Total Recall
Total Recall mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Arnie comes home after killing his workmate, he pulls Sharon Stone to the floor. From one angle his hands are on her shoulders, from another they're on her elbows. (00:23:45)

Factual error: Throughout the movie, whenever the domes are breached (which happens much too often) it is said that there is only vacuum outside. But Mars has an atmosphere. Its thin and mostly CO2, but it's there.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: While it is not a true vacuum outside the domes, it's around 1% of Earth's atmosphere. The effect of a dome breach would be close enough to a true vacuum to the people affected.

Suggested correction: "Vacuum" is a colloquial way of saying low pressure, just like the 'vacuum' you use to clean the house creates a low pressure to cause suction.

Suggested correction: It's possible human colonization of the planet affected the atmosphere.

If the Martian atmosphere ceased to exist, the sky would be always black, never red as seen in the movie (Mars' sky is actually a butterscotch color during daytime and bluish during twilight).

Audio problem: Just after Arnie accepts the cab driver's offer and the other one complains, Arnie's driver gives him the finger and says something like, "Eat this", but his lips don't match what he's saying. (00:52:45)

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Quaid and Melina are strapped into chairs by scientists, Quaid breaks out and stabs a bar into a guy's head using a downward motion. In the next shot, the bar is now coming up from the under side of the scientist's face and out of the top of his head. (01:30:00)

Factual error: When a person goes out into space, their eyes wouldn't be sucked out, their cheeks puffed, etc. They would have about 10-20 seconds of useful consciousness, when they could get back to a safe area. Even after that, they'd still be alive for about a minute, although unconscious. The only major problem that being in space for about half a minute might cause is rupturing the eardrums and possible blindness (although the eyeballs wouldn't be graphically sucked out). NASA's studies on this go back as far as the 1960's and were used by Stanley Kubrick during the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (00:03:50 - 01:43:20)

Continuity mistake: If you look closely at the position of Arnie's arms while still on the 3D screen, they are in a different position when he breaks through. (00:30:00)

Revealing mistake: When Doug and Melina are being chased by the drilling machine, it punches through a wall. When the machine comes out again it pulls some rocks with it, a very large one hits Melina and she doesn't even flinch, obviously because it's a fake rock. The size of rock should have knocked her to the floor or potentially killed her.

Continuity mistake: When Arnie enters the hotel room on Earth, he receives a phone call from a man with a suitcase who tells him to look through the window. While Arnie is approaching to the window, we can see in the display that the mysterious man is looking to his upper right. In the next shot, when Arnie is looking through the window, we can see that the hotel room is located at the man's left side. (00:35:10)

Continuity mistake: In the airlock where Benny fires his machine gun at George, the lock handle behind Benny rotates on its own. (01:23:05)

ryguy_1983

Visible crew/equipment: When Quaid and Melina hop into Benny's cab and are being chased by Richter, watch Benny. During the shots where the perspective is from behind Benny, you can see that it is a stunt driver in the car. His head is shaved neatly, yet Benny's hair is curly and frilly all over. (01:11:00)

furious1116

Revealing mistake: Right before Quade jumps on the train to get away from Richter, he uses a gun to break one of the train windows. His gun barely (if at all) touches the window and it shatters. (00:31:40)

Nicki

Revealing mistake: When Arnie blows the old lady disguise mask on Mars Immigration, they shot him and the dome crashes. Right after the soldier gets sucked out of the room, some extra comes rolling and kicks the camera. (00:47:05)

Total Recall mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Doug is running from the bad guys after finding out what was going on from his "wife", he tucks his big gun in to his jacket pocket. When he is running through the scanner, that big gun is now in his pants. (00:28:15)

Lynette Carrington

Total Recall mistake picture

Revealing mistake: In the scene in the Mars Air/Spaceport, the troops are wearing Casio scientific calculators on their wrists. (00:43:50 - 00:46:55)

Total Recall mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Quade shoots Dr. Edgemar, Lori yells "Now you've DONE IT.", and the wall explodes, which is plainly made of foam. Many of the pieces of 'wall' tumble lightly across the floor. (01:05:40)

Nicki

Total Recall mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Quaid unfolds a flyer for The Last Resort, he unfolds it with the flyer image facing the camera. When the scene cuts to him looking at it, the flyer image is facing him. (00:52:00)

Continuity mistake: When Melina comes to the rescue of Doug, she starts shooting his captors. He drops to the floor, then in the next shot, he drops again. Doug also wakes up on top of a dead guy who had landed much further away from him before. (01:04:15)

Daz

Continuity mistake: During the hallway fight sequence between Lori and Melina, we see Quaid in the background aiming a machine gun - just as Melina gets kicked in the back. But a few seconds later, Quaid reaches for the same gun a second time. (01:07:40)

ryguy_1983

Factual error: When Quade drills through the hydraulic hose on Benny's mining machine, the pressure indicator on the console drops rapidly and is scaled in "Inches of Mercury Absolute". That scale is normally used only for vacuum, not high pressure hydraulics.

Nicki

Hauser: Howdy, stranger. This is Hauser. If things have gone wrong, I'm talking to myself, and you've got a wet towel wrapped around your head. Now, whatever your name is, get ready for the big surprise. You are not you. You are me.
Quaid: No shit.

Bishop73

More quotes from Total Recall

Trivia: Most of the movie was shot in Mexico because it was believed labour costs to build the sets would be cheaper there, but it turned out that the cost of importing required materials from the US negated this benefit.

Daz

More trivia for Total Recall

Question: There is a scene in the movie in which Arnie disguises as a woman to pass the entrance control in Mars. Moments later, the mask he's using starts to malfunction and he has to take it off. When he's doing that, we can see that the man who's playing Quaid is not Arnie but a stunt double. Why did the director choose a stunt double to replace Arnie in a scene that's not risky at all?

Answer: It's not a stunt double, it's a mannequin (fake head actually) of Arnie, used for the artificial head shot.

Grumpy Scot

More questions & answers from Total Recall

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