Robocop (1987) - 53 mistakes

Continuity: The scene where Robocop and Lewis are at the steel mill after he was all shot up by ED-209 and the police, Robocop removes his helmet. Robocop all through the movie has a black lining on the sides of his face and chin. When he removes the helmet they just disappear.

Visible crew/equipment: When Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) is killed by Murphy (Peter Weller), Boddicker falls into the steel mill's water, blood spewing from his neck. Sharp eyes are required here to see that there is someone standing against the wall in the background...

Visible crew/equipment: When ED-209 is being demonstrated for the first time and goes out of control, when the young executive is being shot, repeatedly, by ED-209, you can see packets of red paint strapped to his back, under his suit.

Continuity: When Murphy and Lewis are chasing the villains in the beginning, one of the bad guys shoots the windshield of the cop car, leaving a hole and messing up the glass. Not even a second later, the windshield is fine.

Visible crew/equipment: Robocop tries to arrest Dick Jones but fails, and an ED-209 is brought in to destroy Robocop. During their fight scene, it fires a missile at Robocop, and you can clearly see the guide-wire that the missiles fly along (especially in slo-mo).

Continuity: When Robocop looks up his old address, his house number is the 500's on Primrose Street, but when he drives by the sign on his street it says he is in the 3000's section.

Continuity: When Robocop is fighting Clarence Boddicker in the cocaine factory he throws Boddicker through a plate glass window. If you watch closely, you can see the window shatter about 1-2 seconds before he goes through it.

Continuity: When Clarence is talking with the other drug dealer in the warehouse, tempers flare and guns are drawn. The Asian gang member racks his shotgun (thus loading the weapon). Wouldn't he have kept it loaded? Anyway a few seconds later Robocop enters and the same Asian guy racks his shotgun again and no shell is ejected.

Visible crew/equipment: When Clarence is racing away from Lewis near the end of the movie, the camera zooms in on Clarence driving the car and the camera men and camera truck are visible in the reflection of the car.

Factual error: After Robocop stops the criminal from robbing the convenience store store by bending his machine gun, the robber tries to run past him, only to get clotheslined by Robocop. The direction the robber flies after getting hit defies all physics.

Revealing: After the one bad guy crashes into the giant vat of Toxic Waste, hardly any of the liquid from the container spills out for the first two shots. Then a few cuts later, almost all of it pours from the back of the truck. Judging by the size of the hole it left, more liquid should have been coming out around the truck, not just through it.

Continuity: Just before Clarence Boddicker crashes his 6000 SUX into the water after colliding with Lewis' Taurus Cruiser, there is a scene where his car is charging toward the camera, and a hubcap comes off and whistles past the camera, in fact they even put in a sound effect. But in one of the next shots, the hubcaps are back on.

Continuity: When the bearded man is robbing the convenience store, he demands that the owner opens the safe. Look at the Lite cans on the safe. When seen from the right, there are four cans. When the owner kneels down to try and open it, there are now three. When we cut back to a view from the right there are again four. Finally when the robber is shooting at Robocop there are only two.

Continuity: In the drugs factory, when Robocop starts to bang on the door, you can see at least 4 people on the stairs and overhead walkway. After Robocop knocks the door down and looks around, we see this through his view and they have vanished. They reappear when the camera view returns.

Continuity: When Clarence is checking the RoboCop Locator in Dick's office, the little light that tells you where RoboCop is still flashes after Clarence turns the locator off.

Continuity: When the official is blown out of the window of City Hall, he falls out of screen. During the replay of the scene for the news immediately afterwards, the stunt man's feet are seen popping up into view as he bounces on the padding and rolls to take the impact.

Continuity: In the scene where the guy is robbing the Shell gas station, he puts the machine gun in his right hand. But when Robocop drives by and sees him from a distance, the guy has the gun in his left hand. When they cut back to the close-up again, it's in his right hand again.

Revealing: In the firing range scene, before Officer Lewis puts her gun down, and leans forward to look at Robocop shooting, we see him fire three shots. Look closely the second time he pulls the trigger. He pulls the trigger, but there is no ammo sound, nor is there a firing spark. This is in the VHS version.

Visible crew/equipment: When RoboCop enters the rave party, you can see the shadow of the camera twice, once on dancers, the other on a wall with a neon light picture on it.

Other: In the scene in the shooting range where Robocop's firing skills are being tested, as the shot focuses in on Officer Lewis, the last cop in the row next to the wall, two spaces to her right can be seen holding his empty gun at the target but not moving it, reloading it, or firing it. It seems as if he is frozen.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where all the OCP executives are listening to Dick Jones presenting ED-209, and while the "old man" starts talking about Delta City, watch when the camera moves along backwards to show the city model he's talking about and you can see reflected on several TV sets that are on the wall both the camera operator and another man behind him, perhaps the boom operator.

Continuity: When Robocop is at OCP trying to save "the old man," Jones is wearing a black suit while he is holding him hostage. After he releases him (as Robocop shoots him) the suit is grey, then turns black again as he crashes through the window and falls to his death.

Visible crew/equipment: When Robocop is riding in his patrol car just before the "Mom and pop" store robbery, if you watch closely as the camera is behind the cage in the car. You can see a camera man's silhouette in the lower right corner enjoying the ride.

Continuity: When Robocop playbacks his recording of Clarence Boddicker spilling his guts about Dick Jones, the words he says are different than the ones that were recorded.

Visible crew/equipment: Just before Clarence Boddicker crashes his SUX into the water, the camera view zooms down to the driver's window. If you look in the paintwork below the drivers window, you can see the camera and operator being reflected.

Visible crew/equipment: When RoboCop is going to the mayors office to stop Miller you can see the camera shadow on the reporters, just after he gets out of the car, and on the police lieutenant when he asks him "What the hell do you think you are doing?".

Continuity: When Robocop's about to be run down by the van towards the end, he fires his traditional three-round burst at the windscreen, somehow producing nine bullet holes.

Plot hole: When Robocop shoots Dick Jones, the bullets go through Jones but not through the window which is right behind him.

Continuity: Dick Jones brags (admits?) to Robocop, "I had to kill Bob Morton because he made a mistake. Now, it's time to erase that mistake" while Robocop is crouched on the ground, looking away from him from across the room. In the playback, Jones is facing the camera as though it were videotaped or filmed in a studio.

Other: Just after Dick is fired, Robocop shoots him. In the shot in which we see Dick's back, the two bullet holes at the top of his back appear simultaneously, as do the two bullet holes lower down on his back a moment later.

Continuity: In the end scene Robocop shoots Dick Jones out the window while he is standing in front of the television screens, then he spins his gun and puts it into his right leg. The camera view changes to focus on his leg, and you can see he is not standing in front of the screen and a person's legs appear standing behind Robocop, with black corporate pants and leather shoes. In the next shot when it focuses back on Robocop, he is back in front of the television screens again after putting his gun away. Obviously the leg view is from a dummy, because the blood & damage on it was missing in that shot.

Continuity: When Dick Jones goes to see the head of OCP, he leaves the door ajar. However, later in the scene it is closed. Neither of the men in the room goes near it.

Continuity: In the beginning when the tracking device is shown, the dot is red and the building outlines are orange. When Dick Jones is holding it later, the dot is white and the outlines are red.

Continuity: In the cocaine factory scene when Robocop enters and start shooting all the workers, one of the workers on the cat walk gets shot in the left shoulder, but in the next shot when Robocop is walking underneath, it appears he has been shot in the right shoulder.

Continuity: When Clarence's car is flipped over at the steel mill, he gets out and starts firing at Lewis. Look at the windshield on Lewis's car. It's in perfect condition and all of a sudden 9 bullet holes appear in it. Clarence didn't even shoot his gun that many times.

Deliberate "mistake": When the board member is shot up in the beginning by ED-209, in one or two shots you can see the bullet impacts happen about 1/2 a second after the shot starts (Criterion DVD version).

Continuity: When Bob Morton, Johnson, and Kinney get off the elevator, a computer voice chimes that it's floor 95. After the board meeting, Morton and Johnson leave the board room (and it's the same floor as you can see the two paintings on the wall that lead to the board room) a sign next to the elevator says "120."

Continuity: Right after Sergeant Reed has removed Fredrickson's sign from the locker and says "Murphy, front and center," you see two men standing behind Murphy. When it cuts, only one of the men are behind him.

Continuity: When the executive is shot by Ed 209 near the beginning, we see bullet holes in his back, so they're obviously going through, but there's no damage to the windows behind him.

Continuity: When Clarence sets down the grenade on the table, we can see that there is a glass to the left of the grenade. When the view changes so we can see the whole room the glass has moved to the right of the grenade, then when we see Bob reaching for the grenade, there is no glass on the table.

Continuity: If you look closely at the computer panel in the OCP boardroom, there is no silver hole for RoboCop's spike, it is all black in colour. Yet there is a hole for his spike when he turns to prove Jones killed Bob.

Continuity: When Bob is reaching for the grenade on the table, we can see that there is cocaine all over the table, when the camera view changes to Dick's face on the TV and back again to the table, it's clean.

Other: When Robocop is completed and they are going over his gear, they show a tracker that shows his location at all times. The tracking unit is obviously fake; the street layout is a decal and the "blip" that is Robocop is in a fixed position.

Visible crew/equipment: When they're supposedly tightening down the L.E.D. the scientist is using a normal drill bit attachment.

Revealing: The film takes place in Detroit, but it is glaringly obvious that it was shot in Dallas. First of all, in the early scene where Murphy chases Boddicker's gang on the highway, Reunion Tower, one of Dallas's most famous landmarks, is visible in the background. Much of Dallas's skyline is also visible in the final scene where Robocop confronts Dick Jones in the OCP boardroom.

Audio problem: When RoboCop is being tested in the shooting gallery, he puts his gun away in his leg. But the sound effects for his leg closing are out of sync with the actual movements of his leg.

Continuity: Just after Clarence's car crashes into the water we can see an overhead shot and the water is calm - it should still be rippling.

Continuity: When Clarence is in Bob's house killing him, he sets a grenade on the table. If you watch carefully after Clarence pulls the pin out of the grenade, the timer is actually facing towards Bob as it is set on the table. When Bob crawls over to it the numbers are facing towards the camera, so we can see it counting down.

Continuity: When the guy holding the mayor hostage gets thrown out of the window, we see the only two TV cameras near the location follow his fall down to the ground. A few seconds later on the news though, the footage is the same shot we saw in the film, staying focused on the window.

Revealing: When RoboCop is getting into his car after remembering about his former life, and breaking out of the police station, look at the bottom of the screen. You can see that Peter Weller is only wearing half of the RoboCop costume, his right leg comes into shot as he gets into the car.

Continuity: You have to watch REALLY closely for this one. When Clarence and the gang are in the mill looking for RoboCop, we see RoboCop on the floor above them. He walks to the ledge with the mirror in his hands, but when we see a closeup of him, he has to bend down to pick up the mirror.

Continuity: The blood Clarence spits on Robocop's visor disappears after he gets thrown through the window.

Continuity: RoboCop walks past the police department lobby for the first time, following Bob Morton. Robo is walking at a very slow, deliberate pace. The rest of the cops in the department run as fast as they can to the far end of the building to see where they are taking him. Despite running about four times faster than Robocop he has already cleared the end of the hallway and is in the regeneration room before the cops get there.