I don't want my reading of TR as a film about popular entertainment or a film within a film to become a catch-all for explaining all the flaws within the movie. But, I don't see why we assume that the representation of Martian life in "Blue Skies Over Mars" need to be realistic, plausible, or accurate given the status of those images as a commercially marketed simulation. Arnold as a consumer may not give a damn whether you could have blue skies over mars or whether the dome could shatter. He wants to buy excitement, adventure, erroticism. He cares if his fantasy conforms to and gratifies genre expectation. Once we are in the dream frame, then normal SF criteria of scientific accuracy or plausability seem beside the point. --Henry