Total Recall - your interpretation? (spoiler alert!) (1 Viewer)

[Jeremiah]

OK so when the head of Total Recall goes to try and talk Quaid down and is telling Quaid that if he(Quaid) kills him it will bring his reality crashing down and would make him a vegetable in real life why would he start to sweat if it would seriously harm him? Is that just part of the inplant?
Also, Quaids co-worker gives him that look at work as does Sharon Stone when he leaves for work.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I wonder if it'd have been the same with Matthew Broderick [sp?] playing the role? Am I right in thinking that Arnie's role was originally written for him, or at least he was in contention for the role?

Hadn't heard that one before, but there's a reference in the documentary to Patrick Swayze being considered early on. Hard to imagine now, isn't it?
M.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I've always believed it was real, mostly because of the sweat, but when I think about it now, if he didn't swallow the pill he would have become psychotic - so did he - or not? Wouldn't the whole 'dream' sort of collapsed after that?
Glenn

 

[Patrick Sun]

Did he swallow the red pill or the blue pill?
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[Carlo_M]

I'm not even going to get into this...
My old roommate and I (great friends and still are) would argue late into the night sometimes on whether or not this was all a dream...
I won't tell you who won.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Now the vastly superior Piers Anthony novelization has it as reality. He figures out its real when one of the bad guys gives everything away by acting nervous.
I'd say "reality." Verhoven is none too deft a filmmaker to have such an open ended, keep you guessin' storyline. He's an "in your face" kind of guy. That's why the action and SFX are always so over the top and ludicrous in his movies.
Dan
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[Michael Reuben]

I'd say "reality." Verhoven is none too deft a filmmaker to have such an open ended, keep you guessin' storyline. He's an "in your face" kind of guy.

So what's your point, Dan? That he wasn't skilled enough to achieve what he set out to achieve?
If you listen to the documentary and commentary on the new disc, there is simply no question that Verhoeven intended the film to be open-ended.
M.

 

[Brad_W]

This all makes for a great discussion, but I think that Verhoven left it open for interpretation because we don't know and Quaid does not know. No one knows. That's the point. Now if I only read that short story...
P.S. don't get me wrong, I love discussing this sorta stuff! Wahoo for movies!
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[Carlo_M]

I'm not Houser! I'm Quaid!
Sorry I just had to get that out. That's the line that I get the most mileage from on this movie. That, and "it's not a tumor!" from Kindergarten Cop.

 

[Lance_R]

I think the more you watch Total Recal the more you think its a dream, their are just so many little hints that you don't catch on the first few viewings.
I am a firm believer of the dream.
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[Edwin-S]

I believe it was real. The guy sweating and trying to maintain his calm composure makes me think it was really happening to Houser/Quaid.
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[Eric Bass]

Aside from the Blue Sky comment which first started to turn me away from the reality side of the movie, there's what the head of recall says to him before he starts to sweat...he goes on to explain how his dream will go on and on and how he'll be this big hero and even discover alien artifacts on Mars but in the end...he'll be lobotomized. Interesting that he basically plays out the rest of the movie, almost as if he already knew what was going to happen, which one could do if one were to read the implant's storyline.

 

[Brett_B]

I had to bring this thread back up because, for some reason, I started thinking about this topic today (dream or reality).
I started to think about the teaser trailer again and started thinking about my previous comment on it, especially:

I was a strong believer that it was real, but now I am not so sure. Actually, I think we are all correct in our assumptions.
Here is what I came up with as an anternative way of looking at the movie, Total Recall. We are debating whether it was either real (he was actually Houser who was brainwashed in believing that he was Quaid) or a dream (he was Quaid and went to Recall for a vacation on Mars). Who is to say that we are both correct if we are dealing with the topic "How would you know if someone stole your mind?". What if what we considered "real" was actually a dream, and vice versa? How would he (Houser/Quaid) know the difference?
We have to go by what evidence, or what he can prove to himself and that becomes questionable if minds can actually be minipulated (memory capable of being erased and implanted with another).
I think this is why Paul Verhoven doesn't really give an answer to either way. I think now that the story was written on the topic of "How would you know..." and can be looked at from both sides and still be right.
Thinking about how the story possibly came from that topic I believe that it should take place in the future since we are still uncertain of the brains fullest capacity, so a story about being able to completely erase your memory and replace it with another is hard to fathom in this day and age. What type of character would you have to surround and support the protaganist? Probably family (wife , Lori - Sharon Stone)and friends (Harry, construction worker) for one side of the coin (Quaid) and on the other (Houser), probably a business partner of some sort (Cohegaan) a mistress (Melina). Who could he turn to for a definite verification? No one really. I mean if your mind can be altered, how would you know either way?
I don't know, maybe I am reading into this a bit much .

 

[Dan Lindley]

Keep in mind that any good conspiracy is unfalsifiable. In other words, all facts can support the conspiracy.

So it was real b/c the guy sweated?? Any decently real-seeming plot would have a guy sweating, just to plant the seeds of doubt...

Why do you never see the UN's helicopters transporting advance troops to take over America? Because they are black and in cahoots with the government...

Total Recall: a great film for all these reasons, who knows? It is hard to name a fact in the film that wouldn't support reality OR a super-well executed conspiracy...

Dan

 

[Terrell]

What has Verhoeven said about it? I guess the answer would be whatever Arnold or Verhoeven said it was meant to be.

 

[Ash Williams]

I can't seem to deside if the events in Total Recall took place or not. I tend to believe that they didn't. Mainly because of the "Blue skys on Mars" line Melina appearing on the video monitor. But, one thing that makes me think that it is reality is before Arnold goes to Rekall, his co-worker tells him not to go and gives him kind an evil stare when Arnold goes back to work. I don't know if it was a "I care about him" stare or a "I'm undercover and have to watch what he does" stare. Sharon Stone's character does something similar to this also when he leaves for work. That is something that has always bugged me.
On a side note, my favorite scene is when Kuato's dead body is laying on a table in Cohagen's office and Cohagan says to Quiad "Well my boy, your a hero." Quiad says totally staight faced "Fuck You." Just the way Arnold delivers it is hilarious.

 

[Mike_G]

Something else he said is that the action intentionally gets more and more preposterous (i.e. dream-like) as the movie goes on.

Is this any different than all the other Arnold movies?
I think the movie, no matter how it was intended to be made, gives the audience a perfect 50/50 balance between dream or reality. There's strong evidence to support both.
Mike

 

[Seth Paxton]

I agree with what you are onto Brett.
That does seem to be the actual SF theme being explored. Not unlike Ghost in the Machine in that way. While Total Recall is not a Cyberpunk movie itself, that theme of identifying what makes us human is, with a sub-theme of that being "how do we know what is real".
Cyberpunk often follows the theme of people "jacking into" cyberspace or the net, direct brain connection with a massive data store and the exchanging of data between the 2. In GitM people have their IDs totally wiped out just like Quaid does and a big question even for the cyborgs is "what part of me, my thinking mind, makes me human?"
Of course another Cyberpunk film Blade Runner also explores this (Dick was certainly onto something with this theme). In an age where technological interaction/implants with flesh seem inevitable, this "definition of human/reality" is becoming a serious question. SF always addresses the morality of science before science gets there.
Matrix being just one of the latest in this field, though played as an action/thriller.
And of course Verhoeven already had Robocop addressing this too. Say what you want about PV, but he has brought us some fantastic source material and done it pretty well, IMHO.
In the end Total Recall challenges us to define reality for a character even with the benefit of being higher on the hierarchy of knowledge than the protagonist...and we still can't. I call that a rousing success for PV, the point is made quite clearly that we have a problem pending that we might have a tough time solving.

 

[Paul_D]

Just revisited this for the first time in 7 years! I didn't much like it when I first saw it, but I never really fully explored the dream vs. reality angle in my head, and thankfully it really improves the experience to keep both possible interpretations in mind while watching, and considerably more confusing! The only thing that turned me off when I first saw it, was that, even though in retrospect integral to the kind of story PV was trying to tell - super-spy action adventure whose absurdity escalates throughout the film - the action and wall-to-wall balistic bloodshed dominated almost every scene. The cheeseball one-liners really belittle any serious meaning. Re-examining the plot this time round, it's very tightly constructed, and I've developed a new found admiration for the film.
In light of Minority Report however, I'd really be interested to see what Spielberg could've done with the material. The tightly constructed ambiguity is replicated in that film, but it also has a far more complicated narrative. Its the more thought-provoking of the two films, and though the question "How do you if what you're experienceing is reality?" is far wider than MR's "Can you be held accountable for crimes you haven't committed?", the former question is hardly TR's focus. With Arnold in full-focus and PV at the helm, Total Recall was always gonna downplay the more interesting aspects of the plot and push the violence and adrenaline. The heavy-handedness of it all undermines the subtle elements of the story and it justs seems so needlessly brutal. Not saying there isn't a place for those types of films, but with material this strong, it justs seems like a waste.
Despite that, I might just have to pick up the DVD now. If I order it online will I get a keepcase or the baboon's ass? I don't want the latter.
edit: checked the Amazon, and they have both editions, separately available, but DVDEmpire, which I normally use, doesn't?!?!

 

[Michael Taylor]

If I order it online will I get a keepcase or the baboon's ass?

I don't know how to tell if you will get the tin or the keep case if you were to order it online. Best Buy and other stores now carry the keep case, so you might be better off buying it from a brick and mortar retailer.

As far as how do I interpret the story? I believe Quaid had the schizoid embollism and is a vegetable back in Recall. Someone previously used Piers Anthony's novelization as the basis for their own opinion and I have to respond to that. Having read and enjoyed Piers Anthony's interpretation of Paul Verhoeven's interpretaion Philip K. Dick's short story, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", I still must respectfully point out that it doesn't make sense to use as evidence to support your opinion that Piers Anthony focused on it being real. His interpretation is no more legitimate than any of ours be it for or against the whole thing being a dream. That would be like me saying that Paul Verhoeven thinks it is a dream, so it must be one. We all have our own interpretations and they are all correct.

I would suggest that you read the original work along with several others by PKD to get a feel for how the author himself may have personally interpreted that story. When I first saw Total Recall, I believed that it wasn't a dream and I had many of the same reasons for believing that as several of you have noted in this thread. However, as I've gotten older (and more cynical), and have read several anthologies of PKD's short stories, my personal interpretation has gone the other way to believe it was a dream. Quaid (Quail in the original short story) got what he paid for.

The beauty of Philip K. Dick's work is that he didn't spell everything out for the reader. When you read his stories, you bear some responsibility. Another excellent example would be Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). Was Deckard a Replicant, or not? The viewer/reader must decide.