# Total Recall (1990)



## Dave (Mar 4, 2001)

Total Recall (1990) 113 minutes.

Director: Paul Verhoeven.

Based upon a short story by Philip K Dick â€˜We can remember it for you Wholesaleâ€™
Written by: Gary Goldman, Dan Oâ€™Bannon, Jon Povill and Ronald Shusett.
Original music by: Jerry Goldsmith.
Produced by: Carolco pictures, Tristar pictures.

Starring:
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid
Ronny Cox as Vilos Cohaagen
Michael Ironside as Richter
Rachel Ticotin as Melina
Marshall Bell as George/ Kuato
Mel Jr. Johnson as Benny
Sharon Stone as Lori Quaid
Also Robert Picardo as the voice of Johnny cab.

Douglas Quaid is a construction worker who has a recurring dream about Mars. He and a brunette are walking out on the surface of Mars, he loses his footing, falls and damages his helmet, and begins to die from decompression. He wakes up in bed with his wife Lori who seems upset that he has had another dream about Mars and this other woman. At breakfast, Doug watches the news about the conflicts occurring on Mars. He seems obsessed with Mars, even asking his wife if they can move there.  After seeing an advertisement for Rekall Inc. where they sell implanted memories, he thinks about buying a virtual vacation to Mars. They can implant the memories for less than the real thing costs, and you donâ€™t lose any time. At work he asks his friend Harry about it, but Harry warns him against going. Doug goes anyway. He decides to have the whole works, including a theme with secret agents, and a brunette spy. However, something goes terribly wrong and another, previously blocked, personality surfaces. Now he remembers actually being a secret agent, fighting against the evil Mars administrator Cohaagen. His wife is really a plant to keep watch on him, while his job is false. Now his friends, his wife and several strangers want to kill him. He discovers a recording of his old self who tells him to actually go to Mars for real, and to join the underground movement, where he finally meets the brunette.
OR DOES HE? Isnâ€™t this exactly the imaginary holiday that he asked for? The reality of the situation is constantly in question? Which personality is the real Quaid? Who is he? Who was he? Why was his memory blocked? What is the secret hidden on Mars? Who is Kuato? This film keeps you guessing all the way.

http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0100802


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## Manco (Mar 4, 2001)

Although it was strange, I liked this film. 
Bye


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## markpud (Mar 5, 2001)

this is a good film, and another Arnie classic  But the whole alien atmosphere generator thing is a little far fetched, as is Arnie surviving for as long as he did in the virtual vaccum of the martian "outdoors".

But then again, who watches this film for the details, its an enjoyable film without being taken too serously..


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## Dave (Mar 6, 2001)

When I first watched the film I thought that as well. I also didn't understand the beginning until I had watched it a few times, it's very complicated. But, as you say, it's such a Rollercoaster ride that who cares, just sit back and enjoy it!


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## peachy (Mar 6, 2001)

*big arnie fan*

i love most of arnie's films, and this was no exception, i liked this film, hated the bit where he had to get the thingy out of his head, via his nose, yuck...peachy


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## markpud (Mar 6, 2001)

yeah that was a bit...yuck wasn't it 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




Some of the mutants were a bit freaky as well...


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## Manco (Mar 7, 2001)

> _Originally posted by markpud _
> *yeah that was a bit...yuck wasn't it
> 
> 
> ...



Definetely  
Bye


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## Annette (Mar 19, 2001)

Guess what? I've got this film on video and think its brill, brill, brill. Have seen it loads and loads of times. Everytime I watch it it is still as good as the first time I watched it. Saw it at the cinema, which obviously with the sound effects and fighting and stuff sounds exceptional.

Annette.:freak4: :flash: :coolyello


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## Dave (Jul 30, 2001)

I've got this on video too, and have watched it loads and loads of times. I just watched it again, and do you realise that even at the end, the whole story could _ still_ just be a memory implant.


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## summershake (Nov 8, 2001)

Got it on tape, too and I think I watched it 20 times...  
Haven't seen it in ages though!
I loved it, it was great! 
Can you remember the scenes in which he removes the bug from his head...ewww!!!   
It looks like his nose would explode!


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## Dave (Nov 9, 2001)

Still one of my all-time favourite films.



> _Originally posted by markpud _
> *a little far fetched, as is Arnie surviving for as long as he did in the virtual vaccum of the martian "outdoors".
> *


Mars does have a slight atmosphere, ground pressure 7 millibars (Earth average is about 1000 millibars). I don't know if you would get the effect shown, but he certainly wouldn't immediately explode, balloon-like, the way one would in space.

The eye-popping, and bug-up-the-nose effects are horrific but well done. 

There was talk of a 'Total Recall II' directed by Jonathan Frakes, starring Arnie again, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside.


It is based on a Philip K Dick short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" as is 'BladeRunner' which came from "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep". I like PKD's books. A little old-fashioned, but still have some great ideas about Androids and Simulacrums. "Ubik" and "The Man In The High Castle" are also good novels.


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## Annette (Nov 9, 2001)

I love Total Recall. Will watch it again and again. It seems to be a favourite on the sci-fi channel because they seem to show it quite a few times. 


annette


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## nicscifi (Dec 11, 2001)

*Arnie*

Anyone luv this film?


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## stripe (Dec 11, 2001)

*yep*






I really enjoyed this film ....loved the twists and turns


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## nicscifi (Dec 11, 2001)

oh, ok. thats good!  Im into any of Arnie's films. *drewl*:rolly2: Luv the action.

P.S. How did you get to post a whole picture on like that? didn't know you cold do it.


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## Chilly (Mar 19, 2002)

*lol*

it made me alugh at the end
 i mean i kniow thats wat wud happen (exposed to space) but arnies face was soo funny


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## Annette (Mar 19, 2002)

It also seemed to take forever and a day for the air system to start working, by rights they should have 'blown up'. Thats films for you tho. 


annette


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## Dave (Mar 19, 2002)

Would you like to see Antartica, but you're snowed under with work? Do you dream of a vacation at the bottom of the ocean, but you can't float the bill? Have you always wanted to climb the mountains of Mars, but now you're over the hill? Then come to REKALL INC. where you can buy the memory of your ideal vacation cheaper, safer, and better than the real thing. So don't let life pass you by...

*REKALL*  

For the memory of a lifetime


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## rde (Mar 20, 2002)

I hate to be a pedantic *******, but...

Okay, I enjoy being pedantic. But people don't explode in space. Their blood would boil, and there'd certainly be a little, er, swelling, but they wouldn't explode. And their eyes wouldn't pop out, Arnie-like.

I'm a fan of Total Recall. I really am. But it's impossible to pretend that the science in that movie even approaches accurate. It's terrible on many, many levels.


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## Annette (Mar 20, 2002)

Oooooooooooooooooooook.  


annette


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## Chilly (Mar 21, 2002)

*hey*

i think i agree
cz i was watching armageddon and there was no exploding! just dead ppl......lol


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## Dave (Mar 24, 2002)

> _Originally posted by rde _
> *But people don't explode in space. Their blood would boil, and there'd certainly be a little, er, swelling, but they wouldn't explode. And their eyes wouldn't pop out, Arnie-like.
> *



I got to wondering so much what would actually happen, that I found this site on 

Human Exposure to Vacuum

The answer is that the scene in '2001: A Space Odyssey' where astronaut Bowman makes a space-walk without a helmet is just about right. Your blood would not boil. You would survive for about ninety seconds, you wouldn't explode, but you would only remain conscious for about ten seconds. 

There is nothing specifically concerning 'eye-pop-out' syndrome, but it does say that "water vapor will form rapidly in the soft tissues . . . [which] will cause marked swelling of the body to perhaps twice its normal volume."

What we need is a volunteer to try it out.


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## rde (Mar 24, 2002)

Well, if Geoffry Landis says so, that's good enough for me. If you're looking for a really good novel, btw, check out his Mars Crossing.

As for volunteers: the russians are a couple of years away from suborbital tourist flights, for a trifling e100,000. I'm sure if you asked nicely, they'd leave a window open to see what happened.


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## Annette (Mar 24, 2002)

LOL  don't think there will be many volunteers for that one.


annette


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## Dave (Mar 26, 2002)

EyepoppingBodyburstingBloodboiling Arnold is it!

Even though you might survive, it doesn't mean you wouldn't have some irreversible tissue damge.

"Neurological problems, including blindness and other defects in vision, were common after exposures, but usually disappeared fairly rapidly."

Divers who decompress too quickly get 'the bends' from localised evolved Nitrogen bubbles in the blood.  

NASA CR-1223: (Personal communication, James Skipper, NASA/JSC Crew Systems Division, December 14, 1994.)

"At NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now renamed Johnson Space Center) we had a test subject accidentally exposed to a near vacuum (less than 1 psi) in an incident involving a leaking space suit in a vacuum chamber back in '65. He remained concious for about 14 seconds, which is about the time it takes for O2 deprived blood to go from the lungs to the brain. The suit probably did not reach a hard vacuum, and we began repressurizing the chamber within 15 seconds. The subject regained conciousness at around 15,000 feet equivalent altitude. The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the air leaking out, and his last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil."


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## Annette (Mar 26, 2002)

Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Wouldn't fancy that one in a hurry or slowly? (hahahaha)


annette


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## Phlub (Mar 30, 2002)

Woah!  Cool!  I think that is quite interesting.  I counted about 14 seconds that it took for them to start boiling so I guess there was no mistake between the movie and the space man.  I always thought that it was cool how Arnies blood boiled, but I never knew that was true!


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## Dave (Mar 30, 2002)

It was water on his tongue boiling.

according to that link your blood won't boil:



> Would Your Blood Boil?
> No.
> 
> Your blood is at a higher pressure than the outside environment. A typical blood pressure might be 75/120. The "75" part of this means that between heartbeats, the blood is at a pressure of 75 Torr (equal to about 100 mbar) above the external pressure. If the external pressure drops to zero, at a blood pressure of 75 Torr the boiling point of water is 46 degrees Celsius (115 F). This is well above body temperature of 37 C (98.6 F). Blood won't boil, because the elastic pressure of the blood vessels keeps it it a pressure high enough that the body temperature is below the boiling point-- at least, until the heart stops beating (at which point you have other things to worry about!). (To be more pedantic, blood pressure varies depending on where in the body it is measured, so the above statement should be understood as a generalization. However, the effect of small pockets of localized vapor is to increase the pressure. In places where the blood pressure is lowest, the vapor pressure will rise until equilibrium is reached. The net result is the same.)



Basically, the blood vessels keep the blood under pressure.


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## Annette (Apr 1, 2002)

Thanks for that info Dave. Taught me a thing or two.


annette


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## Chilly (Apr 9, 2002)

*lol*

wow
that was interesting 

cool


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## Dave (Apr 19, 2002)

Has anyone seen "Vanilla Sky", the Tom Cruise film?

I don't want to spoil the film for you so if you haven't, you might want to look away from any replies that I get to this:



Spoiler



Did you think that the 'LE Corporation' was very like 'Rekall'?

It's a much more complex film, I didn't even realise it was SciFi until about half an hour from the end, I was expecting a Romantic Comedy Thriller. It had all that too, but it had the same "Is this real? - Is this a dream?" element that 'Total Recall' did. It was also a little sad.


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## Annette (Apr 19, 2002)

No, not seen 'Vanilla Sky'. Sounds OK from your description tho.


annette


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## Dave (Jun 18, 2006)

I've just watched both 'Vanilla Sky' and 'Total Recall' again and their are certainly similarities, though in 'Vanilla Sky'



Spoiler



I think it is clear that David Aames is dead and his mind is living on in a Lucid Dream


whereas in 'Total Recall' I can still not say for certain whether he is in reality, in a dream, or having a freeform delusion from a schizoid embolism and likely to get a Lobotomy when he wakes up.

I would say it is unlikely to be reality - far-fetched, alien technology on Mars, secret agents - and these are the things he asked for - unlikely coincidences, but then his subconcious might remember them - isn't that's why he chose a brunette.

The other twist is that he is not Doug Quaid at all, but Hauser, a friend of Cohagen and the author of his own new identity. That really is a twist too far, which tends to go against the reality idea. The old video in which secret agent Quaid/Hauser explains that Quaid/Hauser himself contrived the memory loss scheme as a way of catching rebel leader Kuato could have been falsified. It isn't clear whether Quaid doesn't believe it, or if he just disregards it. Kuato tells Hauser â€œA man is defined by his actions, not his memoriesâ€ and he seems to act on instincts rather than memories.

He could have just gone back to sleep that first morning and dreamt the whole thing - but dreams are not usually so lucid with so much detail - At the end of the movie Quaid says â€œI just had a terrible thought: what if this is a dream?â€ The scene also fades to white (rather than black), to suggest a dream-like state. 

That leaves the Lobotomy - that would rule out any Total Recall 2 - the visit from Doctor Edgemar and his wife on Mars would make that a certainty is it wasn't for the sign of Edgemar sweating, but even that could be part of the freeform delusion from a schizoid embolism. In the DVD special feature, one of the filmmakers implies that Quaid was indeed lobotomized during a botched memory implant. 

I also want an explanation of why the mutant taxi driver was a mole. What did he have to gain? I don't think he had 5,4 or even any children.


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## Dave (Jun 11, 2008)

Change of subject; but I couldn't find a better place to post this:

Remember the security scanner scene near the start of _Total Recall_ -  a long glass corridor at the entrance to the subway in which Arny walks down with a gun, setting off every alarm?

Well, this looks remarkably similar: uncannily so:
Ananova - New scanners 'strip' passengers


> _ from Ananova:_
> 
> *New scanners 'strip' passengers*
> 
> ...


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## Connavar (Jun 12, 2008)

Heh thats spooky...


About the movie, i thought it was stupid typical hollywood SF but after i have read the very good short story by PKD its even worse in my eyes.

Poor PKD they dumped down one of his stories this much.


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