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Quotes

Hopper: If I didn't promise my mother on her deathbed that I wouldn't kill you, I'd kill you!

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Mistakes

As Flik is just leaving the island to go find the "tough bugs", he's followed by two young male ants. The two young ants look quite different, one being blue and the other more purple. The blue one says "My dad gives you one hour before you come back crying" and the purple one says something to the effect of "My dad says you're gonna die". But after Flik has hit himself on the rock whilst trying to cross the valley, the purple ant says to the blue ant, "Your dad's right, he's gonna die". Wrong ant. See more...

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When Molt sheds his entire skin from being scared of the ants, the skin is the model that they use before they add the color. See more...

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A Bug's Life (1998) - 20 corrections

Directed by John Lasseter, starring Kevin Spacey (add more)

Genres: Family, Animation, Comedy, Adventure

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
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After Tuck/Roll break off one of Hopper's antennae, they break off the left antennae, later when Hopper gets eaten in the fight sequence, the side of the antennae that is broken off changes back and forth. [It appears to change because you're seeing him from the front, and then the back and then the front and then the back. It's always the same (left) antenna that is broken.]
Edit Corrected by MovieFan612
You can see as PT Flea is walking away from the fly paper he has just torn himself off that the paper only just catches him on its edge as it falls, but when the shot goes back to where PT is floating in the water droplets, the burn mark around him on the floor is considerably larger than the area the fly paper actually fell on. [There is no possibility for the flypaper shadow to change because the camera doesn't move away from the scene for the entire shot. The size of the area of the flypaper is consistent throughout.]
Edit Corrected by MovieFan612
In the opening scene, first shot, we see a bird fly left to right across a beautiful sky. A leaf falls into picture, causing ripples on water, a tilt-up revealing that we've been looking at a reflection on that water. The reflection of the bird was right-side up, but, as it is a reflection, the bird should have been seen as upside down. [The shot is intentionally slightly blurry and while we see the outline of the bird, it's impossible to discern whether we are seeing the top or the bottom of the bird. It does appear to be the bottom (as it's only in a dark color and not with light reflecting off it, if it were the top of the bird), and so there is no mistake.]
Edit Corrected by MovieFan612 Time
When Dot first talks to Flik, she is holding his telescope he made and in the reflection of the telescope you see the same part of a hill, no matter where she points it. [The reflection changes several times during the scene, each with accurate reflections. The "lens" is quite large, so the reflection wouldn't change very much with the slight movements while she holds it.]
Edit Corrected by MovieFan612
At the end of the film, where everybody's thanking the circus bugs, Heimlich the caterpillar's voice is heard saying, "Oh,thank you!" But later, we find out that Heimlich's been in a cocoon. He couldn't have been in the crowd and just left to make the cocoon, because it's impossible for a caterpillar to form into a butterfly that fast. [This is too vague - the departure of the circus bugs occurs over two different scenes. When exactly do you hear Heimlich? I've watched the entire two last scenes and can't hear him say "Oh, Thank you".]
Edit Corrected by MovieFan612
The caravan (trailer) where the bug flies into the zapper at the "city", looks a lot like the one in Monsters Inc, where Mike and Sully throw Randall into. [Since Monsters Inc. comes AFTER A Bug's Life, this is better in the Monster's Inc. Trivia.]
Edit
The first shot of the hat (where the grasshopper lives) you see a big mudpuddle with grasshoppers in it. Later when they leave there is no mudpuddle. [In the first shot we see the puddle with the right hand side of the hat in the background - you can tell this by the lean of the vertical part of the hat - and when they leave we see the left hand side. Thus the hat itself blocks our view of the puddle, which is still there.]
Edit
How did Dot know where to find Flik and the circus bugs after they left the island? She didn't know where they were going, and never had set foot off Ant Island before. [We don't know how long Dot was looking, and since she was able to fly, she would be able to canvas the area a lot quicker and easier. We also see that the circus bugs vehicle was extremely slow, so there wasn't a large area for Dot to search.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
The first time we visit the circus, watch the one-spider band. He is only playing one trombone-like instrument, but the music he produces sounds like a brass choir. I didn't know that playing one straw could make that nice of a sound. [Its fairly obvious that it wouldn't produce the same type of sounds but the film takes some artistic license.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
This is actually a mistake for the Pixar short flik Jerri's Game, but as this is included in the A Bug's Life video, this is a good place to list it. Jerri (with glasses) knocks off the box of chess pieces after faking a heart attack, but when the camera pulls back at the end of the flik, you can see there is no chess box on the ground. [The short film is not part of the Bug's Life film and therefore cannot be considered a mistake on their part.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
The harvest machine has no power source. [It didn't need any. Flik designed the system to rotate by moving his legs. As he would move his legs back and forth when using it, it would rotate all the mechanisms (Think of it like a bike. When we pedal, the gears will turn the wheels round).]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
A grasshopper would never have been able to lift up a leaf with lots of food on it, as Hopper does. [Hopper does not lift the leaf with food on it by himself. He is helped by the other grasshoppers. They, being grasshoppers, probably ate most of the food anyway before attempting to lift the leaf.]
Edit Corrected by Mark English
With the grasshoppers rapidly approaching Ant Island, Flik is seen getting caught   on a plant with his seed gathering contraption while trying to get to the antill quickly.  He flips over sideways and all the seeds fall out and scatter.  A few seconds later, as he runs to the Offering Rock, and the receptacle is once again full seeds.  He couldnt have gathered up those stray seeds, taken off the contraption and refilled the holder and reattached the "machine" so quickly. [It's more than a few seconds I think he could have gathered up seeds in the between falling over and seeing run over to the stone.]
Edit
At the beginning of the film, when Flik realizes that the empty stalks that his invention throws out is landing on the princess ant, he lifts his acorn mask on top of his head. When the shot changes to him running toward The princess, the mask has disappeared. [You can see Flik throw the mask away before he gets close to the queen.]
Edit
None of the ants have six legs. [This is artistic licence rather than a mistake. Other bugs in this film have four legs i.e. P.T. Flea and Francis.]
Edit
With all the other bugs and scenery so realistically colored,  why are the ants lavender blue? [Because this is artistic licence rather than a mistake.]
Edit
When the bird chases the bugs into the rosebush-type plant, it hovers outside, unable to get in. This bird is not a hummingbird, therefore it would be unable to hover. [The bird is an American Goldfinch. It is perfectly capable of the darting manoevres shown in the film, which looks like hovering.]
Edit
The ants often wear hats made of flowers. For them to wear these, the flowers would have to be tiny, nearly microscopic. [There are dozens of species of plants with 'tiny, microscopic' flowers. Besides, they could be pollen grains, which come in all sorts of shapes, often looking like 'flowers'.]
Edit
This may seem like nitpicking, but the drunk mosquito that Flik approaches which drinks a round of blood is a male, when, in reality, only female mosquitos suck blood. Males actually consume flower nectar, like many other insects. [Really? Just because it looks like a male doesn't mean it's a male. Frances the Ladybug looks like a female, but he's male.]
Edit
Near the end of the movie, Hopper gets one of his antennae yanked off by one of the pill bugs. If you look at his head, though, as Flick is yelling for help, you can see both antennae are intact. [Tuck/Roll broke off only a part of the antennae not the whole thing as you can see when they are playing with it, it isn't that long.]
Edit