The Odyssey (1997) - 58 mistakes

Continuity: When the men enter the cyclops' cave, Odysseus crouches down and says "They keep sheep in this cave with them". Between shots his arm goes from being at a 90 degree angle to being at a 45 degree angle.

Continuity: When Elpenor says "We will not reach Ithaca without you" Odysseus replies "Yes you will" and hugs him. In that shot Odysseus' right hand is on Elpenor's back, but in the next as Odysseus says "It is I who am lost" his hand is on Elpenor's head.

Continuity: After Circe tells Odysseus that he must go to the underworld, Odysseus sits down on the bed and puts his hand on his lap. In the next shot, as Circe says "You are right to be afraid", Odysseus' hand is on the bed.

Continuity: When Telemachus is born and Penelope and Odysseus hold him, Penelope's hand goes from touching the baby's arm to touching his head.

Continuity: During the start of the battle in Odysseus's throne room at the end of the film, watch as the evil suitor hurls an axe at Odysseus and Telemachus, shouting "A river of blood!" Both duck as the axe flies towards them. Then in the very next shot, they duck a second time as the axe smashes into the wooden throne behind.

Revealing: When the monkey points up the hill and Odysseus keeps climbing, modern houses and roads are visible on the ground below.

Visible crew/equipment: During the Trojan War, when Odysseus yells "Fight. Fight. FIGHT. ", a soldier plays the flute and they all run down the hill, a cameraman with a blue t-shirt and sunglasses is visible.

Continuity: When Odysseus holds up the bowl of wine and says "It's the drink of the gods", the bowl is grey. When he gives it to the cyclops it is brown. When the cyclops throws it back at him, it is grey again.

Revealing: During the battle at Troy, when Odysseus and Achilles are standing together surrounded by Trojan warriors, Odysseus lashes out with his sword and kills a warrior (just before Hector appears and challenges Achilles). If you look carefully you'll see that Odysseus merely swung his sword for show; it didn't connect with the Trojan warrior who fell dead.

Continuity: When Odysseus looks back at his men before entering the underworld, the men are shown in different places on the ships between shots.

Audio problem: When Tiresias describes Scylla to Odysseus he states, "She lurks in the shadows, hoping to fill her belly." However, when he says, "hoping to fill her belly," his lips don't match what he is saying.

Continuity: When Odysseus is hugging Calypso, the ship magically appears on the horizon.

Audio problem: When Odysseus signals his men to leave the Trojan horse, he says "Drop the rope" and his lips don't match his dialogue.

Continuity: A very blatant mistake in the Scylla scene. In one shot it is totally dark, with no light coming from the ship. In the next shot, Odysseus orders Anticlus to light a torch- and suddenly there is a ball of fire from which the soldier lights the torch.

Revealing: After the sack of winds is opened, Eurylochus is shown grabbing onto a rope in midair, and the string holding him up is visible.

Deliberate "mistake": The same shot of Odysseus killing a man with two swings of his sword is used twice in the battle scene.

Continuity: When Odysseus surfaces from the water and grabs the mast, the shape of the mast and the ropes around it have changed from the previous shot.

Visible crew/equipment: When the Trojans run out of the gates as their city burns you can see a boom mike bobbing up and down at the top of the screen.

Continuity: When Penelope weaves her tapestry as the suitors wrestle, there is a golden bracelet on her arm, but when she pulls her maid Melanthe away from the window, it is gone.

Factual error: During the battle in the throne room, a soldier is seen hiding behind a pillar. Then Telemachus comes and swings his sword clockwise. However, we see the soldier getting hit by the sword, hitting the pillar, and then falling to the ground. This only could have happened if Telemachus had swung his sword counter-clockwise.

Audio problem: As the sailors are all running back to the ship from the cyclops' island, Eumaeus yells "What happened?", and his lips do not move.

Revealing: The gaps between the boards of the Trojan horse are much wider in the inside than on the outside. This reveals that the soldiers are not really inside the horse, but on a set.

Continuity: At the end of the duel of Antinous against Telemachus, Antinous picks up a stool to throw at Odysseus and the white fur lands almost exactly next to the wine bag. Then in the shot of Antinous laughing, the fur is much further away from the bag.

Continuity: When Telemachus is fighting with the suitor, the blood on the suitor disappears.

Continuity: When the cyclops comes into the cave and says "Who are you?", we see all the men in a circle. There are nine of them. But later, when they run back to the ship, you can count at least ten of them. Even worse is that two of the men were eaten by the cyclops, so there should be only seven.

Continuity: When Achilles throws the spear at Hector, there is another chariot nearby that appears to be on fire. In the next shot of Achilles we see the same chariot and the fire is gone.

Continuity: During the Trojan war, it is clear that they are fighting on sand with no water nearby. Then suddenly Odysseus slashes a Trojan, and he falls in a large puddle of water. When Achilles grabs a spear later, the puddle is gone.

Revealing: Achilles takes the spear that he later throws at Hector out of a dead person's body, but the spear has no blood on it at all.

Audio problem: When Odysseus is in the Trojan horse, he says "King Priam" but his lips don't move.

Continuity: The first man the cyclops eats (the one with the black beard) is standing behind Elpenor when he offers the cyclops cheese. But when the cyclops knocks Elpenor away, you can see that that man was in front of him.

Audio problem: After the Cyclops finishes drinking wine, he throws the bowl back at Odysseus. In that shot you can hear the sound of it hitting him and falling to the ground. But the bowl doesn't actually hit him until the next shot.

Continuity: Between shots of Menelaus saying "You, Telemachus, you must return", his arm magically appears on Telemachus' shoulder.

Visible crew/equipment: During the battle scene, Odysseus' narration goes "and no one knew whose side the gods were on." In the shot where he begins to say "were on," a crew member with brown hair and a black shirt is visible behind the charging Greek army. A split second later another crew member is visible, this time with black hair and a blue shirt.

Continuity: The cyclops throws the bowl at Odysseus and it lands on the ground, but it is gone a few shots later as one of the men says "I will kill him now".

Continuity: When the men are all holding onto the boat so as not to fall into the whirlpool Charybdis, Polites' face is covered in blood. But when he falls, most of the blood is gone.

Visible crew/equipment: As Laocoon approaches the Trojan Horse, equipment is visible near the Eurylochus and the Trojans. It was not there when King Priam first approached the horse.

Continuity: There are two shots of Odysseus floating in the water right before he reaches Calypso's island. In the first shot, you can see that he is wearing armor. In the second, his chest is bare.

Visible crew/equipment: In the second shot in the Trojan War, right after the men come down the hill on horses, a cameraman is visible near the statue at the top of the wall.

Continuity: The blood on the cyclops' chin disappears quite suddenly, though he never wipes it off.

Continuity: After Prince Hector explodes out of his chariot, there is a shot of a soldier falling down and another one stabbing him with a spear. Then when Achilles starts yelling "Hector is mine. Mine." the same soldier falls down and gets stabbed again.

Continuity: Throughout the battle in the throne room at the end, the position of many of the dead suitors changes between shots.

Continuity: When Hermes says "Heed my advice and reach that stone" Odysseus is looking at Hermes. In the next shot, as Odysseus replies "Which?" he is facing up the cliff.

Audio problem: When Telemachus comes to Sparta, Menelaus asks "Who is this boy my son brings?". Someone then replies "Telemachus of Ithaca highness" but his lips are out of sync when he says this.

Continuity: During the storm at sea, Odysseus grabs onto the mast of the raft, and between shots his hands come closer together.

Continuity: When Athena says, "Look at them, I fear for you," Polites is laughing at a joke the sailors told him, but in the closeup Polites is eating food out of a bowl.

Audio problem: After Hector has challenged Achilles, his lips keep moving but no sound is heard.

Audio problem: Having just captured the pig, the soldier with a knife says "I'll stop your squealing" but his lips don't move.

Continuity: When the Phaecian women see Odysseus lying face down on the shore, in a closeup shot his right arm is bent. In the next shot, his arm is straight.

Revealing: There are two points in the film where Odysseus throws a flaming torch into the air. The first was when he was at Troy. The second was a throw at Scylla. Notice that these torches make exactly the same noise and move in exactly the same way.

Continuity: Telemachus drives Antinous to the wall with a spear and stakes him to the wall. The spear is actually gone when Odysseus looks around the room after killing everyone.

Continuity: When Circe tells her maids to make wine with honey, she turns around to look at them twice.

Continuity: During the Trojan war, when Odysseus and Achilles get surrounded by Trojan soldiers, the position of the soldiers change between shots.

Audio problem: The exact same sound of someone yelling "Bring the grain" or "Where would you like these sacks of grain?" can repeatedly be heard inside the Ithacan palace throughout the movie.

Continuity: When Telemachus is in the dark trying to string his bow, a vase with arrows in it is visible next to him. Then after he throws his bow to the ground in frustration, the arrows are gone.

Continuity: When Odysseus sees Calypso's island and begins paddling to get there, the ropes on the mast go from being in front of him to being behind him.

Audio problem: In the cyclops' cave, Odysseus tells his men to get the wine so that they can trade it for water, but when he does this, his lips don't move.

Continuity: As Melanthe and Eurymachus fall dead to the ground, the suitor speared to the door has his left arm raised. When Odysseus looks around the room, his hand is lowered, then after he tells Telemachus "Don't let your mother's eyes fall on this room" his hand is raised again.

Continuity: In the scene where Hermes is talking to Odysseus on the cliff, the nearby plants changes distinctly between shots.