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Robocop (pg. 5)
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| Light The Fuse |
paul verhoeven is tres aweome - love a lot of his work - neil blomkamp is the 2nd coming
having said that:-
back to the future :| |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| I've got another one of these I could write for Total Recall. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| I've been meaning to read that short story by Dick for quite some time, at least to compare the two. I realized that, after my comment on A Boy And His Dog, it's different disseminating a movie based on an original story for film ala robocop, and one derivative of an author's story. I suspect this is why the satire is generally quite absent in Total Recall, but that wouldn't explain other conversions of his such as Starship Troopers. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I just think Starship Troopers is a mess of a film. Not really sure what the idea was there.
The problem with Verhoeven was that he kept the trashy ultra-violent style of Robocop with his subsequent sci-fi films, even though they were no longer satirising trashy ultra-violence. So Total Recall, which has the beating heart of a very smart film, has this tacky blood-soaked outward appearance. I suppose you could justify it by saying the story mimics a spy thriller, and that could be the flavour of the implanted memories (or Quaid's hallucinations). Don't get me wrong - it's still a hell of a lot of fun for the bloodshed and Arnie quips, but it doesn't feel entirely necessary. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
The gore was very out of place in Total Recall, though I am of course conflicted between my appreciation for stage blood and effects in general, and my criticism for what is sub-textual in a film's portrayal of a future grown comically apathetic to dismemberment. It certainly worked in Robocop, but if we are to assume Quaid is indeed living out a solipsistic spy fantasy, why might his seamless little trip be so gory? It collides with the existentialism of the film because violence in gratuity is quite at odds with the meaning of individuality... or is it juxtaposed with the fact that it's just everyone else who is maimed, not the dreamer? Just like viewing a violent film in the first place. It's likely not worth exploring because it just so happens Stan Winston was hanging around, but it does seem like the film would have been quite muted were it not for the culmination of three-tittied freaks, Chucky-Kuato popping out of a scruffy man's torso, and Michael Ironside giving Arnold "a hand" or two.
It is, I suspect, the diametric to Scott's Blade Runner. They both stem from the same author, but Electric Sheep was a far more colourful and exploratory piece of work, where I am having a hard time believing Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" approached anywhere near the blare of Verhoeven's rendition. It's an interesting thing - though I hate to sound so hackneyed - but I suspect the theme of the work is that our entire paradigm has become obsessed with excess - more memories, more action, more blood, more experience and sensation; Total Recall touches on this and donates plenty to the scrap table, but neglects to address the excess of perception as a focal point because it is so concerned with the preservation of ambiguity as a sensational plot device instead. There is a subtle difference, in perception and sensation, that is explored in Dick's Electric Sheep with the character of Mercer, and Brian O'blivion in Cronenberg's Videodrome - both of which illustrate the kind of God-like perception far more aptly than the questionable reality of Quaid's exploits. But perhaps it is a mistake to accuse Verhoeven of neglect in this case, if even Quaid cannot tell the difference - he just rather doesn't seem to mind his psychosis one bit, and I don't think this duress is completely lost on the audience. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
The gore was very out of place in Total Recall, though I am of course conflicted between my appreciation for stage blood and effects in general, and my criticism for what is sub-textual in a film's portrayal of a future grown comically apathetic to dismemberment. It certainly worked in Robocop, but if we are to assume Quaid is indeed living out a solipsistic spy fantasy, why might his seamless little trip be so gory? |
I can imagine Verhoeven saw future American culture becoming ever more violent and excessive, a prediction he helped to realise with his own film. After all, Total Recall was a major blockbuster in 1991 despite being ludicrously and unnecessarily violent. If Quaid is living in Verhoeven's hyper-exaggerated satirical future, the media around him will be extremely violent and that will influence both the textures of cinema-aping experience implants or his hallucinations thereof. You can see right at the beginning of the film, before he visits Rekall, that the news reports of the future gleefully project images of real violence across the morning cornflakes. The construction (or destruction?) of reality by the media is obviously a big part of hyper-reality, which is one of the film's primary themes. It's quite surprising that Verhoeven didn't show us more of the media of the future, given how readily he does it in his other sci-fi films. |
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| bas |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I just think Starship Troopers is a mess of a film. Not really sure what the idea was there. |
I thought it was pretty obvious 
KILL EM, KILL EM ALL!
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| srussell0018 |
| Have you read the book though? It's almost as if the people who wrote the screenplay for the movie read it, set it on fire, and then re-wrote the entire movie, and in the process made it nauseatingly cheesy (albeit awesome). |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
Have you read the book though? It's almost as if the people who wrote the screenplay for the movie read it, set it on fire, and then re-wrote the entire movie, and in the process made it nauseatingly cheesy (albeit awesome). |
Are we talking about Starship Troopers or Total Recall here? |
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| srussell0018 |
| Ahh sorry, Starship Troopers. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| As I said, I just do not know what the gameplan was with the Starship Troopers script, at all. Many people seem to think the film is a parody of Heinlein's views, but I'm not sure what points you scored for satirising Cold War right wing ideology in 1997. And why parody Full Metal Jacket into the bargain. Is that a film that deserves mocking? Why is there so much teen drama bull in there? And an homage to Zulu? What's the ing target here, Verhoeven? |
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