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Total Recall was based on a 1966 short story from pulp-fiction writer Philip K. Dick called "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". He also wrote other mind bending novels on which futuristic films like 'Minority Report', 'Blade Runner', 'Impostor', 'Screamers' and 'Paycheck' were based. See more...

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Mistake Revealing: Doug has the hologram when inside the alien nuclear reactor, and a bunch of bad guys encircle the holographic image and fire at it at point blank with automatic weapons, and not one bad guy gets hit. If they encircled the 3D image, at least a few bad guys would have been hit by their own men.

Mistake Revealing: When Arnie uses the dead body as a human shield, watch the corpse's mouth - he grimaces every time he gets hit (the squibs hurt).

Mistake Continuity: When Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rachel Ticotin are being attacked by the giant drilling machine, Arnie grabs a pneumatic drill and cuts the main oil line of the machine, getting the left side of his face and his shirt doused in oil. Yet throughout the remainder of the film, there is no oil on Arnie's face or shirt.

Mistake Continuity: When Arnie is taking off his woman's head he presses a switch by the ear and the ear comes out. The device reaches right inside the fake head and there would be no room for Arnie's real head.

Mistake Revealing: In the scene where Sharon Stone attacks Arnie in their house with a knife you can see that the knife is a fake because it bends.

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

Mistake Continuity: A few minutes before Quaid kills his "wife", there's a shot of her with bright pink lipstick. Immediately before he shoots her, her lipstick is burgundy.

Mistake Continuity: In the escalator scene when Arnie uses a corpse as a shield, there's a close-up of Arnie's gun firing, and we can see there's blood on the side of the corpse's head. However, in the wider shots there isn't.

Mistake Continuity: When Arnie is giving his info about what his Mars woman should be like, there are two things to look at on the screen in front of him: The screen zooms in on the woman's face, cuts back to Arnie, cuts back to the screen when it zooms in on the face again. Also, look at the sequence when he's selecting her personality: "demure" is lit up before he mentions it.

Mistake Revealing: When Quaid throws the bullet-ridden body down the escalator, you can see Richter and Helm have both been replaced by stuntmen. Their hairstyles are totally different. You can also see that the 'dead' man is still alive as he's flying through the air (slow motion helps).

Mistake 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.

Mistake Continuity: When Arnie uses the hologram projector in the alien reactor, there is a brief shot of him facing his own hologram image. Note that the gun and the projector switch positions in Arnie's hands - the bloodstain on his shirt's sleeve does not.

Mistake Revealing: 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.)

Mistake Factual error: The title 'Publicity' is misspelled as 'Publicty' in the end credits.

Mistake Continuity: When Hauser/Quaid returns to Mars, some of the people that knew him before as Hauser call him Quaid.

Mistake Continuity: When Sharon Stone cuts Arnie's left arm with the knife, he starts bleeding. Right afterwards he grabs Sharon's neck with his wounded left arm. When he lets go, Sharon's neck has no blood stains from Arnie's wounds. How come?

Mistake Revealing: When Arnold jumps through the glass, you can definitely see a change in his face and body shape. (From the stuntman).

Mistake Revealing: 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.

Mistake Continuity: When Quaid finishes Gary and his fellow agents, the concrete wall behind him shows a bloodstain. The only opportunity for it to appear there would have been as Quaid hits the moustache man in the face; but this guy stands up again, and it doesn't look like he cracked his skull (which would have caused a stain).

Mistake 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.

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You may also like: The Dark Knight | The Terminator | Independence Day | The Matrix | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

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