Total Recall kicked off actor Michael Ironside's seeming addiction to his character's losing limbs. Following his scene-stealing turns turn as the villain in David Cronenberg's Scanners - where he caused the film's very gif-able head explosion - Michael Ironside has been a regular presence on the big and small screens. His growly voice and intensity made him well suited to bad guy roles, but he's played a wide variety of characters throughout his career, including voicing Sam Fisher in the Splinter Cell video game franchise.
One of his most recognizable roles came from Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall, playing henchman Richter, who chases Arnold Schwarzenegger's Doug Quaid around Earth and Mars. In the finale, the pair face off one last time on an open elevator platform. Richter is knocked off the edge but tries to pull Arnie over too, who pulls him back just enough to sever his arms as they pass another floor; Richter then plunges to his death sans his arms. It's a memorably gruesome death in a movie loaded with them, but it wouldn't be Michael Ironside's only cinematic loss of limbs.
Highlander II: The Quickening is famously one of the most unbearable sequels ever made, but Michael Ironside's hammy villain Katana helped make it somewhat bearable. While not technically a limb, he does lose his head to Christopher Lambert's MacLeod in the finale, which is the only way to kill an immortal in the franchise's mythology.
Michael Ironside reunited with Verhoeven for 1997 sci-fi blockbuster Starship Troopers, playing Jean Rasczak, teacher of History and Moral Philosophy at protagonist Rico's high school. Rasczak is introduced as a former Mobile Infantry private who lost an arm previous to the events of the movie and reappears later with a robotic arm when Rico joins his unit The Roughnecks. Despite slaying many a bug, he later loses both his legs to bugs when he's dragged into a sandpit; Rico later obeys Rasczak's order to shoot him.
He lost yet another arm in 2004's The Machinist, a dark drama that became famous for star Christian Bale's alarming weight loss. Bale plays the titular character, who suffers from horrible insomnia and causes an accident that leads to his co-worker Miller (Ironside) losing his left arm. Finally, in 2005 black comedy Guy X Ironside plays a hospitalized Vietnam vet who lost both his left arm and leg to the conflict. That appears - to date - to be the final severing of Michael Ironside's limbs onscreen, but in a curious sliding doors moment, he came very close to being cast in the title role of RoboCop by his Total Recall director Paul Verhoeven. Had this happened, this would have resulted in yet another lost limb during Murphy's slaying.