The most impressive thing about the film Total Recall (2012) are the incredible worlds that the director created. Especially the overgrown poverty-stricken world of the Colony and the sprawling majesty of the United Federation of Britain.

One of the artists that helped create that world was Andy Chung. He shared some of his artwork for the film on his blog. Chung has worked on some of he biggest and best films of the last 16 years. From Super 8 (2011), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) and I, Robot (2004).

Total Recall (2012) "City" by Andy Chung

Total Recall (2012) "Freefall" by Andy Chung

Total Recall (2012) "City" by Andy Chung

Total Recall (2012) "Inside Car" by Andy Chung

They have an amazing sense of scale.

Official Synopsis:
Welcome to Rekall, the company that can turn your dreams into real memories. For a factory worker named Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), even though he’s got a beautiful wife (Kate Beckinsale) who he loves, the mind-trip sounds like the perfect vacation from his frustrating life – real memories of life as a super-spy might be just what he needs. But when the procedure goes horribly wrong, Quaid becomes a hunted man. Finding himself on the run from the police – controlled by Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), the leader of the free world – Quaid teams up with a rebel fighter (Jessica Biel) to find the head of the underground resistance (Bill Nighy) and stop Cohaagen. The line between fantasy and reality gets blurred and the fate of his world hangs in the balance as Quaid discovers his true identity, his true love, and his true fate.

See more of Andy Chung's portfolio at acsketch.blogspot.com/

What do you think of the illustrations?

@ Copyright 2012 Total Recall, Original Film, Rekall Productions, Andy Chung. All rights reserved 

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With a new Total Recall film coming out soon, you might be interested in looking back at the film that wasn't made.

Back in the eighties there were several attempts to bring the movie Total Recall to the screen. One director attached to the project was David Cronenberg who worked with Ron Miller to give a unique take on the film.

While Miller worked on several unproduced films, including Dune, he's best known for his work illustrating astronomy books and writing science-fiction.

My wife [Judith Miller] and I both worked for nearly a year on the David Cronenberg version of Total Recall. At Dino DiLaurentiis' studio outside Rome, we worked under the direction of the brilliant production designer, Pierluigi Basile. I produced scores of drawings and paintings while Judith created models of sets and spacecraft, mostly of paper and balsa wood.
Cronenberg's Total Recall would certainly have been a very different movie than the one ultimately produced. So different, in fact, was the story that Cronenberg evolved that it was proposed at one time that his version be filmed as a sequel! What did eventually make the screen was much closer to what screenwriter Ron Shusett had originally imagined... less like the Philip K. Dick story, "I Can Remember It For You Wholesale", that the screenplay was based on — and which was what Cronenberg wanted to do — and more like an over-the-top adventure.

What eventually became Pyramid Mountain in the Verhoeven version was originally a prehistoric Martian sphinx excavated from the Martian desert, and a good deal more screen time was have been allotted to Kuato, including an elaborate dream sequence where he morphed first into the sphinx and then into a kind of phosphorescent vagina. Cronenberg had some very Cronenberg touches, such as agents with guns hidden within their bodies, but absolutely my favorite idea of all those we came up with was to have camels imported from earth to haul freight across the Martian deserts. This would, of course, have been after significant terraforming had already been done...but not so much that the camels didn't have to wear respirators!

I've put together a small collection of this preproduction art...to illustrate a little of what Total Recall might have been...

See more of Ron Miller's work at http://www.black-cat-studios.com/

Thanks Neil for the tip!

What do you think of the art? Would Total Recall have been different with these designs?

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