i;m sure that some of you guys are gonna be just pissed, no matter what, because the original was an awesome, basically classic action sci-fi movie from that era. buuuut, it's not a sequel. so it just bugs me when people say "call it somethin different". put it on the shelf next to the Arnold version. it's an almost direct transfer of the novel. Phillip K. Dick's novels/stories are usually great movies. i'd like to see what the "heavy source material" version gives out, alongside the 90's version...
...trivia time!
there were 12 drafts of the original,and they got turned down because David Cronenberg was under the impression that they were doing THIS movie that's being made now. he was told to stoppit and make "Raiders on Mars". dude walked. Dino DeLaurentis did the same thing, his company dropped out of producing the thing. ARNOLD bought the rights and negotiated his own salary, and hired in a bunch of cast/crew from Robocop. the guy had veto power over EVERYONE, including the producer, director, even promotions. by THAT time, the draft count was at 42, still without a comlete 3rd act to boot.
last bit.. some of the people considered for Quaid were Patrick Swayze, William Hurt, and(wait for it...) Richard Dreyfuss. Because the character in the book was THAT kind of character. Working-class laborer.
hey, one more... Minority Report was supposed to be a SEQUEL, and the clairvoyants were gonna be martian mutants. the movie we saw was reeeeal close to the themes of the story that Total Recall came from.
i'm gonna end with this... i love that damn Arnie movie. but i wanna see what it was SUPPOSED to be as well., i'll go see it. i fully expect at least one person to go batshit on me. whatever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_recall before i get burned at the stake for not giving at least one link. i know, not the most reputable source, but this is crap i read on pages that are long dead, over the years.
EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Wholesale
check out the original synopsis for the book, if you like. Mars wasn't a location in the book. it was only referred to as memories, real or fake, no one ever went.