Read This: Special effects artists totally recall making Total Recall

“At that time, the tools didn’t exist in the computer, so we had to work out real-world solutions.” So says visual effects supervisor Eric Brevig on the making of Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall. On the occasion of that blockbuster film’s 25th anniversary, Fxguide has assembled an exhaustive, nearly 8000-word oral history detailing the creation of the film’s Oscar-winning effects. Brevig’s sentiments are echoed by all of his fellow interviewees, who stress the importance of ingenuity and problem-solving in those largely pre-digital days.
Based on Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” Total Recall presented any number of challenges to its oft-stressed-out effects team, from creating a plausible Martian landscape to making it seem as though full-body x-rays of both humans and dogs are walking normally across a giant screen. Since CGI was then in its pixelated, embarrassingly fakey-looking infancy, the behind-the-scenes whizzes on Total Recall relied heavily on the three Ms: miniatures, motion control, and matte paintings. “It would be easy today,” says Tim McGovern of the aforementioned x-ray skeleton sequence.