TOTAL RECALL (1990)

TOTAL RECALL. Paul Verhoeven, dir. USA: Carolco (prod.) / Tri-Star (release), 1990. Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, and Jon Povill, screen story. Shusett, O'Bannon, and Gary Goldman, script. Inspired by Phillip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."

Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle significant for threatening enclosure of the hero (cf. THE RUNNING MAN (film) and The Running Man (novel)), varied this time with the heroine also enclosed within a machine—one that invades the mind and works on memories, and which, if resisted, causes pain. Note also shots of hero and heroine amidst huge alien machinery; cf. Krel machinery in FORBIDDEN PLANET and humans in Death Stars in the STAR WARS trilogy (all films mentioned here are cited in this Category of the List). See also citation for the 2012 remake.[1]

According to Jason W. Ellis in his review in SFRA Review #314 (Winter 2015 [sic]): pp. 26-27,[2] discussed in Sharon Packer's Neuroscience in Science Fiction Films (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015).

RDE, initial and 10Aug21