Arts: Why Verhoeven?s Classics Are Getting Remade Now

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Brow Beat Totally Recalling Total Recall: Why Verhoeven's Classics Are Getting Remade Now By Chris Wade Posted Thursday, Dec 08, 2011, at 07:55 PM ET Late last week, prolific Hollywood producer Neal Moritz announced he would be overseeing a remake of Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film Starship Troopers. Together with Total Recall (also to be produced by Moritz) and RoboCop, Troopers is the third Verhoeven sci-fi film that will get remade, if all goes according to plan, over the next three years. This is an incredible pace of resurrection for a single director, even in the absurdly franchise and-reboot-hungry Hollywood of today. But it also makes total sense. While they're not a trilogy according to any traditional definition of the word, Verhoeven's run of sci-fi classics between 1987 and 1997 share similarly dark, satirical themes and a comically bleak vision of the future. At least, it seemed comical then: Today, Verhoeven's weird, scary visions of the future don't seem so far off. In RoboCop, Detective Murphy is set up to be murdered so he can be resurrected as a man-machine cop—part of a program by Omni Consumer Products to privatize Detroit's ineffective police force and extend authoritarian control over the populace in pursuit of corporate gain. Total Recall finds Arnold Schwarzenegger, in one of his finest performances, seeking excitement in the form of an implanted memory of a trip to Mars from the Rekall Corporation. The implant unlocks a repressed memory of a second life as a secret agent, and soon Arnold attempts to unravel the mystery of his true identity on an actual journey to Mars (or does ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Two People Dead in Virginia Tech Shooting, Gunman Still at Large America, You Can Kiss That Dream of High-Speed Trains Good-Bye Forever The 17 Best Books of 2011	Advertisement
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