Continuity mistake: The two guards approach Hannibal's cage and put down the tray with the lamb dinner. Lt. Boyle murmurs "Wonder what he wants for breakfast." He is passing the club to Sgt. Pembry holding it with his right hand on the tip. In the next shot, when he finishes quipping "Some damn thing from the zoo?" his hand is on the opposite end of the baton, past the handle. (01:15:10)
Continuity mistake: Clarice is at the desk of the Courthouse in Memphis. She hands the ID to the agent, who holds it with both hands. Cut, and he's holding it with just the right hand. The female agent next to him in the second shot is leaning against her own left hand, but she had both on the desk in the first shot. (01:05:30)
Continuity mistake: Immediately following the bit where Chilton has to sign without his precious pen, there is an establishing shot of the Memphis airport runway. Look at the Senator's limo, and her staff; she has three men with coats (1 grey 1 blue 1 camel) to her right, and to her left a man in a blue coat and one in a white coat at great mutual distance. But in the following close-up on Senator Ruth Martin and her posse, the two men on her left are one attached to the other, and the men on her right overlap starting in positions inconsistent with before. (01:02:25)
Continuity mistake: Dr. Frederick Chilton infamously leaves a pen on Hannibal's bed. The pen changes position between shots in a rather obvious way, doing almost a 180° turn. (01:00:15)
Continuity mistake: When Buffalo Bill lowers the basket towards Catherine, the hair on her forehead changes wildly position between shots several times. (00:58:45)
Continuity mistake: Agent Terry drops the bug cocoon in the glass container 'face' (the end with the proboscis) down. In the next shot, Clarice is looking at the jar she closed, and the pupa is 'looking up'. (00:45:45)
Continuity mistake: En route to the funeral home, Crawford praises Clarice's profile and asks her if she has any question. Behind Jodie Foster there are several cars and a pretty characteristic configuration of the wood and hill. Brief cut to Jack Crawford, and when the camera is back on Jodie Foster, the landscape behind her has changed completely. (00:38:05)
Continuity mistake: In her second visit to his cell, Clarice asks Hannibal Lecter "What did you mean by 'transformation', doctor?" When he answers the towel on the sink has shifted, even if slightly, to the left, it is suddenly wrinkled as opposed to being almost perfectly straight earlier. (00:30:35)
Continuity mistake: Clarice uses the car jack to lift the storage unit door. In close-up, the blue part of the jack is dimly lit, but the car lights in the wider shots cast a much stronger light on it. Moreover, when she operates it in the shot between the close-up and the one when she says it got stuck, there's a string dangling by the jack that was not there earlier. (00:24:15)
Continuity mistake: Clarice is looking through the archived articles. She turns the knob of the microfilm reader, then it cuts to a close-up; the pen she holds between her teeth did a 180° turn, as shown by the metal clip switching side. (00:21:40)
Continuity mistake: Agent Starling is hit by Miggs' produce, which left no trace on his hand, and despite landing on her hair and eyelashes leaves no trace on her face in the next shot, but suddenly some drips on her jacket in the last close-up - again gone when she hastes back to Hannibal. (00:19:00)
Continuity mistake: Clarice is waiting for Jack Crawford in his office at the beginning of the movie. In the close-up of the newspapers clippings (but also in the wider shot before that) you can see that the rightmost article ("FBI links Skinning" etc) and the white paper sheet it rests on are tucked underneath the main clipping at the center. However when Crawford actually enters the office and sits at his desk, behind him the clippings have changed position; the leftmost one is now touching the central one (it was a couple inches apart earlier) and the rightmost one overlaps it. (00:05:50)
Continuity mistake: Clarice Starling is interrupted during her training course, and her clothes are sweaty, with a stain that goes under the breast and the "FBI Academy" logo. She rushes back to the building, and her jersey dried sufficiently up to be clean all the way above the logo. Even more obviously, when she gets in the elevator the V patterned sweat stain goes all the way to the middle of her back, but when she is making her way through the corridors leading to Jack Crawford's office, again the stain has dried off considerably. (00:02:55)
Continuity mistake: In Hannibal's cell, the distance between the papers and Chilton's leather bag varies without him touching either. (01:00:20)
Continuity mistake: When Hannibal is moved to another city, and shots are heard, 5 police officers go up to investigate, but when they burst into the room, now there are 6.
Suggested correction: Eye color also can change with age. This happens in 10 to 15 percent of the Caucasian population (people who generally have lighter eye colors).
Babies born with blue eyes can develop brown or darker eyes as melanin is produced. And while eye color can get lighter with age (older than Clarice usually), a child her age with brown eyes won't develop blue eyes. They could turn green maybe, but not the blue color seen.
Bishop73
I just rewatched the scene you were talking about and they're not blue eyes they're actually hazel and the adult Clarice could be wearing contact lenses.
Joey221995