The Trailer Park: Silly Sci-Fi

Although one of these new trailers appears way sillier than the other, the two are nonetheless joined by a single common thread. Their use of overly-pulpy CGI spectacle makes both upcoming movies look like a great deal of mindless fun. Yet only of them promises to deliver action-packed excitement.

‘Iron Sky’

This low-budget movie can be summed up in one high-concept line: “Nazis living in on the dark side of the moon since WWII return to power by invading Earth in the year 2018.” Don’t tell me you don’t want to see that! I want to preorder tickets right now. As ridiculous and stupid as this concept may sound, I badly want to see this absurdity, with crazy-good CG visuals throughout. It stars Udo Kier as the brilliantly-named Wolfgang Kortzfleisch, for crying out loud! It also comes from Timo Vuorensola, the Finnish director of the parody series ‘Star Wreck’. Yup, I’m sold!

‘Total Recall’

Coming from Len Wiseman, who has yet to significantly impress me, I’m not too sure about this remake. Paul Verhoeven’s original version is already great. I also don’t care for the fact that Phillip K. Dick’s name is somehow attached, when any knowledgeable fan can easily see the script is obviously based on Dan O’Bannon and Ron Shusett’s story idea from the last movie (which had little to do with Dick’s short story). I’m not implying that I won’t see it in theaters, because the preview actually looks promising and somewhat exciting, but I’m being very cautious about this remake and keeping my expectations low. Hopefully, and probably likely, I will be pleasantly surprised. The trailer does look cool.

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17 comments

  1. EM

    My interest in Iron Sky dropped a notch with this trailer. Nazis are an enduring and classic archetype; Sarah Palin (southernized or otherwise) is merely a fad. The mix feels wrong.

  2. I love the original Total Recall and have been skeptical of this remake, but that trailer is kind of terrific.

    I don’t care for the Underworld movies, but Len Wiseman did a decent job with the last Die Hard sequel, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

  3. I’m actually quite impressed by the look of ‘Iron Sky’. You’d think it’d look like a cheesy SyFy Channel movie, but those special effects look pretty well done.

    That movie looks like all kinds of fun.

    • The Iron Sky trailer reminds me of Sky Captain, which I happened to enjoy but wasn’t terribly popular with the general public. These retro sci-fi things tend to turn people off, for some reason.

      • I really liked ‘Sky Captain’ too, but for some reason I’m thinking that ‘Iron Sky’ really isn’t on that intellectual plane.

        I guess it’s time to see what sci-fi retro can do for Moon Nazis.

  4. JM

    Considering that Len Wiseman is only 39, I’m really looking forward to his career.

    He left his wife to have lots of sex with Kate Beckinsale, so he has good instincts.

    I hope he sticks to sci-fi action and doesn’t turn into a Spielberg.

    My only concern with ‘Total Recall 2.0’ is that the pulp imagery is tainted with a derivative story. It comes from the screenwriters of ‘Unstoppable,’ ‘Zodiac,’ and ‘Salt.’

    But it has the cinematographer of ‘Collateral,’ who I love, and a $200M budget, so I’m hoping this will be must-own* and not just must-rent.

    * Len Wiseman told Collider that the three-breasted woman will appear in the film and there will be different versions of her scene, one for the PG-13 theatrical cut, and one for the unrated blu-ray.

    • No offense, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find men who “wouldn’t” leave their wives for a chance at lot’s of sex with Kate Beckinsale.

      Those looks, and the accent? Damn!

  5. CK

    Is no one going to say that Total Recall looks like a “shot-for-shot remake”? Ordinarily, when a remake trailer is released, I can’t read a comments section or message board without someone tossing that in somewhere.

    • Well, this one doesn’t look like a shot-for-shot remake. It’s obvious that they’ve changed it up significantly. It’s not set on Mars, and the old one didn’t have flying cars.

      • CK

        Details like that rarely seem to matter, I seem to catch someone making that complaint about every remake; at least on the trailers. I was only joking anyway.

  6. The irony is that, with these trailers, my enthusiasm about both movies have flipped. Now I am really looking forward to “Iron Sky”. As for “Total Recall”, this was originally a must-see for me, but now… All I can say is that this movie needs to “Get Your Ass To Mars!”