Continuity: When they go to find Private Ryan there are eight of them, when they go to a French town and a solider picks up the little girl and he gets killed there are seven, right? Wrong. A few scenes later, the camera shows all eight of them marching on to the next town, only in a far away camera shot so it's hard to see.
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Private Caparzo: Captain, the decent thing to do would be take her over to the next town.
Captain John Miller: We're not here to do the decent thing, we're here to follow f*cking orders!
Trivia
The storyline for the movie was very loosely based on the story of Sgt. Frederick (Fritz) Niland from Tonawanda, New York. He and other members of the 101st, were dropped too far inland, but eventually made their way back to their unit. Upon his arrival back, the Chaplain told Niland about the death of his three brothers, two at Normandy and one in the Far East, so the Chaplain arranged his return home, due to the US War Department's Sole Survivor Policy. As it turned out, his brother believed to have been killed in the Far East had been captured, and later returned home as well. The story of Niland and the 101st was written about by the Chaplain, Lt. Col. Father Francis Sampson, in his book, Look Out Below! See more...
Saving Private Ryan (1998) - 11 major mistakes
Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Adam Goldberg, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Vin Diesel (add more)
Factual error: The Tiger tanks portrayed in the movie are actually Soviet T-34s. You could tell by looking at their wheels. Real Tigers had interleaved wheels. These Tigers clearly had the T-34 suspension. Obviously, Tigers were so rare that another tank had to be substituted. But an excellent job was done to make the T-34s look like Tigers.
Continuity: When Miller is collecting Upham from the group of translators and map readers, Upham is so confused and clumsy that he knocks everything off the table onto the floor (e.g. typewriter and helmets). Told by Miller to leave everything except his helmet, Upham picks up a German one by mistake. When sent back to the table to get his own, everything has miraculously jumped off the floor back onto the table.
Revealing: In the scene where the medic gets shot, watch the shot where Upham brings the bags up to the injured medic. The next shot there is some fog which then reveals the injured medic. In this shot, watch carefully as the cast rips away the medic's shirt. If you look near the neck, you can see the fake stomach vest he is wearing for a split second - when the actor realizes he ripped too far up, he quickly covers it back up.
Continuity: In the scene in the Pentagon between several officers and General Marshall, when the camera pans over Marshall's left shoulder towards the officers, you can see that the colonel, who was missing his left arm in earlier scenes, has it again; it's missing again in the next shot. It may be just that his sleeve's rolled down in the middle shot, but that's still an error.
Revealing: Just before the two American soldiers slap their grease coated "sticky bombs" on the passing German Tiger tank, you can clearly see two identically shaped grease stains on the first two wheels. Presumably nobody remembered to wipe off the wheels of the tank after a rehearsal or previous take of the scene.
Continuity: After the taking of the beaches, and Miller returns for revised orders, the fleet in the background appears/disappears.
Revealing: In the scene where the American soldiers are in the village listening to the French music on the record player, take a look at the stone pillars at either side of the doorway. The bullet patterns are all the same on each stone block. No doubt the same mould was used.
Factual error: In the Ryan farmhouse scene, the camera pans across the room. You see a telephone hanging on the wall. That type of phone did not appear until at least the 1950s.
Revealing: In the opening sequence Cpt Miller is wading through the sea with another man. You can see an odd looking square-shaped object clearly through his wet uniform. It may come as no surprise that a second later he is shot dead centre of the pocket. The object was obviously a charge.
Continuity: When Jackson has been given the dog tags to search through he looks for a place to sit. In this scene you see a black box with two yellow boxes at either side in the background. In the next scene the yellow box on the left has magically jumped up onto the black box in order for Jackson to kick it off and sit on it.
You may also like: Black Hawk Down | Pearl Harbor | Band of Brothers | Titanic | Gladiator
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