Do You Remember Total Recall?

So it appears that Sony has committed to releasing the remake of “Total Recall” in August 2012. Based on the Phillip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, the new movie will star Colin Ferrell.

I saw the original “Total Recall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger when it came out in 1990. My friends and I couldn’t decide/agree on what the ending of the movie was supposed to mean. The ambiguity was supposedly intentional, according to Paul Verhoeven in an interview I recall reading somewhere.

Or was that just a false memory I was reciting?

Only one line of dialogue really introduced the ambiguity. When Douglas Quaid (Arnold) selects his Total Recall adventure, one of the techs says something like, “Blue Skies on Mars — that’s new”. And then at the end of the movie we see blue skies on Mars.

So, was the adventure supposed to be real or was it just supposed to be Douglas’ adventure, experienced in the Total Recall facility?

That is the kind of movie ending I consider to be a cheat. It’s okay to leave some loose threads but to NOT resolve the storyline intentionally, that’s an attempt to substitute Art for Entertainment. As a consumer if I want Art I’ll go see an artsy film in a hidden-away art film theater; otherwise, I want to be entertained. I don’t want to walk out of a theater asking myself, “What was that?”

Entertainment is often derided for being a cheap imitation of Art and that’s a wrong attitude. Entertainment is what we need to relax, to dream while awake, to give our minds a release from the stress and pressure of daily life. Entertainment plays a vital role in the human psyche.

Science fiction devotees sometimes thumb their noses at “scifi movies” because they are simply Entertainment, not serious science fiction. But in fact every science fiction movie that plays What If with reality — no matter how many laws of physics it violates — embraces the opportunity to motivate people to think about what could or should be possible.

And, of course, that is what Art is supposed to do — motivate us to think, to react, to feel. Science fiction cannot help but be an aspect of Art, but it still needs to take its place in the halls of Entertainment.

Without the fun, without the hopeful endings, without the joyous resolution of complex dramas, science fiction and fantasy movies are only failed attempts to reach out to the audience. It doesn’t matter if they aim to be Art or Entertainment — what matters is if we enjoy them.

It’s hard to say I really enjoyed “Total Recall” because the ending was just so elusive. It failed to achieve the most important thing a story needs to do: reach a real conclusion.

Here is hoping that the next “Total Recall” improves on that one decision.