The War of the Worlds (1953) - 28 mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: After the demonstration at the blackboard, the big group of soldiers walk over to the big table with the picture of the world on it. As they walk away from the blackboard, they turn and walk down some steps, and as they do you can see the shadow of a boom mic pole on the upper side of the grey part of the wall.

Continuity: When Sylvia and Dr. Forrester are in the farm house, Sylvia cooks some eggs, then places the plates of eggs on the table. As she places them down you can see a plate with toast stacked on it. This plate disappears in the next shot of them both sitting down.

Audio problem: When Dr Forrester and Sylvia are hiding in the farmhouse, just after the Martian eye enters the room, Dr Forrester says "An electronic eye - like a television camera" - however when he says "camera", his lips don't match the word.

Continuity: Look closely when the Martian "spaceships" make their first appearance, underneath are three electro-magnetic legs supporting it meaning they walk rather than fly, much like the tripod war machines in the original book, yet after this scene they can't be seen again. The studio opted to forgo the use of this special effect after this particular shot. (This is best seen on the DVD version of the film.)

Continuity: When the school bus is leaving Pacific Tech, the name "Southridge" is painted directly on the front of the bus. When Dr. Forrester finds the wrecked vehicles in the city later in the film, the name "Southridge" is now painted on a separate wooden sign that he picks up.

Continuity: After the attempt to bomb out the martians and there is white powder completely smothering the air, as one of the soldiers turns around to talk to the others, more white powder instantly appears on his face.

Visible crew/equipment: Near the end of the movie, a martian saucer crashes into a telephone pole. The wires holding the saucer up starts pushing-up against the wires of the pole causing the pole to move and break before the saucer even touches it.

Visible crew/equipment: A shadow of a mike boom can be seen to the upper-left of a window in a laboratory following a professor who is about to give a demonstration.

Continuity: When Dr. Forrester and Sylvia are eating in the farm house, as Forrester sits down he reaches for Sylvia's cup then commences to pour coffee in it. Yet in the following shot he no longer is holding the cup, and the cup has jumped back to its original place on the table.

Continuity: When the Martian first emerges from the 'meteor', the three scientists approach it, waving flags and hats. The man in the middle is waving his hat up high in one shot, yet in the following shot isn't waving his hat, but is holding it down by his side.

Continuity: One of the reporters refers to a Martian attack on Rangoon, India. Rangoon (now Yangon) is in Burma (now Myanmar), and while Myanmar had been governed as part of India under the British Raj, it achieved independence in 1948.

Continuity: After Dr. Forrester has whacked the tri-lens off of the martian, he picks it up and puts it on the table, and it rocks forward and falls on its front. In the next shot the tri-lens is sitting up perfectly again.

Visible crew/equipment: When Dr. Forrester whacks the tri-lens martian in the farm house, as it falls down you can see the wire attatched to it.

Continuity: The first appearance of the Martian machinery is the 'Cobra head/Skeleton Ray' that appears from out of the cylinder after the top unscrews and falls to the ground. The size of the hole that the 'Cobra' is protruding through is far too small for the remainder of the Martian war machine to have been able to exit from.

Visible crew/equipment: When the radio reporter is broadcasting before the first attack, he is speaking into a microphone connected to the radio truck. After the Martians begin shooting, he dives into a small ravine. You can see his microphone cord being manipulated off camera to the right where it is being cut by a crew member.

Revealing: Near the beginning, when the giant fiery comet hits, it goes behind a hill, yet you can still see the glow of the comet through the hill and the shops in front of the hill, revealing it is a backdrop.

Continuity: The aeroplane flying the atomic mission against the Martian invaders is seen on the display console before the radar beam detects it.

Revealing: A second martian saucer crashes but it is the same as the first but reversed (look at the striped awning to the store window for both shots).

Visible crew/equipment: A reflection of the film crew can seen in Sylvia's bus window.

Revealing: The tri-lens is now facing the movie camera and not facing down towards the table top when Barry attacks the Martian.

Visible crew/equipment: When the martian space ships first appear you can see the wire suspending the models. You can clearly see the wires every time you see a martian or martian space ship.

Continuity: When Sylvia is cooking the eggs in the farmhouse, she moves the kettle onto the centre of the stove as she serves up the eggs on the plates. In the next shot as Dr. Forrester picks up the kettle, it is back in the corner of the stove.

Continuity: When Dr. Forrester is presenting the tri-lens in the lab, the red light at the bottom of the tri-lens is in a different position in the closeup and the cloth surrounding it is arranged differently too.

Continuity: The tri-lens of the Martian camera becomes detached from its casing after Gene Barry pounds it to death. When he picks it up and puts it on a table, it rocks forward and comes to rest, facing down, on the table: the tri-lens is now firmly attached to its casing.

Continuity: When the Martian saucer crashes in the farmhouse while Dr. Forrester and Sylvia are eating, a long shot shows the Martian saucer crashing into the side of the house. Then it cuts to an inside shot with the wall (with a window) being smashed from outside in. Then it cuts to an outside shot again showing the meteor having collapsed the side of the house that was caving in, in the inside shot, however the meteor has crushed almost half the house - far more than what was happening in the inside shot.

Continuity: A hatch opens-up to the martian saucer showing a very weak, limp martian arm moving slowly and lying against the door. Next scene shows a wide angle view of the people and the arm but the arm is now touching the belly of the craft. Another scene change has a close-up of the arm again resting on the hatch.

Continuity: When Dr. Forrester whacks off the aliens' spy camera, it looks like it's virtually destroyed when he bends down to pick it up. Later in the lab when they power it up, it's in pristine condition.

Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, a narrator explains why the Martians considered Earth the place to inhabit and not the other planets in our solar system. For some reason, he leaves out Venus.