Reduced to "identity and memory", the Jason Bourne movies, Memento and The 6th Day are remakes of Total Recall.
Total Recall remake: good news/bad news
- Thread starter Temis the Vorta
- Start date
Reduced to "identity and memory", the Jason Bourne movies, Memento and The 6th Day are remakes of Total Recall.
Maybe Ahhnuld can have a cameo in this one too, as the President of Euromerica!
That should just be the rule, from here on out any further remake or sequel to a franchise he was in should have a cameo of him in some capacity. He went from governing California to making comics. He should have the time do this now.
That should just be the rule, from here on out any further remake or sequel to a franchise he was in should have a cameo of him in some capacity. He went from governing California to making comics. He should have the time do this now.
Yes. And without the Mars-setting it's not Total Recall
True.
But without Mars it's not really Total Recall, just like Miss Marple not being an old fart isn't really Miss Marple.
Checkmate
Commodore
Wrong. Especially since he didn't even step foot on Mars.
Mars is in no way, shape, or form integral to the story. Total Recall is the name of a company that implants vacations, and the movie is about one such vacation going horribly wrong. That is integral to Total Recall. That is what Total Recall is about.
Mars has fuck-all to do with the actual story. It's just a random location chosen by a guy who's been having wet dreams about the place courtesy of what he's been seeing on the news and/or a previous "trip."
Mars, three-titted sluts, painfully stereotyped black cabbies, and not-quite-aborted fetuses living in a dude's stomach are all window dressing. None of it is integral to the story itself, no matter how many times you go around repeating it.
Without Mars it is just another story involving Rekall; a remake of Total Recall needs to have Mars in it, otherwise it wouldn't be a remake but just a movie using the character's names and the original film's title.
Erm, no. First of all, the company is called "Rekall". Not "Total Recall".
Other important plot points about Total Recall are the mutants and the alien device that creates oxygen. Mars provides the setting for both the radiation and the lack of oxygen, and the myth that aliens had lived there long time ago.
Oh well, never mind. Let's try and struggle on as best we can.
Oh, I'm not arguing that this film can't be good.
It's just so very plain that they just want to use the original film's title to cash in on it - from a business standpoint a valid motive, I guess.
A remake should, IMO, involve some of the major elements of the original.
That's the question. How much can you change a story until it's not the same anymore.
Major elements of "Total Recall" were: regular guy buys memory of vacation in exotic place because he has dreams of it, and discovers he's an agent who had already been to that exotic place. The exotic place is a deadly environment with strong radiation and no breathable atmosphere. People living and working there have been turned into mutants because their workplace and living space is just very lousily constructed. The hero then discovers a very, very, very old alien device that creates a breathable atmosphere that also protects them from the radiation. He fights against a conspiracy to activate it. All this is accompanied by the notion that he may still be dreaming.
Major elements of "Total Recall" were: regular guy buys memory of vacation in exotic place because he has dreams of it, and discovers he's an agent who had already been to that exotic place. The exotic place is a deadly environment with strong radiation and no breathable atmosphere. People living and working there have been turned into mutants because their workplace and living space is just very lousily constructed. The hero then discovers a very, very, very old alien device that creates a breathable atmosphere that also protects them from the radiation. He fights against a conspiracy to activate it. All this is accompanied by the notion that he may still be dreaming.
Checkmate
Commodore
Yes, you completely countered my point by noting a minor mistake on the company's name. Everything I said is now rendered null and void. A typing error on the Internet? Unpossible.
Wrong. Those are just two more random elements of the dream vacation. You can replace them with any kind of random rebellious force working against "the Man" to help/stop the equally random MacGuffin. Replace them, and you'd still have the same story.
Not really.
Besides the original film isn't at all clear about whether all is just a dream or indeed reality.
That's an even more ridiculous and broad-brush argument than the last one you 'countered' me with. Movies can be about the same theme without being remakes.
Checkmate
Commodore
Yes really.
Yeah, they just happened to have the girl's profile in the database, as well as pictures of the alien artifact, the exact elements of the dream he wanted, news footage his subconscious fed of on the television, and a brain that had already been fried once before (most likely from a previous "Rekall" trip that was wiped from the records when it, too, went horribly wrong since that seems to be their standard operating procedure). It's all one big coincidence.
So when is a remake indeed a remake?
He tends to say a lot of random things or lately at least. Maybe its best to just ignore him for the time being.
1998's Pyscho was indeed a remake. Shot for shot.
^ I'm not counting this as a remake. I'm counting it as a second adaptation of We Can Remember it Wholsesale. But I'm pretty sure that TBI and TSD weren't remakes of the original TR.
Checkmate
Commodore
When it includes the same basic elements.
Total Recall. A guy living a mundane, boring life dreams of a more exciting one. He learns about Rekall. He goes to Rekall and checks it out. He sees that through some amazing miracle, they have the exact scenario he's been dreaming about lately and decides to go through with it. One of the elements he includes to make it even more spicy is that of a superspy. The memory is implanted...
...and suddenly, he's thrown into a Machiavellian scenario that includes every single element he ordered. He discovers he's an undercover plant trying to thwart a rebellious force. During the scenario he also discovers that the side he's working against is actually the side he's working for, but he rebels and joins the side he was supposed to be infiltrating. He soon discovers that some grandiose secret is being kept from the general public that could have a massive effect on all of humanity; most likely something to do with aliens, but not necessarily.
Throughout the entire scenario, he keeps running into people who shouldn't be there, each one claiming to be an implanted memory from Rekall trying to help him out. But due to his own paranoia and the parameters he selected for the scenario, he finds some random element that causes him not to believe them.
As the story concludes, he uncovers the huge conspiracy, reveals it to the world, and gets it on with the dream girl he chose when he sat down in the chair at Rekall.
Notice the lack of any mention of Mars, three-titted chicks, mutants, or psychic powers? That's because they don't matter to the story.