Recall the Replicants – 2070

For a while I’ve been trying to track down the 22 episodes of German/Canadian TV series Total Recall 2070, based – quite loosely – on the short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, filmed as Total Recall, and the novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, of course Blade Runner.

Entire futuristic sets were built in Toronto, and quite reasonable 3D/effects were generated. As stated in another post, it was the creation of Art Monterastelli, who co-wrote the recent Rambo movie.

The pilot, Machine Dreams, is available in the US as a “movie”, however the only release of the series was in Japan, but is deleted. However, it is available on the Joost system, for everyone except Americans and Canadians (sorry Dave), for them it is (apparently) on Hula.

Anyway, one quick install of Joost (on University equipment) and I’m already watching episode 3. It’s not brilliant. It’s no Heroes or 4400, but it’s not bad. Not bad at all. There’s gratuitous nudity, sex, and violence; and cartel-based paranoia. While, in theory, Earth is ruled by a one-world government known as the Interplanetary Council, real power lies with the Consortium, the six multi-global companies that financed the colonization of Mars. Rekall does the computers (and brain implants), Minacon does the energy and mining, Tashimo-Pacific does transport (inc. “Johnny Cab”), Uber Braun do the rockets and robotics, Variable Dynamics do medical/bio-tech company and work on synthetic humans, Tillman Health are agriculture and chemicals, working on illegal cloning.

The format is (yet again) buddy-cop: one a hard-nosed detective; the other a beefy, slightly autistic android (androids are not illegal on earth, it’s not strict Blade Runner). More than anything the format reminds me of Alien Nation (the TV series more than the movie).

Worth Joosting – if you’re not in America!