The special effects of the 1990 action film Total Recall were developed by visual-effects company Dream Quest Images, with contributions by Stetson Visual Services, Metrolight Studios, and Industrial Light & Magic. Over 100 visual effects (including miniatures and bluescreen effects) were produced for the film, which relied almost entirely on practical effects at a time when computer-generated imagery was a new and rarely used technique.

Overview Total Recall special effects were provided by Dream Quest Images, with Eric Brevig the visual effects supervisor, Alex Funke the special effects photographer, Thomas L. Fisher the special effects supervisor, production designer William Sandell, and effects producer Mary Siceloff. Rob Bottin, who had worked with Verhoeven on RoboCop, provided the character visual effects. Additional effects were by Stetson Visual Services, Metrolight Studios, and Industrial Light & Magic. Senior matte artist Robert Scifo and the Dream Quest team produced forty-eight matte paintings for the film, including all the Martian skies.

The film has over 100 visual effects, including miniatures and bluescreen effects which Verhoeven used because he wanted to move his camera freely around the sets to make them seem more real. Visual-effects plates were in VistaVision for the largest negative possible. Made in the early CGI era, photorealistic or textured imagery was not a suitable option; a spaceship approaching Mars could have been attempted in CGI, but miniatures and motion control photography were easier.

Dream Quest designed a motion-control rig with a precision steel ladder belt encased in plastic. The track was attached to the "Omega driver", a large sprocket attached to the camera dolly. With real-time motion control over forty-eight feet of track and console-controlled camera-orientation options, it could record aspects such as velocity. Information recorded with motion control could be transferred to a separate motion-control rig to replicate the necessary movements and angles for complementary miniature work. When live-action footage was recorded, the miniatures had to be filmed from precise angles and motions to replicate the live-action footage. The crew also had to replicate 40-foot crane shots on a miniature, and encoders were attached to a filming crane to record positions and movements. The encoders were supplemented by cameras set up at specific points to film the crane's motions.

Concept artist Ron Cobb worked on Total Recall from its earliest iterations after completing work on Alien. He conceived of futuristic Los Angeles as a large coastal park with fountains, sunken gardens and solar collectors, describing it as a tranquil place where residents sailed, rode horses, and bicycled. A different version depicted the city after a severe earthquake; the buildings now hung upside-down underground on shock absorbers to mitigate future quakes. At ground level, citizens would enter a one-story slab and take an elevator down to the main buildings. Other features included electromagnetic cars and dirigibles carrying modular housing. Cobb's Mars was a cold, tough and vast desert, with horses and camels wearing pressure suits. He also contributed designs for VTOL aircraft. Illustrator Ron Miller also worked on the Martian landscape. He wanted a plausible city, and created dozens of concepts for domed habitats built into craters and canyons. Miller also conceived transportation (including vehicle types) and a Martian hotel; he wanted the designs to be scientifically plausible and visually interesting.

Although the Martian settings were intended to be realistic, Brevig said that a more cinematic vision was used because "a true depiction of the Martian sky would not have the majesty or mystery that we were working for." People experiencing physical decompression on the Martian surface would actually suffocate instead of experiencing the film's extreme physical distortions.

Creature effects and prosthetics Bottin had been asked to work on the film while it was being developed by De Laurentiis, but chose to work on the horror film The Thing (1982). When Verhoeven developed Total Recall creature effects, he wanted to avoid the criticism he had received for the violence and gore of RoboCop. He and Bottin agreed to focus on malformed, stretched flesh instead of blood, but over 3,000 blood packs were still used in the film; many of the more-complex makeup effects were executed in post-production. Bottin and his studio were responsible for the creature effects.

Decompression scenes

To depict the effects of decompression in the Martian atmosphere, Bottin made molds of Schwarzenegger, Ticotin and Cox by applying latex to their faces as they made exaggerated expressions. The resulting molds were used to create masks to which Bottin added small air pockets which could be filled to further distort their features. About designing the masks, Bottin said: "If the eyes are going to come out and the tongue is going to come out, how does it come out? Does it come out and fall down? Does it come out and move? Does it twist? Does it go up and lick the eyebrows? Does it fall down to the stomach? How does the neck move if the tongue is doing that? What are we going to do with the eyes if the tongue and neck are in the way?"

Four heads were made: one each for Schwarzenegger and Ticotin, and two for Cox. Schwarzenegger and Ticotin's heads were fully articulated, with manually operated cables controlling swelling tongues, foreheads, cheeks and eyes. The eyes had sculpted muscles and tendons attached to the back, and were lubricated to slide easily out of their sockets. Instead of using air bladders to swell sections of the heads, full-size head- and torso-shaped bladders were constructed and stretched out over a mechanical skeleton; they had smaller air bladders at specific points, which Bottin thought made the bladders appear to be "fighting each other." For one of the Cox heads, rigid veins were laid in the mold and floated on pins to give the finished mask veins beneath the surface where the skin stretched. The other head had a protruding tongue and eyes which emerged fully from the head. The air bladders were inflated by people blowing into pipes, providing a more natural movement than mechanical bellows. Bottin's crew studied video footage of the actors' faces and movements to replicate them, and the heads were enhanced with miniature motors, cables, springs, and rubber muscles. On set, the heads were mounted on mechanical bars which gave the impression of the subject sitting towards the camera. Bottin expected the effect to appear only briefly, and was surprised by how frequently it was used in the film. The hairstyle for Cox's character came from his having to slick his hair back for the molds to be made. Although he had completed two days of filming, he convinced Verhoeven to redo the scenes with the new hairstyle.

Mutants

Bottin called designing the mutants "fun" because he could use any ideas he wanted, but he attempted to retain some realism to avoid identifying the film's events as a dream or reality. An entire civilization of mutants was planned (with each having a different physical deformity), but the idea was unaffordable.

The mother and daughter mutants used prosthetic makeup, but Tony (as a central character) had more detail which could be seen from any camera angle. For the three-breasted prostitute (Lycia Naff), Bottin needed a slender actress to facilitate applying the prosthetic breasts; sizing them took several attempts. Bottin wanted them to look like real flesh affected by gravity. The final appliance extended from Naff's neck to her waist and took two make-up artists up to eight hours to fully apply. The three-breasted prostitute was intended to have four, but audience research indicated that she was reminiscent of a dairy cow and was not sexy. Schwarzenegger had suggested four breasts, with larger ones over smaller ones (based on medical pictures he had seen), but Bottin thought it too realistic and three breasts better suited the film's style.

Benny was intended to have a mechanical extremity, but Johnson said that he suggested giving the character three arms. A half-body cast was built, covering Johnson from his waist to his neck, allowing puppeteers to control the triple-elbowed limb. It was designed with separated bones and open spaces to make it visually impossible for a human arm to be inside and operating it. For the character's death, Johnson wore a bodysuit lined with blood squibs. The scene was filmed with and without blood, in case it was deemed too violent, and the producers chose the bloodless take.

In Bottin's original design of Kuato, he was small and grew out of George's head. Bottin disliked the result and the "monstrous" concept conflicted with his design philosophy, so he made the creature an intelligent baby. Kuato was built into a full-body prosthetic worn by Bell which began under his chin and extended below his waist, with a parachute harness to help support the weight of the cables necessary for fifteen puppeteers to operate Kuato's arms and head. He spent up to nine hours in makeup on his first day of filming in the prosthesis; although the time was shortened with repetition, he found it exhausting. Bell, unable to urinate in the apparatus, asked for a discreet hole to be cut into the foam.

Although some of the Kuato scenes were filmed during principal photographyincluding his reveal and Schwarzenegger holding his handsthe remainder (including the dialogue scenes) were shot in post-production with an animatronic Bell. Verhoeven was hesitant to use an animatronic because they could use Bell himself, but Bottin believed that removing anything real from the scene would make the overall effect more believable. After seeing test footage, Verhoeven trusted Bottin because he could not distinguish it from the real Bell. However, he wanted a shot of George walking towards Quaid while Kuato is talking; Bottin's crew built a cart which could move the body up and down as it rolled forward, simulating walking.

The mechanical Bell had an articulated head with jaw mechanisms and rolling eyes, and its head could move at a variety of angles. A set of bellows simulated breathing, and Kuato had a separate set so they breathed independently. Both puppets' arms moved with a mechanism operated by one puppeteer. Kuato's eyebrows were computer-controlled, and his eyes were operated with a wireless remote. The George and Kuato puppets, however, required fifteen to twenty operators. To make Kuato speak, servomotors in its mouth were linked to a computer which approximated appropriate shapes for each vowel and consonant. The limited computer system meant that individual pieces of dialogue could not be spliced together; each segment had to be recorded and performed at the same time. Although alternate voice actors were considered, Verhoeven and Bottin believed that Kuato should have a similar vocal timbre and pitch to Bell and chose him for the voice.

Other prosthetics