Sorry guys, I can't chalk this up as bad 80's scifi, since it came out in the 90's.
I am watching it 16 years later and I'm convinced it is all a mind probe gone bad. I loved it when I first saw it but it is not holding up over time...
Who picks Rachel Ticotin over Sharon Stone?
A bead of sweat? Is that the evidence that it is all real?
Is there a deleted scene where he is curled up twitching in the fetal position in a padded room?

What are you doing with a gun in space?

You should read the original short story that the movie was based on, if you think the movie was freaky...

It's called "We can remember it for you wholesale" by Philip K. Dick.




-Spat
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Oh, my favorite is how thier heads bulge out at the end, thier eyes poke out, then it all goes back to normal! hahahaha.

Techincally, it WAS made in the 80's. 1989. It was released in 1990, and films are hardly ever made in the same year they are released.

And I have to agree, Sharon Stone was very hot in this film, and Rachel Ticotin always looked like a guy to me. I think she's a fine actress, but not a smoking hottie.

Njc------------

But running man was true to the origional, right?:lol:

What are you doing with a gun in space?

Total Recall is a damn good film.
Tom
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Except for the insane eye bulging scenes, I always liked it.

And the Running Man. Sue me, I've liked most of Arnie's films.

Russ



"There's nothing worse than people desperate to have fun."
-Patton Oswalt

I remember reading running man. Man, they take the name and the general idea, and go from there keeping almost nothing from the book.

Wasn't running man a Stephen King book?
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My WebPage... Of d00m!

It's the 21st Century and where are the flying cars...??
-I was *promised* flying cars.....

It was indeed! Written under a different name (Bachman?).

Just like Russ, I've liked almost all of Arnie's movies (except Last Action Hero, Junior, Jingle All The Way, and Raw Deal).

I read a short story by Philip K. Dick in highschool called The Electric Ant (I think). Basically it is the future and a man discovers by accident that he is actually an android. Wonderful story on how reality can be turned upsidedown.

As for Total Recall, when I first saw it in 1990, I left the theater wanting to be Arnold! Coincidently it was the same year I started working out (however I started in Jan).

I bought the SE dvd a couple of years back- I still liked it. Sharon Stone was too much of a beotch for me to be attracted to her (the "bullet between the eyes" and subsequent divorce line has to be the best scene in the film). Rachel Ticotin was no hottie either.

Now as for that midget.

Kevin

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"I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won."

Mmm.... Chick with 3 breasts.....




-Spat
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If you regard the whole thing as being a schizoid reaction to the the Recall implant (which Verhoeven does), then everything works fine , excluding Arnie's taste in women
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One of the many things that I've always liked about TR is that so much of it is left up to the viewer's speculation. It is my opinion that the entire story from the construction site to the final kiss on Mars was the mind (ego) trip. I've always felt that Quad's character could actually be a white collared, 140 pound, insurance agent from the business district of Salt Lake City, Utah. The sales consultant mentioned that the memories are so real that "your mind can't tell the difference."

Making the conscious effort to go to Recall in the first place may negate the realism of the vacation. It would have to be written in to the trip to be believable. Dunno. That is just my take on it. I have a few more but this is the one that sticks to me.

Oh yeah. Bachman's Running Man was a LOT more intriguing than what was done on film. It may have also been the inspiration to FREEJACK. Now that film is another story...
Tom
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Well, the arguement to the whole thing being a mind trip is the idea that he had previously been mind swiped/encoded and that coding was still there but he didn't know it when he walked into Recall.

The arguement for it is that Rachel Ticotin is on the screen at Recall, and the event of the film play out exactly as the salesman says they do in that trip.

But in the end, I think even if that question was not present it's not a half bad action flick with some great locations and cool props.

I like to believe it was all a delusion.

1- the "Spy Ego Trip" cassette is called "Blue Sky On Mars" (this is said out loud by the assistant technician as he loads the program: "That's a new one... Blue Sky On Mars!"). Ultimately this is what happens on Mars at the end of the film.

2- Some of the pictures of the trip Arnold is about to take (before he is put under) resemble the alien created reactor on Mars.

3- The Rekall created fantasy woman is Melina (as mentioned by Noeland).

4- Take the "Going to Rekall" events from Arnold's perspective... if you remove the scene where Arnold freaks out in the Rekall chair and jump directly to him ending up in the cab (by pressing skip on your dvd)... How would it look?

One second he is a construction worker in the Rekall lab, the next he wakes up disoriented in a cab, and has a brutal kung-fu fight against multiple opponents (including his former co-worker). This where I believe the "mind trip" begins. (I really think the entire scene of him losing it in the Rekall chair ruins the mystery that it might all be a dream- and should not have been in the film.)

If Arnold is suffering from a delusion in which his mind is "making things up as they go along"- the bead of sweat running down Dr Edgemar's forehead is simply Arnold's mind wanting to continue the paranoid delusion.

By the end of film, Arnold "gets the girl... kills the bad guys and saves the entire planet"... just as the salesman said he would.

One thing I like to believe is that the fade to white before the end credits is an indication that it was all a dream.

The last scene should have had Arnold asleep in the Rekall chair, with Dr Edgemar, the Rekall staff and his wife (sobbing uncontrollably) standing around him- revealing that it was a dream. Perhaps "Melina" could have been a subway worker that he saw every day- whom he secretly fantasied about.

Of course the movie producers probably anticipated a Total Recall 2- so the idea of it all being a dream would be out.

The whole problem with the movie is Arnold being cast as the main character. We want to believe it is all real because we are used to Arnold being the tough unstoppable action hero. When Arnold is suddenly able to take on several bad guys with his bare hands- it is no real surprise to the viewer.

If they had cast someone who looks like Pee Wee Herman- we would automatically believe it is all a dream as it would be impossible to believe a 140 pound wimp is really a super-spy killing machine.

It would have been best to cast an actor in which the dream/reality debate could go either way (such as Michael Biehn- for lack of another actor). Athletic, but not larger than life such as Arnold is.

My 3 cents.

Kevin

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"I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won."

Edited by: [url=http://p220.ezboard.com/bthealienslegacy.showUserPublicProfile?gid=ssgtburton>SSgt Burton[/url]  at: 8/26/06 11:37 pm