TOTAL RECALL (2012)

TOTAL RECALL (2012). Len Wiseman, dir. Kurt Wimmer et al, script, from the 1990 Paul Verhoeven film and Philip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," cited as "inspiration." USA, Canada: Total Recall, Original Film, Rekall Productions (prod.) / Columbia Pictures and Sony (dist.), 2012. Patrick Tatopoulos, prod. design. Patrick Banister, Ona Bogdan, Brandt Gordon, art dir.

Visual allusions to Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER (1982) invite comparisons and contrasts with the "look and feel" of BLADE RUNNER and its descendants in their renditions of the dystopian City of the Future, in this case two post-Apocalypse cities (after chemical warfare). Cf. and contrast also the "Synthetics" of RECALL (robotic cops) with the more CHiP-like robot police in George Lucas's THX 1138 (1971). (The formal abbreviation for the California Highway Patrol is "CHP," but Erlich wanted the pun and an allusion to the ChiPs TV show 1977-83.) Note also Rekall machine(s) as a chemically-enhanced superimposition of the electical, electronic, and cybernetic upon human consciousness and subconscious, and "'The Fall', a supermassive underground gravity elevator which travels through the Earth's core" — and which would be one hell of an engineering achievement and which definitely mechanizes the motif of "The Descent of the Hero."

5. DRAMA, RDE, 04/VIII/12