Goofs for
Total Recall (1990)

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• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: If you take the whole story as a dream implanted in Doug's brain at Rekall (see "Plot Synopsis"), then many of the "goofs" listed here are not goofs anymore. They are just due to the strange and unrealistic way events are usually happening in a dream
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Person's head visible behind bed during first sex scene.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the reactor elevator scene when Richter's arms are disembodied and he falls down, Quaid holds the remaining arms and says "See you at the party Richter!". When he throws the arms off the elevator in the far shot, you see the arms fall behind the platform of the elevator, but however you do not see them fall past the platform and instead just disappear.
  
  

• Continuity: Quaid grabs Lori's arms to explain that he is being hunted by spies, then shows his blood-covered hands to her, yet there is no blood on her arms.
  
  
• Continuity: The piece of the chocolate bar that Quaid hides the tracking bug in changes size after it is picked up by the rats.
  
  
• Factual errors: Contrary to popular thought, depressurization will not make your body balloon out and explode. You'll just die of asphyxiation, with maybe a nosebleed and other broken capillaries.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Before Quaid opens the "Johnny-Cab" to escape Richter and his assistant Helm, you can see - in the 4:3 version - the tracks of the camera dolly.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The security guards wear some kind of portable computer (display and keyboard) on their wrist. During the fight at customs, a close-up reveals that it's just a Sharp pocket calculator taped to a glove.
  
  
• Continuity: When Douglas Quaid is attacked by his workmates in the subway one of them appears, in some shots, with his face stained with blood but no stains are visible in other shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The stone wall that Quaid slams two of Harry's goons into visibly shakes.
  
  
• Factual errors: The first name of the author of the original story (Philip K. Dick) is misspelled as "Phillip" in the credits.
  
  
• Continuity: After the fight at the construction site, Quaid rushes home. When he is turning off the lights, he flicks off individual switches, yet while fighting with Lori, he flicks on one light switch to see who he's fighting, and the room becomes completely lit.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Stuntman's face is visible when Quaid jumps onto the subway car after breaking the window.
  
  
• Continuity: When Richter and Helm are waiting by the hotel's service elevator for Lori to bring Quaid down and realize something is wrong, they run over to a normal elevator and go up, yet they end up coming out the service elevator on the 6th floor.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Harry turns off his jackhammer (Quaid is talking to him), he makes the motion of flipping a switch on the back of the tool to stop it, but there is no switch. The back of the tool is smooth.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: While Doug writes Melina's name on a piece of paper, the sound of the writing isn't in sync with the hand movement
  
  
• Continuity: During the fight at "The Last Resort", Thumbelina stabs the goon with glasses in the stomach. When the camera pans out, the knife and blood are coming out of his chest (originally, the goon was supposed to be gutted from crotch to sternum, but was edited out for the R-Rating).
  
  
• Continuity: After the escalator shootout, Richter steps off the escalator, landing his foot next to the dead body of one of his goons. In the next shot, the same foot lands squarely on the goon's chest.
  
  
• Continuity: When Quaid is drilling into the oil pipe to try and stop Benny from killing them, the line breaks and oil squirts all over Quaid's face, but in the next shot his face has no oil on it.
  
  
• Continuity: When Quaid turns on the hologram projector for the first time and swings his gun around, the hand holding the watch is extended when his hologram's hand is at chest level.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Richter is shooting at Quaid from the top of the escalator he uses a human shield then turns and throws the body at the goons on the escalator below him you can see the stuntman's eyes open and face cringe as he flies through the air.
  
  
• Continuity: When Quaid steals the Johnny Cab he rips out the robot driving it and places it in the back seat facing down, but when the robot speaks as Quaid drives away it is facing up.
  
  
• Factual errors: Towards the end when Quaid is using his holographic watch to fool the guards who have surrounded him on the catwalk, they begin shooting through his "holographic" image but no-one gets hit on the other side, even though they are only a few feet away.
  
  
• Factual errors: During depressurization, Quaid's eyes bulge and appear bloodshot, his face swells like a balloon and appears to be severely stressed. Within a matter of minutes after re-pressurization, his face shows no redness, his eyes are not at all bloodshot and there appear to be no ill effects whatsoever. After this sort of stress, there would certainly have been some broken capillaries and bloodshot eyes.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At Rekall, when Dr. Lull is questioning him about his dream girl, Quaid's request of "sleazy" and "demure" are highlighted on the monitor before he says them.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Melina and Quaid find the reactor for the first time, Melina says that Cohaagen won't turn it on because "if Mars had an atmosphere, he would lose control". Mars has always had an atmosphere; though humans aren't able to survive in it because it contains no oxygen.
  
  
• Continuity: When Quade first meets Melina at The Last Resort, she takes him upstairs and after she closes the door, she smacks him across the face hard. Her pendant is jostled, but in the next shot just before she hugs him, the pendant is stuck in her hair.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Quaid is driving the Johnny Cab while Richter is firing on him, the car is supposed to be making a sharp turn, but if you look at the scene closely, you can see the cab is actually spinning in place.
  
  
• Factual errors: The two moons of Mars appear in several background shots, but they are incorrectly depicted. They are both shown as being much larger than they would appear in real life -- Phobos would appear to be about a third of the size of the moon, and Deimos as little larger than a star. In addition, Phobos revolves around Mars faster than Mars rotates, so it would appear to rise in the west and set in the east, and should have moved visibly with respect to Deimos even from one shot to the next. The two moons are always shown in the same relative positions, however.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Quaid tells Melina that "the whole core of Mars is ice", but it is been widely theorized that Mars has an iron-rich core just like Earth does.
  
  
• Continuity: During Quaid's fight with Lori in the apartment, Lori slashes Quaid in the chest with a knife. After the fight, the cut marks on his shirt are mysteriously gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Quaid is about to step into the taxi of Benny, there is a big explosion. In the closeup you see Benny closing the door. Then you see the wide screen and again see Benny closing the taxi door.
  
  

• Factual errors: SPOILER: During the final scene, the alien reactor begins pumping out oxygen, providing a stable atmosphere within minutes. It would take far longer to pump out enough oxygen to cover the planet, and years or even decades for it to stabilize.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: When Richter is falling from the lift after having his arms ripped off, you can see the bulge under his shirt where his real arm(s) are tucked underneath.
  
  

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