The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Corrected entry: When Frollo shoves Quasimodo's mother backward on the steps of Notre Dame, she falls, hits her heads on a step, and dies. However, if she hit the ground hard enough to get killed, her head would have been cracked open and there would have been blood all over the place. When the Deacon comes out of the church and discovers her, he even chastises Frollo by saying (singing) "See there, the innocent blood you have spilt." The problem? No blood is visible at all. This is due to the fact that Disney will not show evidence of violence in their films, but it is still a mistake. It just doesn't feel right when the characters can see the blood and the audience can't.

Correction: Actually she broke her neck. Saying that blood has been spilt doesn't necessarily mean that someone bled, it means someone was killed.

Corrected entry: Phoebus claims he has been called home from the war. Problem is, France wasn't at war in 1482, and hadn't been since 1451.

Correction: The movie doesn't make the claim that it's 1482, though that's the setting of the novel. In any case, Phoebus claims that he had been recalled from "the wars" (plural). This could indicate that he was merely stationed somewhere that had recently seen battle (perhaps during the recent Burgundy Wars, which ended in 1476) and where a new skirmish could potentially break.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: In the shot which pans down the streets of Paris, a bakery with the word "Boulanger" appears. "Boulanger" literally translates as "to bake." In France, bakeries are called "boulangerie."

Friso94

Correction: Boulanger also means "Baker."

Corrected entry: When Quasimodo's mother is running from Frollo, she stops at the Cathedral to beg sanctuary. She turns to see Frollo coming after her. When she does she is standing very close to the cathedral. When she turns to run again, she is instantly several feet away from the cathedral wall with no time to get there.

Correction: The sequence goes as follows: Mom bangs on the cathedral door; she turns and starts to move. Then Frollo emerges from the alley for several seconds. We cut back to mom, who is some distance from the door, but not so far that she couldn't have run there while we were seeing Frollo. She turns and runs away, Frollo charges up the stairs in pursuit. As she nears the stairs, Frollo grabs the bundle and kicks her, where she falls to her death. There is no "instantly several feet away."

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: In the film's opening it is stated that Frollo gave Quasimodo his name out of cruelty, and that it means "half full". Actually Quasimodo translates (roughly) into "in the manner of". In the book the name was given to the character because Frollo found him on Quasimodo Sunday.

Correction: Actually, it says "half-formed." "Quasi" means "as if," and "modo" means "a way of doing [anything]." Meaning, in this case, that Quasimodo looks as if he were only made in the way humans are made, not as though he is actually human. "Half-formed" actually describes this pretty well. Movie and book discrepancies are not valid mistakes at any rate.

Phixius

Corrected entry: When Frollo locks the family inside the mill before setting fire to it, he bolts the door by using a spear as a cross bar on the outside. The door opens in and would not be blocked by the spear.

Correction: When Frollo locks the family in, you can see the door handle curves upward on the outside, so the spear is going across the handle and wall, not between the posts.

Corrected entry: At the end of the song "God help the outcasts", Esmeralda bathes in the sunlight of the rose window. Seen from above, the projected light forms a circle on the church-floor. As the rose window is circular itself, and the church-floor is perpendicular to the church-wall, this is only possible when the sun is at exactly 45° above the horizon (the projection would be an ellipse otherwise). However, the Feast of Fools was held at the end of December or the beginning of January, and in this specific case on January 6 1482, according to the original manuscript of Victor Hugo. The highest point the sun reaches in Paris around that day is maximally 20°, even when taking care of the Gregorian Calendar Reform in 1582. Also, the rose window is not exactly southward, which means the sun will have even lower altitude when shining straight through it. Thus, there's no way the sunlight could form a circle on the church-floor around that day. (00:38:00)

A-Team LTKP

Correction: Actually they do state the date of Topsy Turvy day. One of the lyrics is on the sixth of Januervy.

Correction: Except that there is no claim or even indication by the movie that it takes place in January. It's an adaptation from the book, meaning changes don't actually qualify as mistakes. And unlike the mistake with the spire which is real and didn't exist until 1845, the events of the book are fictional.

Friso94

Corrected entry: In the scene that Frollo is speaking to Phoebus about the dregs of Paris and illustrating it by lifting a stone and revealing all those bugs underneath. He slams the stone back down crushing the bugs, but the stone was turned upside-down, even though the whole scene never loses sight of Frollo holding it, and he never turns it that way.

Correction: He doesn't turn the stone upside down, he just turns it sideways.

Factual error: During the song "A Guy Like You," one of the gargoyles trips the trapdoor on Quasimodo's miniature hangman's scaffold. Trapdoors weren't used on scaffolds until the 18th century.

More mistakes in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Frollo: And look what else I've caught in my net. Captain Phoebus, back from the dead. Another "miracle", no doubt. I shall remedy that.

More quotes from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Hunchback of Notre Dame trivia picture

Trivia: When Quasimodo is singing a few minutes into the film, he is standing above the town street where people are walking around, doing business. If you look closely to the lower right of the scene, you can see Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" reading a book in her blue dress, walking.

More trivia for The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Question: I'm not of the Catholic religion so I have a question. During Frollo's fireplace song he sees those faceless people wearing the red cloaks and then on the wall there are shadows holding crosses and stuff like that. Are these any specific objects of the catholic religion or just your average devils and angels?

Answer: They are representations of good and evil.

More questions & answers from The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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