Best action movie character mistakes of all time

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Species picture

Character mistake: Fitch, who professes qualifications in biology, genetics and biochemistry, says that they made Sil female because she's a natural predator and so she'd be more docile. In almost every species of predator on earth the females are the hunters, aggressors and killers. The males may be socially dominant but they are the 'docile' ones. There are exceptions but Fitch speaks as if female and docile are the same thing - and they definitely are not.

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Suggested correction: This entry is so wrong, I don't quite know where to begin. The idea that all species, without exception, have the females as the aggressors and the males as docile is absolutely one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read. It is not backed up by fact in the slightest. They also did use human DNA; they added the sample of alien DNA to it to create Sil.

The posting states that there are exceptions to the rule and specifically states "almost every species." The mistake is not that a female must be "docile". It is that a scientist professing qualifications in biology, genetics, and biochemistry would make such a stupid statement, believing it to be invariably true.

However, there are exceptions; any one species makes this possible. I will start with African Lions. In Africa, the female lions are the main aggressors.

Noman

Suggested correction: They never said Sil was a natural predator when they created her. She was half human and half alien and it was their belief that human females are more docile (i.e. more motherly, more gentle, more empathetic, and less aggressive than human males). Although the reply to "more docile and controllable" was "you guys don't get out much", meaning that girls aren't that docile and controllable.

Bishop73

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Geostorm picture

Character mistake: Jim Sturgess uses a sentence that contains the word 'me'. He is corrected, being told that the word 'I' would have been correct. However, he was grammatically correct in his use of the word 'me'. The correction was in error.

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Flight of the Phoenix picture

Character mistake: It's all very heroic and manly but the effort put into dragging the Phoenix into its takeoff position once the engine is started is totally wasted. Townes and A.J. are both experienced pilots and Elliott is supposedly a genius aeronautical engineer - they must surely be aware that the engine power required to taxi an aircraft is trivial compared to that required to lift it into the air. Even taking into account the drag of the skids and wheels, if that engine cannot propel the aircraft at a few kilometers an hour on the ground it cannot propel it to take off speed, nor keep it up once airborne. They are not there to steer the aircraft - they are taking the strain of the whole weight of the air-frame, dragging it into place, and the energy input of eight exhausted, underfed people would add nothing to the contribution of a 2500 bhp aircraft engine in moving the Phoenix. They are not trying conserve fuel - they had enough fuel for an extended flight with both engines at full throttle, so they have easily enough to run one engine throttled back to reduce stress on the air-frame, which they say they are going to do.

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Speed picture

Character mistake: There is no way on earth that a police officer would shoot a hostage in the thigh to 'take them out of the equation'. Anyone who suggested such a thing would likely be taken out and shot themselves. Bullet wounds to the thigh are often fatal, as an injury to the femoral artery causes massive and frequently unstoppable blood loss. Breaking the femur often leads to fat embolisms as bone marrow gets into the bloodstream and then to the lungs. In fact a broken femur is a life threatening injury in itself, and a shattered femur - a typical bullet injury - would almost always result in a total amputation. You cannot aim carefully enough to avoid the bone or artery as their position in the body varies, (as will the bullet trajectory upon impact). Jack is an experienced cop and would know the potentially disastrous consequences of shooting someone in the thigh. He'd shoot him in the foot. (00:21:05)

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Top Gun: Maverick picture

Character mistake: The Admiral refers to Top Gun as Maverick's final post. As Maverick is a Naval aviator, it should be referred to as his final duty station. The army uses the term post.

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Suggested correction: "Post", in the Navy, is also used in the same manner as "adjourned" or "dismissed". It could be argued that the Admiral was stating this is the last duty station from which he will "post".

kayelbe

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Wonder Woman 1984 picture

Character mistake: Barbara is in her office looking for the one item they need help to identify when Diana walks in. She says "OK, item number 23." She suddenly finds it saying "here it is" and reaches in the box to grab the Dreamstone. The ticket says item #24. (00:22:18 - 00:22:50)

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Die Another Day picture

Character mistake: Near the beginning, when James Bond enters the North Korean complex, Zao is sent information to his mobile phone about James Bond being from the "MI6 Security Service." This is inaccurate information because MI6 is the Secret Intelligence Service and not the Security Service. It is MI5, which is the Security Service. (00:06:29)

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Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines picture Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines mistake picture

Character mistake: When the Terminator scans the doorman at the bar, a display comes up categorizing each piece of the doorman's clothing. The word "briefs" is misspelled "breifs". (00:13:40)

Phil C.

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The Italian Job picture

Character mistake: When Charlie is calling out the brick count to Napster from the subway, he describes it as being "13 across, 4 high, 4 deep". The bricks appear to be 2 deep in the safe (13x4x2), so he could just be lumping two shelves together, which works (13x4x4 = 13x4x2x2). The problem is that when the camera pans down there are 3 shelves in the safe. This means that there are more than the 208 bricks that Napster announces. (01:33:40)

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U-571 picture

Character mistake: At the beginning of the movie, the German sub gets surprised and severely damaged by a destroyer. The sonar man first notices the enemy destroyer approaching, but only a short time before the destroyer is already literally on top of the sub. German sonar at the time had the capacity to detect ships up to more than 7 miles away, so the sonar man really had to be asleep at his sonar station not to notice the destroyer approaching. (00:03:40)

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Pokemon: the First Movie picture

Character mistake: One of the other trainers said he rode over on a Pidgeotto, but it was a Pidgeot. (00:40:07)

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Avatar picture

Character mistake: In the beginning scene where the shuttle lands on Pandora, as Jake gets on his wheelchair preparing to alight from the shuttle, the man behind him unloading equipment has his exopack mask loose even though he is exposed to Pandora's atmosphere. (00:05:20)

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Iron Man 3 picture

Character mistake: When Harley asks Tony what the light is coming from his chest, Tony responds "an electromagnet." Harley replies "What does it power?" An electromagnet is not a source of power. The arc reactor is the power source which powers both the electromagnet (to keep Tony safe from the shrapnel near his heart) and the Iron Man suit. (00:43:25)

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Dracula Untold picture

Character mistake: When Lucian tells Vlad that the creature he encountered is a vampire, Lucian says that "Pi" is Greek for "to drink". "Pi" is actually the Albanian word for drink, not Greek.

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Bronson picture

Character mistake: While in the sewing workshop, the teacher approaches and asks, 'What's the matter, Charlie?' but at this point he is still known as Peterson. It's not until later on in the film that he decides upon the name of Charles Bronson. (00:11:35)

carwilhan

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The Lost World: Jurassic Park picture

Character mistake: When they're on the island and the INGen helicopters are flying in, Jeff Goldblum takes the binoculars and looks through the wrong end. (00:32:30)

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Mile 22 picture

Character mistake: During the opening raid of the FSB safe house, an operator is seen taking hard drives out of a safe. As he does, he states over the radio that they are "SSDs" (Solid State Drives), when in reality they are normal HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), which are noticeably larger than SSDs. (00:07:25)

Matdan97

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery picture

Character mistake: Austin is supposed to be the archetypal Swinging Sixties Londoner yet he refers to his car as a Shaguar, a pun on 'Jaguar', pronouncing it 'Shag-war'. A native of this green and pleasant land would pronounce it 'Shag-u-ar', three syllables, not two, based on our pronunciation of the car manufacturer's name: Jag-u-ar. He also refers to a truck - a 'lorry' - as a "law-ree." We call them "lurries."

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Goldfinger picture

Character mistake: When Bond is being flown to Baltimore, Pussy calls her assistant Mai Lee twice on the plane: once in person, then telling the co-pilot to give her instructions. However, when they disembark, she calls her Mai Lai.

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