Though we’re huge Terminator fans; Arnold Schwarzenegger does have some other fine movies in his résumé, and Total Recall is definitely one of them. Without Total Recall this website would simply not exist – Total Recall was the gateway movie which inspired me (the webmaster of TheTerminatorFans.com), at a young age, to become a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it resulted in me making it my mission to watch more movies from the actor’s catalogue. In turn I became a fan of the first two Terminator movies, and the rest is… history.
We’ve all seen Arnold as super spy Harry Tasker in True Lies, and fans of that movie are going to get another spy series from Terminator Genisys and Dark Fate producers, Skydance, in the near future,- which will star, and be executive produced by Schwarzenegger, but Total Recall… man… How would I describe it? James Bond in space (and on crack), with a good measure of Paul Verhoven RoboCop-style ultra-violence thrown in for good measure.
What red blooded male is not going to enjoy that type of movie?
The film is loosely based on a short story by Philip K. Dick titled “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale“.
“For The Memory of A Lifetime, Rekall, Rekall, Rekall.“
— REKALL ADVERTISEMENT
The movie is set in the year 2084 and has Schwarzenegger playing the role of Douglas Quaid, a construction worker having some pretty damn strange, eye bulging dreams about Mars. These dreams also involve an exotic woman, who is not his wife. Quaid continues to be obsessed with the idea of Mars, which results in the decision to take a trip to REKALL; a company that does vacations by way of memory implants. Deciding to select the package that will see him (Quaid) become a secret agent on the Red Planet. Soon after leaving REKALL Quaid’s life starts to spiral out of control and the story will have audiences guessing as to which events are actually real, and what was implanted by REKALL.
The movie was also produced by Carolco Pictures, who would go on to release Terminator 2: Judgment Day a year after Total Recall released; adding to the production company’s success and reputation as a tour de force in the industry.
“Undertaken by STUDIOCANAL, the restoration was supervised by Paul Verhoeven himself. The restoration crew paid particularly high attention to preserving special-effects continuity, as Total Recall was one of the earliest films to use computer-generated images for special effects winning the Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects at the 1990 Academy Awards®.”
This blu-ray release is going to make you wish you had three hands because you need one hand to hold the case, one for the the 4K UHD disc, and an extra hand for the standard Blu-Ray disc!
*A digital copy also comes with the release.
I can’t wait to see this movie in 4K which was restored from the original 35mm negative, and, if you have yet to see Total Recall, I highly recommend that you check it out – especially if you want to see a fine example of the golden era of Schwarzenegger movies, and a classic imagining of an enthralling science fiction story.
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Special Features:
- Total Excess: How Caralco Changed Hollywood
- Audio Commentary by Paul Verhoeven & Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Models and Skeletons: The Special Effects of Total Recall
- The Making of Total Recall
- Imagining Total Recall