Total Recall

Sicco and Doug Greenberg, joined by guest Craig, dive into the cinematic brilliance of *Total Recall*, hailed as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s peak performance and Paul Verhoeven’s directorial masterpiece. They explore the film’s gripping Philip K. Dick-inspired narrative, blending mind-bending sci-fi with visceral action, and praise its tight script, innovative special effects, and stellar performances from Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, and Ronnie Cox. The conversation delves into the film’s ambiguous reality, Verhoeven’s bold direction, Jerry Goldsmith’s evocative score, and the movie’s significant cultural and box office impact, cementing its status as a quintessential 1990s action sci-fi epic that remains rewatchable and relevant.

Creators and Guests

Host

Craig Cohen

Host

Sicco

Guest

Doug Greenberg

What is The Director's Chair Network?

Join Ryan and many featured guests and other hosts as they break down and review a variety of directors and their films!
So far, this podcast has featured films from Edward Zwick, John Hughes, Brian De Palma, and Michael Mann.
Soon, we will feature Edgar Wright, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, and David Fincher!

0:00
[Music]
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As always, I am here with Doug Greenberg and we are talking the greatest Arnold movie ever, Total Recall. Craig, thank
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you so much for joining. Oh, thank you, Seco. I I never need an excuse to rewatch Total Recall, but it
0:30
it had been a while since I'd watched it. And man, I was equal parts ecstatic
0:37
and angry while watching it. We can we can get into that once we start really talking, but um I love talking with you.
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I love talking with Doug. Um I love the network. So uh I'm excited excited to be
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here and I I can't wait to have this discussion. Yeah, this is Arnold at his best. This
0:54
is Verhovven at his best. this I mean you you and it took you know the the the
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route that it took to get what we have on on screen is this the the backstory
1:05
for this is amazing in itself but um what we have what we actually walk away
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with is it's just movie brilliance cinematic brilliance and this is Arnold's baby he knew this
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is was going to be successful he knew the script was going to work he found it in Dino's catacombs Dino know had been
1:26
trying to make this for like half a decade. He tried it with James Khan. He tried it with Patrick Sees in Australia.
1:33
I think he went bankrupt trying to make this. So Arnold knew the script was floating around somewhere. And and of
1:40
course he'd had a couple of near misses with Langman and with uh Red Heat, but
1:46
he did have his producer connection with Red Heat, the guys from Carol Co, the guys who produced Rambo 3. So when he
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finally got a way in to the script, he called Andrew Vana and he said, "Listen, you
2:00
have to get this script. You just have to get it. Dino Duentes has gone bankrupt. This is our shot." Apparently
2:07
Mario Kasar called Dino. They cinched the deal in minutes. They had this
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script in a couple of hours and this movie was green lit in a weekend.
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That's the power of Arnold at his peak. That's amazing. And you you said it a couple times and it really goes all back
2:26
to this script and if you look at the pedigree and the people invol involved with that script, those are writers,
2:33
man. And that was one of the things that sort of angered me while watching this movie is that like I don't think there's
2:40
a I don't know if it's a pride or just a skill set, but man, those dudes knew how
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to write. And I just think that's one of the main ingredients that's missing in Hollywood today is
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the scripts. They start with a shitty script. And once you start with a shitty script, it doesn't matter how hard you
3:00
all try. If the words on the page suck, you're just not going to get a good movie.
3:05
Well, Philip K. Dick, that sounds like uh a nom to me. That sounds like someone
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who was blacklisted and managed to find a way into publishing. Anyway, so you wrote this story called We Can
3:18
Reme Who Wholesale. Did you cover this on your on your book podcast?
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No, but it was on my long list of of things I wanted to cover. I'm a big Philip K. Dick fan. Um, for people
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listening, they probably know his work more than they know him. Uh, he his he
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wrote a novel that was the inspiration for Bladeunner. Um he did a a story that they turned into a
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Peter Weller movie called um uh what was that called? Second Variety maybe. Um
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but either w either way he's made there's probably been a scanner darkly the Kiana Reeves animated movie was
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Philip K. Dick right Hollywood has sort of picked the bones of Philip K. and they've rarely made a
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successful adaptation. And while Total Recall isn't a great adaptation of We
4:08
Can Remember It For You Wholesale, it captured the vibe of Philip K. Dick, which is the most important thing to do.
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If you're not going to hit every story beat, you hit the vibe of what is reality, what's real, what's not, who's
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out to get me. Philip K. Dick was a true paranoid dude. And that transferred to
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his work and that transfers to this movie because I was so impressed by the ability the
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screenwriters had to sort of juggle a lot of things in this movie. Oh, this movie is on asset. Let's face
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facts. Yeah. The one difference between Philip uh K. Dick's short story, which if I
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remember it's about 30 pages, which is it's perfect. It's better to adapt a short story than a novel. I agree.
4:50
Because then you get all these Stephen King monstrosities. But the main difference is in the short story he
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never leaves Earth, right? Mars is referenced, but he never actually leaves Earth. And in this
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movie, of course, they go to Mars. And thank God. I also feel like, you know, in too many
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um movies about the future, the futuristic um view of America is like this this
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gleaming white, squeaky clean, you know, everything's sanitized. Um, but in this
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and in Bladeunner, um, you get this like it's not as as uh, you know, as nice as
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as people predict. It's like gritty. It's grimy, you know. Um, it's kind of like Hellscape lived in
5:35
for sure. And that's the Paul Verhovven influ influence there as well because um,
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he is a filmmaker that we didn't deserve, but thank God we got him. Mhm.
5:47
Well, I grew up with that guy, so lucky me, I guess. No. So, so Seco, how was that? Like, um,
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I'd imagine like for most people, Verhovven didn't come onto their radar until maybe Flesh and Blood, but for a
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lot of people, myself included, it was Robocop. Like, so being aware of him as a as a
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filmmaker prior to Robocop, what was that like? I mean, did you have any sort of
6:12
expectations going in or you you sort of were in on the joke and knew what you were going to get with Robocop? Whereas
6:18
I was definitely in on a joke. Yeah. Here's the thing. Paul Verhovven was in
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on the nucleus. I mean, in the 60s there was no film industry in Holland. He pretty much helped build it. So here's a
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guy who he went to college to become a mathematician and his parents wanted him
6:36
to become a professor really and he wasn't having it because he was pure child of the 60s. So he ended up uh in
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the army and he ended up in the publicity part of the army. So he made some uh I actually seen this movie a
6:50
documentary on the Dutch Marines which is the oldest marine uh naval force in
6:56
the world. And so he made like this propaganda film on that and that's basically what that was his ticket in to
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making features and his first feature which is famous and earned a lot of
7:09
awards is Turkish Fruit and Turkish Fruit is based on the novel by Young Bulkers which is a literary masterpiece.
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It's a disgusting, awful book to read, but it is a masterpiece. And it's
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basically about a a tragic love affair. And that movie is seinal for him because
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it made him the filmmaker that he is because Yon Vulkers was very daring and he was very outspoken and he was very
7:37
controversial and Paul Verhovven actually wasn't. He's just a mathematician. But he learned so much
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from making that prog from making that project and from the reactions that it
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garnered. Uh because basically the stuff you guys got in Basic Instinct and in
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Showg Girls and in in other stuff he did he was doing that in 1973.
8:01
So all that stuff that came later, that was all par for the course for us. the stuff you would see in in L or in
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Starship Troopers, that was already in Soldier of Orange, that was already in
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Flesh and Blood. And I grew up on that stuff. The The one thing I really appreciate about Paul Verovven, and he's he's
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probably um in my top five favorite directors of all time, is that for for
8:28
Oven, it's all about the overall production design and feel of the movie
8:33
and the performances. You're never going to see a crazy technical shot in one of his movies and
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say, "Oh my god, that shot's crazy. Uh, what an amazing shot." I mean, his
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movies all look great and there's some cool shots in Total Recall, but none of it's showy, none of it's flashy. It's
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all about the production design, the feel of the universe, and his performances. And I and that was one
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thing I really noticed in this movie is that every performance is perfect. And if you've ever seen
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footage of Verhovven on set um or behind the scenes, you'll see what
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kind of director he is. Yeah, he's insane. He's completely insane. He is a nutty professor.
9:16
Yeah, I mean the again I mean he was working with some great talent in this film, don't get me wrong, but I think,
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you know, his his ability to sort of, you know, um nurture a performance out of somebody is
9:28
is one of his one of his greatest strengths. And I'm glad he came to Hollywood, did what he needed to do, and
9:33
and I'm glad he went home and uh and is making the films he wants to make because Hollywood sure tried to kick his
9:39
butt. Yeah. He actually still lives in LA. Oh, does he? But he's Yeah. And he's making movies in
9:45
France now. Yeah. He actually made L, which is a critically acclaimed film that actually
9:50
earned him a Golden Globe. I can recommend it because it's typically Verhovven.
9:55
Yeah. Um, I think it's the closest thing to the movie he made in the early 80s, which was called The Fourth Man. The The
10:03
story of L is about a woman who is violently raped, but instead of playing
10:08
the victim card, she enters into a relationship with her rapist and tries to dominate him. It's it's a really
10:15
really crazy movie. It's worth a watch simply because of the way he directed
10:22
the actress because he basically he realized what a talent this woman was and he just unleashed her. And like you
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said, this is a guy, this is a director who is good at bringing out talent in
10:35
people. He's good at seeing it in people. He's good at bringing it out. And that's what you see in Arnold. He
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brings out arguably the best performance of his career because Arnold actually
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was awarded best actor for this movie and he got a Saturn award for it which
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is a science fiction uh award. Uh it's very prestigious and this is a guy who
10:58
normally gets Rzzy nominations. So it's it just depends on who's directing him because Arnold is a guy that you know uh
11:06
he's logical. So if you give him a clear direction, he's going to succeed.
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You mentioned um the performances that there's like two points I want to make here um about the performance and about
11:18
getting the most out of Arnold. I actually saw um Doug Quaid and Hower as two different people even though they're
11:25
played by the the same actor because he plays them so completely differently. And you know for for a guy who's not
11:32
classically trained like Arnold that's that's like a an amazing performance that the director is able to get out of
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him. Yes. And and also um if you look back at the you know the the old horror movies
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the Friday the 13ths and everything they sacrifice performances for graphic
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violence and everything but it seems like Verovven gets the best of both
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worlds like he has you know he you could call this a horror movie based
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on just the the graphic nature of of like the the the the prosthetics and the
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makeup and everything and uh you know he's the the the master of the squib
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explosion. You know fights for the violence in his movies because he feels it's absolutely
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essential to telling the story. Same with sex. But he doesn't he doesn't sacrifice
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performances for that is what I'm saying. True. You know, it's the best of both of all,
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you know, of both worlds. Yeah. Basically, he takes everything and just amps it up to 10.
12:31
Yeah. Well, it it's funny. There's actually um a funny story I believe
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about Roocop where he had a lot of problems with the the violence on Robocop. And
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one scene in particular um was the scene where Ed 209 kills that executive in the
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office, right? And and originally it was much shorter and this and um everybody in the room
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felt uncomfortable with it. So he just made Yeah. But then he made that scene longer, so it almost becomes comical,
13:04
right? Yeah. You know, but you're watching this extreme violence, but at the same time, it's so absurd. It's like a cartoon
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almost. And I think that's another one of the things that he's really smart with is he's like, "Yeah, you know,
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violence is terrible and it's absurd." And uh at the same time, we shouldn't turn away from it. And um it's funny, my
13:23
my wife was in and out of the room when I was watching this last night and like she caught a couple of the scenes that
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have like that extreme violence in it, like you know where Arnold's breaking out of the chair. Uh and like she was
13:34
just amazed like it had been years since she had seen it and she was like, "Oh my god, this is really violent."
13:40
Yeah. Way ahead of its time. Yeah. One other thing I do want to say, Siko, is you mentioned the Saturn
13:45
Awards, and I think the involvement with um Dan Oannon and Ronald Shusette. Um
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probably have a lot to do with the goodwill this movie got in that in the science fiction community because those guys um I believe their origins date
14:00
back to Ridley Scott's Alien. Yeah, that that's probably why they got like best science fiction film and I
14:08
think they got best costumes and they were nominated for all kinds of stuff.
14:14
Yeah, they also nominated for the Oscars. I mean, this was an Oscar nominated movie. Um, it it got best effects. I think it
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had like a special achievement award. Yeah. Which is not typical for the Oscars. Yeah. Well, you had the brilliant Rob
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Bin doing a lot of the makeup effects and um I think a lot of people probably
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know Rob Bin from The Thing and right all of the amazing practical effects he
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did on The Thing that 40 years later still stand up better than one of the scariest movies of all time.
14:45
Yeah. An absolute masterpiece. But but uh I think uh the effects work in this movie is great. And even like a
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lot of the stuff that I was worried about, like the seam showing on like particularly like a lot of the Mars
14:58
centric stuff, it looked good. I mean, you could tell there were certain models at play at at points. Uh but but
15:06
overall, I think this movie from a visual standpoint, it still stands up. A aged extremely extremely well. And it
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was also cool that I I a lot of those locations on Earth, it was Mexico City,
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right? Um, and that train if you've been there, you recognize certain places. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but it it's so
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wild because I I was thinking about that. I'm like, "Yeah, this looks cool for like the average US American viewer,
15:30
but if you live live in Mexico City, you're like, "Oh, what's he doing at the metro?" Right. I've been to that mall. I
15:37
recognized like certain parts of the airport. I was like, "Oh, I was just there. It's amazing." The only I would
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say the only the only wonky scenes were like the rear projection stuff of the Mars landscapes and and whatever, but I
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think that could be tightened up these days, you know, with a little I mean these days they would have done
15:56
everything uh CGI. The irony here is this is this was one of the first movies
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that actually used CGI and uh Paul Hovind is actually one of the pioneers
16:08
of CGI movies. I mean, Starship Troopers is the first real movie using realistic
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CGI. Well, and that's Phil and that's Phil Tippet, who is just a Phil Tippet,
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a genius um in his own right. Um, one thing that you you talked about tightening things up, and I know you
16:25
didn't mean it in in in that way, Doug, but another thing that struck me about this movie is that if if they made this
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movie today, and I know they made that Colin Ferrell remake, but we're not going to talk about that. No. But if if they made this movie
16:37
today, what they do in the first 20 minutes of this movie would take 45 minutes today.
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I mean, this movie has it's an Arnold movie, so you know, there's not going to be a lot of fat involved, but this movie
16:50
has like no fat on the bones. I mean, it hits the ground running. He has his dream. He wakes up. He decides he wants
16:56
to go to, you know, uh to to Mars or whatever, and he goes to recall. Uh and
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and again like I said in in this movie they're they're like let's let's get to it. Whereas and I think that's another
17:08
thing that films today suffer from is they set up too much time building a world that they're not going to explore
17:14
anyway where here they create the world really quick. You fill in the blanks in your head
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and they get going. And that's another thing that I think the writers are are are talented enough uh to realize that
17:27
the audience is going to be smart enough to follow. and Verhovven, too. I He's not a pandering filmmaker. He's not
17:33
gonna spoon feed you. So, it's like this is what we're doing. Let's go. If you hire pull for Hovind, you unleash
17:39
him. It's still a two-hour film, too. But it a it doesn't feel like two hours. And B,
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if like the the the classic 80s action films were 87 to 93 minutes long. It
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you know, you never saw a two-hour film like this, but it's like Craig said, there's no fat in it. Like, what do you
17:56
cut out that would benefit the movie in any way? Possible. Right. Everything is essential
18:01
to the plot. And this is a thick plot. This is a movie you have to pay attention to. And that's one of the
18:08
things that makes it so so rewatchable because the fun part of
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this movie is you can watch it in two ways because it's it's it's inspired on
18:19
Hitchcock. And so what you're watching is either it's an action movie from the
18:25
perspective of Arnold who's doing action [ __ ] and being a hero or this is a guy
18:32
who goes to some place and gets his brain messed up and is basically going
18:38
through psychosis and is going to be lobbomized after the last scene because it's for Hovven purposely planted that
18:47
in the movie and they leave it ambiguous enough at even at the end they don't explain it.
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They don't explain it. They they don't they leave it up to the viewer. And there are like two pivotal scenes where Verhovven basically just tells you
19:00
the plot of the next 20 minutes. It's like at the scene where he's like getting his implant, they're just
19:06
showing you. It's like, oh, he's going to have this girl and he's going to be a secret agent and this is going to happen
19:13
and that is going to happen and at the end of the day, we're not going to spoil it for you. So, and then then the second
19:19
scene you have the point where recall intervenes where they send a professor in and saying, "Hey, look, I'm sorry,
19:26
but you're going through a delusion and here's your wife and please take this pill." Which is, by the way, this is
19:32
like pre-matrix. This is like The Matrix pretty much based their idea of like the
19:38
red pill and the blue pill on this movie. It's like, "Take this pill and you come back to reality. And if you
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don't take this pill, you're just going to end up lobbomized." And here's the thing. Does uh uh Quaid invent the idea
19:52
that this professor is bullshitting him so he shoots him in the head so he can be the hero in his secret agent fantasy?
20:00
Or are these people trying to trick him? Is this a secret agent posing as his
20:06
ex-wife or his wife who he now has to fight? I mean, it's it's such a mind
20:13
[ __ ] this entire movie and you don't get a straight answer at all. You can do anything you want with this movie.
20:19
Yeah. But the other thing that's really really good is it's not super confusing,
20:25
which you know, I mean, well, I mean, if you start thinking about it too much and you start peeling away the layers of the
20:31
onion, you can probably get yourself crosseyed. But what I'm saying is a casual viewer, the average movie goer in
20:37
1990 is able going to just be able to follow this beat by beat as an action movie, like you said, but they don't
20:43
have to get too invested in the hows and the wise. And I think again some
20:49
filmmakers today try to like outsmart themselves and outsmart the audience and
20:54
just make things confusing for the sake of making them confusing. As a you know a 12, 13year-old watching
21:00
this, I didn't care about the story. I was confused. I didn't know what the hell was going on plot-wise, but I loved
21:06
it because of the action. And now here as a, you know, 44 year old guy, I love the I love the action obviously, but I
21:13
also I'm I'm invested in the story behind it. Yeah. And you don't have to be embarrassed that you still love this
21:19
movie because it is absolutely brilliant. Yeah. I mean, this is this is the the second
21:25
coming of Hitchcock in every scene. I mean, there's this one specific scene where Ferhovven actually films the scene
21:32
as if it was a Hitchcock scene, you know, with those low angles where you shoot the bad guy who is being doing
21:38
sinister [ __ ] from the low perspective and you shoot the hero from another perspective to tell the audience, guess
21:45
what's happening? This is bad. Yeah, they do that. Just so good at that.
21:50
They do that without spoon feeding the audience, you know? They use clever clever tricks and and everything. I hate
21:57
I hate and Craig I've mentioned it many times in our shows how the the stupid audience just needs to be spoonfed and
22:03
told what to feel instead of instead of just using psychology you know
22:09
cheap gimmicks yeah but um you know but you you get all
22:14
that without being spoonfed and that's that's it's a lost art start in movies these days
22:20
yes that's that's what I like so much about the Benny character because he is everywhere he's one of
22:25
those guys who guides the plot along and he starts out as an ambiguous character
22:30
and then you start sort of start to like him. You know, he does cool stuff and you think, oh, he's he's a mutant, too,
22:37
and he's a hero and and then he turns out he's an agent like that just like everyone else. He can't be trusted and
22:43
it's a complete bait and switch. He's great cuz he's like comic relief. He's comic relief at first and then like
22:50
his character shifts, you know, into into like a double agent. Like how did
22:55
how did a guy like Benny like a just a throwaway character come to play such a pivotal part?
23:00
Exactly. He's not just a plot device. He's a complex character and the actor
23:07
knew about this and he took made exactly the right choices. So you would be rooting for him in one scene and you
23:13
would be wondering about him in the next. I mean without Benny they would never
23:19
have caught Guat. I I'm sorry I forgot the the actor's name, but when he when he first saw that the description of his
23:26
character, he's a he's a black exploitation um actor. So, he saw he saw
23:32
his character was going to be a like a fast talking jive talking black guy and
23:37
he threw the script across the the uh the room and said, "Fuck this. Not another one of these not another one of
23:42
these films." Mhm. Then when he picked up the script and actually read it, he fell in love with the movie and with the character
23:48
inevitably because this because he's he's more than just ever going to play. Yeah. And he's and his character is so
23:54
much more than a jive talking black guy. Mel Johnson Jr. by the way. And he's from Long Island City.
24:00
No kidding. From your neck or your old neck of the woods, we should say you're living in
24:06
sunny Las Vegas now. Sweltering Las Vegas.
24:12
Yeah. So then we have this awesome score and of course we're dealing with Carol here so we're going to get Goldsmith and
24:19
it's it's one of his best scores. It's so incredibly beautiful
24:24
and what I love about the movie starts and you hear the typical Goldsmith
24:31
dramatic overture but you also hear a little bit of the Schwarzenegger with
24:36
the Conan music with the Terminator. It's it's very inspired. It's basically
24:42
Goldmith saying, "I've moved on from Stallone. I'm a Schwarzenegger guy now."
24:49
Gary Goldsmith is is a genius. He doesn't get he you know, he doesn't get John Williams props or Han Zimmer props,
24:56
but he really should. He should. May maybe it's because like most of the the films that he's scored
25:03
are like these these action movies from the early days, but I mean they the
25:08
scores mean as much to these movies as like a sweeping epic by Han Zimmer. I
25:13
think the reality is 200 years from now or 300 years from now when historians and and cultural critics look back at
25:21
this age, they will start looking at the movies that were popular and they're going to be seeing the action movies,
25:27
not Terms of Endearment, right? Not anything else. And they'll be hearing Jerry Goldsmith's score, not
25:34
anything else. So they're going to automatically assume how important he was to our culture.
25:41
I think that's the bottom line. How are you going to be remembered? You're going to be remembered by the success you were
25:47
involved in and by how many people you reached and and how effective your your
25:52
artwork was. He loves doing these films. Like he's he said this is one of his favorite scores.
25:58
And it's not and he said it's not the kind of score that you walk out of the theater whistling the the motif. He said
26:05
it's just something. It's a score that that um just perfectly sets the tone,
26:12
the background for the movie. And like it's one of his favorite scores. And I I
26:17
don't I wouldn't disagree with him because he had to challenge himself because this is an action movie. This is
26:24
an uh science fiction epic. This is uh a critique on uh culture in many ways. So
26:33
this encompasses a lot of themes and that all has to be represented by the movie and the music by the score.
26:40
I mentioned spoon feeding audiences. Um music and score is another thing that they another tool that they use to to
26:48
tell the the dummy audience what to feel. But I mean it wasn't the case back
26:53
then, you know. It just set the tone. It set the the background. It it like brought you into the you know the um uh
27:02
the action of the scene the um you know how how desperate the scene is. The action in it you know I mean it slows
27:09
down when it when you need to take a step back and breathe like a score really tells a lot about
27:15
Yeah. Well, and Jerry Goldsmith is an absolute or was an absolute master and
27:20
he probably had one of the biggest toolboxes out of uh every composer that
27:27
was working at that time. He was not limited by his by his ability to get bogged down by just doing straight
27:34
orchestrations. You listen to some of his scores and they're very percussive and they're very rhythm driven and and u
27:40
then you listen to a score like LA Confidential which just really leaned into like okay this is a movie in the
27:47
50s it's going to sound like the 50s. Yeah. Let's make a film noir. Yeah. And you know, uh, the great thing
27:54
about Goldmith is you can tell it's Goldmith, but at the same time, so many movies, the score is so
28:02
different than anything he's ever done. Um, it's weird that he's got this uniqueness, but at the same time, he's
28:08
able to speak in a wide variety of musical languages.
28:14
Yes, he's a true artist. And it's it's amazing to me that when you bring so
28:20
much talent together for a movie like this, and this was the second most expensive movie to date, because the
28:25
only movie more expensive, also produced by Carol Crow, was Rambo 3, and that
28:31
didn't have remotely the kind of talent this movie had. You're always running a
28:37
risk of going off the rails and and not being ple being able to please all the
28:42
egos. this just came together and this just something greater came out of this.
28:48
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, Carol Co. wasn't they weren't a monster in the production industry
28:54
either, were they? Well, not at the start, but after Rambo 3, it's whenever you saw Tristar and
29:01
whenever you saw that horse coming and whenever you saw that that Carol go in on the screen, you know you were in for
29:07
it. You know this was going to be a great movie. How how did you guys that that brings me to a a point. How did you
29:13
guys watch this? Um on my laptop on HBO Max. Okay. I watched it on HB. Okay. Well, I
29:20
mean, did you put a a Blu-ray or DVD in or Blu-ray? Okay. Um so I watched it on HBO Max
29:26
because my my DVD copy, which is in the Mars tin, I don't know know if you remember when this came out on DVD here
29:32
in the States, SECO, they put out it. It came in a in a round tin that looked
29:38
like Mars. Nice. Um Um It's up in a closet somewhere in my box of DVDs. So, I watched it on HBO
29:45
as Max as well. Now, being a few years older than me, um you guys might have noticed, you know,
29:52
the the prosthetics, the fake um you know, the heads and stuff during during
29:57
the uh the Fat Girl um airport trans transformation and when he's yanking the thing out of his nose. Um, but when I
30:05
was a kid, I it all of that looked so real to me,
30:11
you know, I didn't know that that was a fake Arnold head that came out of that lady's body, you know,
30:16
and it still holds up. I mean, it does. Sure. you I mean if you really scrutinize it sure you know it's
30:22
animatronics or it's puppetry or it's special effects or what have you but you're at the this movie does such a
30:30
good job at balancing suspension of disbelief because it brings you from point A to B to C to D. there's a
30:36
logical progression and um they introduce a concept before it becomes a story element. Like for example, when
30:43
you walk through an X-ray machine, they show Arnold walking through an X-ray machine as an everyday thing and later
30:50
on in the movie, it becomes an actual plot point. It becomes an important element of his escape.
30:56
Yeah. The the one thing about that scene though with the with the the woman checking going through customs in Mars
31:02
is it's always bothered me when that like steel rod comes out and goes back in. That would have hit Arnold in the
31:08
head. Yeah. Yeah, that was deep. And also how he didn't rip his nostrils
31:14
open taking that tracker out of that had to hurt. Uh
31:20
and you know I wanted to ask you guys, we never see that guy again, right? the guy that um the guy in the briefcase
31:26
that you know says we Yeah. Um one and done. Yeah. It's it's it's I I we have to
31:32
assume that he planted by Cohagen or Yeah. Or or planted by Hower.
31:39
Yeah. Depending on which version you believe. Same thing. Yeah. Well, so here's the thing. This entire movie is basically a
31:47
plot to assassinate the head of the revolution in Mars. Mhm. So, this poor guy who's dumped on
31:55
Mars with a fake wife, if you follow this version of the story, is basically
32:02
living with a with suppressed memories. Um, he's obviously a lot smarter than
32:08
the construction worker he appears to be. Uh, I found it interesting how much money they had. I mean, how much money
32:14
would a construction worker have to have like an apartment like that? To have a wife looking like that? I mean, that's a
32:20
trophy wife because she was living at home. Yeah. And she was happy. How do you keep her happy like that? I
32:26
mean, she's playing fake tennis all day, right? Yeah. That job was an OSHA uh OSHA's
32:33
nightmare. Arnold is is jackhammering there. No, no protective gear anywhere
32:39
in sight. Um, I don't know how he didn't have like extreme hearing loss at the end of the day, but you know, you get to
32:46
see where there's the scene where Michael Ironside, who's like one of the all-time great henchmen, um, has that
32:52
scene where he says to the other guy, um, when they establish that, you know, Sharon Stone was under undercover as as
32:59
Quaid's wife says, uh, you think you think uh, what what you think she liked it?
33:04
No, I'm sure she hated every minute of it. That's like the most Paul for Hoben
33:10
scene you can make. That look the actor gives. That's typical typical Paul for and you see like that seed of insecurity
33:17
um sort of you know fester inside of Ironside and oh he wants to kill Arnold.
33:23
I I I feel like too any other actor that or any other character that delivers that line would get a a bullet right
33:28
between the the eyes but then this guy could get away with it. Oh yeah, because RTOR Michael Ironside plays a character
33:35
named RTOR and RTOR is just just is a sociopath. Yeah. Yeah.
33:40
I mean, this is this is guy this guy was gonna f was [ __ ] up the works because
33:45
Cohagen the the main bad guy of the movie had this big elaborate intelligent
33:51
plan and at some point he thought, you know what, I'm going to put RTOR on it because he's the right guy for the job.
33:58
Well, guess what, buddy? He wasn't. No. Oh my god, what a mess did that guy
34:03
make. Yeah. May maybe but he didn't give him all the information. It was just like bring Hower or bring Quaid back to me
34:09
and he didn't tell him anything else. Yeah, but at the same Yeah. But at the same time,
34:16
did Cohagen know that he had a relationship with the Sharon Stone character? Because
34:23
why would you why would you do that? Why would you take your main henchmen's woman and put her undercover for? I
34:31
mean, how long did they think he was going to be undercover for? No idea. But well, basically they it was
34:37
a timed memory cap that was going that was going to be popped at a specific
34:42
time. So once the revolution was was um squashed, right? So they could pop his memory cap
34:49
so orwait could return to Mars so they could capture quad blah blah blah. So
34:55
that was the whatever plan they had, it malfunctioned because they had RTOR uh
35:02
and his wife was with Quaid and this guy was just not happy. And when you think
35:08
about it, if your wife is just banging some asset and you just sort of have to
35:15
stand back and and be cucked. Yeah,
35:21
I mean I can I can sort of understand how he becomes homicidal at that point,
35:26
but he does go off seriously go off the rails because at some point Quaid is escaping in an in an underground train
35:34
and he just unloads his machine gun indiscriminately, killing innocent bystanders. He just
35:41
does not care. He just does gives zero [ __ ] He's going back to Mars anyway. [ __ ] those
35:47
earthlings. Beautiful. Yeah. I I I do want to talk a little bit
35:53
about Sharon Stone at this point because I think Yeah. No, I was saying a lot of people I don't think think about her anymore. Like they just know her as
36:00
Sharon Stone, the celebrity. They don't really think about her as an actress or or as an actor. And I think that this
36:06
movie is a great example of that. I mean, B is basic. How brilliant and talented she is. Exactly. Um, and I think the way she
36:13
plays this character is so great because she's able to like turn on a dime and realize when it's time to start
36:19
putting the charm on again and trying to sort of seduce Quaid again. Um, but it's
36:25
all it's all an act because you see how quickly she turns. And man, she loved kicking him in the balls.
36:30
Oh, yes. Oh, definitely. She you could see the glee in her face.
36:35
Yeah. You know what though? I I I wonder if that was a thing because later in the movie um the Molina character they talk
36:42
about making her like u you know making her Hower's wife and she says I'll bust his balls
36:49
be the first one. Wouldn't be the first one. Arnold got hurt in this one definitely.
36:56
Aside from hurting his hand hitting a window that was supposed to pop but it
37:02
didn't. And um Sharon Stone actually hurt him in the fight and he had a
37:07
broken finger and they had to shoot around it for the rest of the uh rest of the shoot. And Michael Ironside cracked his sternum
37:14
too. Oh yeah. Yeah. He got he got really [ __ ] up. This is an action movie. This is an 80s
37:20
action movie and you pay the price. That's why those movies are so good
37:26
because the actors are in pain. Yeah. Yeah. And he had to do the uh the elevator fight scene with Arnold with a
37:33
broken sternum. Ah, so you want the body rigged up. That has to be one of the greatest
37:39
alltimes diss and dismiss in a movie. Like I mean
37:44
the guy loses his arms. Yeah. While he's holding his arms, falls to his death and his arms hit the
37:51
grounds after he does. It's just savage. It's just savage dismissal. after him.
37:58
The guy falls. He's like screaming and he sees like the basically his the end of his limbs and he's like, "Ah, that's
38:05
the end of him." And then he just throws his arms. So, you're at the party, Rita. It's beautiful.
38:10
That was as a 12-year-old kid watching this, that was one of the more memorable death scenes I've ever seen.
38:16
You applaud at that point because that's just brilliantly done. But you know what? And and this is
38:22
classic Arnold, too, because I know a lot of people sort of joke about like, you know, you have these like corny sort
38:29
of lines that characters say after they kill somebody, but that one was was perfect and it seemed like something
38:35
that could potentially be said in reality, you know, like um uh it wasn't
38:40
like a cheesy a cheesy line. And I think Arnold and it was a comeback, too. Yeah.
38:46
RTOR had punched him in the face right before he was going to be brainwashed. Like, is he going to remember any of
38:52
this? No, no, no. We'll see him later at the party. And he just punches him in the face and he leaves the room and like,
38:58
"I'll see you at the party." Well, like that's your check, buddy. He got him back.
39:03
Ah, it's I mean, this movie is just full of that stuff. Just like the u one of my
39:08
favorite things about about the special effects was they introduced Yeah. the
39:14
the the watch he has where he can project the hologram. And so at first
39:20
he's like shooting at himself. And that's for Hovind's way of explaining how that hologram works. So later on
39:26
when uh they're in a dire situation and they're surrounded by uh security
39:31
forces, they he uses that watch and five after five seconds of those guards
39:38
shooting at him, you suddenly realize, oh, he's using the watch. Yeah. And then the uh you see the the life
39:45
drain out of RTOR's face too when he realizes he's not dead because he was he
39:50
was he was glowing when he thought, "Ah, we finally got this guy. Yeah, we got him." Now, not not to to you know, nitpick,
39:56
but in in that scene, you had soldiers on both sides shooting at a hologram with with no no uh you know, no
40:03
crossfire deaths. Yeah, that that should have hurt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I like
40:09
about that scene too is how um they share the the they share the watch, the hologram. So at at some points it
40:17
becomes uh Melena um smart use of a tactical advantage.
40:22
Yeah. Another great actress uh Rachel Tickotton um who is is just I think
40:27
she's great in this movie. Um, and this might sound weird, but the one thing I really appreciated about this movie was,
40:34
and I don't know if either one of you noticed it, um, but her teeth were real teeth.
40:41
They weren't like super super white. Um, they she didn't have pretty caps.
40:47
Yeah. And I appreciated that because this is a a resistance woman on Mars.
40:53
Yeah. Like I mean, I'm sure we're lucky she's not a mutant with three tits.
40:58
Right. I mean, let's let's face it. We're talking about this this intellectual side of the movie and the
41:04
action side of the movie. But when we were 12 years old and we were well I was a little older. When we were in our
41:10
teens and we were watching this movie, Oliver Hovind took us to the Amsterdam
41:16
red light district on Mars and you had like really hot women with completely
41:22
deformed faces and women with three breasts and all kinds of insane stuff.
41:29
And and a and a little person as well. Oh yeah. Who's quite homicidal when she gets a
41:36
knife in her hands. I mean it's it's just It's out there this movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
41:45
how great is that fight between uh
41:50
Melena and Sharon Stone? Normally, you would get a cat fight. Here you just get like Bruce Lee.
41:56
This is basically Bruce Lee against Chuck Norris. Rachel Ticotine's character is a revolutionary. So, of
42:02
course, she's not gonna she's not going to be scratching uh faces or pulling hair. She's gonna be kicking your teeth
42:08
down your throats. It was an amazing fight to watch. It It really was. I love that fight. And
42:13
then, of course, it's got the great um consider this a divorce payoff. Um it's Was that your wife? What a [ __ ]
42:21
Yeah. She she's not your typical leading lady from from the 80s either. And she she gorgeous though. Her her she she
42:29
just looked perfect. Sleazy, sexy, and the mirror. Yeah. just just like he specified when
42:36
he was in the chair before he got implanted. So, it could all be a dream. Yeah.
42:42
And how about um let's uh talk a little bit about quad, the animatronic
42:47
tumor. I remember in the 90s it ended up in house songs where uh you know, open your
42:55
mind would be like repeated 50 times because you know how that goes. You go to a party and everybody's on a on
43:02
pills. So it's like open your mind. Open your mind.
43:07
Yeah. And the way he says it is like um like mesmerizing. It's I think it's like pull for Hovven's
43:13
take on Yoda. But you look at at even the the mouth of the animatronic and and when they did
43:20
you mentioned Yoda when they did Yoda it was just a puppet where the mouth went up and down. But this but Quad's mouth articulated
43:27
the words open your mind over and over again. And like what was it like 15
43:33
puppeteers it took to operate him? Yeah, I believe it. It really looks like he's pregnant with
43:38
him. Yeah, I remember there was like this this horror movie in the 80s. Uh I think it
43:44
was a trauma movie which was uh what was it called? Uh Basket Case. The twin
43:50
brother would be like attached but hidden. It kind of like had that kind of
43:55
horror movieesque feel to it. And the irony is that was a lowbudget horror movie and this is like an big budget
44:03
Hollywood movie just showing like the most atrocious stuff because when you think you don't expect this kind of
44:09
thing, you're expecting, you know, uh John Connor, a rebel leader. No, you're not getting that. You're getting like a
44:15
a baby inside of a man. Um they explain the idea of the mutants being um you know, unprotected from the
44:22
sun's radiation and and I imagine like it it's not something that happened overnight. This is over the course of a
44:28
couple of generations. Yeah. Um but they, you know, each mutant had a different
44:34
issue. You know, Benny's arm was different than the uh the little prophet girl's um face and which was different
44:41
than Tony's Tony's prosthetics, right? You know, his like in the back of the head looked like a vagina.
44:47
Yeah. Yeah. It was like a strip of th those makeup people just to come up with these these different little
44:54
Rob Boutine, man. He's a wizard. Yeah, man. They it basically just they just gave
44:59
gave him free reign. It's like, "Hey, man, go to town." Tony got the short end of the stick, though. But, you know, you got the the
45:05
stripper with the three tits. Like, her her mutation was wasn't as bad.
45:11
I I think though we haven't talked about the great great Ronnie Cox yet. No, we haven't. And we should. Yeah.
45:18
He's one of my favorite Star Trek captains from the episode Chain of Command part
45:24
one and part two. Get it done. None of that Pard [ __ ] The the Ronnie Cox had this incredible
45:30
ability as an actor to play a good guy really great like he did in Beverly
45:37
Hills Cop or play a bad guy really great like he did in Robocop and Total Recall. Uh and
45:43
a lot of actors get sort of they do one or the other. They're not able to excel at both. And Ronnie Cox is just such a
45:49
next level guy um that you could buy him as the captain in Beverly Hills Cop and
45:55
then also as you know uh Dick Jones or um or the guy who plays the banjo in
46:02
Deliverance. And I don't mean the kid on the bridge, the guy in the boat who starts playing
46:09
with the kid. That's that's Ronnie Cox. Oh wow. He's been around that long. Brilliant. Brilliant actor. and Cohagen.
46:16
True character acting. Yeah. And Cohagen's great. And the one thing I I I love in this movie is you
46:22
can tell that he had some kind of genuine friendship with Hower. And when
46:28
he finally has to make the decision to let Hower go, he's pissed.
46:33
Yeah. Ironside plays it great. Cox plays it great. It's just it's not acting that
46:39
you should see in in a movie like Total Recall, but you get it and it's awesome.
46:44
Yeah. Like it broke his heart to have to make that call. Yeah. Yeah. For Hovind infused some extra
46:50
layers into the relationship between Cohagen and Hower that is not on screen.
46:55
And I I looked at the director's commentary and that's for Hovind talking
47:00
with Arnold. Yeah. So for Hovind is going, "Well, you know, maybe there's something going on here. Maybe maybe
47:07
Cohagen had a sexual relationship with Hower and maybe that's why he can't let
47:12
him go and that's why he's so pissed and that's why his goldfish has to die because he kicks his aquarium. Right.
47:18
And so Arnold goes, "No, no, it's just because they're best friends and he want none of that." Right. But it's it's
47:25
that's that's for Hovind. He's a little Well, uh I didn't think there that there was
47:30
there was any way. Um but in the in the uh video clip where it shows Cohagen and Arnold, they are standing
47:36
shouldertoshoulder. Is he as tall as Arnold is? He looked taller than Arnold in that clip. Yeah. And then again, it might be
47:44
because Cohagen is supposed to be kind of like a father figure to Hower. All right. So, they probably put him on
47:50
a Yeah. It's it's they're they're they're in it together and they're like two peas in a pod.
47:56
Yeah, that was the same set where they filmed the briefcase scene as well, right? H hower looked exact it looked
48:02
like the same day almost like they were like, "Okay, we're going to film the the escape scene and then we're going to
48:08
film the the Hower reveal scene." Yes. And then they're going going to go into the brainwash room and after that
48:13
we just dump you on on on Earth and you get to [ __ ] you get to [ __ ] RTOR's wife.
48:19
That's probably what sold it to Hower. So you you like Lori, right? Well, you get [ __ ] all day.
48:25
What is your favorite tech in this movie? So there's a couple of different tech things that jumped out. There was
48:32
of course the uh like the video phone. Um but then there was also the uh change
48:37
your nail color on demand. Oh yeah. And the the Johnny Cab. Johnny Cab is my absolute favorite.
48:45
The great Robert Picardo doing Robert. You're in the Johnny Cab. And you could tell they sort of modeled the
48:52
Johnny Cab after Picardo. If you look at him, he kind of looks like Robert Picardo. Hell of a day, isn't it?
49:01
Some great great tech in this. One thing I' I've always that always struck me as really odd is at after I I
49:08
always thought it was like, okay, so is this standard that when you stiff the cat, you don't tries to kill you?
49:16
Oh, the Yeah. What What caused that? Yeah, it doesn't seem like like a great solution.
49:21
Like I also love how how there was a manual
49:28
control for the Johnny cab, but yeah, the Johnny cab didn't use it because he didn't have arms,
49:34
but you would have to to yank the the mannequin out of the car to use it. Well, or deactivated in some way and
49:41
Arnold just didn't have any patience, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like go, just go and catch refuse. I don't I I don't recognize that
49:50
name. Brilliant. Okay, so we talked a little bit about Sharon Stone, but I don't
49:56
think we've talked enough about Sharon Stone because she's at her absolute hottest in this movie. I mean, I've seen her before and stuff.
50:03
I mean, you remember like Alan Quartermain and Yeah. Um she's also in Action Jackson with uh
50:09
Car Weathers. Yeah. Yeah. And that's really good movie that I'm I think I'm gonna cover it for uh as
50:15
a special episode for the network at some point is except when he punch there's a scene in Action Jackson that even bothered me
50:21
when I was a kid is he punches through the windshield and it breaks like glass.
50:27
Oh, I mean almost like it's like made of sugar. Well, no, but I mean like we all know that like a windshield will will spider,
50:34
right? you know it, but it this is like he he's like punching through the the
50:39
glass on a front window or something of somebody's house. Um that always bothered me. And also uh Action Jackson
50:47
has the insanely beautiful Vanity as well. Oh yeah. Weather's Wife.
50:54
Yeah. uh you know a pretty tragic story with Vanity but uh you know uh
51:00
in the you know capture that moment in time and I mean that just what a what a vibrant
51:07
personality and uh what a smoking hot woman. Yeah. And and and talented too.
51:12
Yeah. So here we have Sharon Stone and here we have Paul Verhovven looking at Sharon Stone seeing what she can do.
51:19
obviously already having the basic instinct script and having this in the back of his mind like can she she can do
51:26
this for five minutes but could she do this for two hours. It was almost like an audition. Everybody wanted to be in basic
51:32
instinct. everything really and Paul Verhovven just raised the bar
51:38
to a point where he had like this really nasty script full of sexual stuff and
51:44
that you'd have like these famous actresses like like you named them and they read and they would be like yeah
51:51
but it's not going to be as bad as in the script right and Paul Verhovven would just say oh no it would be much worse
51:58
and of course they'd seen Paul Verhovven's Dutch stuff so if you've seen his Dutch stuff, you know, it's
52:04
much worse. Now, he wanted her to show a little bit more skin in this than she was willing
52:10
to do. And um when he got her when he got her to do um Basic Instinct,
52:15
it was, you know, him showing her, I guess, the famous the famous I didn't know about this stuff. Of course, she knew
52:21
about it. She had to sign it. She had to sign for that. Everybody was kicked off the set to do that scene. She had to she
52:27
had to take her panties off. According to Carl Paul for Hovind, she gave him gifted him her panties.
52:34
She's a liar. Well, you don't know what what what to believe because in in uh the specialist,
52:40
was it the specialist? Yeah. She um you know, it took a bottle of tequila for her to agree to get naked on that or
52:47
bottle according to Stallone, but Stallone is a buyer, too. So, that's I I don't know. I don't know what to believe
52:54
because I remember this interview like um where they talked about that sex scene and you see a lot of Stallone and
53:00
very little Sharon Stone and the reason the reason Stallone gave was yeah well you know I kept warning Sharon that you
53:06
know you can't eat all that pizza because we're going to have this scene and so he kept training and she kept
53:12
eating pizza and in the end she sort of hid behind him. Yeah, we we talked about how unsettling
53:17
that scene is. Right. Yeah. Scott Murphy just a review on the specialist and in it they talk at length
53:23
about how horribly awkward the humping is in the in in the shower scene. I have to
53:30
agree with him. It's just it's hard to watch and it's not best stuff. And when
53:37
you look at this movie when she's in bed with Arnold and she's like, you know, loosening her bodice and
53:44
well, guess what? They practiced that in a hotel room. The three of them uh went to the married
53:50
hotel, got a room, and they practiced that scene, which is typical Arnold because Arnold always ultra rehearses
53:58
every scene he does because he's a very, well, let's face it, he's insecure about his acting. Here's a guy who came from
54:05
bodybuilding, didn't know anything about acting really. He could barely deliver lines.
54:11
So, this is a guy who had to practice and practice and practice at his craft. So, he would rehearse every scene of the
54:18
script. And so, this is a script he loved. So, he knew the script by heart. So, at some point, they said, "Well, I
54:24
don't do that many sex scenes. We should probably rehearse this." So, they went to the Marriott. They uh frolicked in
54:31
the hotel room. And lo and behold, the paparazzi got a hold of it. And so, ever since then, they've been suggesting,
54:38
well, they had a threesome. And so, of course, I'm from, you know, European
54:45
sensibilities and there's sex in every movie and there's breasts in every movie and it's there's there's nudity in every
54:51
movie. It's normal. So, we don't really think about it. It's like brushing teeth for us. But I assume for an American
54:57
audience seeing this much skin that must have been shocking and having
55:02
hotel employees seeing Sharon Stone coming and seeing like this big muscular guy Arnold show up and oh that isn't
55:08
that Paul Hovind and we've heard about this guy. So well that that's there the
55:14
reputation just went out the window there. You never know behind closed doors. On
55:21
the other hand, this is of course to if you go with the idea of total recall and there there could be two stories in
55:26
every situation. They could have known, well, everybody's just going to automatically assume
55:32
there's something weird going on here. Hey, let's do something weird. Could have been that. It It is Hollywood we're
55:38
talking about. They could have been doing unsavory things in that hotel room instead of rehearsing. You never know.
55:44
I have a, you know, not to derail this saucy talk with plot stuff, but I have a
55:50
question about the plot real quick. Okay. Um, now that this movie does have a plot. That's true. Because because at some point RTOR says,
55:56
you know, at any moment he can have total recall. So the memory um the memory that they implanted in him that
56:03
was that had like an expiration date on it. Was that so?
56:08
Yeah. Well, I think also they could trigger it in some way. Yeah. or that they hadn't they hadn't
56:13
completely erased all of the Hower memories. So, normally you'd think that they would they would clear the memory
56:19
to make room for the the implanted memory. So, I think here it was sort of sitting on top of the old memories. So,
56:26
it's a matter of the old memories finally, you know, um coming back to the surface, breaking through. Yeah. And they were
56:33
obviously insecure about it because they were watching it like a hawk. I mean they had the wife, they had the
56:39
colleague, the min for some reason all these people were all working independently from each other because
56:45
this this colle this coworker from the construction yard heard something weird
56:51
and got went and got his buddies and they tried to execute him like, "Ah, you blabbed about Mars and now we're going
56:57
to like put you up against the wall and kill you." Yeah. I almost wonder if they were if they were working or they were they were
57:05
sort of dispatched through RTOR who was just looking for an excuse. Um
57:10
absolutely brilliant brilliant and brutal um scene there where Arnold um
57:17
dispatches is it five guys? Yeah. In in that in that in that um that like
57:24
alleyway almost. And the final shot you see there with uh you know the dead bodies and and Arnold
57:30
standing there with the gun that looks like a postcard if you pause the movie. Um it's just the composition of that
57:36
shot. Um, and the thing I love about Arnold's performance in that sequence is
57:43
he effectively does all of this really physical, technical, you know, obviously
57:48
he's been trained in combat. But as soon as it's over,
57:54
he's shocked that he was able to do it, right? And, you know, still a human being.
58:00
Yeah. Uhhuh. And and I think like if you really wanted to pinpoint
58:05
amazing moments in Arnold's acting career that showcase that he does have the ability when he's when he's led
58:12
there. Um that's definitely a sequence um where that you know that shines
58:17
through. Definitely. Yes. And I mean let's face it, this entire chase of Quaid is one
58:25
big action-packed bloody affair. you have the guy this to like the the the
58:32
shock of this this Quaid character realizing he's someone else and and there's
58:38
something very strange going on or he's going through some kind of psychotic episode. I mean, this is all
58:46
very confusing and it's something you can read off his face. And that's not your typical action hero. That's someone
58:54
trying to act and succeeding at it. In this four-part uh season, we've been
59:00
talking about Arnold becoming an action hero. Arnold chasing Stallone. Now, you
59:06
see Arnold at his peak. You see Arnold at his absolute best. Here's a guy who u
59:13
moved and shaked this movie become a reality. He's he's in the position he
59:19
wants to be in. This is his big moment and he steps up to the plate and he
59:24
delivers because this is a great performance and this is peak Arnold.
59:30
This I that's one of the reasons I think why Arnold loves this movie and his autobiography is called Total Recall.
59:37
Hint this movie really propelled him. This this this made 90s Arnold.
59:45
Perfectly put, Seiko. Um, I I mean it really is and and I hadn't really
59:50
thought about the overall impact uh on Arnold's career that this movie had
59:56
because um he could have very easily, you know, gotten trapped in the in the franchise
1:00:02
sort of um loop that Stallone found himself in. Mhm. Um I mean I don't
1:00:08
He's the He's the guy who said no to stop or my mom will shoot and then psychologically tricked
1:00:15
Stallone into doing it. Kind of like when he psychologically screwed with Lou Ferraro and pumping iron.
1:00:20
Exactly. He knew he was on top. And once Arnold is on top, there's no way you're
1:00:26
ever going to get him away from there. He knows exactly what to do to stay up there. And he knows Stallone Stallone's
1:00:33
finished. Craig, that's why Seagull likes Arnold so much is because he's as a big a troll as he is. Exactly.
1:00:40
You were you were in the middle of making a point. No, I I was just curious. I mean, uh, but do you have the box office numbers
1:00:46
for this, Sco? Sure. Um, this movie cost $65 million to make about 20% of that went to the
1:00:53
special effects and the rest of it went to um, you know, actors and sets and and
1:00:59
500 head crew in Mexico. We're talking 261 million in 2,000
1:01:07
theaters. So that's the domestic. It did over over 200 million in in domestically.
1:01:12
Yes. That's amazing. And for a little perspective, the first Jurassic Park in 1993
1:01:19
had about a $65 million budget. Yeah. Um so just look at the bang for your buck with Total Recall and the return on
1:01:26
investment there. So worldwide it it did much more. Um, yeah. I didn't realize.
1:01:31
Close to half a billion. A lot of money for that time. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
1:01:37
This is This is like modernday Marvel movie money. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
1:01:42
Um, this is blowing everyone else out of the water. Yes. Yeah. You know what? That's um
1:01:49
that's pretty crazy. Like I said, I never really sort of took him any time to sort of evaluate like where this sort
1:01:55
of sat in the overall career path. Yes. And Arnold was looking for a hit.
1:02:02
Arnold was looking for something that would really move the numbers because at some point uh when the movie was done,
1:02:09
he um was savvy enough to realize we're not getting enough traction. We're this
1:02:15
this trailer we have sucks. at some point they had like 40% awareness. So he
1:02:21
actually pressured Tristar into hiring uh another publicity company to redo the
1:02:29
trailer. Then he he started really looking at you know the tracking numbers and it actually went up to 92%
1:02:35
awareness. So this was an actor at the top of his game at the point where he
1:02:41
can just pick his projects and he was just not going to let this project fail
1:02:46
as other projects he had had masterminded had you know disappointed him because Red Heat wasn't the hit he
1:02:54
was looking for. Running man uh ran into all kinds of problems. So, it was not
1:02:59
going to happen again, which is crazy considering that like I mean he doesn't have a background in
1:03:05
marketing or anything anything like that. But he knew what it took to to put
1:03:10
this in in as many theaters and in front of as many people as it needed to be. And you know, I mean, imagine if he
1:03:17
didn't if he didn't uh pressure the studio to hire somebody else to, you know, to spread the word.
1:03:23
Yeah. But he he got certain scenes back into the movie. At some point you have this scene where you see a train going
1:03:30
into the mountain in Mars and the studio said, "Look, we don't need that shot. It's really expensive." And so Paul
1:03:37
Forhovven was talking this over with Arnold and said, "Look, I I really want to do this shot." So Arnold just said,
1:03:42
"Look, I'm just going to make this happen." And he went to the production and said, "Look, we need this shot." And it just happened. And and for Hovind
1:03:49
said, "Look, that that shot and this specific shot in this part of the movie would never be in it and it's really
1:03:55
important. They would never be in there unless you said something. Now that's saying something. And Arnold bas I think
1:04:02
Arnold at this point saw making a movie like building his body. He was thinking
1:04:08
in terms of how do I flex this muscle? How do I make this bigger?
1:04:13
This was his Olympia. He was committed. He was Yeah. 100%. And this was a guy
1:04:19
who stands back and watches other people work, understands how they do their
1:04:25
stuff, then just takes over. That's how he that's how he thinks. That's how he works. That's why it takes
1:04:31
a while for him to get the gist of things. Once he does, there's no way you're ever going to beat
1:04:37
him. The other thing I think that's interesting about Arnold, and and I don't want to make this like a Sly verse
1:04:43
Arnold thing because I love them both. I devoted a whole I devoted a whole podcast to Stallone,
1:04:50
but Stallone tended to find situations where he could get people that were just
1:04:56
talented enough to do the job, but didn't have enough of an ego so he could push them around.
1:05:02
Whereas on here, Arnold coexisted with Paul Verhovven,
1:05:08
which Arnold thrived with Paul Verhovven. Yeah. Whereas in 1990, I do not see
1:05:16
Stallone working with somebody as powerful as Rehovven. You know, for, you
1:05:22
know, for comparison, he's working with like first time or second time directors like Renie Harland on a movie like
1:05:28
Cliffhanger where you can sort of control the set. And it's incredibly
1:05:33
commendable um to think that um Arnold had enough confidence in himself but
1:05:40
also uh was able to sort of disconnect his ego just enough to let somebody like
1:05:45
Verhovven in. And I don't know if maybe and and I might have just answered my own question here guys. Maybe it's that
1:05:51
early experience working with James Cameron. He saw the benefit of working with very very powerful directors
1:05:59
because I think Arnold knew his limitations and realized I just need a great director. I
1:06:05
need to be directed well. I mean he did um Twins with Ivan Wrightman. Of course
1:06:11
Ivan Wrightman is is a comedic genius and twins worked really worked because
1:06:19
of that. And well, twins also work because of Kelly Preston. And Kelly Preston. Absolutely.
1:06:28
Total Recall. It's set in 2084, which isn't that far away when you think about
1:06:34
it. So, it's nice to think about, you know, us having interstellar travel. So, maybe Elon Musk will get his act
1:06:40
together, maybe even based on this movie. You never know. And the Sony Trinitron brand will be coming back.
1:06:45
Oh, yeah. Isn't that great? because I I'm really looking forward to having like a wall TV screen where I can just
1:06:52
project a lake and watch the news at the same time. Yeah.
1:06:58
Right. I mean, this this movie predicted flat screens in 1990. Yeah. Yeah.
1:07:04
Yeah. So, one thing that bothers me a little bit and so here we are in the
1:07:10
science fiction cleanup and I'm kind of a geek so I have to do this. Turbanian is nonsense. The mineral does not exist.
1:07:18
This is a plot device. People live with it. Uh there's another problem. This turbinium when it's heated, you see this
1:07:25
big alien machine. Uh okay, so it melts and then pure oxygen is released into
1:07:31
the Martian atmosphere and this is supposed to save Arnold from from
1:07:36
exposure to Martian space. Mhm. It doesn't work because um air to be
1:07:43
breathable has to be and I checked this 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, not 100%, 21%
1:07:50
and 1% various gases. So if you release 100% oxygen, and I I'm a you know, I'm a
1:07:58
hobby diver, so I know a little bit about oxygen. If you release that into the air, it's kind of volatile.
1:08:07
I know you're going down a science path here, but would that air eventually disappear as
1:08:14
well? Because didn't they say it was all based on trees? Well, also on the glaciers melting.
1:08:19
Yeah. There's no water. So, once Yeah. So, they're gonna
1:08:24
they're going to be in trouble again eventually. Yeah. There's no there's no uh viable
1:08:30
terraforming happening there. This is all I don't know. Maybe Quaid can run for office after this because he released
1:08:36
air and become the second Cohagen and then he just has to put people back into domes again.
1:08:42
It wouldn't uh instantly turn a red sky blue and you know have a similar atmosphere to Earth.
1:08:48
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Although the the stuff you see at the beginning of the movie and at the end where uh Arnold is
1:08:54
exposed to Martian air when you see his eyes bug out and you see his skin is like that's realistic. Um, if you are
1:09:03
caught out in the open on Mars, basically your organs are just going to ooze out of your [ __ ]
1:09:09
Mhm. Yeah. You you're um your brain is leak out of your ears.
1:09:15
All the um the uh liquid in your body will will boil to the or expand, right?
1:09:21
Something something like it'll just come oozing out everywhere because of the atmospheric difference. So that's fun.
1:09:27
That's think about. I also get that Mars is considered the red planet, but they
1:09:32
really really leaned into the redness of Mars. What did they know? There was 1990.
1:09:37
There were I mean there was no Hubble telescope and there was no rover. It was all later, right? The rover pictures nowadays, it
1:09:44
just looks like a hazy day, you know. But but at the end of the movie, once the atmosphere is released, it's not as
1:09:49
red. It's it just looks more like like uh deserty. Yeah. Just like in
1:09:55
blue sky. Just like in The Office at Recall. It's like the exact same picture. What do you know? You know, they Oh, they're doing
1:10:01
alien artifacts now. Well, and and and talking about the recall office and you you mentioned
1:10:07
earlier that you can sort of take from this movie what you want. But
1:10:12
at the end when she says um so you know, kiss me before you, you know, if it's a dream, kiss me before you wake up. And
1:10:19
then you sort of get that flare like that the light sort of engulfing them.
1:10:25
And there's all kinds of ways you can take that. And if you're of the opinion that this is all a recall thing, that's
1:10:32
the moment where he finally goes into a schizoid embolism or whatever. And yeah, that's right. They drill into his
1:10:38
brain. He comes lobomized where he's fully lobomized. I mean, or you can just say, "Okay, these are
1:10:44
the characters riding off into the sunset." Um, the more I watch this guys, um, I used
1:10:52
to be 100% team. this is all real. Um, but the more I watch it and the more
1:10:57
breadcrumbs I see Verhovven leaving and the screenwriters leaving, I have to believe that this is all just in his
1:11:05
head and it there's not a happy ending for Quaid. So, here we are. We're at the end of our
1:11:12
season and don't worry, we'll be back because next season we have lots of
1:11:17
Arnold stuff in store for you. But, we're going to be taking a small break.
1:11:23
We're hoping at one point we can entice Craig back. What do you say, Craig? Well, I say yes. Um, and you said you're
1:11:30
only talking good Arnold movies, and I want to make sure we're all on the same page here. Okay. Does that Does Does that include Raw Deal?
1:11:37
Maybe. I don't think we had that initially. Not in I think it's planned way, way,
1:11:44
way down the line. I do enjoy Raw Deal. We've talked about it on a on a previous episode. I do enjoy Raw Deal, but I
1:11:51
think it was with Wasn't that with Sean on the Conan episode. Anyway, Sean said it was like the most disjointed thing
1:11:57
he's ever seen. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, it's it's Arnold doing a favor for Dino Dorentes. That's basically it.
1:12:03
But it works on a very really weird level, and I think it's quintessential Arnold in the mid 80s. So,
1:12:10
next next season we have uh what do we got? Predator and Running Man. Oh, yeah.
1:12:15
Yeah. Either way, guys, I can one of the things that uh uh I I pride myself on is
1:12:21
being able to derail any conversation of any movie. So, whenever you Very true, very true.
1:12:28
When whatever you guys want me, uh I'm there. And uh I look forward to it. And again, um, if if you're listening to
1:12:35
this and you haven't seen Total Recall in a while and you think that we're
1:12:42
overreacting or it's just a huge love fest, this movie seriously delivers.
1:12:48
It's It's really I mean, we we nitpicked a little bit, but it really is from a
1:12:53
construction standpoint uh about as perfect and tight of a script that you
1:12:58
can get. It's it's barely nitpickable. Doug, any parting thoughts both on this
1:13:04
movie and our season? I think this was a great um you know, wrap up to to this season. You know, we
1:13:11
got we started with Arnold's origins in Pumping Iron and um we got to really
1:13:17
what what I think we all consider his peak um his peak action performances of
1:13:24
you know not not that man I can't I can't even say he he just you know dropped off after this because he was
1:13:31
still he was still doing he was still working but uh this this is undoubtedly
1:13:37
the peak and I think we wrapped it up nicely. One of the things I love about what we do here is we don't and no
1:13:43
offense to the to the guys that do like plotheavy films because I do it with Rocky Minute um you know but but we
1:13:50
don't we get more into the background and the nuances and you know we we of course we touch on the plot but it's not
1:13:57
um you know we don't go beat by beat through the plot so it's not you know so people that listen and they still want
1:14:03
to to watch the movie are still going to be surprised but they're also going to have these nuggets in the back of their mind saying oh that's what they were
1:14:09
talking now, you know. So, yes, because going beat by beat with this movie is
1:14:15
impossible. Well, you could do it, but you wouldn't do it justice because you you have to do it twice.
1:14:21
You you could do a a six-part series like the like the six do guys do on and
1:14:26
I hope they do do this. Unless they did they didn't do this one yet, right? Oh, I think they've done it but have just
1:14:32
haven't released it yet because um I think they just released a whole Terminator series and they've just
1:14:38
released a whole Eraser series. They they they're really really good at doing playbyplay.
1:14:43
Yes. Uh I really enjoy listening to them in terms of going from one part of the movie to the
1:14:50
next. Yeah. Yeah. They tied it up well. But [ __ ] I mean, you could do six parts on just the duality of this movie is
1:14:56
whether it's real or if it's in in uh Quaid's mind. Yeah. Yeah. I get a lot of [ __ ] about being critical about Stallone, but if you
1:15:03
start listening to the Six Degrees of Schwarzenegger, um they take Stallone critique to the
1:15:10
next level. So, you know, one thing you did say, Doug, and I don't want to get us into a whole another
1:15:16
conversation here, but you sort said this was sort of the the crest of the mountain, if you will. Um, I think that
1:15:23
also dovetales into a a conversation about this was all leading to an end at
1:15:29
some point for the ultra, you know, hyper, you know, action
1:15:36
uh, genre that was Peak Stallone and Peaks Horsene and, you know, Sagal sort
1:15:42
of got into that and got some of that money at some point, but nobody realized it, of course, because
1:15:48
you never realize when something's going to end or We don't hope it's going to end, but we all knew there was a or or
1:15:54
looking back now, you see that there's a point where they've gone as high as they can in terms of salaries and budgets and
1:16:01
everything that this was a crescendo. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And um the
1:16:07
logical conclusion happened, right? Yes. And it couldn't couldn't be any other guy. It was always going to be
1:16:12
Arnold. Thank you listeners so much for listening. Bye for now.
1:16:17
Heat [Music]
1:16:24
up here.
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[Music]