The Director's Chair Network

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[Music]
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As always, I am here with Doug Greenberg and we are talking the greatest Arnold movie ever, Total Recall. Craig, thank
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you so much for joining. Oh, thank you, Seco. I I never need an excuse to rewatch Total Recall, but it
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it had been a while since I'd watched it. And man, I was equal parts ecstatic
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and angry while watching it. We can we can get into that once we start really talking, but um I love talking with you.
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I love talking with Doug. Um I love the network. So uh I'm excited excited to be
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here and I I can't wait to have this discussion. Yeah, this is Arnold at his best. This
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is Verhovven at his best. this I mean you you and it took you know the the the
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route that it took to get what we have on on screen is this the the backstory
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for this is amazing in itself but um what we have what we actually walk away
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with is it's just movie brilliance cinematic brilliance and this is Arnold's baby he knew this
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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
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trying to make this for like half a decade. He tried it with James Khan. He tried it with Patrick Sees in Australia.
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I think he went bankrupt trying to make this. So Arnold knew the script was floating around somewhere. And and of
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course he'd had a couple of near misses with Langman and with uh Red Heat, but
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he did have his producer connection with Red Heat, the guys from Carol Co, the guys who produced Rambo 3. So when he
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finally got a way in to the script, he called Andrew Vana and he said, "Listen, you
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have to get this script. You just have to get it. Dino Duentes has gone bankrupt. This is our shot." Apparently
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Mario Kasar called Dino. They cinched the deal in minutes. They had this
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script in a couple of hours and this movie was green lit in a weekend.
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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
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to this script and if you look at the pedigree and the people invol involved with that script, those are writers,
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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
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a I don't know if it's a pride or just a skill set, but man, those dudes knew how
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to write. And I just think that's one of the main ingredients that's missing in Hollywood today is
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the scripts. They start with a shitty script. And once you start with a shitty script, it doesn't matter how hard you
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all try. If the words on the page suck, you're just not going to get a good movie.
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Well, Philip K. Dick, that sounds like uh a nom to me. That sounds like someone
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who was blacklisted and managed to find a way into publishing. Anyway, so you wrote this story called We Can
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Reme Who Wholesale. Did you cover this on your on your book podcast?
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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
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listening, they probably know his work more than they know him. Uh, he his he
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wrote a novel that was the inspiration for Bladeunner. Um he did a a story that they turned into a
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Peter Weller movie called um uh what was that called? Second Variety maybe. Um
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but either w either way he's made there's probably been a scanner darkly the Kiana Reeves animated movie was
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Philip K. Dick right Hollywood has sort of picked the bones of Philip K. and they've rarely made a
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successful adaptation. And while Total Recall isn't a great adaptation of We
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Can Remember It For You Wholesale, it captured the vibe of Philip K. Dick, which is the most important thing to do.
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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
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out to get me. Philip K. Dick was a true paranoid dude. And that transferred to
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his work and that transfers to this movie because I was so impressed by the ability the
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screenwriters had to sort of juggle a lot of things in this movie. Oh, this movie is on asset. Let's face
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facts. Yeah. The one difference between Philip uh K. Dick's short story, which if I
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remember it's about 30 pages, which is it's perfect. It's better to adapt a short story than a novel. I agree.
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Because then you get all these Stephen King monstrosities. But the main difference is in the short story he
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never leaves Earth, right? Mars is referenced, but he never actually leaves Earth. And in this
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movie, of course, they go to Mars. And thank God. I also feel like, you know, in too many
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um movies about the future, the futuristic um view of America is like this this
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gleaming white, squeaky clean, you know, everything's sanitized. Um, but in this
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and in Bladeunner, um, you get this like it's not as as uh, you know, as nice as
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as people predict. It's like gritty. It's grimy, you know. Um, it's kind of like Hellscape lived in
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for sure. And that's the Paul Verhovven influ influence there as well because um,
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he is a filmmaker that we didn't deserve, but thank God we got him. Mhm.
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Well, I grew up with that guy, so lucky me, I guess. No. So, so Seco, how was that? Like, um,
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I'd imagine like for most people, Verhovven didn't come onto their radar until maybe Flesh and Blood, but for a
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lot of people, myself included, it was Robocop. Like, so being aware of him as a as a
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filmmaker prior to Robocop, what was that like? I mean, did you have any sort of
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expectations going in or you you sort of were in on the joke and knew what you were going to get with Robocop? Whereas
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I was definitely in on a joke. Yeah. Here's the thing. Paul Verhovven was in
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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
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guy who he went to college to become a mathematician and his parents wanted him
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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
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the army and he ended up in the publicity part of the army. So he made some uh I actually seen this movie a
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documentary on the Dutch Marines which is the oldest marine uh naval force in
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the world. And so he made like this propaganda film on that and that's basically what that was his ticket in to
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making features and his first feature which is famous and earned a lot of
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awards is Turkish Fruit and Turkish Fruit is based on the novel by Young Bulkers which is a literary masterpiece.
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It's a disgusting, awful book to read, but it is a masterpiece. And it's
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basically about a a tragic love affair. And that movie is seinal for him because
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it made him the filmmaker that he is because Yon Vulkers was very daring and he was very outspoken and he was very
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controversial and Paul Verhovven actually wasn't. He's just a mathematician. But he learned so much
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from making that prog from making that project and from the reactions that it
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garnered. Uh because basically the stuff you guys got in Basic Instinct and in
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Showg Girls and in in other stuff he did he was doing that in 1973.
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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
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Starship Troopers, that was already in Soldier of Orange, that was already in
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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
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probably um in my top five favorite directors of all time, is that for for
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Oven, it's all about the overall production design and feel of the movie
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and the performances. You're never going to see a crazy technical shot in one of his movies and
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say, "Oh my god, that shot's crazy. Uh, what an amazing shot." I mean, his
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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
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all about the production design, the feel of the universe, and his performances. And I and that was one
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thing I really noticed in this movie is that every performance is perfect. And if you've ever seen
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footage of Verhovven on set um or behind the scenes, you'll see what
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kind of director he is. Yeah, he's insane. He's completely insane. He is a nutty professor.
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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,
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you know, his his ability to sort of, you know, um nurture a performance out of somebody is
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is one of his one of his greatest strengths. And I'm glad he came to Hollywood, did what he needed to do, and
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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
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butt. Yeah. He actually still lives in LA. Oh, does he? But he's Yeah. And he's making movies in
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France now. Yeah. He actually made L, which is a critically acclaimed film that actually
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earned him a Golden Globe. I can recommend it because it's typically Verhovven.
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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
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story of L is about a woman who is violently raped, but instead of playing
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the victim card, she enters into a relationship with her rapist and tries to dominate him. It's it's a really
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really crazy movie. It's worth a watch simply because of the way he directed
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the actress because he basically he realized what a talent this woman was and he just unleashed her. And like you
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said, this is a guy, this is a director who is good at bringing out talent in
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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
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brings out arguably the best performance of his career because Arnold actually
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was awarded best actor for this movie and he got a Saturn award for it which
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is a science fiction uh award. Uh it's very prestigious and this is a guy who
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normally gets Rzzy nominations. So it's it just depends on who's directing him because Arnold is a guy that you know uh
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he's logical. So if you give him a clear direction, he's going to succeed.
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You mentioned um the performances that there's like two points I want to make here um about the performance and about
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getting the most out of Arnold. I actually saw um Doug Quaid and Hower as two different people even though they're
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played by the the same actor because he plays them so completely differently. And you know for for a guy who's not
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classically trained like Arnold that's that's like a an amazing performance that the director is able to get out of
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him. Yes. And and also um if you look back at the you know the the old horror movies
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the Friday the 13ths and everything they sacrifice performances for graphic
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violence and everything but it seems like Verovven gets the best of both
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worlds like he has you know he you could call this a horror movie based
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on just the the graphic nature of of like the the the the prosthetics and the
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makeup and everything and uh you know he's the the the master of the squib
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explosion. You know fights for the violence in his movies because he feels it's absolutely
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essential to telling the story. Same with sex. But he doesn't he doesn't sacrifice
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performances for that is what I'm saying. True. You know, it's the best of both of all,
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you know, of both worlds. Yeah. Basically, he takes everything and just amps it up to 10.
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Yeah. Well, it it's funny. There's actually um a funny story I believe
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about Roocop where he had a lot of problems with the the violence on Robocop. And
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one scene in particular um was the scene where Ed 209 kills that executive in the
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office, right? And and originally it was much shorter and this and um everybody in the room
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felt uncomfortable with it. So he just made Yeah. But then he made that scene longer, so it almost becomes comical,
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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
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almost. And I think that's another one of the things that he's really smart with is he's like, "Yeah, you know,
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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
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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
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have like that extreme violence in it, like you know where Arnold's breaking out of the chair. Uh and like she was
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just amazed like it had been years since she had seen it and she was like, "Oh my god, this is really violent."
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Yeah. Way ahead of its time. Yeah. One other thing I do want to say, Siko, is you mentioned the Saturn
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Awards, and I think the involvement with um Dan Oannon and Ronald Shusette. Um
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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
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back to Ridley Scott's Alien. Yeah, that that's probably why they got like best science fiction film and I
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think they got best costumes and they were nominated for all kinds of stuff.
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Yeah, they also nominated for the Oscars. I mean, this was an Oscar nominated movie. Um, it it got best effects. I think it
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had like a special achievement award. Yeah. Which is not typical for the Oscars. Yeah. Well, you had the brilliant Rob
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Bin doing a lot of the makeup effects and um I think a lot of people probably
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know Rob Bin from The Thing and right all of the amazing practical effects he
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did on The Thing that 40 years later still stand up better than one of the scariest movies of all time.
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Yeah. An absolute masterpiece. But but uh I think uh the effects work in this movie is great. And even like a
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lot of the stuff that I was worried about, like the seam showing on like particularly like a lot of the Mars
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centric stuff, it looked good. I mean, you could tell there were certain models at play at at points. Uh but but
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overall, I think this movie from a visual standpoint, it still stands up. A aged extremely extremely well. And it
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was also cool that I I a lot of those locations on Earth, it was Mexico City,
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right? Um, and that train if you've been there, you recognize certain places. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but it it's so
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wild because I I was thinking about that. I'm like, "Yeah, this looks cool for like the average US American viewer,
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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
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recognized like certain parts of the airport. I was like, "Oh, I was just there. It's amazing." The only I would
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say the only the only wonky scenes were like the rear projection stuff of the Mars landscapes and and whatever, but I
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think that could be tightened up these days, you know, with a little I mean these days they would have done
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everything uh CGI. The irony here is this is this was one of the first movies
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that actually used CGI and uh Paul Hovind is actually one of the pioneers
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of CGI movies. I mean, Starship Troopers is the first real movie using realistic
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CGI. Well, and that's Phil and that's Phil Tippet, who is just a Phil Tippet,
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a genius um in his own right. Um, one thing that you you talked about tightening things up, and I know you
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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
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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
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today, what they do in the first 20 minutes of this movie would take 45 minutes today.
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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
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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
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to go to, you know, uh to to Mars or whatever, and he goes to recall. Uh and
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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
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thing that films today suffer from is they set up too much time building a world that they're not going to explore
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anyway where here they create the world really quick. You fill in the blanks in your head
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and they get going. And that's another thing that I think the writers are are are talented enough uh to realize that
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the audience is going to be smart enough to follow. and Verhovven, too. I He's not a pandering filmmaker. He's not
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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
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him. It's still a two-hour film, too. But it a it doesn't feel like two hours. And B,
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if like the the the classic 80s action films were 87 to 93 minutes long. It
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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
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cut out that would benefit the movie in any way? Possible. Right. Everything is essential
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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
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things that makes it so so rewatchable because the fun part of
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this movie is you can watch it in two ways because it's it's it's inspired on
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Hitchcock. And so what you're watching is either it's an action movie from the
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perspective of Arnold who's doing action [ __ ] and being a hero or this is a guy
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who goes to some place and gets his brain messed up and is basically going
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through psychosis and is going to be lobbomized after the last scene because it's for Hovven purposely planted that
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in the movie and they leave it ambiguous enough at even at the end they don't explain it.
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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
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the plot of the next 20 minutes. It's like at the scene where he's like getting his implant, they're just
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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
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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
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scene you have the point where recall intervenes where they send a professor in and saying, "Hey, look, I'm sorry,
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but you're going through a delusion and here's your wife and please take this pill." Which is, by the way, this is
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like pre-matrix. This is like The Matrix pretty much based their idea of like the
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red pill and the blue pill on this movie. It's like, "Take this pill and you come back to reality. And if you
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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
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that this professor is bullshitting him so he shoots him in the head so he can be the hero in his secret agent fantasy?
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Or are these people trying to trick him? Is this a secret agent posing as his
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ex-wife or his wife who he now has to fight? I mean, it's it's such a mind
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[ __ ] this entire movie and you don't get a straight answer at all. You can do anything you want with this movie.
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Yeah. But the other thing that's really really good is it's not super confusing,
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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
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onion, you can probably get yourself crosseyed. But what I'm saying is a casual viewer, the average movie goer in
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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
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have to get too invested in the hows and the wise. And I think again some
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filmmakers today try to like outsmart themselves and outsmart the audience and
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just make things confusing for the sake of making them confusing. As a you know a 12, 13year-old watching
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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
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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
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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
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movie because it is absolutely brilliant. Yeah. I mean, this is this is the the second
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coming of Hitchcock in every scene. I mean, there's this one specific scene where Ferhovven actually films the scene
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as if it was a Hitchcock scene, you know, with those low angles where you shoot the bad guy who is being doing
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sinister [ __ ] from the low perspective and you shoot the hero from another perspective to tell the audience, guess
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what's happening? This is bad. Yeah, they do that. Just so good at that.
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They do that without spoon feeding the audience, you know? They use clever clever tricks and and everything. I hate
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I hate and Craig I've mentioned it many times in our shows how the the stupid audience just needs to be spoonfed and
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told what to feel instead of instead of just using psychology you know
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cheap gimmicks yeah but um you know but you you get all
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that without being spoonfed and that's that's it's a lost art start in movies these days
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yes that's that's what I like so much about the Benny character because he is everywhere he's one of
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those guys who guides the plot along and he starts out as an ambiguous character
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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,
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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
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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
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his character shifts, you know, into into like a double agent. Like how did
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how did a guy like Benny like a just a throwaway character come to play such a pivotal part?
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Exactly. He's not just a plot device. He's a complex character and the actor
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knew about this and he took made exactly the right choices. So you would be rooting for him in one scene and you
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would be wondering about him in the next. I mean without Benny they would never
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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
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character, he's a he's a black exploitation um actor. So, he saw he saw
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his character was going to be a like a fast talking jive talking black guy and
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he threw the script across the the uh the room and said, "Fuck this. Not another one of these not another one of
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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
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inevitably because this because he's he's more than just ever going to play. Yeah. And he's and his character is so
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much more than a jive talking black guy. Mel Johnson Jr. by the way. And he's from Long Island City.
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No kidding. From your neck or your old neck of the woods, we should say you're living in
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sunny Las Vegas now. Sweltering Las Vegas.
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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
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it's it's one of his best scores. It's so incredibly beautiful
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and what I love about the movie starts and you hear the typical Goldsmith
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dramatic overture but you also hear a little bit of the Schwarzenegger with
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the Conan music with the Terminator. It's it's very inspired. It's basically
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Goldmith saying, "I've moved on from Stallone. I'm a Schwarzenegger guy now."
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Gary Goldsmith is is a genius. He doesn't get he you know, he doesn't get John Williams props or Han Zimmer props,
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but he really should. He should. May maybe it's because like most of the the films that he's scored
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are like these these action movies from the early days, but I mean they the
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scores mean as much to these movies as like a sweeping epic by Han Zimmer. I
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think the reality is 200 years from now or 300 years from now when historians and and cultural critics look back at
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this age, they will start looking at the movies that were popular and they're going to be seeing the action movies,
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not Terms of Endearment, right? Not anything else. And they'll be hearing Jerry Goldsmith's score, not
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anything else. So they're going to automatically assume how important he was to our culture.
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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
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involved in and by how many people you reached and and how effective your your
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artwork was. He loves doing these films. Like he's he said this is one of his favorite scores.
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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
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it's just something. It's a score that that um just perfectly sets the tone,
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the background for the movie. And like it's one of his favorite scores. And I I
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don't I wouldn't disagree with him because he had to challenge himself because this is an action movie. This is
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an uh science fiction epic. This is uh a critique on uh culture in many ways. So
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this encompasses a lot of themes and that all has to be represented by the movie and the music by the score.
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I mentioned spoon feeding audiences. Um music and score is another thing that they another tool that they use to to
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tell the the dummy audience what to feel. But I mean it wasn't the case back
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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
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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
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down when it when you need to take a step back and breathe like a score really tells a lot about
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Yeah. Well, and Jerry Goldsmith is an absolute or was an absolute master and
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he probably had one of the biggest toolboxes out of uh every composer that
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was working at that time. He was not limited by his by his ability to get bogged down by just doing straight
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orchestrations. You listen to some of his scores and they're very percussive and they're very rhythm driven and and u
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then you listen to a score like LA Confidential which just really leaned into like okay this is a movie in the
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50s it's going to sound like the 50s. Yeah. Let's make a film noir. Yeah. And you know, uh, the great thing
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about Goldmith is you can tell it's Goldmith, but at the same time, so many movies, the score is so
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different than anything he's ever done. Um, it's weird that he's got this uniqueness, but at the same time, he's
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able to speak in a wide variety of musical languages.
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Yes, he's a true artist. And it's it's amazing to me that when you bring so
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much talent together for a movie like this, and this was the second most expensive movie to date, because the
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only movie more expensive, also produced by Carol Crow, was Rambo 3, and that
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didn't have remotely the kind of talent this movie had. You're always running a
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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.
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[Music]