Factual error: After the successful Trinity test in 1945, people in a crowd are holding small US flags with 50 stars on them (offset rows). At the time there were only 48 states and the flag had 48 stars in even rows. The 50 star flag didn't exist until 1960, after Alaska and Hawaii were made states in 1959.
Factual error: Gabriel kills the engineer and sets the train to full speed, then locks the control room. Without the engine being resupplied with coal it would lose power and stop before too long, never getting as far as the bridge.
Suggested correction: It is known for firemen to fill the loco up to allow it to run for 15-20 minutes without new coal. However, it could not run that long at that speed without the boiler being refilled with water, so the boiler would have exploded well before the fire reduced.
Factual error: Poirot attends a Halloween party in Venice in 1947. Halloween was never publicly recognized as a holiday in Venice or Italy in general in the XX century, especially with the traditional pumpkin-centered iconography. One could argue that, for the most part, Poirot is attending a private party organized by an American soprano. But, besides how unlikely it would be for 1947 Catholic nuns to take part in such a pagan-themed event, there are scenes showing Halloween decorations in the streets of Venice far away from the party location, as if it were a public holiday and not a private gathering from an eccentric foreigner.
Suggested correction: Besides what Oliver says to Poirot in the beginning about Americans bringing over Halloween to Italy, it's not true. Halloween has a European and Christian origin. A day called All Hallow's Day on November 1st has been a national holiday in Italy since the 9th century. There have always been activities in Italy the evening prior to All Hallow's day. This includes games, themes of death, carved pumpkins (turnips before), and masks ("guising"), all of which are very old traditions done all over Europe.
Being Italian and having lived in Italy for the past decades, may not make me an authority over all things Italian, but I can assure you that Ognissanti (which is what you quote as being "All Hallow's Day," since we obviously haven't been borrowing English names for our festivities) has never been observed as a national holiday with anything remotely close to what is shown here, which is, like Ariadne Oliver says, plain and simple Halloween. Like I said in the entry, it'd be perfectly fine for Americans to celebrate it, but no pumpkin banners in the public streets and parades with people shouting "Happy Halloween!" with nuns in full garb, no less! Halloween has never been celebrated here with any mainstream fanfare until the very, very recent years.
Factual error: The four-barrelled Flak gun is shown running out of ammunition, namely a belt of rounds. This is most likely intended to be a Flak 38, which used twenty-round magazines, not belts. It had a relatively low rate of fire as the magazines had to be constantly swapped out, and two barrels were usually fired at a time. (00:16:58)
Factual error: After a power outage the captain states that operating on batteries (?) he has 10 minutes of power, followed by an uncontrolled descent. That is ludicrous. Aircraft can glide to a landing with no power or engines. Further, commercial airliners have a Ram Air Turbine that can supply hydraulic as well as electrical power even if the engines are not functioning.
Factual error: A large part of the film takes place in Pakistan, but all the cars there have steering wheels on the left as in the US. Pakistan drives on the left and the cars have steering wheels on the right side of the car. (00:57:21)
Suggested correction: There's an article on huffpost.com by Jeanette Khan entitled, "Driving In Pakistan: Can You Handle It?" (12/18/08 updated 5/25/11) wherein it is stated, "Driving in Pakistan is like purposely courting death... Sometimes, people prefer to drive on the right-side of the road... The drivers really don't care they're going the wrong way. There really are no rules for driving here. People often do as they please." In fact, then, the actual driving practices do not conform to the written law.
Or, are you just asserting that the cars should not have steering wheels on the left? The cars could be from anywhere, even if being driven in Pakistan. U.S.P.S. mail trucks have steering wheels on the right – this doesn't mean that they don't belong in the U.S.
Factual error: This is set in summer 2007 but they watch Superbad (released August 2007) on DVD.
Suggested correction: The movie actually takes place in 2006. Superbad coming out in 2007 was correct.
Do a word change if the mistake is valid. Not a correction.
The movie starts in late 2006, then Oliver is invited to spend the summer (2007) with Felix, where the bulk of the movie takes place.
Factual error: The helicopter shown in the film (N801JB) was manufactured in 1979, 8-9 years after the film was set.
Factual error: Kris is playing the original Gameboy and says he can't beat Bowser. No Mario game released before 1994 for the original Gameboy featured Bowser as a boss.
Factual error: In the introduction to the movie, set in 2002, a young Adonis has a Naruto: Shippuden poster in his room. Naruto: Shippuden did not premiere until 2007.
Factual error: Gloria's vehicle is a Chevrolet Blazer SS EV, but during the chase scene, her supposedly electric vehicle makes sounds like a normal gas engine.
Factual error: The movie makes a mention of a CIA black site in the South Asia Sea. There is no such sea. Between the North Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean there are many "seas", the largest being the South China Sea. But there are also others such as the Andaman, Java, Banda, Timor, Celebes, and Sulu seas. There is no South Asia Sea.
Factual error: It is shown, more than once, that letters from the IRS are piling up, and it's implied that these are the property tax problems with which the main character is wrestling. However, property tax letters would not come from the IRS/Federal government. Rather, they'd come from local/county/city government.
Factual error: Chris and Carol are in the back of the house, and the rising sun faces them. Chris walks around the side to the front of the house, where the sun is rising to his left (at about a 90° shift from the backyard sunrise). The sun rises in the east and does not rise in the south. (00:32:18 - 00:32:52)
Factual error: After Napoleon's coup of the consul, there is a scene featuring Josephine carrying a toy Pomeranian dog. While Pomeranians existed at this time, they were much bigger in size (upwards of 50 pounds). The more modern type of Pomeranian that she is carrying wouldn't start coming about for another century.
Factual error: Eleanor Falco is mentioned as having substance problems. No way would the FBI recruit someone with such a problem.
Factual error: Amy never pays or is asked to pay for her drive-thru order at "Taco Tree". She places her order at the intercom, drives up to the window, and is handed her order with no exchange of money. She is given a receipt in her bag of food. (00:44:40 - 00:45:45)
Factual error: The way Michael poured wine out of the newly opened bottle (standard 750 ml/25 oz?), the estimated amount he poured into six glasses plus drank some from the bottle, and the angles at which the six friends tilted their glasses for the toast, were not realistic. Also, the wine bottle appeared to have more than one-half (possibly two-thirds) of its contents left when Michael poured it into the fireplace. A newly opened bottle of wine would not be held at a downward angle to start pouring. (00:26:18 - 00:27:34)
Factual error: The storm chasers are meeting by the road and you see the sign for I-90 East in the background several times. This movie takes place in and around Texas, yet the route that I-90 takes is nowhere remotely close to that far south.
Factual error: In the film, Blackberry is shown being "raided" by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a Canadian company with its headquarters in Canada, the SEC, by itself, has no jurisdiction to effectuate such a raid on the premises. In real life, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) brought the case against Blackberry co-CEO, Jim Balsillie.
Suggested correction: While this is correct, an argument can be made that since the colour scenes are meant to be subjective and the black and white scenes are meant to be objective, Oppenheimer could have been unintentionally mapping the modern US flag onto this scene.
THGhost
That's a ridiculous stretch with zero evidence, not least as 48 star flags are seen in colour in other scenes. Sometimes a mistake is simply a mistake.
There is evidence, though. Nolan said so himself. Look it up. As for the mistake itself, I'm merely repeating what I've read on Twitter, and this correction was merely a suggestion. Seeing the 48 star flags in other colour scenes still doesn't disprove this theory. It is just a theory though, so no need to shoot it down so hard.
THGhost
He's said subjective in terms of the colour scenes being "first person", and maybe not strictly factual in terms of creating moments between characters and conveying emotion, but nowhere does that stretch to "one random scene happens to feature 50 star flags because Oppenheimer is mapping the modern flag onto it, when nothing like that happens anywhere else in the film."
Meh, take it up with Twitter. I just thought it was interesting, so I posted it here for a different point of view/perspective for others to read. It is most likely bull**** though.
THGhost
The fact that a director realized they had made a mistake and retroactively made up a deus ex machina explanation for it in no way invalidates the mistake. Nice try, Mr. Nolan but this posting is absolutely valid.
While Christopher Nolan's talked about the subjective/objective colour/black and white thing, which is entirely fair and no doubt exactly his intention, I don't think he's actually tried to "excuse" this by using that explanation, that's just other people trying to connect the two things. I'm not sure Nolan has commented on the flag issue in interviews at all.
Precisely, and I was in no way trying to invalidate the original mistake. I just found the whole theory interesting and posted it here. It is rather hilarious that a director with such attention to detail like Nolan would have missed something like this. We shall see if he gets it fixed for the streaming/physical release.
THGhost
It's not fixed in the home video version. However, the behind-the-scenes materials provide a reason for the mistake, in that putting a crowd in the scene was apparently a spur-of-the-moment decision. It's like that in their haste to bring in the crowd, the set decorators bought some modern miniature flags and put them into the scene without anyone realizing the 48/50 discrepancy.
Vader47000