Batman (1989) - 56 mistakes

Continuity: When the Joker's henchmen are trashing the museum, one guy puts purple handprints all over a portrait, later the Joker walks by the same portrait and the handprints are gone.

Continuity: After Batman rescues Vicky he has a voice remote for the Batmobile. As the car approaches he orders the car to stop by speaking into the remote and then lowers it to his side. When the camera shot changes showing the car stopping right in front of him, he is still holding the remote to his mouth.

Visible crew/equipment: When the Batmobile is driving itself to Batman and Vicky Vale, you can clearly see a hand turning the steering wheel.

Continuity: During the beginning of the parade sequence, the green-haired, big-nosed balloon is shown being decently high with the Joker's float underneath it. Yet when the Joker is shown dancing in a few close up shots, the face of the balloon is directly behind him.

Continuity: When the "automated" Batmobile is sent into Axis Chemicals to blow it up, six of the Joker's men are shooting at it. Three of these same henchmen are also on the Joker's parade float at the very same time in Gotham Plaza and one of them flies the Joker's escape copter at the end of the movie.

Continuity: When the Joker is shooting Carl Grissom wildly, you can hear the sound of the glass behind him being hit only once. Later when the Joker is sitting at his desk, you can see two bullet holes to the left in the glass.

Continuity: Harvey Dent is on the telephone while smoking a cigar that is partly ash. Two camera angles later he is smoking a brand new cigar with no visible ash.

Continuity: At Axis Chemicals, Jack's face is cut by broken glass and has blood gushing out of it. But in the next shot, Jack (probably the stunt double) does not have any blood on him as he goes over the edge of the rail.

Continuity: When Joker is at the top of the building and taunting them, his chin is red (presumably from his blood when Batman socked him in the jaw.) After he falls off the building, and we see him lying on the ground, his chin is not covered in blood like it was before.

Continuity: During the Joker's parade, shots looking at the Joker from the side show that his float passes the same shop twice.

Continuity: Vicki has five photos of Bruce Wayne on a table. She picks one up, but when she is looking at it, through the back of the photo paper the snapshot looks different from the one she picked up.

Continuity: At the beginning of the movie when the police are standing outside of Axis Chemicals, Eckhardt has very distinct facial hair. In the next shot when they are inside the plant he is clean shaven.

Continuity: When the Joker is having the party with all the balloons, Vicky Vale tries to escape from the gas by getting into a car.  If you look at the back window while she is driving off, the window is rolled down.

Revealing: When Jack and his goons are breaking into Axis Chemicals, there's a scene where they're cutting the lock off of a safe. When the safe door is opened, you can clearly see that there is no locking mechanism in the side of the door.

Continuity: When the mimes open fire on the gangsters, watch the police officers to the left and right above them on the top of the steps. In the overhead shot, right after they open fire, they disappear.

Revealing: At the end when they show the Joker dead on the pavement after he fell, look closely during the first few seconds of the shot and you'll see him blink twice.

Continuity: When Joker's dead body is shown, the rope around his leg that was tied to the gargoyle is gone.

Revealing: Harvey Dent and the mayor argue in Dent's office which has an unusual semicircular shape. In the next scene, Alfred uses the telephone in Wayne Manor, and you can see that it's the same room, just with different furniture and dressings.

Continuity: In Joker's hideout, Bob gives Joker the pictures he took and throws the folder that the pictures were in on the floor. But later in the shot above the room, the folder is no where to be found.

Continuity: When Batman jumps off of the remaining bell at the top of the cathedral, the goon uses Batman's momentum to throw him into a set of stairs, his trajectory parallel with the near wall. Since the goon wasn't standing near the wall when he threw Batman, this angle would not be possible to achieve.

Continuity: In the alley, Bruce places two roses on a sidewalk and then walks away. But when Vicki gets to the roses, they have changed positions.

Revealing: In the scene where the joker is in the basement getting surgery, he walks up the stairs laughing and when you see the side of his body before the end of the scene, if you look closely, you can see that his face is still normal Caucasian tone.

Continuity: Right after the Joker goes into the cathedral with Vicky, Batman follows him with no one else entering in between the two parties. How then did Joker's goons get to the top of the cathedral before Batman or the chopper? They couldn't have planned it since Joker had to tell them where to pick him up, and they didn't know he would chase after Vicky to that particular location.

Revealing: Right after Joker falls off the top of the cathedral, Batman and Vicky fall too and we catch them three times before Batman's grapple digs into the stone. On the second and third time you can actually notice Vicky's face expression doesn't look one bit scared, so you know they're not falling. You can also see there's a screen in the background.

Revealing: When the shields of the Batmobile are engaged, the metal plates come from nowhere. There isn't a place for them to come from or go to when taken off. And if you watch carefully, the shields coming from the sides of the Batmobile come out of thin air.

Continuity: When Batman is gliding down to get Napier, there appears to be nothing attached to his belt, but when he is about to land, his rope gun has magically appeared on his belt.

Continuity: When Joker sees himself for the first time he hits the light and the bulb smashes against the wall. In the wide shot the light is still swinging and you can see that the bulb is intact.

Continuity: In the scene where Joker has broken in on the mayor's televised speech to the citizens of Gotham to challenge Batman to a "big duke-a-roo", Bruce freezes the live broadcast on a close-up of the Joker. He then flashes back to his parents murder. After the flashback, he looks again at the freeze frame picture of the Joker, but it is a different picture. When he freezes it, Joker's eyes are closed. When he comes back to the picture, his eyes are open.

Continuity: In the scene where the Batmobile automatically drives to Batman's and Vicky's location, a couple of patrol cars start following the Batmobile. When the Batmobile reaches Batman, they have mysteriously disappeared.

Revealing: When Jack falls into the chemical vat it's obvious the vat is quite shallow as he doesn't actually sink into the chemicals but instead just kind of lands and then sits there as liquid splashes out around him. To top it off, the subsequent shot of him disappearing into the chemicals is reversed as several bubbles can be seen 'unpopping' and growing smaller.

Revealing: When the Batjet crashes, if you pay close attention to the scale of the jet, cars and buildings in relation to the scale of the fire and explosions, it is very clear that this scene was created with models.

Revealing: When the female newscaster is dead on the floor she takes a slow, deep breath.

Revealing: When the Joker first appears, you can see a purple splodge on the left side of his neck.

Continuity: When Joker and his goons are trashing the paintings, Joker writes "Joker Was Here" on the painting by the statue. In the next shot the painting disappears.

Continuity: At the cathedral scene, when Batman & Vicky are hanging at the ridge, and the Joker is about to be picked up by the helicopter, the color of Joker's jacket changes from purple (front shot) to red/orange (shot from above) and back again. The orange one may be his blouse, as it has the same colour visible under his jacket in the front shot. Then, the same jacket and hat are seen hung over the gargoyle just a few seconds later.

Continuity: When the Joker is watching the pictures that his henchman gives him, he puts the one with Alexander Knox on the table. Then, he looks at Vicki's picture and there's now another picture on the table.

Continuity: When Bruce smashes the vase in Vicki's apartment, it's further from the wall in the initial shot than when we see it actually smash in the close up.

Audio problem: Unlike the second movie, the jet engine sound was not dubbed over the piston engine sound. The fact is, the jet engine in the Batmobile is a fake.

Continuity: During the Joker's parade the size of the balloons increases, instead of decreases, as the gas is released. Whether this is from the balloons or the canisters is irrelevant, the ballons still increase in size immediately and continue to do so until Batman captures them. They do not appear to increase in size as Batman takes them into the upper atmosphere so the size change has nothing to do with atmospheric pressure.

Continuity: When Batman collects the balloons' cables in his flying vehicle's anterior contraption, he gets 6 or 7 cables caught, but when he closes the scissor-like mechanism, there are only 5 visible cables. Also, when he collects them, they gather at the back of the mechanism, but when he closes it, they are neatly caught in small notches.

Continuity: Whenever shots show the view looking down on the ground when Batman and Vicky are hanging from the cathedral, it only shows two spotlights shining upwards from the ground. In other shots just showing the upper part of the cathedral, there are three or four beams visible. Also, the movement of the beams from the ground and the ones actually on the actors don't correlate between shots.

Continuity: When Batman initially fires the rope around Joker's ankle at the end, the rope only goes around the statue's legs. The next time we see it, it's somehow re-tied itself, and is now looped around the statue's backside.

Continuity: As Vicki waits at the museum cafeteria, you can see "Fluegelheim Museum" is printed on the menu on her table. But when she escapes with Batman, the sign at the front entrance of the building says "Flugelheim Museum".

Continuity: Vicky Vale's first name is V-I-C-K-I in the credits. On the cover of the magazine, it's spelled V-I-C-K-Y.

Revealing: In the scene where Jack Napier falls into the vat of acid, you can quite notice Jack (likely a stunt double) helping himself over the railing and into the acid, with his hands.

Continuity: When Vicki and Bruce takes their plate to finish the supper in the kitchen, Vicki grabs her glass twice.

Continuity: When Commissioner Gordon takes the mega phone from Eckhardt during the Axis raid, there is a row of about 4 or 5 cops stood behind Gordon as Eckhardt sneaks off. Then it cuts to a closer shot of Gordon and you can still see one or two of the cops. When it cuts wide to show Gordon again the row of cops has disappeared.

Revealing: When Batman enters the Axis Chemical factory, the portal opens before the batmobile breaks it.

Continuity: When Bruce freezes the shot of Joker from the Batcave before the flashback, Joker's eyes are closed. But after the flashback, Joker's eyes are open.

Visible crew/equipment: When Joker is being lifted by the helicopter at the end the lines from the safety harness that attach him to the ladder are briefly visible.

Audio problem: Knox is thrown from the hood of Vicki's car into a pile of garbage. He cries "No, no, no." He is obviously dubbed, as his cries continue briefly after he has already landed in the garbage.

Continuity: After electrocuting the guy at the end of the table in the crime-bosses scene, Joker (Jack Nicholson) clearly tries to put the scarf into his chest pocket but fails and lowers his hand while still holding it. But in the next shot the scarf is perfectly in place.

Continuity: When Batman and Vicky are running from Joker's museum plot, and are running from Joker's henchmen, he shoots a cable up to a walkway.  As the camera shows him firing, he fires the rope at a 45 degree angle, yet when he and Vicky are going up on the rope, the walkway is directly above them and the rope is perpendicular to the ground.

Continuity: When Batman is fighting in the bell tower with the big guy, Batman hooks his feet around the guy's neck and pulls him over the edge, just as the scene is ending Batman lets go of the bar he's hanging from. [But this is a moot point, since the man flew forward into the space that goes between all of the stairs all the way to the bottom; Batman would land straight down onto stairs below him.]

Continuity: When Batman is first seen at the beginning of the scene at Axis Chemicals, he pulls a thug over a rail and hangs him from it.  But when we see Batman standing over the rail, the thug is hanging from a pulley on the ceiling.

Continuity: In the scene where the joker fires at Batman using his extra long gun, the barrel is straight and solid, yet when he is forcing Vicki up the Cathedral steps, he collapses the gun into a pistol.