Latest / The Director's Chair Network / Total Recall
Transcript
- 0:00 [Music] 0:15 As always, I am here with Doug Greenberg and we are talking the greatest Arnold movie ever, Total Recall. Craig, thank 0:24 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. 0:43 I love talking with Doug. Um I love the network. So uh I'm excited excited to be 0:48 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 0:59 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 1:11 with is it's just movie brilliance cinematic brilliance and this is Arnold's baby he knew this 1:18 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 1:53 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 2:13 script in a couple of hours and this movie was green lit in a weekend. 2:19 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 2:48 to write. And I just think that's one of the main ingredients that's missing in Hollywood today is 2:54 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 3:11 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? 3:23 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 3:30 listening, they probably know his work more than they know him. Uh, he his he 3:36 wrote a novel that was the inspiration for Bladeunner. Um he did a a story that they turned into a 3:43 Peter Weller movie called um uh what was that called? Second Variety maybe. Um 3:50 but either w either way he's made there's probably been a scanner darkly the Kiana Reeves animated movie was 3:55 Philip K. Dick right Hollywood has sort of picked the bones of Philip K. and they've rarely made a 4:01 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. 4:14 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 4:21 out to get me. Philip K. Dick was a true paranoid dude. And that transferred to 4:26 his work and that transfers to this movie because I was so impressed by the ability the 4:33 screenwriters had to sort of juggle a lot of things in this movie. Oh, this movie is on asset. Let's face 4:39 facts. Yeah. The one difference between Philip uh K. Dick's short story, which if I 4:45 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 4:55 never leaves Earth, right? Mars is referenced, but he never actually leaves Earth. And in this 5:01 movie, of course, they go to Mars. And thank God. I also feel like, you know, in too many 5:06 um movies about the future, the futuristic um view of America is like this this 5:13 gleaming white, squeaky clean, you know, everything's sanitized. Um, but in this 5:20 and in Bladeunner, um, you get this like it's not as as uh, you know, as nice as 5:28 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, 5:41 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, 5:54 I'd imagine like for most people, Verhovven didn't come onto their radar until maybe Flesh and Blood, but for a 6:01 lot of people, myself included, it was Robocop. Like, so being aware of him as a as a 6:07 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 6:23 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 6:30 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 6:43 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 7:03 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. 7:16 It's a disgusting, awful book to read, but it is a masterpiece. And it's 7:22 basically about a a tragic love affair. And that movie is seinal for him because 7:29 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 7:44 from making that prog from making that project and from the reactions that it 7:50 garnered. Uh because basically the stuff you guys got in Basic Instinct and in 7:56 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 8:09 Starship Troopers, that was already in Soldier of Orange, that was already in 8:15 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 8:22 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 8:39 say, "Oh my god, that shot's crazy. Uh, what an amazing shot." I mean, his 8:44 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 8:50 all about the production design, the feel of the universe, and his performances. And I and that was one 8:55 thing I really noticed in this movie is that every performance is perfect. And if you've ever seen 9:03 footage of Verhovven on set um or behind the scenes, you'll see what 9:09 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, 9:22 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 10:29 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 10:41 brings out arguably the best performance of his career because Arnold actually 10:47 was awarded best actor for this movie and he got a Saturn award for it which 10:52 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. 11:12 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 11:37 him. Yes. And and also um if you look back at the you know the the old horror movies 11:43 the Friday the 13ths and everything they sacrifice performances for graphic 11:49 violence and everything but it seems like Verovven gets the best of both 11:54 worlds like he has you know he you could call this a horror movie based 11:59 on just the the graphic nature of of like the the the the prosthetics and the 12:04 makeup and everything and uh you know he's the the the master of the squib 12:10 explosion. You know fights for the violence in his movies because he feels it's absolutely 12:16 essential to telling the story. Same with sex. But he doesn't he doesn't sacrifice 12:21 performances for that is what I'm saying. True. You know, it's the best of both of all, 12:26 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 12:39 about Roocop where he had a lot of problems with the the violence on Robocop. And 12:45 one scene in particular um was the scene where Ed 209 kills that executive in the 12:51 office, right? And and originally it was much shorter and this and um everybody in the room 12:58 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 13:10 almost. And I think that's another one of the things that he's really smart with is he's like, "Yeah, you know, 13:16 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 13:29 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 13:52 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 14:22 had like a special achievement award. Yeah. Which is not typical for the Oscars. Yeah. Well, you had the brilliant Rob 14:29 Bin doing a lot of the makeup effects and um I think a lot of people probably 14:34 know Rob Bin from The Thing and right all of the amazing practical effects he 14:39 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 14:53 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 15:12 was also cool that I I a lot of those locations on Earth, it was Mexico City, 15:18 right? Um, and that train if you've been there, you recognize certain places. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but it it's so 15:25 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 15:44 say the only the only wonky scenes were like the rear projection stuff of the Mars landscapes and and whatever, but I 15:51 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 16:01 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 16:13 CGI. Well, and that's Phil and that's Phil Tippet, who is just a Phil Tippet, 16:18 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 16:31 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. 16:44 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 17:02 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 17:20 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, 17:44 if like the the the classic 80s action films were 87 to 93 minutes long. It 17:50 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 18:14 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. 18:53 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 19:44 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. 1:16:29 [Music]