Best adventure movie factual errors of 1997

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Anaconda picture

Factual error: During the first battle with an Anaconda, the 55-gallon fuel drums lashed to the deck of the riverboat are swept over the side, where they sink to the bottom of the river. This plot device drives the rest of the movie, since the boat must make a dangerous detour through "Anaconda country." There is just one small problem with this: Fuel drums full of diesel fuel or gasoline float on water. The fuel in them makes them buoyant. It would have been a simple matter for someone to get a rope or a boathook and retrieve the fuel drums before they floated away.

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The Jackal picture

Factual error: Just before Declan and the Jackal start shooting at each other in the subway tunnel, one of the trains starts coming from the opposite direction and begins passing Declan. This train continues to pass him at full speed for a full 35-40 seconds while they shoot it out. Subway trains are not nearly long enough for that. Also, during this time another train comes from behind him and he has to get between them and hold onto the light for a few seconds while they pass. But the second train then passes first while the first one passes fully about 2 seconds after the second one came... and it got there first, by about 15-20 seconds. Subway lines are about the same length as each other as well. But the first one was way longer and way wrong. (01:49:30 - 01:50:05)

Quantom X

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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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Tomorrow Never Dies picture

Factual error: As Bond is preparing for the HALO skydive, he is warned that he has to freefall for 5 miles, and without oxygen, he will be asphyxiated. However, he jumps from a non-pressurized aircraft. Surely, when the back hatch opened, the other people standing around would either also start to suffocate or be sucked out.

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery picture

Factual error: When Austin Powers is in the casino and plays blackjack with #2, the sequence of the blackjack hand is dealt wrong. (00:28:55)

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The Edge picture

Factual error: Charles and Robert manage to outrun a charging Alaskan brown bear over a course of several hundred meters, leading it into a trap. This is absurd. The absolute maximum running speed of a human being is about 27 kilometers an hour, and that is for an appropriately dressed, fit athlete over a very short course on flat ground. They are in a rock strewn stream and are wearing heavy winter clothes. A fit, healthy, active male Alaskan brown bear like the one chasing them could hit 45 kmh in that environment without popping a sweat and could keep that up for a kilometer or more. When enraged or charging prey - as this one was - they have been clocked at 56kmh. This is nothing to do with an adrenaline rush - that will not enable Charles or Robert to exceed their body's maximum running speed by 200%.

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The Lost World: Jurassic Park picture

Factual error: When Roland is walking in the pouring rain and talking about killing the T-Rex, he has his gun slung over his shoulder vertically and barrel-upwards. If you were to do this in real-life in a tropical rainstorm for very long, you would run the risk of water entering the barrel and causing problems with the gun. And as a professional hunter Roland would know better. (01:07:50)

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Dante's Peak picture

Factual error: After the volcanic eruption, there's a scene where we see our heroes going across a lake, which has been turned to acid by the lava. If this acid is strong enough to corrode the propeller, then surely the fumes would be destroying their lungs, in which case they should be dead, or close to it.

Davidian

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Starship Troopers picture

Factual error: Rico lives in Buenos Aires, which has no hills within a couple of hundred miles. The city shown in the film has hills.

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Hercules picture

Factual error: When Young Hercules makes the pillars fall in a Domino effect, they go both ways. However, if this were to happen, they would stop the domino effect when they reach the entrance to the market, which doesn't have pillars. The pillars are not in a circle, so there's no way they can both stop at the top of the ring, where the pot seller is. The only way for this to work is if Hercules started the Domino effect at the entrance of the market, with pillars directly across from each other, which he doesn't.

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Suggested correction: He throws the pillar he holds towards the opposite side causing it to fall as well.

They do a pulled back shot that shows it falling from the top of the ring.

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Vanishing Point picture

Factual error: At the end of the film, The Voice tells his radio audience the Challenger was estimated to have hit the bulldozers at 185 MPH. The top speed of the Challenger, with a 426 Hemi, was 145 MPH. A trained police officer (and there were many of them there), even estimating speed without a radar gun, would be able to estimate the speed much closer than that. It's part of their training to be able to make estimates that will hold up in court, and 185 MPH is noticeably different than 145 MPH.

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Wild America picture

Factual error: When J.T.T. encounters the moose, the boys say it's a female with her young. Female moose don't have antlers.

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Drive picture

Factual error: In the scene where Deliverance is showing Mark her dad's hot rod, most of what she says about it is wrong. A rebuilt special edition 428 Hemi? Fuel injection for a 727? If it is a Hemi, it's a four-twenty-SIX and a 727 is a Plymouth transmission. You cannot fuel inject one. (00:43:43)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: She says "enough fuel injection for a 747"

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Robinson Crusoe picture

Factual error: Crusoe's adventure begins in the early part of the 18th Century, yet the ship he takes flight on carries a gaff-rigged spanker on its mizzen. In reality, the earlier lateen-rig wasn't replaced by the gaff spanker until close to the end of the 18th Century.

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Spice World picture

Factual error: When the girls are heading to the Albert Hall, they take a very bizarre route. For them to cross Tower Bridge and pass Battersea Power Station, they would have to travel right through the centre of London, where the Albert Hall is located.

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George of the Jungle picture

Factual error: George's "dog", Shep, is an Asian elephant. However, the jungle scenes take place in Africa.

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The Odyssey picture

Factual error: During the battle in the throne room, a soldier is seen hiding behind a pillar. Then Telemachus comes and swings his sword clockwise. However, we see the soldier getting hit by the sword, hitting the pillar, and then falling to the ground. This only could have happened if Telemachus had swung his sword counter-clockwise.

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