I've just recently sat through the original version again, and I'm still none the wiser. Did he actually go to Mars, or was the whole thing a virtual holiday?

Original version, he went to Mars.
New version, I went home after 15 minutes.

Right, so when he was being settled into the virtual holiday machine, he was asked which woman he would like to meet in his holiday. But she (Melina) was actually on Mars when he got there. How does that work?

From memory, he was working for the mining company racket, but fell for Melina (the resistance) and changed his allegiance becoming man and wife. This all went wrong, and he had his memories erased and set-up back on earth with fake wife Ms Stone. The problem arose when he went to Recall for a fake memory implant as a secret agent on Mars, this uncovered the "deleted" memories where he really was a secret agent on Mars!

Think that is about right!

So where did Recall get the pictures from of Melinda?

You aren't really looking for plot holes in a film starring Mr. Schwarzenegger, are you?

I was enquiring in earnest with the hope that I might finally understand what was going on.

Don't be rrridiclous! I vant to go to Maaaz!

The story that unfolded on Mars was just like the holiday he'd chosen, including Melinda. So the obvious interpretation was that it was all in his 'vacation'.

Didn't he choose his "perfect girl" for the recall i.e. brunette, athletic, sassy etc, and it was basically a photofit of Melinda??

The original version is ambiguous, but it makes more sense for it all to be in his head. He gets everything that Recall promises him - being a secret agent, the girl he picked out and aliens and the fade to black at the end is him being lobotomised, as he was told he would be.

I like that take on it, but i refuse to accept that the three breasted lady was only a figment of Quaid's imagination.


Which is all Hollywood ever really promised anyone...

My take is It was all implanted as when he is in recall the assistant says "red sky on mars thats a new one"

Well if it's all a dream, an awful lot of it goes on outside of his awareness.

So would that make Sharon his real wife after all, then?

Total Recall. I don't remember any of this.

I started watching that Denzel Washington film Déjà Vu. Half way in I felt like I had seen it before.

They never actually implanted the memory did they?

Crucially, the quote is, "That's a new one! Blue sky on Mars" - in other words the people in Recall already know the ending of the film.

So it's all in Arnie's head, sorry.

I did love one of the reviews of the new one when it came out, which opened with the line, "When you find yourself wishing for the subtlety and ambiguity of an Arnold Schwarzenegger film that's not a good sign".

That was the way the story went, but that could have actually been a part of the 'holiday'.

It has to come down to exactly when any of the correct predictions was made. If it was unambiguously prior to the induction, we've nailed it.

Unless, of course, there was no 'prior to'.

Yes, that was unambiguously prior to the vacation taking hold, if it did, so as I said at the beginning, there would be no explanation for Recall having pictures of his real wife.

On the other hand, before all that, when he was throwing a benny with Sharon Stone in their house, she spoke to Richter on the visual phone. So there must have been something going on at that point. [Oh no - that was later, wasn't it?]

http://jkstam.tumblr.com/post/32631970101/the-ending-of-total-recall-1990

Quite a good look at the possibilities.

Perhaps you should 'open your mind' and then 'get your ass to mars' to see if you can find the answer.

I mustve seen this film 30 times and never even though about this question!

But Mr Rrichter told me he vill erase my ass!

It could be.... but if I was in the business of implanting memories I don't think I would start with something which paints me as cowboy/butcher/....

Being as the memories are supposed to be as real as any other putting in the mind your clients that not to be trusted is not a great way to get repeat business and/or recommendations is it?

In a similar vein, though about as far apart as movies get, I thought Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind was a very good treatment of this memory/fake experience subject. And Jim Carrey gives one of his rare good performances. (As opposed to deserving to be set on fire and put out with a shovel).

Jim, honestly!

When you feel like that, just stay calm, and simply erase his ass.

Quite so. Sound advice.

I find good Jim Carey films, like good Nicholas Cage films, are good despite of them, not because of them.

In both cases they are extremely rare events.

I would have lumped Tom Hanks in there as well, but I cannot recall a good Tom Hanks film....

Apollo 13, HTH.

On the other sub-thread, one of three book ideas I've been toying with for years is set in a near-future society were there's a drug which blocks your ability to form short-term memories and there's a whole sub-class of people who routinely use it to avoid remembering anything about their Monday-Friday grind and, instead, do literally live only for the weekend.

I quite like the idea, but I'm not sure anybody else does

Philadelphia
The Green Mile
Road to Predition
Captain Phillips

would rank among some of his good films.