Superman III (1983) - 123 mistakes

Continuity: In the junkyard, when Clark takes the iron lid and gets out of the hole, he leans on his right. In the following shot he is coming out again and repeating the movement.

Continuity: When Gus is falling from the building on his skis the sky changes colour from shot to shot.

Visible crew/equipment: When the evil Superman flies into the junkyard, you can plainly see the wires from the harness.

Revealing: When Superman gets blown away by the bombs, he is being smashed onto the rocks. You can easily see that the rocks aren't real, but also that when he rises up again, you can see the cardboard rocks dent.

Continuity: After evil Superman makes a hole on the side of the oil tanker, he flies away and we get to see a bird's eye view of the ship. But now the hole is gone.

Continuity: When Jimmy takes the picture of the Stokis, he lifts his finger from the camera and raises his head. In the following angle he repeats every movement.

Continuity: When Superman enters the acid storage room we have a glance at the temperature needle and can see it is way to the right; but the chemist is calm and no alerts are active. Minutes later, before the place explodes, while Superman is freezing the lake, the lights in the room turn red and the chemist freaks out, but the needle is further from the danger zone than it was when we first saw it.

Continuity: When Superman extinguishes the flame on the toy penguin, it looks brand new, as opposed to the worn out look it had a couple seconds before.

Continuity: The aerial view of the Grand Canyon shows Ross bending over to prepare his flying vehicle. In the next shot he is up.

Continuity: During the junkyard fight, the sky colour keeps changing from cloudy to sunny all the time.

Continuity: When Superman is freezing the lake to extinguish the fire, he picks up the giant block of ice. As we see in a wide shot, it looks like no water was removed from the lake. Shouldn't the lake be empty now?, or at least a lot of water would be gone.

Continuity: In the scene where the blind man picks the painting machine, note that there are some water marks on the pavement going to the right. These are not visible in the next shot.

Continuity: When the penguins are on the floor, a wide shot shows a man picking two of them, each with each hand. The close-up shows his hands empty.

Revealing: At the chemical plant, while Superman is landing Jimmy Olsen, the crane that holds them in the air casts a shadow on the green truck behind.

Continuity: When Clark is below the steel lid, the shadow he casts moves around depending on the shot.

Continuity: In the Olympics ceremony, the file footage shows no people by the final steps to the cauldron. When the shot changes to the modern footage, a lot of people have suddenly appeared there.

Continuity: In Ross's office, when Gus makes the liquor shelve turn around, the way his jacket is done up changes between shots.

Continuity: When the bucket of yellow paint falls on the old man, he turns around and starts to walk backwards. In the next shot, he is facing forward.

Continuity: Up in Ross' penthouse, the sky is cloudy and grey. When Gus flies with the skis on, it has changed to a sunny day.

Continuity: Vera stands to turn the TV off in the close shot and a second later, in the aerial shot, she repeats the movement.

Continuity: The file footage of the torch shows it's burned around the rim. When the shot changes to fiction footage the burning is gone and the metal is spotless.

Continuity: When Superman fixes the tower of Pisa, the Italian seller turns his head around. The movement cuts to show a new angle but the new movement is totally different to the previous one.

Continuity: In the end, when Brad jumps on the bed, the wide shot shows him stepping on the right end of the mattress, but the close-up shows him stepping on the left end.

Revealing: When Superman fixes the Pisa tower, there's a wire on the left side, most probably the system to move the prop.

Continuity: While Jimmy Olsen looses balance on the ladder he holds himself but stays on the ladder. A second later he is already off of the ladder about to fall down.

Continuity: When Clark is choking bad Superman, his right hand cleans itself after Superman disappears.

Continuity: When the chemicals explodes, the firemen by the chimney fall down twice.

Continuity: At the chemical plant, while Superman is breaking the chimney, a worker at the far right climbs up twice.

Continuity: At the chemical plant, while Superman is grabbing the chimney, a worker in the back with a blue helmet aids a man to climb up. But in one of the shots in between he's seen away from him, doing something totally different. Then in the next shot he is back helping the guy.

Visible crew/equipment: When Superman arrives at the steel chimney in the chemical plant, wires holding him are visible.

Continuity: In the bar, while bad Superman is destroying the bottles, the way they are placed and the ones that are broken or undamaged keeps changing between shots.

Continuity: When Clark is visiting Lana and Ricky in the hotel, the stuff on the shelf behind them changes between shots.

Continuity: Wood planks appear and disappear behind the rockets in the Grand Canyon.

Continuity: When Superman is fixing the tower of Pisa, the close up of Giorgio, the seller in the back, shows him wearing a white t-shirt, which disappears in the rest of the shots.

Audio problem: Inside the subway, Rikki's voice is heard but his mouth doesn't move.

Continuity: When the helicopter releases the yellow strap holding the steel cage, part of it falls over the "W" on the logo. In the next shots it's in a different place.

Continuity: The second time we see the souvenir seller at the Pisa tower he is standing by the side of his stall. In the next angle he is in a different position and place.

Continuity: The people from Archibald Data watching the slapstick of the credits change from being 2 on each window panel, to 4 standing very close together in a single window.

Continuity: During the credits, the amount of water inside the car is inconsistent throughout the scene. The first time it's covering the driver's throat. The second time it's at chest level but the guy's face and hair are totally soaked. Then in the third shot the water's filling the car.

Continuity: When the green car smashes the fire hydrant, a yellow piece gets tucked underneath. In the following shots it disappears.

Continuity: When Superman arrives at Pisa for the second time, the sky changes from violet to blue.

Continuity: The lid that falls on Clark has a bumpy side. One of the shots shows the lid falling with the bump pointing at Clark's head. For the rest of the shots the bumpy part is on the left side.

Revealing: When Superman is in the cave, the computer is supposed to scan Superman making an instant diagram of him. Problem is that Superman's hands position is different to what the scan "sees".

Continuity: Bad Superman punches Clark and he lands by a car door. In the next shot the door has magically moved on top of him, which makes Clark take it off of him.

Continuity: During the sequence where Gus puts the table cloth on as a cape, Lorelei's right arm swaps between being between her legs to being on the side.

Continuity: The second time Gus smashes the Krypton beam in the cave, some cables come off. In the next shot the cables are gone.

Continuity: While bad Superman is in the bar, the whiskey bottle's label faces the window. From the window's point of view there's no label seen.

Visible crew/equipment: When bad Superman is bending the glass from the bar, watch the right side of the screen and you'll see the reflection of the cameraman slowly sneaking in.

Continuity: Before Bad Superman drops the bowl of nuts, a coaster is seen behind his left hand. In the following shots it disappears.

Continuity: A scene shows some peanuts next to some smashed bottles, note the black ashtray. It is at first sideways, then in the next shot it is straight and continues to change position throughout the scene.

Visible crew/equipment: When Brad opens the door to Gus, cameras and equipment are reflected in the glass.

Continuity: Gus places his hand on the door's frame. A split second later it's on the glass.

Continuity: In the wheat field, after Superman brings Ricky, the upper sleeve from the pullover tied around Lana's neck changes size after Superman leaves.

Revealing: When bad Superman blows out the acid from his hands, the tube used to throw the liquid is seen for a brief second standing out from his finger.

Continuity: When the blind man is walking two men from behind disappear in the close up.

Continuity: While bad Superman is walking down the street Ricky calls him. From a back shot there's no one behind. From the front, a crowd appears behind the kid.

Continuity: When Vera turns the TV off, in the aerial shot, the Tv is already off.

Continuity: In the gym, the way Ross places the white towel around his neck changes between shots.

Audio problem: When Gus is talking Brad into opening the glass door, the reflection of his mouth doesn't match match what we are hearing.

Continuity: When Superman is landing Jimmy, a fireman in the back takes his oxygen bottle off twice.

Continuity: When phone booths fall, they don't knock down a blue bucket; but a frame later, in a close up, it's seen down on the floor.

Continuity: When Clark is trapped in the crunching machine, a blue piece of metal is left out. Two shots later it has disappeared.

Revealing: Bad Superman supposedly holds Clark by the back of his shirt, but what we really see is his hand behind the back and not holding anything. Just closed in a fist.

Continuity: When the telephone booths fall, the dog runs away. A second later it's seen back where he was running away again.

Continuity: When Gus is trying to access the main computer, his reflection shows him bending down. In the next shot he is repeating the movement.

Continuity: When bad Superman knocks out Clark with a kick on the face, his position on the floor changes between shots.

Deliberate "mistake": There is no way for Gus to jump over the terrace with the skis since there's no ramp. He would have crashed against the wall and the flower pots we saw in a previous shot.

Continuity: When Superman saves Ricky at the wheat field, the rock by his head disappears.

Continuity: At his computer Gus mispells Overide, which is spelled Override.

Continuity: While the blind man is walking his dog, a man in blue jean walks by the left of a tree. There is a brusque cut and the man in jeans is now walking on the right side of the tree.

Continuity: When bad and good Supermen is going up on the junkyard belt, one shot shows Clark very close to a car, in the next one he has gone down and the car is farther away.

Continuity: When bad Superman is flicking the peanuts, the man by his left stands up and hides at the end of the bar. In the next shot he is seen close to Superman reflected on the glass.

Continuity: The lady by the bingo trolley leans her head to the right and asks "Can we have the next number?" When the angle changes her head is now leaning the other side.

Continuity: While in the bus to Smallville, Clark sees the accident on the heliport and there are no cars on the side of the road. From a shot outside it's full of them.

Deliberate "mistake": When a man bumps into pole, it sounds as if a truck had crashed (which makes it funnier), but in reality he just bumped his chest.

Visible crew/equipment: When Superman is landing to stop the plough machine, the wires holding him are visible.

Continuity: While Mr. White is trying to open the bingo ball, from the side shots the lady is watching the ball. From the front shots she is watching him. This keeps taking place every time angle angles.

Continuity: The fireman on the right points at the lake and lowers his arm. In the next shot it's up again.

Continuity: After Clark Kent smashes cake on a man's face, the amount of cake increases in the close-up, especially on his neck.

Continuity: When a man tries to pick up the toy penguins, a close shot shows them walking, but on the wide shot they are standing still.

Continuity: In the beginning, when Gus is waiting on the queue of the employment office, the amount of papers by his feet changes between the close shot and the wide one following.

Continuity: In the employment office, the crushed Coke can jammed between the iron bars changes position between shots.

Continuity: The location of the staircase leading up to the supercomputer's control console changes. When they first enter the computer, it is at the back of the computer behind a lot of electrical machinery and circuits. When Ross comes down to try and get the screw out of Gus's mouth, the staircase has moved right next to the entrance of the computer (where Vera gets turned into a robot later on).

Continuity: The firetruck's ladder Jimmy climbs up during the chemical plant fire changes between shots. In the first shot its a white-framed ladder at a pretty shallow angle. The ladder in the second shot changes to a black and orange one which is at a much steeper angle and the rungs are spaced further apart. Also in the second shot he is much closer to the top of the ladder than the first shot, and there is no way he climbed up the ladder that fast.

Continuity: Before the truck is about to fall off the bridge, the blue car in the water moves from a 5 o'clock direction, to a 3 o'clock depending on the shot.

Continuity: The diamond Superman makes by compressing a piece of coal would not be cut into a diamond shape like that, and a diamond made from a piece of coal that size wouldn't be nearly as big as it was.

Continuity: When Evil Superman arrives at the oil tanker, the tower on the deck disappears in the close-up where he opens a hole in the steel.

Continuity: From the wide shots, the black stripe on the side of the oil tanker is 12 to 15 meters wide, but on the close-up of evil Superman destroying the tanker shows it's thinned to barely a couple meters wide.

Continuity: After the truck falls off the bridge, before Superman arrives a red truck passes by a green one and keeps on to the other end of the bridge. When the angle changes, a split second later, the red truck is now several feet back, not running and parked next to the green truck.

Continuity: When Ross is reading a newspaper in his office, the black paper clips move around between shots.

Continuity: At the acid storage room, while the chemist says that the temperature can't rise to much you can see the needle on the background way to the right revealing it's hot. But the next shots of the needle show it on the very left first and rising on the second.

Continuity: When the green car crashes, it leaves a lot of rubble in front of it. In the wide shot, the street is clean.

Continuity: The toy penguin that catches fire is already burned and damaged, when it's supposed to come brand new from the seller's stall.

Continuity: On the Grand Canyon, when Gus is about to get on the donkey, the first shot shows him several meters ahead of Vera. The next aerial angle shows him very close and parallel to her.

Continuity: A thief comes out of the Century Savings Bank, but the money bag he holds reads Metropolis Bank.

Continuity: When Superman lands in Ross's attic, a chair moves to the left between one shot and another.

Continuity: From the inside, the sign on Archibald Data Processing has a square thing on top of the first and last letters. From the outside it doesn't.

Continuity: The second hole Gus makes with the axe on the laser ball is smaller a second later.

Continuity: When the roller-skate girl grabs the trolley, the cups and food on the upper plate fall. A frame later they're all back on.

Continuity: Before Superman fixes the Pisa tower, the Italian seller is seen holding a statue by its base. A frame later he holds it by the side.

Continuity: When Clark is waiting for the steel lid to crush him, he raises his arms up. In the next angle they are down and close to his side.

Continuity: When Gus takes the tablecloth off, he walks on top of the fallen stuff to talk about Superman, and then the amount of stuff left behind keeps changing between shots.

Continuity: When the bus to Smallville pulls over, the red ambulance passes by twice.

Continuity: After Clark kills bad Superman he rises and the shot changes. His tie knot is now tilted to the right.

Continuity: When Gus jumps out of the terrace, he has no skis on. When he lands he has them on again.

Continuity: Amount of snow on the railing changes after Gus flies through with the skis.

Continuity: When bad Superman punches Clark, he lands half a meter behind a red car hood. In the following shot the hood is by his side.

Continuity: Before Gus gets on the skis his shoes are grey with thick black stripes. When he lands he has plain brown shoes.

Continuity: The two firemen pointing at the lake are standing close to each other. In the wider angle they are much farther away.

Revealing: When the two Supermen are fighting, towards the end Clark chokes baddie Superman. In this shot you can see where they cropped a stuntman's hands in the place, where Clark's hands would be, in order to have Christopher Reeve play both parts.

Deliberate "mistake": During the supercomputer's destruction, the 3 electrical probes that are sending lightning to the overhead pylons to draw electricity from them are no longer flashing. So where is the electricity coming from to sustain the computer's lighting system as the fluorescent tubes are still working?

Continuity: When Vera is getting sucked into the computer, she has white gloves on. Seconds later, during her robot transformation, there is a full screen close up of her hand without any glove. Then, when Vera emerges from the wreckage of the computer a few minutes later, she has her gloves on again.

Continuity: When the roller-skate girl grabs the trolley. In the close ups she is bending to the front, in the wide ones standing straight.

Continuity: When the bus that Clark and Jimmy are on pulls up to the traffic jam, you can see the smoke from the fire is wafting all over the place. When the angle changes when the two climb off the bus, however, the smoke is limited to the distant view.

Continuity: When Superman is getting drunk, he pours some nuts out onto the bar. When it's a close-up, the nuts are many and close together. Next shot, the nuts are more sparse and scattered.

Continuity: During the credits, a red and white pole with a light on top appears to the right of the crashed green car.

Continuity: While Superman is grabbing the steel chimney, the worker in the far left is seen hurrying to the right to meet his pals. In the next shot he is repeating the movement again.

Continuity: When Superman is about to tilt the Leaning Tower of Pisa, he places his hand with the thumb up. A frame later it's down.

Continuity: When the Olympic marathon runner holds the torch while running on the track toward the stairs, he has a large upper body build. Also, his shirt has a very noticeable logo that is lying right on his sternum. As he climbs the stairs we see him from behind and this is the last of the real footage from the Olympics. The actor holding the torch, that gets blown out, does not climb the stairs near as gracefully as the Olympic athlete. When they show him from the front, not only does he have very little upper body muscle, but his face is nowhere near the same as the athlete in the stock footage.

Revealing: When the two Supermen are fighting in the scrapyard: As baddie Superman comes flying out of the acid with his hands cupped, look at his cape. It is wrapped around the front of his waist and legs, not flapping backwards like it would be if Supes was flying forward at speed. Superman is also completely dry during this shot (NOTE: Superpowers have nothing to do with this). This reveals the fact that it was shot with Christopher Reeve (or the stuntman) falling backwards into the vat, then shown in reverse.

Continuity: After Evil Superman was done melting the mirror in the bar he slowly stood up from the stool to leave the place. The immediate next shot from the sidewalk right outside the bar shows a pedestrian approaching, and as he walks by the establishment Superman can be seen through the window still sitting down at the counter.

Factual error: When Richard Pryor is working his job in the computer room his boss walks up behind him and is amazed at a program that Pryor has written. The boss asks how he did it; Pryor answers that even he doesn't know. Look at the computer screen - Pryor's amazing computer program is just a bunch of worthless print commands that print sentences onto the computer screen; it serves no real function whatsoever.

Continuity: After Superman fixes the oil tanker and touching the oil soaked steel, he waves goodbye to the sailors and his hands are clean.