imagination. That is why it is so important for him to answer the questions honestly as it helps the computer zero in on what his fantasy girl looks like.

I didn't think about that... I prefer the ambiguity, but I always considered that seeing Melina's face at the beginning was a clear proof that everything is fake. I'll enjoy the movie even more, now. :)
 
Alx said:
But that would probably be the problem : Quaid's imagination running wild took the initial scenarios to improbable extremes, that would drive him crazy when he wakes up. Killing his friends and wife was already bad, changing a whole planet is the final touch.
Yeah, but when Quaid was in Rekall, the technician was going to implant him with a program called "Blue Skies on Mars". People take this as evidence that the bulk of the movie was Quaid's fantasy, because blue skies on Mars is exactly what happened in the end, but there's no way that the program could have meant that literally, because that kind of a program would have to end up taking the fantasy too far for reality. They might as well have said they were going to give Quaid a "Murder Your Wife and Neighbors" program and then complained when he starts killing people.

Unless that's what screwed him up in the first place. Some new and rarely used program (nobody picks Mars, why not try Saturn instead) that was accidentally designed to take things too far, combined with his own paranoia and obsession.
 
Love this film too. On the dream department easily overshadows recent Inception.

And first thing I always remember is the hands+elevator scene, not the 3 boobs.
 
Still remember seeing this movie in the theaters. Rank it below Conan, Commando and Predator though.
 
bonesmccoy said:
Verhoeven is big into the Jesus Seminar stuff these days. It's basically a tiny group (but well-known) for ultra-critical bible study, by and for self-described 'liberal Christians'.

His best achievement in film remains Total Recall. He somehow manages to hit all the right notes throughout the film, blending his tendency to drift into damp camp with Dick's excellent little story. Compare it to Starship Troopers and Robocop, and Total Recall seems like it was made by a completely different dude.

Except for the ultra-violence however. Verhoeven has alway had an eye for the ultra-violence.

Verhoeven has been with them since the 80s. Not just "these days."

Also, I'm not sure you can say what Verhoeven's best film is without acknowledging at least one of his Dutch efforts.

I'd say his best is probably Turkish Delight, with The Fourth Man and Starship Troopers tying for second place.
 
Count Dookkake said:
Verhoeven has been with them since the 80s. Not just "these days."

Also, I'm not sure you can say what Verhoeven's best film is without acknowledging at least one of his Dutch efforts.

I'd say his best is probably Turkish Delight, with The Fourth Man and Starship Troopers tying for second place.
Fourth Man is awesome. Been at least 12 years since I have seen it though.
 
Quaid: What the fuck did I do wrong.
Harry: You blabbed Quaid, you blabbed about Mars.
Quaid: Mars, I don't even know anything about Mars.

Quaid: Harry, you're making a big mistake, you got me mixed up with somebody else.
Harry: Uh-uh pal, you got yourself mixed up with somebody else
This the first movie that I ever saw in a movie theater. Pure classic.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom