Villains Too Stupid To Win Ep.13 - Vilos Cohaagen (Total Recall 1990)

The movie starts off with him having dreams about the girl he meets later that he had been dating prior to the memory wipe. This means that it cant all be a dream that starts at Rekall because she is there in his head on mars BEFORE he goes to see them. It also explains why he is so absurdly buff for a basic laborer and why his wife is so unusually hot. According to the director they made it so both could reasonably be true. But based on that starting premise, it is far more likely to be true because that setup is very unusual.

"“I wanted it to be that way,” Verhoeven clarifies. “Because I felt that it was – if you want to use a very big word – post-modern. I felt that basically I should not say ‘This is true, and this not true.’ I wanted – and we worked with Gary Goldman on that, not the original writers – [and we] worked very hard to make both consistent, and that both would be true. And I think we succeeded very well. So I think of course there is no solution. Hey, it’s both true. So I thought, two realities; that it was innovative in movie language at least, to a certain degree, that there would be two realities and there is no choice.”"

How dare you make fun of me

Fav movie ever no shit

Pressure differential in space is not a big deal. Its just one atmosphere of pressure. Like being about 10m underwater.

The titan submersible that failed was probably under about 300 atmospheres of pressure when it let go.

The dream narrative doesn't work coz you've got scenes where Arnie isn't around. Implanting such scenes would kinda ruin the immersion of your first-person memory experience, no? ;)

Love the Star Trek interludes 😊

wait, why not just buy mars land for nothing then turn on the alien device that magically creates an atmosphere. worthless land is suddenly worth trillions

To be fair, Copenhagen was supposed to be that way in Quaid's broken brain.

Seriously, it's sad once you put it together. 😭

Go Kiwi!

I want you to do my next performance review.

Skip the lobotomy, use your imagination.It's a lot less dangerous

Get to the space chopper !

"Consider dis a divorce "
Best line in cinematic history

I can tell you that everything he went through was 100% real. How do I know this? May I ask you this question. Have you ever been part of a dream where you aren't in it?

Go Kiwi!

This movie would have been great, narratively, if right after he kissed the girl, stopped the bad guy and saved the planet, he wakes up at ReKall and the salesman is sitting there and says "see, wasn't it great!"

The biggest question is who were the aliens that built it? How did they build it. They would of had to bring that with them ...man that species of beings must of been really advanced....i wish they would of dove more into the building of the machine and who built it.

It certainly can make a case for a mind screw. Was there a reason why the remake was not touched as much?

I will never understand why Phil Dicks schizophrenic stories keep getting made into films when there is so much amazing SF writing out there that doesn't rely on the writers mental illness to fill out the story. Phil Dick was a diagnosed schizophrenic. Why is Hollywood so obsessed with his stories? What about Paul McAuley, Iain Banks, Connie Willis, Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, fuck, there's a million great writers who's stories aren't ambiguous, disjointed and paranoid. So why the hell is Phil Dick so popular for film adaptation?

ok, im aware of this theories that its all inside his head, after he had his brain cooked. And we even see the brunette girl´s face on the screen, while he is describing his perfect women, suggesting she is also part of Recall´s memory implants. Well, can someone explain then, why was quaid having dreams about this girl, on Mars, at the beggining of the movie, before even visiting Recall for a memory implant?

In time for CornFlakes

That glass is cheaper than the crap MIXOM uses. 😒

If it was a delusion, then maybe that’s why Vilos Cohaagen was so unrealistically inept as a leader.

Doesn't this suggest that the whole adventure was in his head

Instead of buddies they should've made Cohaagan and Hauser father and son or brothers, would've better justified the crazy risks Cohaagen took trying to get Hausers original personality back. Really good work pals just doesn't seem like a strong enough of a relationship.

Well ackshually Mars losing air due to a lack of magnetosphere is only a problem on geological timescales, and nothing a few air-producing plants we can build with even modern tech can't compensate for.

Ronnie Cox was also in Star Trek

The "two weeks" part made that movie great! We used to dare each other to do that at various places of transit but no one ever had the balls to 😆

The "it was a dream" theory is poorly thought out and obviously wrong.

I missed this channel where you been?

Kinda weird how the Southern Block stands most to benefit from Cohaagen being out of power, yet they don't take any actions against him during the movie? Unless maybe they're the ones supplying the rebels with guns...

Nah, sorry, your take is wrong, the idea that it's all in his head is the red herring that makes the whole story interesting. But it's real, in the end. Not sure how you came to the other conclusion when it was obviously a constant misdirection made to keep you doubting.

He reminds me a lot of Joe Biden hahahah

The Total Recall remake already put me off once I found out it was going to be a PG-13 film. Pussies!

I thought the point was Cohagaan plan didn’t work. He was trying to trap a telepath, so needed an agent who didn’t think he was an agent. BUT wade went to Recall and blew his cover too early. After that everything was improvised. Cohagaan even says he’s amazed it worked at all.

in reality a
VIABLE ATMOSPHERE
would take

HUNDREDS OF YEARS
or
THOUSANDS OF YEARS
or
MILLIONS OF YEARS

to actually form

Richter never got over the trauma of Quaid banging his 1990's Sharon Stone GF.

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.

Whew, this scathing of Richer and Cohaagen brings back memories of your Transformers video. Their relationship mirrors megatron and starscream to a T.

Aaaw yee do runnin man next

Unpopular opinion, but I actually prefer the remake. It patches a few of the plot holes by removing the whole Mars thing and the whole core elevator thing is just way cooler for a finale. Even if it's still just a silly sci-fi.

This is one of those movies where it really helps to have read the book sometime before or after to know what's going on. Quaid's "wife" was actually Richter's wife, and he was getting jealous and looking for a reason to off him. And Houser did turn, but took the mission to hide the truth from Cohagen.
Give the book a spin, you might like it

Corporate douchebag fails to do the one thing he exists to do, and chooses not to exploit a whole planets worth of resources and real-estate.


Womp womp


Also can we acknowledge that the alien device requires a human-like hand? Clearly implying genetic similarity, our intended use, or a hilariously unlikely coincidence.

One of my fava

Any chance you could do one of these videos on Cyberpunk 2077 megacorps? I feel like there’s lot of potential in the stupidity of mid-21st century corpos.

The next one has to Republic of Gilead. I can't wrap my head around how they came to be. Its confused me no end

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.

Let's not fool ourselves. Cohaagen acts like most CEo's today. They act only in their own selfish shortterm interessts, ignoring the harm they are creating and they don't care about the lives of anyone.