Let's be real, are Cohaagen's actions really out of character for a real world corporate CEO type? Acting illogically and ignoring long term prosperity for short term ego boosts is pretty on par.
@@FiveFootFall Toys R us went bankrupt because the company was bought by a wealthy individual the demanded insanely large returns. after he got his investment back he never stopped to think about lowing his income and allowing his company to grow, he run the company dry and bled it completely out. that`s one example, now for my own work experience, I had to save the company I work for over 200k dollars because a moronic executive had a "brilliant" idea. after his failure, they took back several changes only to put most back in, in less than 6 months. trust me, high up they only know how to do one thing, blame down when things go wrong.
@@JayJayM57 @j marine you can't blame one guy when it was private equity firms that brought Toys R Us to bankruptcy through over-leveraged debt. Even if that guy is Mitt Romney and the firm was Bain Capital lol What you describe from your experience is petty incompetence as opposed to the overwhelmingly malicious and Machiavellian depictions of villanous corporate bigwigs from movies. These characters are larger than life, depicted in the extreme to establish their roles and motivations in the movie. These villains do not represent the standard behavior for corporate executives in the real world. Can people be dumb and incompetent and think of of themselves while blaming others for their failures as they grasp for more power, influence, and money? Yeah, sure. Is that the norm? No. In fact I assert that is why we even remember such people and events because they are out of the ordinary, they stick out. No one notices when people and things are good but everyone pays attention when they go bad.
The most impressive thing about this video is that you managed to find key quotes from the same actors playing other characters and edit them perfectly into the final product.
I always interpreted that the events of the movie did happen mostly for one reason. I dont think Recall would last that long if they gave their customers PTSD. Cause if it was all fictional, I dont think Quade would be all that happy about having to kill his own wife, or having his head nearly explode, or having to pull a tracker through his nose
@@eldritchmorgasm4018 In Starship Troopers he had only lost a singular arm, then eventually his legs, then life. But we're definitely forgetting something. The guy has been in so many damn movies. He's a legend.
Arnold paid for the secret agent experience and Recall gave him an experience he will never forget. If you end up saving the girl, beat the bads, and save the planet, you get a convoluted and fun adventure.
@@missinginaction2b Because Clarence massively fucked up by effectively giving irrefutable testimony implicating Dick to Robocop. He pretty much deserved it and Clarence knew it.
An argument against it all being in his mind is that we see things he wouldn't have experienced. I don't know about anyone else, but if I was having an adventure that was suddenly interrupted by two people talking about me somewhere else, I'd have questions. Even in my weirdest dreams I'm always there.
@@toomanyaccounts It's not that he experienced things he hadn't yet seen, but that we saw things he wasn't around for and never knew happened. Have you ever had a dream where you weren't in the dream and didn't know what happened during it? Every dream I've had was first person, but I've always assumed it was me in the dream.
I have a very specific dream linked to being stressed out or feeling incredibly alienated in a new environment and it features cut aways so prominently I just assumed everyone had nightmares like mine. It's a xenomorph dream. I'm in an area with a lot of people doing something so mundane I don't think about it and then it cuts away to a clutch of xenomorph eggs. I'm aware of this and start looking for an out but then it will cut again and there will be chest busters freshly emerged into the world. Then it'll jump back and everyone will panic because aliens and I'll end up alone and hunted by the super beast. I had that dream a lot as a kid, the exact location changes but the details don't. It's why I learned how to wake myself up. All my nightmares have jump cuts like movies but I'm aware of what's happening in that jump cut.
Thanks for reminding me how awesome this movie is. Even Cohaahen acknowledge the plan was "perfect my ass; you go to Rekall before we can active you; Richter goes hog wild, nearly ruining everything we planned"....so they acknowledge that disconnect in the chain of command, obviously the personal riff over Sharon Stone explains that...so...too dumb to believe his power would last forever? That's every rich asshole, "pride comes before the fall" blah blah
"Perfect, my ass! You pop your memory cap before we can activate you; Richter goes hog wild screwing up everything I spent a year planning! Frankly, I'm amazed it worked."
I always assumed that Cohaagen purposefully sent the most incompetent lackey he had (Richter), so that Quaid would have a relatively easy time getting away, while still being in convincing danger (unless, of course, it was all artificial memories). It would be a big risk with the potential to lead right to the rebel leadership. That still doesn't excuse the multiple other dumb plays, as discussed in the video.
By the way, we the audience see a lot of things in Total Recall that Quaid _didn't_ see, meaning he couldn't be imagining them. So it all actually happened.
@@xXLiLJokerXx Maybe he does know that they happened. Maybe he even has implanted memories from the time he was "unconscious" so he has a better understanding of the story he paid for. The memories are fake after-all, and he knows that he's paying for fake memories of a person he isn't.
That assumes that we would only see what he sees. If the simulation creates an environment for him to be in, and then does its best to steer it toward a certain outcome, then stuff he isn't around to see could still happen. And we, the audience, are privy to these bits of simulation (that potentially he could have seen from an air duct or something if he'd taken a different path, and note that even if the memories are pre-planned, differences in the path would have to exist, to account for things like gender, physical stats, real life knowledge, and who you picked as the love interest, as well as who, if anyone, would fill the wife role), while he isn't.
Cohaagen: WHO TOLD YOU TO THINK?! Darkseid: No one questions my judgment, Mr. Cohaagen. Least of all, you. Edit: Any news on your Heroes Too Stupid to Win series? I think you should call it Heroes Too Lucky to Lose.
Cohaagen had to keep the number of people knowing of his plan small, considering telepaths and mindreading machines exist. You might point out it was a mistake to have a henchman as unstable as Richter, but stable people don't exactly work as henchmen, do they?
"So now I've monologued my entire cunning plan, I'm going to leave you in this 'deathtrap' with only a few technicians (who have no hand to hand combat abilities) to watch over you while they work. By the Way aren't you incredibly strong?" Copenhagen made the most cliched villain mistake, instead of just gloating and saying "Now we'll _all_ watch you be erased, say can't you inject him with a spinal blocker or would that interfere with the procedure?". Still it's even happened in "smart movies". They did it in Elysium, where they left Max alone with the techs to extract the data _while still wearing his exoskeleton_ that gave him superhuman strength. Just unplug the connection at the back of his skull, or find the off switch on the suit, and Max is _just_ a terminal radiation sickness case with serve migraines.
Ronny Cox the near perfect actor to portray insufferable corporate pricks to political pricks as well and not to mention that he was the leader that created Gul Dukat in the process.
Honestly, the best part of the movie is that you don’t know whether you’re dealing with a Recall implanted memory that’s super detailed or if it’s real. And the movie makes sense either way
On the other hand, she almost got him a couple of times, she did do damage. You could argue that she knew backup was on its way and she only had to hold him off for a while. If it was made now, she'd have been knocking him through walls because, physics don't matter as you're a strong empowered woman.
@@jacobwilliams1223 yeh… no I wouldn’t. There’s just too much of a muscle disparity between a 100lb girl vs a 240lb man. It’s not even a competition. Even women in the same weight class vs men can barely keep up with them.
It's been a while media zealot it's been a minute. What fire of knowledge have you brought for us today. I'm excited I can't wait I've been waiting for Total recall to get the media zealot treatment.
For the question of "Why plant Quaid on Earth?" Mars isn't a self sufficient planet yet -- it's a small colony with limited brain surgery services. So I think it's plausible that the mind-wipe can only happen on Earth. You can't have a dude wake up with his cover identity and then immediately be taken to Mars without him understanding that somebody was taking him to Mars. If you squint, that part can honestly make sense.
You're supposed to view that first part wondering if Quaid is only seeing her there due to him literally slipping out of reality into his Rekall trip. It does beg the question how she would be appearing on that screen when she was someone he had already been dreaming out prior to Rekall.
@@2070paradigmshift The Rekall guy (Who Quaid shoots in the head) also accurately describes the events of the second half of the movie. Though all evidence does have a level of plausible deniability which has made for fun discussion over the years.
I'm pretty sure it really happened It's made ambiguous on purpose, but we're really not good at dreaming consistantly and with an unbroken narrative. I'm a lucid dreamer, and the reason I *am* one is because I notice that my dreams don't exactly stay focused. If Quaid had found himself playing in a jazz band, suddenly and without provocation, I would've believed it was all a dream, because things that don't distract the mind from the plot don't happen. The mind wanders, even when actively focused on a task. So, it's more likely that Quaid really *was* a planted agent who just lost his cover.
Not only that but Rekall's implants are supposed to function as memories, so you wouldn't be able to wave off cutaways to other characters or places you're not present for. In an actual dream sure but it's also clear Quaid is lucid during the whole thing too.
Its funny that Mars is a big tourist destination. Can you think of another fictional dystopian mining colony that has booming tourism? It's Verhoeven style satire.
3:00 I mean, you can also read it as not being a dream, as the scenes without Arnold in do imply that its not a memory implant. But thats a can of worms for another day.
This is the funniest recap of Total Recall I’ve ever seen. I love this movie and you shone a brand new light on it for the first time in decades. Thanks man
I’d love a video on Negan and the Saviours as a villain who _almost_ won? He’s a competent leader who knows how to keep people in line and that they are the most valuable resource in the apocalypse. However his downfall was his over-reliance on fear to keep people subordinate and underestimating just how defiant (Rick and the other communities) and psycho (Simon) people can be. Those are things he admitted he should have snuffed out early. If one thing can unite people against you in the long run, it’s surely making a show of brutally murdering one of their number in front of them.
Ah, yes, the "Film of Shattered Glass", as I like to call it. Seriously, there is enough sugar glass flying around in Total Recall to supply any three other action movies. Oh, and the need for a magnetosphere is extremely overblown. Once a thick atmosphere is in place, it wouldn't just boil away again immediately. The processes by which the planet lost its first one took millions of years, even after it lost its magnetic field, and so it would also take millions of years before a second one became too thin. The bigger problem is generating a new atmosphere in the first place. There is certainly no way it would happen in just a few minutes like in the movie. But assuming we could do it once, there's nothing stopping us doing it again any time it became necessary.
A bigger issue is the chemical nature of oxygen. It bonds to things. Without a co2/o2 cycle, oxygen can't persist. And Without a magnetic field, the radiation would quickly become deadly, and a solar flare sudden death.
The over villains are usually alone in a big space - thinking. It would work loads better if the phone were always ringing, people in and out with important details and another two or three guys just like Ironside with VITAL interactions. This way the overlord model works and explains better how thing can slip through the cracks.
This was mine and my exe’s favorite movie; we loved speculating about the whole world and did spend some time thinking about how convoluted the whole plan was but didn’t get nearly as in depth as this. 10/10.
Fun fact, before these movies he was mostly known for fatherly and generic good guy roles and typecast in them. He clearly wanted to break out of that and succeeded quite well.
I'm so glad you addressed the external safety shutters not being automatic. Plus the massive areas of windows with no obvious safety shutters present if they break.
Cohagan needed to make the danger real for Quaid so when Quato read his mind he would trust him and give the location of the oxygen machine. Cohagan did not care about the casualties or dead body count. His plan would have worked perfect if Quaid didn't break the mind machine at the last act.
That was my take as well. My memory is saying that they had tried to send in spies before, but they got sniffed out by the psychics, so they went more extrems to get around the psychics. Which worked. Then the restoration after the operation failed. They should have just put quaid to sleep. Or injected a paralyzing drug before the speel. Coohangen got over confident at the end. All his goals were accomplished, except restoring Howser.
when I was in school in the 90s, a couple of friends (one was in a band) created a techno dance song that sampled "Cohaagen, give these people air!" It was pretty cool.
Like in the story, he's not imagining it. And you don't need Arnie's feeble imagination to explain the inconsistencies and plot holes: Since Feb '22 we've seen a real leader make mistakes more stupid and so bad that future historians will debate plot holes in the war. And Cohaagen's long-term strategy is no different from a lot of real-world leaders who would rather have control of jaundiced and anemic autarkic economies than risk economic growth they can't personally control.
This is by far one of my favorite channels, I'm glad your sub count is finally going up it's been a long time coming and much deserved, it should be much higher though.
Isn't that the point of the imperium current state though? So beuracratic and superstitious that's its become stagnant and decaying, but remains as the bulwark against most of the galaxies horrors. Having said all that, there do exists pleasure worlds and even worlds of some normality in the hellscape -- they just don't make for the most interesting stories. 40k has an intentionally a stagnant human civilisation, where the extreme and inefficient is what makes it vlbarely truck along and entertaining.
Eldar in general could work also. You have to fuck up really badly to destroy your own entire galactic space empire by murderfuckng a chaos God into existence.
Holy cow!! I clicked on this thinking it was an old episode so I can listen to it while I was mowing my lawn. Imagine my surprise a few minutes in I'm like wait a minute, I don't remember this ..
The most unreasonable thing was that Quad could afford his life. He lived on earth in a super nice apartment. Had a hot wife who didn't seem to have to work, could just take time off on a whim to go to Total recall. All on the salary of what looked like a regular construction worker? Call me crazy but something like Total Recall, if it worked would be even more expensive than actually going to Mars. You would also have a serious issue with people being so addicted to the artificial memories they'd become addicts. Again making the idea it's so cheap a regular person could walk off the street and get a trip unbelievable.
There is a third option that everyone forgets. What if the Recall machine worked perfectly and Quaid wakes up having from his ego trip having just enjoyed one hell of a fun ride.
Now looking at this movie, I remember seeing it, but all the stuff that are now, sort of, obsolete, like 'taxi cabs' and I watched a play through of Starship Troopers; Terrain Command, and the last level had a 'camera crew' like in the movie, and all I could think of, was between that movie, and a few short years, soldiers started to send recordings, sometimes live feed, of their lives in the Middle East, to the internet, making a camera crew not necessary. "and be home in time for corn flakes." Such little thought, why not eggs and bacon, and biscuits if you arrive at morning, or steak if its dinner time.
What I'm hearing is that you are a fan of Lord Vetinari. The villain smart enough to actually use politics effectively and always win, even when he loses.
