Giant Freakin Robot

Director Paul Verhoeven has certainly had his share of success in the science fiction genre. His sci-fi films such as RoboCop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers have made him a cult icon, and his films ushered in a new era of science fiction movies in the late 1980s. Considering how popular his SF flicks have been, they’re also ripe for the Hollywood remake machine. We’ve already seen one in the abysmal Total Recall remake from director Len Wiseman, and we’re slated to get another one next year with Jose Padilha’s remake of Verhoeven’s 1987 classic RoboCop. Needless to say, Verhoeven is not a fan of this trend.

In an interview with the Huffington Post’s Mike Ryan, the Dutch director opens up about Hollywood’s remakes of his early films. Wiseman’s Total Recall also adapted Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” but the two directors’ approaches couldn’t be more different. Verhoeven succeeded in making a sci-fi classic largely by not taking the source material too seriously. Verhoeven says:

It’s too serious. They took themselves very seriously and didn’t realize that the big story is also strange. And impossible, of course. But, I felt that it was strange. I felt the movie, in some way, should not take itself too seriously. In fact, ultimately, the casting of Arnold — he was already cast before I was there. So I had to take Arnold. I liked the script already, but Arnold was playing the main part. So, take it or leave it. I said I wanted to do it with Harrison Ford, like in Blade Runner. But I might have made a mistake because Blade Runner is also very serious.

Whether or not you enjoyed the 2012 remake of Total Recall is a matter of personal opinion; some people did, but many of us did not. At best it was underwhelming, but at least it looks like the cast and crew had a pretty good time while they were filming. That is, if this extended behind-the-scenes blooper reel is to be believed.

Now that 2012 is coming to a close, we can all appreciate the good and bad of the year’s science fiction crop. From the poor plotting of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus to Len Wiseman’s inept remake of Total Recall, audiences and genre fans were painfully annoyed with some of Hollywood’s 2012 offerings. And just as a good movie will make audiences willing to suspend some disbelief or forgive the odd plot hole, in the bad movies they stand out that much more.

The people at Popular Science have put together a list of the year’s most egregious scientific mistakes in movies. Although there are some glaring errors, please keep in mind that ultimately these are all movies. Just imagine how exciting Prometheus would be if it were a depiction of a 100% accurate scientific and archaeological exploration. It wouldn’t be as exhilarating as what we got in Ridley Scott’s movie. But Hollywood theatrics are no excuse for some of these boneheaded mistakes:

We witness some of ‘the most irresponsible, inept archaeologists ever to don spacesuits, take off their helmets just minutes after leaving the spacecraft. Advanced atmospheric sensors or not, this is a terrible idea. What if there’s an unknown, undetectable, and highly toxic compound in the air? Or a virulent strain of life? No matter: Soon enough the movie’s characters are touching creepy-looking aliens (and, of course, dying horrible deaths).

Total Recall
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You know, I really did hope Total Recall could be one of the “good” remakes, one like Carpenter’s The Thing, or even this year’s Dredd, which seized upon the elements that worked, built upon them, but also found its own new spin to put on the story. After all, the trailers looked promising, and definitely suggested a new look and feel for director Len Wiseman’s version of Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It for Your Wholesale.” Unfortunately, the changes were largely cosmetic, and where the script diverged from the 1990 Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger version, it did so largely to ill effect, replacing subplots of mutants and Martian air machines with a paper-thin villain whose evil scheme disintegrates entirely when exposed to the smallest amounts of logic.

So, if you skipped the new Total Recall in theaters — and we wouldn’t blame you — is it worth a rental? That depends on what you are looking for out of it. If you’re satisfied to see a visually stellar world with a few solid action sequences, go for it. However, it’s totally lacking the charm and affable goofiness of the original version. Verhoeven’s version was cheesy, but enthusiastically so, and that’s a large part of why it’s still fun all these years later. I think there is a more “straight” version of Dick’s story that could stand on its own, but this version ain’t it. I’ll stick with Verhoeven’s Mars, thank you kindly — robot cab drivers, psychic stomach mutants, and all.