Seems a bit odd that everything the asian dude mentions at rekall happened throughout the movie. Not only was he a spy with secret bank accounts, encoded messages, intelligence operative but he was also working for both sides which is pretty out there but exactly the experience he was talking about putting into him....
And out of nowhere the guards find him immediately after he takes the secret agent compound.
It not a dream, the end made that very clear along with many scenes that were not dream/memory at all. Also his dreams before recall are his stolen memories coming back to him. His brain had been compartmentalized hidden under encryption and sets off an alarm in the computer that alerts Chow this guy isnt who he says he is. The movie is very straight forward and not as deep as people want to make it out to be.
Rekall set him free and that is why they show it at the end again. Its his savior.
For me both this and the original are real.
The scene in the original where they get the fat bloke to pretend hes from recall and hes come to help doug get out of his fantasy, the bit where doug sees the sweat dripping down his face indicates thats its all real. Why would an artificially implanted version of the recall man sweat as if hes under pressure? Its the whole reason Arnie shoots him, this tells doug its all real.
Malina crying is just the new way of showing this without copying the original exactly.
I didn't watch the original so cannot comment on that, but that still doesn't 100% work, like Harry said, he's wearing the vest because his mind wants to believe it is real and made him wear it. That argument is kinda cheating, once Harry threw that into the game, he can make everything works in his favor.
Not that I support the dream hypothesis, I believed that this is real. Just for the stamp argument, first it make no sense for it to be permanent, so what if I like rekall, is my arm gonna be filled with those tattoos? Okay, let's assume that it is permanent, why would it be gone in his dream, he wants to be there, his mind will shape reality to make it seem real and making the "tattoo" disappaer is definitely not the way to go.
And Mac's comment, it's probably just a coincidence, I mean with just two faction in the world, there can't be that many scenario with a spy story, it's really either UFB, colony or some kind of double agent.
I think the whole thing was a dream. To wit, as in most "I'm a superspy!" fantasies, the main character mows everyone down with a gun, yet hundreds of people/robots shooting at him can't hit him (or almost never). Amazingly, the only women in Superspy's life are thin, buff, gorgeous ex-models who don't even mess up their makeup and nails when fighting.
Yep, fantasy.
If it's all a dream, I'd hate to be him when he goes home to his wife. :)
You're commenting without seeing the directors cut.. It is NOT straightforward.
shareYeah it's definately a dream if we go by the directors cut.
shareNo its not a dream, even in the directors cut :P
A few persons have mentioned this before, but it seems noone is reading the whole thread before responding, so ill say it again.
Its never made clear if its a stamp or tattoo. The scene is put there to make you doubt if it was real or not.
BUT!
In my opinion there is one very strong idea that says its real and not a dream. Ask yourself this: Would a commercial place like that really put a real tattoo on everybody who visit, without even asking, haha. Its like if youre at a bar one night and when you go out for a zip of air, you get a TATTOO FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE instead of a stamp who washes out after 1,5 days...... lol. And, even in the future, i think it would take longer to apply a real tattoo than the second it took in the chair... We even see a tattoo being made a bit earlier in the movie and its not the same process (the glowing stuffs).
Oh, and just because we see the new guy wearing the same stamp doesnt mean its a tattoo... Maybe he just came from the rekall center or was there yesterday, so the stamp would still be there.
/thread (this, and everyone else that asks if its a dream or not based on that stupid "tattoo" scene ;)
I believe it's real for some very simple reasons. No company would tattoo a person who didn't ask for a tattoo. If there even is a stamp on that other guys arm, he did say he used recall commonly. It just hasn't worn off yet.
As far as the police barging in on Recall, the wife explained that. She got a call from the black dude that he was heading a Recall, and she sent a team in but they didn't make it there in time.
And the most important piece of evidence that both were reality, is that the entire point of Recall is to give a person false memories that can fit in with his life. The amount of change that the world goes through in both movies is far and beyond anything that the mind could process if it was all false and he woke up back in a world where none of that had happened.
A person wouldn't be able to reconcile those memories with the world they are living in as real ones. They would have to believe that one or the other is fake. So you either end up with a person who believes Recall is a *beep* company that can't deliver on it's promises and never goes back, or a person who is driven mad by believing he is living in a fake world, looses everything and can't afford to go back to recall. No company can survive on single time customers.
Also, most of the other stuff people come up with as proof that it's a dream, would in any other movie, be just thought of of normal movie cliches. Take away the idea in your head that all these are brilliant hints by the director to make you think it's a dream, and just look at them in the light of this being another summer blockbuster where cool action trumps deep thought.
--------------- Also, most of the other stuff people come up with as proof that it's a dream, would in any other movie, be just thought of of normal movie cliches. -------------------------
Not to get completely circular, but I'd argue that Quaid's dream sequence portrays him performing "super" spy acts (dodging bullets, mowing down bad guys etc.) precisely BECAUSE these are the kind of standard super-spy cliches that a non-spy like Quaid would concoct for his dream/adventure.
Personally, I think all of the post-Rekall action is a dream, induced by the Rekall drug and fueled by a combination of the Rekall Spy Dream Program and Quaid's own imagination.
That said, I can see the logic in the arguments that it was all real -- that the Rekall visit went awry, that cops burst in because they'd been tracking Quaid/Hauser, and all the rest. (Although I think that the lengths they went to kill Quaid/Hauser both in this scene and in the later chase sequences would seem to argue against it being real, since keeping Q/H alive was an essential element of Cohagen's scheme.)
In sum, I think it is ambiguous (as the length of this thread proves), but I vote for it being a dream.
Did anyone else notice that Lori actually has a legitimate reaction of shock when Doug shoots Harry? The kind of reaction of an innocent, untrained civilian. This is a woman who, for the entire movie, has had immediate, cold, spot-on, reactions which are that of a trained killer with no attachments and she suddenly continues her clueless and scared wife act after he shoots a man she couldn't give a crap about? The next frame we see her she is back to evil psycho mode, however, that reaction of shock struck me as very creepy since, if it were a dream, it would make sense she would do that because of the state of mind he was in from the conversation with Harry. He was questioning the roles of the people in his mind, therefore she was actually his wife for a few residual seconds, and then his mind goes back on the prowl. Right at 1:14:28 on my extended copy. Watch it and see what I am talking about. Neat little detail if intentional.
Also, if you don't think there is anything deep or unsettling in this version then I think you might want to consider that if he IS dreaming then the reason that Lori is such a tenacious villain is that she has truly been at his side in some hospital bed, holding his hand and speaking to him to try to bring him back. Her love for him being in direct relation to his perception of her antagonistic hate. It is extremely heartbreaking if you ask me.
I don't think you're right. I just watched that scene again and her reaction, put into words, is this:
Her, Speaking to a Guard: Please, don't bring my husband ba--
*Main character shoots*
Her: What? Oh, blast, he's not falling for it.
Her look is never, "Oh, my goodness, my husband just shot someone!" Watch her grit her teeth. She goes from starting slightly at the sudden gunshot to an irritated, determined expression less than a split second later.
I can't remember the original at all but I was really expecting Dennis to somehow wake up from the dream. So this is my take on it: It WAS a dream. And when he shot his friend Harry who was trying to convince him back to reality, he killed his own chance of returning to reality. Therefore, he is now stuck in a permanent dream (or coma), or at least until the people at Rekall can find someone else to send into his dream to help retreive him back into reality. Harry probably died in real life when Dennis shot him in the dream otherwise Rekall would have sent him back in again to further convince Dennis of the dream.
If you want to reply to the OP, please go back to the OP's message to Reply, thanks!
Kind of has to be a dream, otherwise a few things end up being absolutely impossible.
- Climbing up the outside of a vehicle that is traveling at 10's of thousands of miles an hour?
- Punching a metal robot in the "face" and then ripping it's chestpiece (which was fastened with steel screws) with ones bare hands?
So, either the director screwed up... or those scenes were the absolute proof that everything that was happening was a dream and Quaid/Hausser was making the rules up as he went along.
If you want to really knitpick and disprove #2 I guess you could say that Quaid knew of a weakness in the design of the robots. Or you could argue that Quaid recognized the robot as one he installed the bolts on, and that he messed up on. Then again, you would have to assume that there is no QA type testing that would have figured out that the robot that was guarding the most important person on the planet didn't have all of it's screws properly fastened.
I don't really see any way that the first point can be disproved other than by acknowledging that everything was a dream and the rules of physics therefore didn't apply.
I believe it was all a dream. So we know at rekall Doug was told that all rekall does is remove the restraints of our dream process to allow it to go its normal course only now he would be in it. He already had that occurring dream of being trapped and trying to save melina so with the rekall drug program it took all the parts of his dream sub conscious and planted the agent program on top of it with him and the girl at the center of it.So here are my indications that it was a dream
1) The guy at rekall suggested Doug choose a program of being an agent working for the resistance or the federation and maybe both. Doug asks if he can do that and he agrees. He then pulls out the Secret Agent file and Doug gets the full dose so he is already dosed up.
2) Doug's prior dream before recall was of being trapped and trying to save melina. His wife Lori already asked him if it was her that was the problem so Doug already had that thought of her being the enemy sub consciously in his mind. The Rekall program pulled it out
2) The Federal police arrive way too quickly for a response to an alert of Doug/Houssers existence. Once the alarms went off and they tried to unplugged they come barging through the doors immediately. Too quick
3) Then there was the tattoo or stamp he got from the medical device when they were locating his veins. Yes it could have washed away but then there was the bandage on his arm which he didn't get at rekall as there wasn't time so he must have gotten that one while unconscious at the end. Which means he received another needle but now no stamp. There should have been one the second time. Another conflict.
4) Harry appears and tries to talk Doug down. Notice how fast he moves across the room and grabs the gun from melina. She is the source of Doug's dreams as he kept dreaming of her. Kill her and kill the dream but Doug chooses not to so the dream continues once he shoots Harry and lori continues to be the bad guy. Notice also Melina threatens to shoot Doug and he looks at her like he's altering the dream and she suddenly lowers her weapon like making her not want too. Why didn't she point the weapon then at harry if she changed her mind normally?
I'm not sure what it was, but I think I can agree and disagree with you, since I feel none of your arguments are solid enough to be considered unarguably true.
The guy at rekall suggested Doug choose a program of being an agent working for the resistance or the federation and maybe both. Doug asks if he can do that and he agrees. He then pulls out the Secret Agent file and Doug gets the full dose so he is already dosed up.
Doug's prior dream before recall was of being trapped and trying to save melina. His wife Lori already asked him if it was her that was the problem so Doug already had that thought of her being the enemy sub consciously in his mind. The Rekall program pulled it out
The Federal police arrive way too quickly for a response to an alert of Doug/Houssers existence. Once the alarms went off and they tried to unplugged they come barging through the doors immediately. Too quick
Then there was the tattoo or stamp he got from the medical device when they were locating his veins. Yes it could have washed away but then there was the bandage on his arm which he didn't get at rekall as there wasn't time so he must have gotten that one while unconscious at the end. Which means he received another needle but now no stamp. There should have been one the second time. Another conflict.
Harry appears and tries to talk Doug down. Notice how fast he moves across the room and grabs the gun from melina. She is the source of Doug's dreams as he kept dreaming of her. Kill her and kill the dream but Doug chooses not to so the dream continues once he shoots Harry and lori continues to be the bad guy. Notice also Melina threatens to shoot Doug and he looks at her like he's altering the dream and she suddenly lowers her weapon like making her not want too. Why didn't she point the weapon then at harry if she changed her mind normally?
This may seem too simple, but why would Rekall advertise itself in its own dream at the end. I think it was all real.
"You're close, but the sky's closer."
Mellina lowered her weapon because her father NEEDS him alive, for the 'kill code' in the blackbox in his mind, remember..? They just learned that upstairs 5mins prior.
No voodoo magic here, just a stern look and a moment to consider reason.
In my opinion, It's not a dream, couldn't be, if you think logically and linear.
Just to elaborate. When he gets to the Recall place, sits in the chair and they start to pump the drug into him, just as it's about to get into him (i.e. his bloodstream), the manager says "You can tell me all about it when you get...", and then switches to detecting that the person is a real agent.
Just think about that, just as the drug is about to enter his body, they detects there's something wrong. For everyone here, how long does it take from getting an injection, to the drug actually working? The drug is injected into a vein in the arm, from there it needs to go back to the heart, to the lungs and then into the body. A thing like that takes a lot more than a few milliseconds, It's a matter of minutes.
So, how can it be a dream, when it takes minutes for the drug to actually kick in, and all the problems starts at the same time the drug is about to come into his bloodstream?
Yeah yeah, It's the future, but even in the future, you can't bend the laws of physics. In Star Trek, they at least injected the hyposprays into the neck, and probably into the neck artery, thus the drug would go really quickly into the brain. Did that happen in this movie, I think not...
Secondly, when the cops has bursted in and killed everyone except for him and he holds his hands above his head, he goes from really scared, to focused and calm, then continues to take down every cop in the room. For me, that's a reasonable time of how long it would take the drug to actually start kicking in, and that's the time the drug actually breaks the old one.
Of course it was all a dream.
The makers of this version simply screwed up the supposed ambiguity about that.
In the original , the doctor that tells arnie that it's all a dream and that he has to snap out of it before he looses it completely and then we see him sweat. This was a sign that it was not a dream and the doc is lying....or maybe arnie just imagined it.
In the new version, we clearly see quaid's wife changing from the worried, loving wife waiting in the crowd to suddenly being the murderous agent chasing him. She even changes clothes!
This ruins every bit of ambiguity.
Also, the argument that it has to be a dream and not a trick because his buddy is giving up his gun which he would not do in reality is BS and dumb.
Sorry, but this version is really disappointing and dumber than expected.
Sure, the creators might have wanted this movie to be a dream.
But as I wrote before, the entire "you're a real spy" sequence happened just as the serum was entering his bloodstream. And no matter how good the technology is, an injection takes time to work It's way to the brain. That's what's making me think this entire movie wasn't a dream, It's not physically possible.
As for the original movie. Arnold as Quaid, the entire thing "you're a real spy" happened after he was inside the machine, and the "dream" should have started. For me, that makes it more believable that it actually was a dream.
The only way for me to believe it was a dream, would be if there was some kind of small memory loss, that would make you forget the real injection. So, in the reality, he sat down and got the injection, It started working, and he forgot those minutes It took to work. And inside the dream now, he is about to get injected, and just as the chemical is about to get inside his bloodstream, the "you're a real spy" happens, inside the dream.
But that's pushing it. Because that should have been explained in the movie, not by guessing or making things up (as I just did).
For me, unless there's a directors cut, where these things are explained. Or the director explains it. I'm still going to think It was not a dream, based on what I wrote in this post, and the post before.
As far as the serum, I don't think that proves it one way or the other. Have you ever been injected with general anesthesia? They tell you to count down from 10 but before you can finish you are awake and done with surgery. Lastly, its a movie, and movies almost never get medical stuff exactly right.
The question about how he gets all of his super strength, saves the girl, doesn't get shot etc. is an interesting question because on the one hand it could all be a cliche fabrication of Rekall's, but it is also what happens in every action movie. It makes you question whether Total Recall (original or new) is just an action movie with some ambiguity, or a deep thinking sci-fi mind****. This is I believe on purpose and is very ingenious. It also makes it hard to confirm for sure one way or the other just based on some unbelievable event in the movie, because they could be explained either by it was a dream, or its just an action movie. just like in the end when the paramedic or whoever says, "pretty unbelievable, huh?"
Another aspect of this is without knowing exactly how the Rekall system works its hard to know for sure how much of the story Rekall can fabricate or how exactly Doug's dreams/own fantasies can play into the experience. Also keep in mind that Doug's experience was at Rekall was unique due to his conflicting fantasies, therefore dismissing an aspect of the movie because "Rekall wouldn't implant memories about him killing his wife etc" ignores the idea that these horrible aspects of the "dream" are unintentional and lead to his lobotomy. Unless of course you accept the events in the movie as real.
In the end I still can't decide between real or dream. I think this movie on its face is much much better than most people are accusing it of (if you ignore the fact that the original was too good to need a remake), and the fact that this message board still has no consensus confirms that. I don't feel like the director sabotaged the sprit of the movie any more than the original, since the story line is almost exactly the same (albeit with lots of changes that don't affect the overall story or twist).
It seems the "peace" tattoo was either a "totem", or it got rubbed off somewhere during the whole "spy" sequence.
shareI watched the original last nite. There is a quick line from the male technician reading the program they will implant in Quaid and it is called "Blue sky mars".
The technician says: "That is new".
That is exactly what happens. The atmosphere is restored and the sky turns blue.
The secret agent stuff they could have created as an implanted dream, but if it is real, how would recall have known about the atmosphere machine ?
Anyways, the remake could have been different wrt to the dream thing.
Sorry, I disagree. Quaid was injected with a generic secret operative fantasy. Every spy has has all those characteristics you mentioned, that's common.
I believe everything before Rekall was a dream. It was when he was was in Rekall when his fantasy conflicted with his past reality. Remember, McClane tells him that there are problems when people try to ReKall things that are reality. Lori then admits that she's a plant. It's also confirmed when Cohaagen tells Hauser that it was a problem when he "popped" at his ReKall visit.
Anyway, I expected much worse and was pleasantly surprised.