Total Recall
Total Recall mistake picture

Other mistake: The title 'Publicity' is misspelled as 'Publicty' in the end credits. (01:46:30)

Daz

Revealing mistake: In the last scene, when Douglas Quaid and Melina are holding each other and looking over the landscape of Mars while the sky gets colored, the camera starts from top behind them (looking down) then moves down while looking at them, so more and more of the Mars horizon gets visible. But the camera-tilt goes too far up, so at the top of the picture, you can see the blue-screen curtain and the pole and rings holding it. Douglas Quaid and Melina are just looking at a blue-screen. (This is visible on the video; on the DVD an extra black top-bar is covering it.) (01:48:55)

Other mistake: In the scene after Arnold kills the construction hoods he goes home to Sharon Stone and tries to convince her that it was real by showing her his bloody hands with which he was grabbing her shoulders, yet there is no blood on her or the appliances he turned off upon entering the apartment.

Continuity mistake: Soon after the woman costume malfunctions, you can see the blue screen through the windows, which in the next shot is coloured orange.

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).

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.

Factual error: Martian sky is very inaccurate in the movie. It is depicted as much darker and redder than it would be in real life (Mars' sky is a butterscotch color during daytime, bluish at sunrise/sunset and far brighter than in the movie). Also, both of Mars' moons are very small, asteroid-like bodies and would appear as tinny star-like points of light to an observer on the surface of the planet.

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

Revealing mistake: When Richter's arms get cut off and he falls down the elevator shaft to his death, you can very obviously see the outlines of his real arms inside his shirt when his leather jacket flies up as he falls.

TedStixon

Continuity mistake: When the man delivering the briefcase calls Quaid and tells him to go to the window, you see on the screen he turns to look to his side, but when Quaid goes to the window the man on the phone is still looking straight and then is seen turning to his side again.

Bishop73

Continuity mistake: When Quaid first arrives at The Last Resort, he hands Benny a tip and walks in through the front doors. In a front shot behind him is the head of a man outside who wasn't there a moment before when Quaid walked in.

Continuity mistake: When Quaid uses the hologram, it's a mirror image of himself. However, before he enters the reactor room full of guards, we see him put the hologram device on his left wrist. His hologram (the one all the guards shoot at) has the device on his left wrist as well, instead of what would be the right.

Bishop73

Other mistake: When Quaid goes through the x-ray machine the first time, the person behind the man with the dog isn't shown to be carrying anything (there's no purple object shown). But then later the purple object is seen.

Bishop73

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

Suggested correction: Could simply be someone else with an item passing the person without any. He was walking very slow and certainly 1 person passed him, could be another one did as well.

lionhead

Two people would have had to pass him and there's nothing to indicate 2 additional people were walking that much faster than him, or close to him.

Bishop73

They were off camera before. 1 person definitely did pass him so a second person doing the same is not unlikely.

lionhead

They weren't off screen long enough.

Bishop73

I've seen this part multiple times. Who you see behind Quaid before entering the machine is first a woman with a handbag, then a man with mustache and case, then a blind man with a dog, after him a woman with a handbag again and more people. Now, the man with the mustache and case and the second woman with the handbag probably paused before entering the machine because we don't see them when Quaid passes, only the first woman with a bag, then a blind man with a dog and then a man with nothing. So both must have then sped up and then passed the man holding nothing. You see them walking faster than the others too. Not illogical when people are rushing to work or home either.

lionhead

Continuity mistake: In the apartment, Lori grabs a knife, and after the first slice, switches the knife to her right hand. After the second slice, the knife can be seen midair as she tosses it from left to right again.

Movie Nut

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Suggested correction: It's not being shown tossed from right to left, you just see her spin the knife in the air to hold it in a different position.

Bishop73

Other mistake: After Arnold kills Harry and his gang at the beginning, how did that blood splatter get on the wall behind him to his right? He shot the henchman standing in that position from the back and the other who was shot was shot standing to the left side of the wall. So there is no explanation why the splatter is there.

Continuity mistake: Arnie has come back to the apartment after shooting his coworkers and asks Lori if this is a hallucination. He then reveals fresh blood smeared all over the palms of his hands but he had grabbed her before he asks the question. Lori is sitting in front of him without a drop of blood on her.

Deliberate mistake: While Cohagen is on Mars, he calls Richter and chides him for trying to kill Quade. Richter is in a car on Earth, yet they're having a real-time conversation, which is impossible because of the distance. [While this is true, a movie with 4 to 21 minute pauses between lines would take rather a long time].

Nicki

Plot hole: It's revealed by Cohagen that he had everything set up for Quaid to get to Quato including convincing Quaid that Benny was an ally but there's no way Cohagen could have known that Quaid would have chosen the other taxi driver instead of Benny. So if Quaid had picked someone else or even decided to walk to where he was going Cohagen wouldn't have got anywhere in drawing Cuato out.

jbrbbt

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

Suggested correction: Simple, every cab driver there was under his control. Didn't matter who was picked. Ever see a movie where everyone in a restaurant turns out to be an agent, or that scene in John Wick with everyone in the park.

Total Recall mistake picture Video

Continuity mistake: When Quaid takes off his old woman disguise and throws the head to a soldier who catches it, the close-up shows that he's holding it beneath the ears. In the wide shot, he's holding it from behind the skull.

Lori: Sweetheart, be reasonable. After all, we're married.
[Quaid shoots her in the head.]
Quaid: Consider that a divorce.

More quotes from Total Recall

Trivia: The Kuato model was handled by about 15 puppeteers, each controlling a different part of his face and hands. (01:15:30)

Daz

More trivia for Total Recall

Question: At the beginning of the movie, Quaid has a friend at work (if my mind's not failing me his name is Harry) that tells him not to go to Recall because some person got lobotomised. Later, when Quaid is returning from Recall his friend stops him and tries to kidnap (or kill) him because Quaid "talked about Mars". I can't understand the role that this man has in the plot. Quaid told his wife that this man is a spy (I wonder how he knew that), and I'd like to know which side he seems to be fighting for (the Agency or the rebels).

Answer: It depends on whether you choose to believe the events of the film are real or in Quaid's lobotomized brain. If the events are real (i.e. Quaid is actually Houser with his memories blocked) then Harry is from the agency and is there to make sure Quaid doesn't say or do anything that would potentially break his memory block (like going to Recall). If you believe everything is in Quaid's mind after he goes to Recall, then Harry really was just his friend.

Answer: Harry works for the Agency the same way Arnie's wife did. While the wife watched him at home, Harry was to watch him at work. Harry told Arnie that story to keep him from going to Recall and to keep him from having to kill Arnie for bringing up his memories of Mars.

T Poston

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