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Tessa B. Dick gives us the definitive take on Total Recall, what her late husband would have thought, and how much of Philip K. Dick’s wit, wisdom, and empathy she sees in Paul Verhoeven’s blockbuster.
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Tessa B. Dick gives us the definitive take on Total Recall, what her late husband would have thought, and how much of Philip K. Dick’s wit, wisdom, and empathy she sees in Paul Verhoeven’s blockbuster.
Read by Rebecca Davis and written by Tessa B. Dick. Theme song by Lofi Geek.
Read by Rebecca Davis and written by Tessa B. Dick. Theme song by Lofi Geek.
We Can Remember it for You Wholesale (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1966): https://www.scribd.com/document/485526708/We-Can-Remember-it-for-You-Wholesale
The original article on The Companion: https://www.thecompanion.app/2020/11/23/tessa-b-dick-searching-for-my-husband-in-verhoevens-movie-total-recall/
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Thank you to our production team which include Nick Hayward, Lawrence Kao, Tommy Terry-Green, James Hoare, George Mole, Ben Herbert, Hattie Smith, and Chris Smith.
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I'm Rebecca Davis. Sadly, the
visionary Philip K. Dick passed
away before he was able to see
his ideas enter the movie
mainstream. But we're delighted
to be able to present this
incredible review of Total
Recall from his wife, and the
uncredited co author of A
Scanner Darkly, who gives us
perhaps the definitive take on
the movie, what her late husband
would have thought and how much
of his wit wisdom and empathy
she sees in Paul Verhoeven's
blockbuster, searching for my
husband in Verhoeven's movie, by
Tessa B. Dick.
When I first saw Total Recall in
the theatre in 1990, I had to
threaten to call the manager
because some teenagers sitting
behind me kept hooting and
shouting every time they saw a
naked or scantily clad woman on
the screen. I did not pay $6 To
listen to them for two hours.
What impressed me most strongly
was the way that the film
captured my husband's sense of
humour. On subsequent viewing,
I've discovered many more layers
of meaning in the film. Despite
its obvious reliance on action
and special effects, which I
believe to be unnecessary to
carry the plot. The story runs
much deeper than action and
adventure which you will see if
you pay attention to the
underlying themes. Sadly, Philip
K. Dick did not live long enough
to see the many films that his
work inspired, starting with
Blade Runner in 1982. Many films
have been based on or inspired
by his novels and stories. He
did see the rough cut of Blade
Runner, but he never had the
opportunity to see the finished
film is premature death in 1982
ended a brilliant career that
was just beginning to bring him
the recognition he so greatly
deserved. Paul Verhoeven 's 1990
film Total Recall turns on a
more intellectual premise than
most viewers expect from a
science fiction movie. Based on
Philip K Dick short story, We
Can Remember It for You
Wholesale, first published in
the magazine of fantasy and
science fiction, April 1966. It
raises questions about whether
we can trust our own memories,
did what we remember really
happen? Did it happen the way we
remember it? The premise asks
these questions and more, but we
must provide our own answers. In
the story, and the film, a man
whose lifelong dream has been to
go to Mars as a secret agent
finds a way to make his dream
come true by having false
memories implanted in his brain.
Unfortunately for him, he really
has been to Mars, but he's not
supposed to remember. In fact,
his real memories of what he did
on Mars have marked him for
death. These issues underlie
both the Paul Verhoeven film and
the story on which it is based.
Wholesale recall, We Can
Remember It for You Wholesale
explores the question of whether
we can trust our own memories in
a more gentle way than the
action adventure film. Douglas
Quayle digs protagonist rather
than the muscular Quade of the
movie attempts to fulfil his
childhood dream of visiting Mars
by purchasing false memories at
the offices of recall
Incorporated, but things
immediately go wrong. Recall
uses a drug cocktail to induce
hypnotic sleep so they can
implant memories of the
customer's fantasy vacation.
When the drugs take effect,
Quayle reveals that his fantasy
about conducting a secret
mission on Mars is really a
buried memory. As a matter of
national security, he must never
recall his mission to Mars,
where he assassinated a major
political figure. On one level,
this tale reflects the film The
Manchurian Candidate as a source
of inspiration. While it also
brings to mind Lee Harvey
Oswald's firm denial of having
shot President Kennedy or anyone
else on that November day in
1963. In private conversations,
Dick speculated that perhaps
Oswald's memory was erased. Or
perhaps he was subjected to mind
control as was the fictional
hero of the Manchurian
Candidate. Beyond that, however,
the story presents an underlying
fantasy that is also true, but
which has implications reaching
far beyond the fate of the main
character. The 1990 film Total
Recall starring Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone
takes the story as a starting
point and then runs in a new
direction. Rather than unpeeling
the levels of false and real
memories, The film presents a
series of action scenes with
plenty of violence. The mild
mannered clerk of the story
becomes a burly rough edged
construction worker in the film.
Interestingly, the film captures
Philip K Dick sense of humour,
which while often dark,
sometimes makes us stop and
think. For example, a robot taxi
driver in the film fails to
understand what the hero means
when he yells just go. The robot
insists on a specific
destination before He will make
the car move. Drive drive, would
you please repeat the
destination? Anyway? Just go
Don't please stay. Said, I'm not
familiar with that address.
Would you please repeat? That
scene reflects our frequent
frustration with labour saving
technology, which Deke
brilliantly depicts in his
stories and novels. Whereas
Quayle in the story negotiates
with his adversaries Quade in
the film meets force with
greater force. Schwarzenegger
fits the role of the action hero
Douglas Quaid. Although Douglas
Quayle of the short story is
much more of an ordinary man who
feels more empathy than the film
hero who kills his co workers
and beats up his wife. Of
course, those actions are
justified because his coworkers
attacked him first and his wife
is really an agents and to spy
on him and prevent him from
remembering his mission to Mars.
Sharon Stone makes the role of
quids fake wife believable, and
she makes it easy to applaud him
for beating her up when she
attacks him. The hero of Dick
story, on the other hand, saves
the world by an act of kindness.
His wife in the story nags him
and makes him unhappy. But she
is not the cold bitch of the
film. She is simply unhappy with
her daydreaming husband, who,
like Walter Mitty, lets
opportunity pass while he
immerses himself in fantasy.
Looking to Mars. The film takes
his most radical divergence from
the story when Quaid actually
goes to Mars, he finds himself
in a scenario reminiscent of
Dick's novel The teleported man.
Colonists have been forced into
slave labour mining minerals
near Olympus Mons, the massive
volcano on Mars. Their labour
supports the war effort and the
lavish lifestyle of their
overlord co Hagen, who needs
quite alive for reasons that
become somewhat clear only in
the last half hour of this two
hour film. If the colonists defy
the authorities in any way, they
are deprived of oxygen. The thin
almost non existent atmosphere
on Mars provides a pivotal plot
point that leads to a
spectacular ending. The only
reason he has any idea what to
do is that he receives
instructions from recordings
that he made for himself before
the authorities wiped his
memory. His antagonists have
gone to great lengths to
convince him that he's still
dreaming. But on Mars, he meets
the woman of his fantasies, and
she is real. On his arrival at
the colony on Mars, the film
morphs into a story about
slavery and environmental
degradation rather than a simple
action thriller. While it does
not preach the film does present
the dark side of colonisation
and servitude. Many of the
children born in the mining
colony are mutants created by
the radiation that flows through
the thin shielding over their
homes. Quaid walks past them in
search of someone he must meet
and he does not seem to care
about them. However, their
interactions with each other
make them sympathetic
characters. While Schwarzenegger
is performance is primarily
athletic, he does display some
acting skill. Sharon Stone plays
the role of the femme fatale
very well. But the real standout
is Rachel Dakotan as Molina to
coton displays a wide range of
attitudes and emotions and they
all come across as genuine. She
has appeared in a number of
films and television shows, most
notably her recurring role as
Lieutenant Arlene Gonzalez on
the series Law and Order LA. She
also played Dr. Marie sironen,
on Grey's Anatomy, and most
recently, Gina in the 2019
series, the act.
The special effects are quite
advanced for their time, the
depiction of the Martian
landscape is convincing with red
cliffs and canyons cast against
a red sky. However, the same
with people cast out onto the
Martian surface is laughably ill
conceived. Their eyes are
popping out of their faces, and
they arrive while gasping for
air, as if the filmmakers simply
wanted to show off their skills
with makeup prosthetics and
computer imaging. In reality, if
science has anything to say,
they would instantly freeze
while the air was drawn out of
their lungs with the lack of air
pressure causing their bodies to
blow up like balloons until all
of the air and water in their
insides escaped into the near
vacuum. In short, they will
become freeze dried mummies.
Even more confusing is the idea
that melting the ice will
release oxygen, it will release
water but where does the air
come from? There is no mention
of splitting the water molecules
into hydrogen and oxygen. Most
importantly for the plot, quaids
existential transformation from
the cold amoral spy to a would
be saviour lacks foreshadowing.
We never know why he had to hide
his true identity from himself
rather than simply playing the
role without burying his real
memories. brutality and
sympathy. Overall, the film is
fun to watch, but it definitely
is not for children or the faint
of heart. It depicts extreme
violence, bloody corpses,
severed limbs and the use of
bystanders as human shields. The
language unashamedly employs
profanity at least once every
five minutes and the obligatory
female frontal nudity includes a
while meme with three breasts.
Pepsi must have paid well for
product placement considering
how often their products appear
on the screen. Beer is also
plentiful. The comic relief is
frequent and necessary to break
up the scenes of violence, which
would otherwise lose their shock
value. Benny the cab driver on
Mars manages to clown around
during some of the shootouts
allowing the audience to relax
and breathe a few times. You
will see so many violent scenes
that they will blend together in
your memory. The bad guy always
seems to miss while Quaid never
fails to kill his target. Even
though that might seem contrived
it makes sense by the end of the
film, co Hagen wants him alive.
The problem is that we only get
the thinnest explanation for why
ko Haven wants him alive. On a
personal note, Phil would have
enjoyed this film. While Total
Recall has little to do with the
story that he wrote. It does
explore themes running through
all of his stories and novels.
Mutants appear in many of Phil's
works, and Kobato the twin
embedded in his brother's torso
seems to jump right out of his
novel Dr. Blood Money. Number
one in his mind was empathy. The
single quality that more than
any other makes us human. Quaid
begins to care about the people
he meets and the people he
hasn't met. And that makes him
better than those who exploit
people for their own personal
gain, including his former self
before his true memories were
buried. In other words, his
character grows and changes
while he carries out his new
Mars mission. With every memory
that he recovers, he finds that
reality is not what he thought
it was, and he is not who he
thought he was. In fact, many
people and things turn out to be
quite different from what they
appear to be. The film also
reflects Phil's view that large
corporations use war to gather
wealth and power. If Phil were
here to watch this movie, you
would find much to love. Despite
the many gratuitous sexual and
violent scenes, historian novels
did not have car chases, and
shootouts to carry the reader
along. And Phil did not like
films that rely solely on
action. But Total Recall gives
us much more than action and
adventure. Companions audio
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