Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Total Recall and Final Fantasy VII Similarities

I watched the original Total Recall on Netflix, and wow. It's totally Final Fantasy VII. I hadn't seen the movie in a loooong time, so I wasn't aware of this. Doing a quick google search doesn't turn up any comparisons that I can link, so I guess this is one of those things that is either all in my head or I'm the only one who noticed it somehow. More after the jump.


-Both Total Recall and FFVII take place in a steam-filled futuristic dystopia divided into clearly-marked Sectors. Both of these dystopias are ruled by a nefarious corporation with a private military. In both cases, rebels are launching attacks against the corporation and being labeled "terrorists" by the corporate-controlled media




-Most of the movie takes place in the brothel sector; FFVII also has a prominent brothel sector that plays a large role early on

-The President of the corporation overlooks the dystopia from a tower


-Crossdressing with the purpose of sneaking into a place


-Train rides from sector to sector


-The stormtroopers of the corporation dress a lot like the Shinra troops in FFVII


-When the people of one sector defy him, the President decides to obliterate that sector and blame it on terrorists


-There's an elevator ride that looks a lot like the Shinra Tower elevator, with Arnold riding the elevator on the right side of the screen as a panoramic vista is seen on the left side


-Industrial reactors are featured prominently in both stories

-The main character has amnesia and thinks he's a super-soldier that used to work for the corporation; he now works for the resistance in their quest to save the planet

-The end-goal of the movie is an ancient city built on top of a glacier by aliens millions of years ago, much like the City of the Ancients being on top of a glacier in FFVII and also a relic of a bygone alien race

-................seriously, this movie is FFVII.

-WTF.

13 comments:

  1. That was interesting. I've seen and played both of these and never noticed any of the similarities, but I think you're on to something. Action movies from the late 1980's inspired lots of video games.

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  2. It's more of a coincidence, but the ending of both is rather ambiguous too. Thankfully Total Recall never got a sequel.

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    1. You speak the truth Jericho. I bet if you could speak to the creators about this, they'd be happy you saw it.

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  3. Another similarity is Barrack and his friend Dwayne (ff7) both had a scar on their hands from where they were shot by shinra soldiers. The bullet went through their single hand grip while Barrack was trting to stop Dwayne from falling by pulling him up from a ledge. Ive only seen the new total recall but the same scene happens with Hauser and his girlfriend.

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  4. I've just watched the (New) Total Recall from 2012. And soon after watching it, i've searched for similarity with FF7 and i'm very surprised to found this page.
    I don't know if Len Wiseman got inspired by FF7 or just the original movie, but i swear there is a shot at the end of the movie (around 1H32m) that looks like the Mako power plant at the beginning of FF7. He also place bombs in this room.... coincidence?! There is also other similarities with FF7 but there are small things, like design etc.. All of this is probalbly worth a Reddit post or even a youtube video.

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  5. Hoy estaba viendo la película y tengo que decirte... Que no, no eres el único! He empezado a verla y me he ido dando cuenta que era ff7! Y exactamente igual que tú, he buscado por internet y no había nada al respecto! Todo lo que has dicho es así.

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    1. Gracias por el comentario! Si, este es el unico lugar donde he visto esta idea tambien.

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  6. I saw the movie tonight, after many years, and I have to agree. There too many similarities to be only a coincidence ;-)

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  7. The music in the last resort bar scene!

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  8. My boyfriend and I just watched the movie. We both started exchanging glances as soon as we heard the music and started making the connections. I’m amazed this website is all we found on the topic.

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  9. I just watched the movie in 4k and as a fan of both, the movie and the game since their release in the 90s, i noticed many similarities as well (interestingly for the first time, maybe due to the better transfer resolution?) but those are for sure no coincidence. It really dawned on me clearly when i saw the scene in 1:35:30 where Douglas and Melina are climbing up the ladder into a long bridge passage to enter the alien reactor which is very similar to cloud and barret climbing up just before planting the bomb in combination with the scene of the first boss fight against the scorpion sentinel. This whole planet exploit and big bad corporation theme and so on is too obvious along with a couple of design imitates. I bet if some designers of the original game happen to stumble across this threat by chance they will get a *** big smile on their face :DDD

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  10. This was obvious to me, the music, the themes, and especially the design ! Man this is a fckn mako reactor at the end come on :) the game was out after total recall so I think the creators of the game were largely inspired from the movie. Thanks for this thread

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