When Quaid’s at Rekall and he chooses a brunette, athletic, sleazy love interest, Melina’s face appears on the computer screen before the implant of the ego-trip, so isn’t that proof positive that the whole thing is a memory implant?
shareCertainly a signpost it is.
shareThat along with the scientist helper saying "This is a new one, 'Blue Skies on Mars'".
shareI think that Verhoeven purposely put hints towards both dream and reality, and left it ambiguous so that it would be talked about. Kind of like a Schrödinger’s Cat.
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He selected an athletic demure brunette, and he was halfway out from the neck injection when her face appeared. Maybe it was his buried memory that caused that.
I always contended that we're never suppose to finally decide which is reality and which is a dream. In the end, we can change the outcome in our heads so it doesn't really matter. Just like Quaid can get tired of Melina a few months after this story ends and he wants to pursue a blonde assassin who looks like Sharon Stone.
shareNot necessarily.
It could be an actual photo of the real Melina that Rekall use as a template for a sleazy brunette. There are myriad reasons why they might use her picture (chief among them that thy used the mugshot of a real criminal because it added authenticity to the character).
Fun fact: In the novelization it is revealed in a throwaway line that Melina did some modeling for ReKall at some point. I'm sad this was left out of the movie (or maybe Piers Anthony came up with it), but I think it's a touch of genius.
In lieu of this line in the movie, to keep up the ambiguity, I subscribe to strntz's explanation:
He selected an athletic demure brunette, and he was halfway out from the neck injection when her face appeared. Maybe it was his buried memory that caused that.
He dreamed of her before he went to rekall
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