Movie Substrate · Film
Total Recall (2012)
★ 6.0 · 5,849 ratings on TMDB
What Is Real?
Factory worker Doug Quaid takes a virtual mind-trip vacation with the Rekall company, opting for implanted memories of being a spy. When the procedure goes wrong, Quaid becomes a wanted man by the police and joins forces with a rebel fighter to stop the evil Chancellor Cohaagen.
DirectorLen Wiseman
The emergence reading
Total Recall keeps every mind human — it fights its subject at zero distance. The story fights on E8/E12 of the E0–E14 reality ladder.
zero-distanceUS
⇄ Parameter shift — the dial this world turnsrigor: loose
E8memorymemories are editable and can be implanted or erased at will (technology · universal)
Same rung, same subject
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
Gladiator (2000)E8/E12 · rare rung
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)E8/E12 · rare rung
The Hunger Games (2012)E8/E12 · rare rung
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)E8/E12 · rare rung
Wonder Woman (2017)E8/E12 · rare rung
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)E8/E12 · rare rungSame subject, different rung
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
World War Z (2013)E4/E14 · Action, Science Fiction
Tenet (2020)E0/E14 · Action, Science Fiction
Serenity (2005)E10/E11 · Action, Science Fiction
RoboCop 2 (1990)E10/E11 · Action, Science Fiction
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)E13 · Action, Science Fiction
Ultraviolet (2006)E4/E11 · Action, Science FictionAlso bends a rule of reality
Other films that change a standing rule of their world — ranked first by those bending it at the same rung.
Avatar (2009)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Inside Out (2015)alters at E8 · same rung · rigorous
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Inception (2010)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
A Clockwork Orange (1971)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Us (2019)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
