Even if you haven't seen Paul Verhoeven's 1990 sci-fi/action mind-bender in a while, you may have total recall of its oft-quoted Arnold Schwarzenegger lines: ''See you at the pahty, Richter!'' ''Consider dat a divorce.'' ''Give these people ay-uh!'' It's no surprise, then, that Colin Farrell had sometrepidation about taking on one of Schwarzenegger's best-known roles: Douglas Quaid, an Everyman factory worker who discovers that his memories have been artificially implanted and that he is actually a freedom fighter battling a totalitarian regime. ''Arnie did something that nobody else did at that time or has done since,'' Farrell says. ''Don't ask me what that is, but I'm a fan of it.''
Director Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) says the reported $200 million update takes a dramatically different approach to the source material, Philip K. Dick's 1966 short story ''We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.'' ''I had no interest in just remaking Verhoeven's film with updated effects,'' he says. ''This script goes further into the head space of the character of Quaid. What would that really be like, being told you're somebody you don't believe you are?''
There are other major differences in tone and story line from the original movie: For starters, Farrell's Quaid doesn't travel to Mars (sorry, fanboys, there will be no ''Get your ass to Mars'' in this version), while Kate Beckinsale's villain is an amalgam of the characters played by Sharon Stone and Michael Ironside in the 1990 film. Still, Wiseman is aware that he's potentially courting the ire of a loyal constituency. ''You're always going to piss people off,'' he says. ''It's just part of the process until this movie comes out.'' And implants some new memories of its own.
