Total Recall/Headscratchers


 * What's the explanation for it all being real? If it was fake, it would all makes sense, how everything happened just as advertised, how blatantly cliche-filled bits of it are, even the plot holes could be handwaved with "Quaid isn't all that smart". But if it is, then it's just a cliche sci-fi action film.
 * There are two major factors that point to Quaid's experiences being real, at least in my opinion: (1) The fact that he dreams about Melina long before he meets her "for real," and (2) The dialogue between Dr. Lall and Bob about how Quaid can't simply be acting out his ego-trip because it hasn't been implanted yet. I personally think the whole thing being a dream is the more plausible explanation (mainly because, as you say, it explains away all the junk science like the core of Mars being made of ice), but the second point is particularly damning; why would Rekall bother implanting any of that if he's not conscious to see it and it doesn't seem to have any bearing on the rest of the movie? On the other hand, it could be they stuck that bit in Quaid's mind just to make the dream that much more convincing; of course it's all real, because Rekall wouldn't lie about screwing up, would they?
 * Or put another way, when Quaid is giving the details about his "fantasy vacation", he was conjuring up repressed experiences from his subconscious. The device keeping his memories repressed then shut off temporarily (possibly because it was supposed to respond to similar external stimuli) which is why he had that outburst that resulted in his getting tranqed and put into the cab.
 * I think the clearest evidence to it being "real" is that the audience is shown things and conversations that Quaid can have no knowledge of. Parts of the film simply don't happen from his perspective.
 * I've always thought it was real because of how Rekall is supposed to work. They implant memories, not actual experience. If it worked the way it was supposed to for it to be fake (but going wrong), Rekall would just be a glorified virtual reality. The story of something going wrong in the middle of his Rekall treatment that would leave him lobotomised, but not before experiencing his new memories in real time, just doesn't make sense!
 * The director has stated that both interpretations fit the facts, and refuses to say which is true. Under the "all just a dream" explanation, Melina was simply constructed right on that readout while he describes the body type for the girl, and his own mind fills the gaps with the image form the dream. The "failed implant" was simply part of the failed memories. And it is possible to witness things from other perspectives in dreams, though it admittedly isn't common, and usually the dreamer reacts to them when it happens.
 * "The events can't be real, because if they're real I would have a lower opinion of the movie." ... Stunning logic.
 * Why would the martians build a device like that? They would have little to no use for the foreign air!
 * If I remember correctly, the builders are only ever referred to as 'aliens', not Martians. Perhaps they were previous colonists who never got round to turning on the machine for some reason, rather than indigenous to Mars. Alternatively, Mars may once have had an Earth-like atmosphere, lost it through some disaster, and the builders were attempting to restore it, but died out or left first.
 * As mentioned above they're described as "aliens" rather than Martians and probably breathed a similar atmosphere to humans. Presumably the atmosphere machine was part of a failed attempt to colonise the planet.
 * Paul Verhoeven is almost indisputably a sadist. Why else would he force us to watch oxygen-deprived characters suffocating to death for what seems like several minutes, when in reality that would not be the case at all? (Wouldn't anyone exposed to the vacuum of space immediately turn to puree and be dead in about ten seconds?)
 * Actually, the idea of instantaneous death in a vacuum/hostile environment is an example of Reality Is Unrealistic. Verhoeven actually got it right; in a vacuum you can survive for up to a minute, but it wouldn't be pleasant. On Mars you'd be able to last a little longer, if only because there's some pressure.
 * Well, Verhoeven only slightly got it right. Mars has a pressurised atmosphere so someone exposed to it certainly wouldn't balloon but given that it's mainly carbon dioxide they would asphyxiate, if they didn't freeze to death first. Regardless, what you see in Total Recall isn't even remotely realistic.
 * The pressure difference between Mars' atmosphere and total vacuum is very thin. Basically, on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is vacuum and 10 is Earth standard, Mars rates about a 0.6.
 * The alien device creates suposedly air by decomposing water. But where doesn the nitrogen come from?
 * Nitrogen isn't really required, but what you're left with is an atmosphere of pure hydrogen and oxygen, so the first time someone lights up...
 * Wouldn't that mean that Mars wouldn't have a blue sky? Theories may have changed since I heard this, but I was told when I was a kid that the sky is blue because the nitrogen that makes up most of our atmosphere scatters the blue light around.
 * Lacking a detailed explanation of how the atmosphere generator actually works, it's impossible to say that it shouldn't work exactly how it's shown to work. It starts up, uses the ice, it makes safe breathable atmosphere. "What about the nitrogen?" Probably it includes nitrogen somehow. "How?" Don't know, they don't say. "But it doesn't make sense then!" It's an action movie, not a speculative technical manual.
 * There is technology that can implant memories and no one has thought of a better way to use it than as a "All In Your Mind" Vacation Package?!
 * Seriously, this technology could revolutionize education. (For example: 10 years of Med School compressed into a Total Recall Program).
 * The ability to give entire lifetimes of experience in varried professions in different times and places could be very useful to a society, effectively allowing it to be full of Omidisciplinary Old Masters from the ground up.
 * Maybe it doesn't work like that. Or maybe it's very expensive to make it work like that. Or maybe it only works like that once and then the inside of your head is "too messy" to do any further implantations. Or some mix of those.