Best adventure movie factual errors of all time

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Ghost Ship picture

Factual error: The gold bars that the crew finds must be some new type of lightweight gold. There's no way that Julianna could stuff a gold bar in her back pocket and then pull it out and toss it on the table and Greer simply tosses it back and forth like it was plastic. A gold bar weighs around 27 pounds, you definitely wouldn't be tossing it around. (00:42:05 - 00:47:50)

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban picture

Factual error: In the scene immediately following Harry and Hermione's travel back through time, she tells him, "It's 7:30." The clock, however, is striking the bells for an hour, not a half-hour. (01:43:45)

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Black Widow picture

Factual error: The sisters run out of fuel for the helicopter, which is then shown slamming down on the ground and essentially destroying itself. All helicopters are capable of autorotating safely to the ground in the event the engine(s) quit. Of course, that would not have been as dramatic. (01:05:15)

toroscan

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Suggested correction: You may have noticed the helicopter was severely damaged, it may not have any rotating capabilities left after the fuel was gone.

lionhead

I did notice it, but it did not look that any damage would prevent it from autorotation.

toroscan

Perhaps the sisters (not being experienced helicopter pilots) couldn't use the autorotation properly.

OK, while that may be a possibility, if they have a helicopter pilot's license they would have had to demonstrate autorotation as part of both the curriculum and the practical exam. But listen, it's just a movie. The way they did it makes it more dramatic.

toroscan

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Eternals picture

Factual error: Druig leads several warriors outside Tenochtitlan as it was sacked by the Spanish conquistadores, and they live peacefully in the nearby forest, for 500 years. The forest is of course the virgin Amazon forest, as captions say. Small problem; Tenochtitlan was in Central Mexico.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: It never says that the people who live with Druig in the Amazon in the present day are descendants of the people from Tenochtitlan. Nor does it ever say that the forest outside Tenochtitlan is the Amazon. He's probably been moving around for the last five centuries just as the other Eternals have.

Necrothesp

Never ever? He literally says "Do you remember this forest? Beautiful. It's the last place we all lived together. I've protected these people for 20 generations." They split after their argument during the sack of the town. If their base of operations exterminating the mutant space dogs in Mexico was in the Amazon forest, their logistic could use some work.

Sammo

Just because the last time they fought together was in Tenochtitlan doesn't mean that was the last time they lived together. They may have spent some time living peacefully in the Amazon before moving north to do their business in Tenochtitlan. And just because he's protected the people for twenty generations doesn't mean they're descendants of the people from Tenochtitlan. He may have found them later. We don't know every detail of the Eternals' history. You're just making assumptions.

Necrothesp

You are assuming the presence of a third party stranded for 500 years that the movie never showed before, different from the people that he led out of the city and that we have then to postulate he let go, in a location far off from the one of their last encounter. It's an assumption on entirely new details that you had to make up. My only assumption is to think that what is shown in the movie had purpose and fits, and someone just borked a caption.

Sammo

Who says they're stranded? He just said he had protected them for twenty generations. They'd probably always lived there. You're making the assumption that they must be the same people because nobody said they weren't. But nobody said they were either. Nobody in the film ever made a connection between the people in Tenochtitlan and the people in the Amazon. No mistake has therefore been made in either the dialogue or the captions.

Necrothesp

I noticed the same problem, the scene indicates the location as "Amazon" (it could be any of the Spanish speaking countries that have part of this forest), but then, Druig comes with the affirmation you pointed. It's obviously a geographical inaccuracy.

They don't speak Spanish in the Amazons.

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Uncharted picture

Factual error: The Skycrane helicopters have a max takeoff weight of 42,000 lbs. With them weighing in at 19,200 lbs, that leaves 22,800 lbs that they could lift. Even small carracks, the ships, weigh around 180,000 lbs.

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Anastasia picture

Factual error: In the beginning of the film, the Dowager Empress Marie states that the year is 1916 and that they are celebrating the 300th anniversary of their family's rule. The 300th anniversary actually took place in 1913. (00:01:05)

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Shoot 'Em Up picture

Factual error: In the final standoff, Smith shoots Hertz by holding cartridges between his fingers in the fire. This is not remotely believable. The casings, weighing much less than the bullets, would have been blasted off while the bullets themselves would have gone nowhere. (01:15:15)

throcko

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Dark Phoenix picture

Factual error: In the car at the beginning of the movie, Jean uses her telekinetic powers to switch the radio from a station playing "By the time I get to Phoenix" by Glen Campbell to Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London." It's 1975, and Zevon recorded the song only in 1978 (although the song itself had already been written in 1975, other artists played it in live concerts in the Fall of that year). (00:01:30)

Sammo

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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them picture

Factual error: A theater marquee is visible promoting the showing of a film called Tribeca Follies. The acronym "Tribeca" - an amalgamation of "Triangle Below Canal [Street]" - didn't come into usage until the 1970s.

Cubs Fan

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xXx: Return of Xander Cage picture

Factual error: When Xander Cage is chasing Xiang on the dirt bikes, he lets his bike get entirely submerged, which would flood the engine.

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The Horse Soldiers picture

Factual error: Towards the end when the cavalry uncovers the American flag, it has 50 stars.

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Where Eagles Dare picture

Factual error: The Germans in the castle are using Bell 47 helicopters which a) were American, not German, and b) weren't even in operation until 1946.

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Rat Race picture

Factual error: In the beginning of the movie when the main character is watching ESPN. The footage of the Dallas game, where the referee (Cuba Gooding) messes up the coin toss, you clearly see the sky right over the crowd in the stadium. The ESPN people say it was in Dallas. In Dallas, the Cowboys play in a dome. The hole of the dome is in the center of the roof and the sky would not have been shot so easily. Also the dome has artificial grass. The footage showed natural grass. (00:05:35)

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Back to the Future picture

Factual error: The electric guitar Marty plays at the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance" is a Gibson ES345. This guitar model debuted between 1957 and 1958 yet he's supposedly playing it in 1955. It would have been more accurate to have him using a Fender Telecaster (1950) or Stratocaster (1954) or a Gibson Les Paul (1952). (01:23:50)

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Cliffhanger picture

Factual error: How is it that when Sly comes out of the freezing, icy water, his hair and clothes are bone dry? I don't know too much about hypothermia, but I would imagine that his fairly thin sweater isn't wind proof. I'm sure by the time the movie ended, he would be suffering from more symptoms of hypothermia other than chattering teeth.

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Superman IV: The Quest for Peace picture Superman IV: The Quest for Peace mistake picture

Factual error: If the Russian cosmonauts need special suits to survive out in space, so should Lacy when she is abducted by Nuclear Man. (00:02:50 - 01:20:20)

Sacha

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Mission: Impossible 2 picture

Factual error: In the scene at the race track where they show the virus infecting and destroying cells in the blood stream, they clearly show that it is red blood cells being infected. Viruses, in order to replicate, require the cell's DNA replication machinery. However, mature red blood cells in the circulation no longer possess this machinery since they no longer have a nucleus or DNA. It would therefore be impossible for this virus to replicate.

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Clockstoppers picture

Factual error: In the DJ spin-off scene, Zach and Francessca help make Meeker cool by going into hypertime and giving him a dance lesson. At one point, we see Zach and Francessca in hypertime making Meeker do flips. Then, in real time, we see that Meeker is doing the flips at the same speed that he was doing in hypertime. Wouldn't he be going a lot faster in real time, not the same speed as he was in hypertime?

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Fantastic Voyage picture

Factual error: Proteus refills its air supply in the lungs. The lungs are filled with normal sized oxygen molecules. How are they supposed to breathe them? (In the book, they had a miniaturizer on the sub, but there is nothing in the movie to explain this.)

Grumpy Scot

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