Dirk Schmelz 
An Analysis of the complex plot of ‘Total Recall’ [EPUB ebook] 

Seminar paper from the year 1994 in the subject Film Science, grade: B/A, University of Amsterdam, language: English, abstract: As the film Total Recall was released in 1990 critics were confused. In their
attempts to give a summary they all created different stories. Some even figured
out some failures in the plot and for some the story line was an enigma.1
Though there was a lot of misunderstanding about this film there was also
a consens on the kind of genre the film belonged to. Fred Glass gave in his article
‘Totally recalling Arnold’ the film ‘Total Recall’ the label NBF ‘New Bad Future’,
which has to be understood as a subgenre of the fertile SF (Science Fiction) of
the 1980’s. NBF is defined as following: ‘NBF films tell stories about a future in the grip of feverish social decay. While some posit a post nuclear barbarism (as in
the Mad Max trilogy, …), most envision the world that will emerge without such an
apocalyptic break with history. The NBF scenario typically embraces urban
expansion on a monstrous scale, where real estate capital has realised its fondest
dreams of cancerous growth. (…). The heroes, …, go up against the corruption and
power of the ruling corporations, which exercise a media-based velvet glove/iron
fist social control.’2
Exactly these characteristics can be found in ‘Total Recall’. In consequence
it could be read as a film that is following these patterns which are founded in the
1980’s Science Fiction. In this respect one could argue that ‘Total Recall’ is a
quite traditional movie. But ‘Total Recall’ offers something new through using
cyberspace. This world that is defined as virtual reality mixes all the patterns and
norms of traditional SF and makes this film very special in its appearance.
As Paul Verhoeven says about his film: ‘For the audience every moment in
the movie seems to be real. But when you get to the next scene, you can doubt
the scene before, yeah? I’m exaggerating, because it would be really terrible to do
that to an audience; everybody would be driven crazy, probably. But every once in
a while you realise that what you saw before should have been seen in a different
way, It was not reality, or it was a misinterpreted reality.’3
The narrative structure of this film is therefore extremely complicated. It
combines reality, dreams and virtual reality. Perceiving this film means having the
choice between many narrations. They all depend on the point of view the
perceiver wants to take. […]