Lost in Adaptation: We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

The Dom starts his three-part review of the two Total Recall films by reviewing the 1966 Philip K. Dick short story on which they were based, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".

Intro
The Dom: Hello, my Beautiful Watchers, and welcome back to the Lost in Adaptation November Nan- OH!

(a flash of light appears from off-screen, knocking The Dom away; followed by a transition to a green screen soundstage)

The Dom: (stands up in a huff) What...the bloody- (a machete blade points at him from off-screen) Heeeeeello!

(shows a disheveled version of The Dom, wielding the machete and various other weapons)

Dystopian Future Dom: Hello (lowers the machete), handsome.

The Dom: Terrence, if that's you, I *swear* I'm gonna kill you.

Dystopian Future Dom: What? No, I'm you from the future.

The Dom: Ah! It's gonna be one of *those* sorts of days, then. Joy.

Dystopian Future Dom: I've been sent back in time to stop you from making a *terrible* mistake.

The Dom: Reviewing Total Recall is a terrible mistake?

Dystopian Future Dom: Sort of. You're planning on doing the original and ignoring the reboot, right?

The Dom: ...Maybe.

Dystopian Future Dom: Well, I'm hear to tell you that *not* reviewing the reboot starts a series of events that ultimately leads to global *warfare* and the *downfall* of society.

The Dom: That seems...unlikely.

Dystopian Future Dom: And yet the post-apocalyptic proof stands before you.

The Dom: Okay, assuming I can summon the *overwhelming arrogance* to assume the fate of the world rests entirely in my hands, I guess I'm not opposed to doing the 2012 version instead of the original.

Dystopian Future Dom: Awesome! I'll get your camera.

(another flash of light appears from the opposite side of the screen, with The Dom turning angrily toward it to find another version of himself with a purple vest, tinted glasses, and a futuristic gun)

Utopian Future Dom: Hello.

The Dom: What the fuck, man?!

Utopian Future Dom: Greetings, Past Me! This may be hard to believe, but I'm you from the future!

The Dom: Actually, not as hard to believe as you might expect.

Utopian Future Dom: I've been sent back in time to save my world. Our idyllic war-, disease-, and hunger-free new society was *just* starting to get really good; and then the bloody fabric of the universe *itself* started unraveling! We've traced the source back to *this* moment in time! It seems the review that went on to unify *all* the countries of the world is in danger of not happening anymore.

The Dom: Good Lord! If anything, that seems MORE unlikely!

Utopian Future Dom: Yes, well, you'll get over it. And now that I'm here, I think I can guess who's been fucking up my timeline.

(he looks off-screen at Dystopian Future Dom)

Dystopian Future Dom: 'Sup?

The Dom: Okay, let me get this straight: (to Dystopian Future Dom) in *your* timeline, not reviewing the reboot causes the end of the world; (to Utopian Future Dom) but *your* timeline is in danger of being erased from existence altogether if I don't review the original.

Dystopian Future Dom: Exactly.

Utopian Future Dom: Apparently.

The Dom: I'm going back to bed.

Utopian Future Dom: (points his gun at The Dom) No! You *have* to review the original Total Recall!

Dystopian Future Dom: (draws a pistol) Hey, fuck you, Lemon-Fresh! If there's no review of the reboot, *I* spend the rest of *my* life fighting horny mutant squirrels!

The Dom: Wait, what?

Dystopian Future Dom: You *don't* wanna know.

The Dom: Look, *Dystopian* Future Dom, *Utopian* Future Dom, there's an easy solution here you're not seeing.

Dystopian Future Dom, Utopian Future Dom (looking puzzled): What?

The Dom: Look, no matter *which* version we do, it's gonna be "In Name Only", right?

Dystopian Future Dom, Utopian Future Dom: Right.

The Dom: So, counting the book, there's three reviews to do and three of *us* now.

Dystopian Future Dom, Utopian Future Dom: Ohhhhhhhh.

Part One: The Book
The Dom: Hello again, my Beautiful Watchers. I *can't* say that my preconceptions about what life as an Internet critic was gonna be like have been very accurate so far, but whatever -- I guess you just gotta roll with certain things.

Anyway, here's my thoughts on "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", the short story that inspired Total Recall. It was written in 1966 by Philip K. Dick, an author hailed as being one of the most talented and influential writers in science-fiction and whose work has been the recipient of several other...questionable adaptations (shows Blade Runner and Minority Report posters). It can be found in a collection book of many short stories of his, confusingly *also* named We Can Remember It for You Wholesale because I guess it was the most popular of the bunch, despite being left until chapter six.

I'm officially invoking the "In Name Only" clause on this one, meaning each version of the story is so different, there's no point comparing them; so they're each gonna get a separate review so the differences can speak for themselves. As your glorious present-day host, I guess it falls to me to give you a synopsis and review of the book first. (clears his throat)

In the not-too-distant future, a man named Douglas Quail is working a boring job as a clerk in a government building and *cannot* get the idea of going to Mars out of his head -- visiting the human colonies there haunts his dreams and his waking hours. His wife tries, using constant negativity, to dissuade him of this ambition; but despite her, he goes to a company called Rekal to get the artificial memory of a trip implanted into his brain in the hopes that *that* will satisfy him. As it's always been his lifelong secret dream to be a highly-trained government agent, he pays extra to have *that* fantasy added in as well. The people at Rekal sedate him and attempt to insert the memory, but find that they can't because there's already *exactly that* in his brain -- Quail really *is* a secret agent who went to Mars and is now so far undercover, even *he* doesn't know it.

Quail temporarily regains consciousness. Now acting completely different, he berates the Rekal technicians for blowing his cover -- acknowledging that it was probably an accident, but still being pretty pissed. McClane, the head doctor, quickly realizes he's in over his head, refunds half of Quail's money, and tries to send him home. At first, Quail is too confused to realize what's happening. He doesn't remember the conversation he had under sedation at Rekal, but *does* remember going there, so concludes his newly resurfacing memories of Mars must be a fake due to Rekal botching their job. He instructs his mildly annoying robot cab driver to take him back there, demanding and receiving a full refund from the nervous Rekal staff.

He then returns home, grumpy that he now has a bunch of memories from Mars that he knows to be fake, until he finds proof in his desk of their legitimacy: a box of local fauna that he smuggled back from Mars, then completely forgot about. Now *thoroughly* confused, he tries to question his wife about whether he really has gone to Mars or not; but she decides this is just too weird for her and storms out. Two heavily armed interplanetary police agents show up out of nowhere and tell him that he has a chip in his head that allows them to read his thoughts; so they know that he's remembering what he did, and that is a big problem for them and him. The conversation he has with them is really weird because they not only answer his verbal questions, they also respond to his thoughts as well -- it's trippy as fuck.

At this exact moment, Quail suddenly remembers why he went to Mars and why they chose to erase his memory of it. He wasn't *just* a secret agent; he was a government assassin. He had fought past fifteen bodyguards and murdered the leader of a political party on Mars that was in danger of causing trouble for Earth's interests. Reading his mind about this latest memory revival, the cops decide they have to kill him *immediately* so the truth can't get out and cause mass outrage. Fortunately for Quail, with the return of this memory also came his former assassination skills -- dodging the police officer's bullets, he disarms him and trains his weapon on his would-be executioners. However, *they* know through the mind-reading chip that *he* knows that killing them won't achieve anything; so he flees the building instead.

Indecisive on what to do next, Quail realizes that he has absolutely no chance and is basically a dead man walking. To his surprise, he then finds out that his former spook masters can *talk* to him through his brain chip as well as spy on him; and they start to negotiate. He offers to take *another* mind wipe, but they say that wouldn't be enough; if they gave him another life, he would just get bored and seek out Rekal again -- or worse, actually go to Mars. Quail suggests a compromise: they program him with a memory that *isn't* boring as shit -- if he was a former interplanetary adventurer or a Hugh Hefner-style playboy, maybe his need for meaning in life would be satisfied. The interplanetary police decide to give it a try, as, slightly out of keeping for a stereotypical black ops division, they feel a sense of obligation towards their former most talented assassin.

Quail surrenders himself to them, and they use a top-notch psychiatrist to find out what his deepest subconscious desire is so they can make it real for him when they program his new identity. After a lot of tests, they discover that his ultimate wish fulfillment past is simple, yet extraordinary. Deep down, in his heart of hearts, Quail wishes that when he was a young boy, he had happened to be in the right place at the right time to make first contact with a race of tiny aliens -- no bigger than dormice -- who land their scout ship on Earth in the first step in a full-scale invasion. Humanity would have had *no chance* against their technological superiority; but young Douglas was *so* kind to them, *so* open and accepting, that they decided to hold off on their invasion, at least while he was still alive. Basically, Quail wanted to have the secret knowledge in the back of his head every day that, simply by existing, he was saving the Earth from enslavement. The interplanetary police are somewhat disgusted that someone could be so *arrogant* as to think up a story about the fate of the world resting in his hands (pulls nervously at his collar while clearing his throat), but they agree to hire Rekal to implant the memories for him.

The final twist of the book is -- and you may have guessed this -- that they discover that this ALSO actually happened; Quail is indeed the only thing stopping an invasion of tiny, but powerful aliens. It turns out he was the best assassin who ever lived because he was given a bunch of advanced combat technology by his new friends -- Quail had forgotten about *this* as well when the government erased his memory of being a secret agent. The story ends without a real resolution to this; the interplanetary police are stumped, not able to kill Quail without dooming the planet, but not knowing what the fuck to do with him now that he's going to be able to remember *everything*.

I totally see why Philip K. Dick is held in such high regard. The *science* in his science-fiction is a little dodgy at best; but his plots and characters are so engaging, you don't mind -- and he came up with so many *wonderfully* unique concepts in his stories. I have to confess the final plot twist did surprise me; but then, I'm the only person I know who didn't see the end to The Sixth Sense coming, so... (shrugs his shoulders)

There *are* some plot points in this that just don't stand up to scrutiny, like *how* the fuck would a man who knew that Earth's safety rested entirely on *him being alive* allow himself to become an assassin? Not only is that job incredibly dangerous, he must have known he'd eventually be considered disposable by his employers. Endangering himself, and therefore the whole world, like that seems a little reckless, to say the least. It's kind of like using your EpiPen as a projectile weapon: I mean, sure, it might get results; but you're greatly increasing the chances of being far more buggered afterwards!

There's also a few odd things here and there in this book that I want to talk about, either because they stood out to me or in preparation for the two film reviews. At one point, Quail decides to write a letter of complaint about Rekal on his typewriter; now, I could only assume that's a device *called* a "typewriter" that's not actually what currently comes to mind with that word -- kind of like us calling tablets "tablets", you know? In the book, Quail partook of snuff, which is only funny because it makes me imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger sneezing.

(shows Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid in the memory implantation chair in the 1990 Total Recall film, with accompanying sneezing sounds in Schwarzenegger's voice)

The Dom: Quail's wife was so grumpy and relentlessly negative in this that she kind of reminded me of, like, a Stephen King character -- like Sarah, the unlucky woman from Children of the Corn. The receptionist at Rekal was always topless and apparently painted her large breasts a different color every day -- without further context, I wasn't sure if this was supposed to represent a future that had moved on to a higher level of progressive, enlightened acceptance of public nudity or an increase in misogyny in general, because the *only* person who was nude was a woman working at what appeared to be a male-dominated company. You will have noticed, I hope, the complete and utter *lack* of ambiguity in this story in regards to if any of this actually happened; Quail was definitely a former government agent.

What's very interesting about the way that Rekal works in the book is, the doctor explained very clearly that the recipient of the false memories would believe one hundred percent that the events were real -- not just while they were being implanted, but forever -- *and* he would have no idea that he had gone to visit Rekal in the first place. When they're done uploading the memories to someone, they would drop him off at the spaceport arrivals terminal with a ticket stub in his pocket and a bunch of genuine mementos from Mars. It wasn't like an immersive video game, where you "wake up" after it and realize that none of it was real; for the rest of your life, you would genuinely believe that you did all the fantastical things they programmed into you, but were simply choosing not to do them anymore. This is an interesting idea, but I have severe trouble believing it ever really worked -- I mean, you'd have to be an unemployed introvert with no friends or family for the lie to hold up for more than just the cab ride home.

(shows two roommates, both played by The Dom, in a futuristic apartment)

Roommate 1: Hey, man, I'm back from my trip into space. I, uh, can't talk about it 'cause it's sort of classified, but it was pretty crazy!

Roommate 2: Dude, you've been gone for, like, an hour tops.

Roommate 1 (confusedly): Whaaaat?

The Dom: Even though I've spoiled *this* story's plot for you, it's only one of many in this book; so I'd recommend giving it a read if you can get your hands on it.

Right, then! Next up, one of two possible variations of me from the future. Maybe *I* should have become a clerk.