A few months ago they came out with a remake of the 80's action movie Total Recall. The special effects and the cinematography were, of course, light years beyond the original, but the story...well, it kind of sucked. The main problem was that they took Mars completely out of the story, and they didn't really bother to find anything else to fill the gaping hole left in the plot. Below is a list of reasons why this is such a problem. It would probably help immensely in your quest to understand this post if you've seen the remake ...or the original ...of if you just get out and see a movie once in a while. What's wrong with you? (Anyway, yeah, spoilers and all that.)
1. In the original, Quaid has an inexplicable fascination with Mars. He dreams of it. He doesn't know why. He wants to go there, but he's pinned down in a job and a marriage. Meanwhile, Rekall is presented as a kind of virtual travel agency. It makes perfect sense that he would go there. In the new movie, Quaid feels that he was "doing something important" in his dreams. So why would he go to Rekall for this? And exactly what is Rekall in this new movie? Even though there is ubiquitous advertising on both sides of the world, it's presented as a little, seedy, clandestine, back alley kind of place which seems to offer a service more akin to the "playback" in Strange Days than the concept in the original. Remind me again why someone would go to a place like this when they had a yearning to do something important with their life.
2. The possibility that Quaid could just be a normal guy dreaming of an exciting adventure on Mars who pays Rekall to simulate that adventure, OR a secret resistance fighter all along, is the essential ambiguity that's supposed to be at the core of this story. Now, it's possible that someone could just be a normal guy dreaming of "doing something important", but it doesn't really play out as well in the details. An average Joe having exotic dreams of Mars - even if they are nightmares - has a simplicity that we can easily appreciate. Being chased by faceless robots down generic sci-fi corridors? Ummm, not so much. In the new movie, there's never really a possibility that Quaid is just a normal guy with an exotic fantasy that he lives out in a virtual simulation through Rekall. From the first scene, he's the cliched "man with a secret destiny haunting his dreams that he must uncover." Not a whole lot of ambiguity there.
3. The original movie uses the travel agency idea to have the man from Rekall lay out a kind of itinerary for Quaid's trip, an itinerary which uncannily matches the subsequent events of the story, further developing the ambiguity. By the time Quaid is facing a recording of himself telling him "Get your ass to Mars", we're either thinking, "Hey, just like the package he ordered from Rekall! Hmmmm...", or, "Ohhh, so that's why he's been dreaming about Mars! He'll find his answers there." And the story can be taken both ways. Then another man from Rekall visits his room on Mars and lays out a new itinerary. This time not for the package he ordered, but for how the ensuing "schizoid embolism" will manifest itself inside his delusions. And, of course, everything happens just as he says, carrying the ambiguity all the way to the end of the film.
What do we get in the new movie? Quaid just tells the guy at Rekall that he wants to be a "secret agent" before the guy considerately allows himself to be murdered. Then his friend shows up and basically just goes, "Hey, we're really at Rekall! Trippy, huh?" Yup, way to develop that ambiguity and expand on the movie's interesting premise. Oh, and then he shoots the friend because...ummm...the girl was crying? I guess? And that proved it was all real, how? I think it was at this point that I realize that this movie made about as much sense as one of my shits. It was like some simpleton was in charge of making this movie and they said, "Well, there was moisture running down someone's face in the original scene. We need moisture running down someone's face in this scene." Of course that's all the movie is really: appropriated pieces lifted completely out of context and "clever" reversals on details from the original. It may be the first remake ever that's completely incomprehensible outside of it being a remake.
4. In the original, the radiation on Mars has created mutants, some of whom are psychic. This establishes the need for Hauser and Cohagen's plan, which is the cornerstone of the entire plot. Hauser has his own memory erased so the he can become the perfect mole, his true identity and loyalties a secret even from himself and thus hidden from the psychics. He leads them straight to Kuato without even knowing it. The new movie has...gas masks? A techno beat? The step-father from Shaun of the Dead? I got nothing.
5. The original ends with Quaid CREATING A BREATHABLE ATMOSPHERE ON FUCKING MARS. The new movie ends with Quaid destroying a glorified subway car.
I rest my case.
2. The possibility that Quaid could just be a normal guy dreaming of an exciting adventure on Mars who pays Rekall to simulate that adventure, OR a secret resistance fighter all along, is the essential ambiguity that's supposed to be at the core of this story. Now, it's possible that someone could just be a normal guy dreaming of "doing something important", but it doesn't really play out as well in the details. An average Joe having exotic dreams of Mars - even if they are nightmares - has a simplicity that we can easily appreciate. Being chased by faceless robots down generic sci-fi corridors? Ummm, not so much. In the new movie, there's never really a possibility that Quaid is just a normal guy with an exotic fantasy that he lives out in a virtual simulation through Rekall. From the first scene, he's the cliched "man with a secret destiny haunting his dreams that he must uncover." Not a whole lot of ambiguity there.
3. The original movie uses the travel agency idea to have the man from Rekall lay out a kind of itinerary for Quaid's trip, an itinerary which uncannily matches the subsequent events of the story, further developing the ambiguity. By the time Quaid is facing a recording of himself telling him "Get your ass to Mars", we're either thinking, "Hey, just like the package he ordered from Rekall! Hmmmm...", or, "Ohhh, so that's why he's been dreaming about Mars! He'll find his answers there." And the story can be taken both ways. Then another man from Rekall visits his room on Mars and lays out a new itinerary. This time not for the package he ordered, but for how the ensuing "schizoid embolism" will manifest itself inside his delusions. And, of course, everything happens just as he says, carrying the ambiguity all the way to the end of the film.
What do we get in the new movie? Quaid just tells the guy at Rekall that he wants to be a "secret agent" before the guy considerately allows himself to be murdered. Then his friend shows up and basically just goes, "Hey, we're really at Rekall! Trippy, huh?" Yup, way to develop that ambiguity and expand on the movie's interesting premise. Oh, and then he shoots the friend because...ummm...the girl was crying? I guess? And that proved it was all real, how? I think it was at this point that I realize that this movie made about as much sense as one of my shits. It was like some simpleton was in charge of making this movie and they said, "Well, there was moisture running down someone's face in the original scene. We need moisture running down someone's face in this scene." Of course that's all the movie is really: appropriated pieces lifted completely out of context and "clever" reversals on details from the original. It may be the first remake ever that's completely incomprehensible outside of it being a remake.
4. In the original, the radiation on Mars has created mutants, some of whom are psychic. This establishes the need for Hauser and Cohagen's plan, which is the cornerstone of the entire plot. Hauser has his own memory erased so the he can become the perfect mole, his true identity and loyalties a secret even from himself and thus hidden from the psychics. He leads them straight to Kuato without even knowing it. The new movie has...gas masks? A techno beat? The step-father from Shaun of the Dead? I got nothing.
5. The original ends with Quaid CREATING A BREATHABLE ATMOSPHERE ON FUCKING MARS. The new movie ends with Quaid destroying a glorified subway car.
I rest my case.
