Len Wiseman's blockbuster starring Colin Farrell, Total Recall, is the second adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story We Can Remember it for You Wholesale—the first being the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring, Paul Verhoeven-directed 1990 version. Wiseman's adaptation is much closer to the original short story than Verhoeven's.
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction in 1966, We Can Remember it for You Wholesale follows the story of Douglas Quail (renamed Quaid in the films) who, after dreaming of traveling to Mars, undergoes a procedure to have false memories of the trip implanted in his brain. But when the false memories turn out to apparently be true, the line between reality and fiction becomes increasingly and unsettlingly blurred.
One of the most celebrated science-fiction authors of all time, Dick has had his work adapted to the screen by a number of famous directors, including Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), Steven Spielberg (Minority Report) and Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly). There have been nearly a dozen cinematic adaptations of his works. Many of his stories deal heavily with grand philosophical and often times existential questions: questions of existence, reality and different planes of consciousness are all common in Dick's collected works.
Born prematurely alongside his twin sister Jane in December of 1928, the American author moved around quite a bit with his family in the early years of his life: from Chicago to San Francisco and to Washington D.C., before settling in California again. Jane's death six weeks after their birth profoundly affected Dick's life, resulting in the frequent motif of the "phantom twin" cropping up in his stories. After spending a whole two months enrolled at Berkeley—during which time he, as an undeclared major, took a wide variety of courses, specifically in the field of philosophy—Dick dropped out of school. Two years later, at the age of 23, Dick sold his first story, after which he became a full-time writer for the rest of his life.
~Devin Garabedian