Blue Skies on Mars: A Total Recall Fanedit

*This will contain some spoilers*

I have always been a big fan of the original. Philip K. Dick has also always been my favorite author, and even though the original film deviates a great deal from the source story, when you sat down and contemplated the film, it did contain Dick’s sense of never knowing what is reality. That sense is much more heightened in Blue Skies on Mars, and being a PKD fan I really appreciate that.

The opening, as has been stated, was pretty well amazing. A perfect tone for opening up the story. The various memento cuts all worked extremely well, and if fact, my only concern would be that if a viewer was not versed in Total Recall, they might be lost.

Some people have complained about Johnny Cab. I didn't mind that scene. I never did. Actually, PKD was extremely good at writing obnoxious robots (the short stories Sales Pitch and The Exit Door Leads In are great examples), so this scene always fit right in for me.

On the totally unimportant side, Melina refers to Benny as a mutant, even though the scene we find out Benny is a mutant was cut. That was just a little jarring. But, like I said, totally unimportant.

At first I didn't get the color/black and white transitions. I first thought, oh, the "dream" will be in black and white, while reality is in color; and I realized that wasn't the case. Because of the color transitions, I couldn't figure out what they meant. For example, why it turned to black and white when Richter kills the rat, and why back to color when Quiad starts the reactor. Then, I sat back and thought about it, and thought wow, color could represent the atmosphere on Earth (all scenes on Earth are in color) and black and white could represent the absence of an atmosphere on Mars (like color scenes on Earth, all Mars scenes are in black and white) and then Quaid starts the reactor bringing BLUE skies to Mars, while the color returns to the film. If that was the intention, it was VERY clever.

The jury is still out with me on the end. I always liked the ambiguity of the original. And the flair from the sun kinda had leaning towards this direction, to be honest. I kinda felt like this version was more ambiguous, and should be less literal. It’s also a reality smacks you in the face moment, which is also very traditionally PKD, so, you make up your own mind. Technically, though, using that previous shot from the film in reverse was brilliant!

The film quality didn’t bother me, I thought the grainy washed out feel actually kinda worked in the film’s favor.

Overall, this is an extremely well made edit, and should be checked out by anybody who has an interest in Total Recall or Philip K. Dick.

8 out of 10.

I agree that this fanedit is not for everybody. While I enjoyed “Blue Skies on Mars” I still prefer the original as silly as it is. I think the ultimate downfall of this version is that if you haven’t seen “Total Recall” you’ll most likely be scratching your head trying to understand what’s going on.

As described in the fanedit info, B&W is suppose to be the future and color the present. This is all fine and dandy until during one scene it goes from color to B&W. That left me scratching my head trying to figure out how you can go from present to future. And then it happens again at the very end when it goes from B&W to color. I couldn’t figure out exactly how it played with time as described by Jorge. Flyboy707 does mention in his review that it requires more than a casual viewing so it’s possible I wasn’t as involved in the viewing as I should have been.

I also agree with Flyboy707 that the “open your mind” sequence is amazing. My only comment here is that I felt it should have happened 30 seconds later. But the editing and new audio mix is outstanding.

Unfortunately the video isn’t very good. You’ll notice compression in many scenes. While not a deal breaker it would have been nice if the video was a bit crisper. This could be from whatever the source material is. I never saw the DVD version, and it’s been a couple of years since I watched my copy on BR. Perhaps a tweak of the video compression setting or a “BSOM v.2″ using a different source will help.

Overall, if you like “Total Recall” you should give this one a watch. Perhaps a second viewing will change my opinion on the overall story, but as of right now I think it is a little muddled if you’ve never seen “Total Recall”.

Entertainment: 7/10
Video: 6/10
Audio: 10/10

OVERALL: 8/10

*Spoilers ahead!*

When I started up the movie I was feeling duly impressed with the presentation, and the first part of the movie with it’s ‘open your mind’ was great. I thought that maybe it be some kind of mind power thinghy, that this way of playing with time back and forth was a result of the psychic powers of Quato (if that’s how you spell it). Anyway, I was interested in seeing how Jorge would make this play out.

After the second viewing of the alien site on Mars things starting going down hill for me. It was getting increasingly difficult to make sense of some stuff, but as I’ve watched the movie quite a few times before I still knew the plot. The turning off of the air is not shown, but we are faced with it’s consequenses later…as an example. Why is Benny the taxi driver even there with the rebels? But perhaps it isn’t so important, aren´t we just getting a glimpse of the memories of a heroic adventure on Mars, as percieved by Hauser/Quaid?

If you take in the ending, which I will now spoil, stop reading!, all of this is the mind of Arnolds character. But there are several scenes in which Arnold does not appear. This, to me, breaks the idea that it could work out that way. So I would have wanted only Arnold if this was the way it was planned to work. But then perhaps again they implant memories of other places so that it feels like a movie, kinda, for the mind traveler? Who knows?

*No more spoilers below*

Editing skills are obvious. I agree with most of what has been left out of the movie. But as the warning says, this is not for everyone. I didn’t keep that good feeling throughout the movie, and wasn’t really satisfied after watching. To use a Jorge rating: I give this a Yellow light. Go ahead if you think you’re in to this sort of thing.

August 19, 2011
*This rating was given before reviews were required*

*This rating was given before reviews were required*