Total Recall (remake)

[Guts]

Inception doesn't end with someone waking up and going "well shucks it was all a dream" and then acting like nothing happened. In inception the main character learns things and moves on. If total recall is all about somtthing that was programmed in a guys head then there is no development, there's nothing to the film becuase nothing has happened. We might as well have watched arnie play FIFA for 2 hours. Because that's effectively what he was doing. Playing a video game.

Well if Arnie goes into a psychosis at the end and loses his mind because he no longer can separate fantasy from reality, I'd say that's plenty of meaningful character development there. Maybe he escapes from Rekall and lives as a psycho who thinks he's a secret agent.

For the record, I thought that what happened was real (or at least used to think, now I don't know what to think anymore. Who am I?) but I love movies that make you guess and are ambiguous in the end. Then again, sometimes something like Commando is all you need, simple, straightforward fun.

[rmoxon]

Well if Arnie goes into a psychosis at the end and loses his mind because he no longer can separate fantasy from reality, I'd say that's plenty of meaningful character development there. Maybe he escapes from Rekall and lives as a psycho who thinks he's a secret agent.

If either of those two endings actually happened, if we saw the effects of his experience then yes development would have occurred. However the film ends with Arnie still in mars (or just waking up if you choose to believe that). So we have no idea what happens after he leaves his fantasy. The most likely event would surely be that he just goes back to his normal life. And let's face it, that's a terrible ending.

I choose to believe that the film was. I'm sorry but I just can't believe that the film is suppose to be in is head, as it means there is zero resolution. For an ambiguous and open ended ending to actually work, you need to have an idea of where it might go.

All this rubbish about "his head collapses" at the end that Vernhoven has suddenly started spewing over the last few years (despite never previously mentioning it) is a complete joke to me. They might as well have had a random guy walk in front of the camera and go... "right the film has ended now, and Quaids head has melted, bye bye".

Thematically it doesn't work, it makes most of the film irrelevant and it's also quite a lazy way to end things too.

I just don't buy any of it.

[Guts]

But if we would see what happened after the final kiss scene on Mars, then there wouldn't be any ambiguity left, no? Personally I think the film works either way and makes it more fun because you don't get definitive answer, but I guess it's different strokes for different blokes.

On another topic, one evidence for it being "real" is that we see scenes without Arnold in it like when Ronnie Cox and Michael Ironside have a meeting etc. If it was just Arnold's fantasy then we couldn't really see them, could we?

Funnily enough The Nostalgia Critic just reviewed Total Recall and they touch on this very subject at the end.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/36160-total-recall-with-sci-fi-guy%27

[rmoxon]

But if we would see what happened after the final kiss scene on Mars, then there wouldn't be any ambiguity left, no? Personally I think the film works either way and makes it more fun because you don't get definitive answer, but I guess it's different strokes for different blokes.

On another topic, one evidence for it being "real" is that we see scenes without Arnold in it like when Ronnie Cox and Michael Ironside have a meeting etc. If it was just Arnold's fantasy then we couldn't really see them, could we?

Funnily enough The Nostalgia Critic just reviewed Total Recall and they touch on this very subject.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/vid...-sci-fi-guy%27

Well it's probably more down to the fact that I don't think an ambiguous ending works for the film. Going back to inception, that film is very much about what's really "reality" to the point that the ending asks if it even matters what's real?.

Total Recall is very much an action sci fi movie with a simple story that's fun and full of classy one liners. Slaping on an ambiguous ending just doesn't work. Plus the ambiguity is so subtle that many won't even notice it anyway. So what's the point?

[Papercut]

On the new Blu-Ray release, there is a documentary where Verhoeven states explicitly that the

->Open Spoiler<-

white light at the end of the movie is Arnie's brain collapsing back in the Rekall office

He also goes to some length to suggest that both explanations are true, and neither one is the only explanation. It is up to you to decide.

[bash]

Total Recall is very much an action sci fi movie with a simple story that's fun and full of classy one liners. Slaping on an ambiguous ending just doesn't work. Plus the ambiguity is so subtle that many won't even notice it anyway. So what's the point?

What?! Theres nothing wrong with being a bit more clever than the average action movie. Thats like saying slapping corporate capitalism, mass media, technicisme, and the ideology of progress satire into Robocop doesnt work, not only did it work it was applauded.

[Neon Ignition]

I guess the easiest option when trying to find a definitive conclusion would be to refer to the original short story, in which case Quaids visit to Rekall is a trigger for events where what he discovers is based real buried memory. That way the only uncertainty in the film is whether he's really saving the day with an alien device or whether he's fantasising about saving the day with an alien device he knows exists but might not work in the real world. Either would give adequete character development even though we don't see anything beyond the point shown in the film as there'd be no way he could go back to his fake life with his fake wife as he has now unearthed the memories.

[rmoxon]

What?! Theres nothing wrong with being a bit more clever than the average action movie. Thats like saying slapping corporate capitalism, mass media, technicisme, and the ideology of progress satire into Robocop doesnt work, not only did it work it was applauded.

You misunderstood. I simply meant that I feel the dream theory is at odds with much of the film.

[monel]

The dream theory that really irks me is the one for Once Upon a Time in America. That one really does run the film for me personally.

[rmoxon]

It could definitely be argued that having an ending that says "it was all a dream" is pretty much always a cop out. It just means the writers can do whatever they want, it doesn't have to make sense, becuase the entire film wasnt based in reality. However the "it was all a dream" ending can work IMO. Stuff like Mullholand Drive and lost highway are basically long dream sequences that study the inner workings of disturbed minds for instance.

Total Recall doesn't do anything like that though, and if what you're seeing during the film basically amounts to nothing more than someone experiencing a pre programmed movie starring themselfs playing in their own head, then I really do feel it makes the film meaningless and empty.

[monel]

I blame Dallas and Bobby Ewing.

[Sam The Man]

You misunderstood. I simply meant that I feel the dream theory is at odds with much of the film.

But you do understand that to make a film based on a dream you have to make some sacrifices or contradictions to make it work as a film. You couldn't really follow him and him only throughout the entire film and there had to be moments where he wasn't in the scene so it could work as a film or a better film. The ending of the film i.m.o was Arnie waking up in the recall chair. Mabee waking up later than planned because of complications or something but he was waking up nonetheless and it played out exactly as the guy selling the recall vacation to him said it would. But i.m.o that in no way spoils the enjoyment of the film or makes it meaningless. Verhoven making this film was basically saying to the fans that this was all going to be a dream or most of it anyway but he would trick the audience into thinking it was real by showing the scene where arnie is panicking in the chair and the woman claiming it isn't a dream because they havn't implanted it yet and the blood on his hands and also later on when Verhoven feels that finally the audience has figured out that it IS indeed a dream, Verhoven makes the scene where recall sends the man in to tell Quaid he is having an embolism and this shouldn't be happening and he needs to take the pill or bad things will happen to which Arnie shoots him in the head. All of this was to keep the audience guessing and enjoying the movie whilst still keeping it as a dream. I thoroughly enjoyed it anyhow.

[Dogg Thang]

I think really what this all comes down to is that Vanilla Sky was a big load of rubbish and really could have done with mutant belly babies, three boobies and bulging eyeballs.

[rmoxon]

But you do understand that to make a film based on a dream you have to make some sacrifices or contradictions to make it work as a film. You couldn't really follow him and him only throughout the entire film and there had to be moments where he wasn't in the scene so it could work as a film or a better film. The ending of the film i.m.o was Arnie waking up in the recall chair. Mabee waking up later than planned because of complications or something but he was waking up nonetheless and it played out exactly as the guy selling the recall vacation to him said it would. But i.m.o that in no way spoils the enjoyment of the film or makes it meaningless. Verhoven making this film was basically saying to the fans that this was all going to be a dream or most of it anyway but he would trick the audience into thinking it was real by showing the scene where arnie is panicking in the chair and the woman claiming it isn't a dream because they havn't implanted it yet and the blood on his hands and also later on when Verhoven feels that finally the audience has figured out that it IS indeed a dream, Verhoven makes the scene where recall sends the man in to tell Quaid he is having an embolism and this shouldn't be happening and he needs to take the pill or bad things will happen to which Arnie shoots him in the head. All of this was to keep the audience guessing and enjoying the movie whilst still keeping it as a dream. I thoroughly enjoyed it anyhow.

Thing is I never believed that the guy who told Arnie that he was dreaming was telling the truth, it never came across like he was for one second. The film never seemed to be trying to lead the audience to belive any of that. Maybe it was just bad directing, but I'm more inclined to believe that Venhoven never intended the film to be all inside Quaids head and is only saying that the film is open ended and could be a dream during the last few years becuase of people on the Internet making ridculous theories about his film and he liked the dream idea (for some reason) so it made him wish he'd have done somthing deeper with the film.

I was actually typing in this forum while at work today and I asked my work mates what they thought about the theories, and they all laughed them off. Every one of them had seen total recall, but not a single of of them ever contemplated that it was all in the main character head.

[Stoppy2000]

Ok so your work mates have the final say on everything then. Yawn.