The Thin Red Line (1998) - 9 mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: On the widescreen version of the film, near the beginning, Sean Penn is talking to a young G.I. that's worried. They are in the latrine area on the ship. While they talk, look in the mirror to the left. This is the most visible camera-on-film shot to date.

Continuity: When that one captain is refusing to obey the orders of Nick Nolte he says the time is 13:21 but his watch says it's actually 14:31. Then a couple of seconds later the time is 14:45. Their whole conversation was shown and there was no time in between and it was much shorter than 15 minutes.

Visible crew/equipment: In the entire movie it's quite obvious Sean Penn has a digital watch on, even though the face is on the inside of his wrist it is occasionally visible, and the modern rubber watch band also gives it away, especially in his close-ups.

Continuity: In the scene where the two GI's are living with the village of natives and a navy ship comes by, they run to hide. The camera pans across the scene and laying in the foreground of the boat passing by is a surfboard. This film was made about WWII, the surfboard style they show did not exist until, at earliest, the late 70's. The board they show is a modern shape and design. In the 1940's they would have ridden huge balsa-wood planks. That is if they were able to bring a surfboard with them into the army, which I doubt would be possible.

Visible crew/equipment: During the scene in which the small group of GIs, led by the young go-getter officer played by John Cusack, attack the Japanese hilltop bunkers, they seemed to be equipped with magic bullets. The American soldiers are firing wildly in all directions but seem to drop an enemy soldier with every shot. In some shots, the GI's rifles are not pointing even near where the Japanese soldiers are but the latter obligingly fall dead nonetheless.

Factual error: When Woody Harroldson pulls the pin on the grenade on his belt, it sits there by the spoon. A grenade is charged by the spoon flying off and the blast cap striking the top of the grenade lighting the fuse. If the spoon is still attached, it shouldn't go off.

Continuity: As Stavros talks to Lt. Col. Tall about the time, his watch jumps ahead by a couple of hours, and the time he states is not the time on the watch anyway.

Continuity: When Woody Harrelson's character has been shot and is lying on the ground with his mates around him watch his dog tag. In the first shot it's on his chest, then it's off to the side then back again.

Continuity: At the end when the American soldiers get ambushed in the creek, no platoon in their right mind would walk down a creek all exposed to enemy fire like that.