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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - 47 mistakes

Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Lance Henriksen, Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr (add more)

Genres: Adventure, Drama, Sci-fi

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Continuity: While Roy watches Barry make the mud mountain, its top is flat, but a frame later it's taller and peaked.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: As the mom and her son run into the kitchen of their house for safety the appliances start to shake. In the first scene with the stove, all of the pans are shaken off the top, but when they come back for a close up there are pans back on top.

Edit Submitted by drahm2007 Time
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Factual error: When Barry first appears in the middle of the road, you can see the constellation Orion in the upper right of the scene. From mid-northern latitudes, Orion is visible in the evening from October to early January and in the morning from late July to November. The scene looks like a summer evening and if it was the morning Orion would not be that high in the sky.

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Continuity: The film starts in Muncie Indiana. There is a scene in the hills near the town. There are NO hills near Muncie, it's flat as a board.

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Continuity: After Roy makes a mountain with the mashed potato, the bowl has food coming out. Two seconds later, after Roy talks to his family, the food is gone, despite no one having touched the bowl.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: In Jillian's home, after the record player starts to play, she holds Barry against her right shoulder. A frame later he's on her left shoulder.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: While being blinded by the UFO, Roy grabs his flashlight from the round part next to the ligh bulb. Half a second later he is grabbing it from several centimeters below.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Factual error: Early in the movie there's a scene that takes place at the FAA air traffic control center. As the film's other scenes are set in Muncie, Indiana, this ATC center is presumably (and correctly) in Indianapolis, yet, after the UFOs nearly collide with the TWA and Air East flights, the controllers are talking about "restricted area 2508". The "real" R-2508 is actually out in California/Nevada.

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Continuity: During the scene at the landing site the number of people on the landing pad varies dramatically from shot to shot.

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Other: In the climactic scene at the end of the movie when the alien mothership flies over Devil's Tower and the base, there is a shot of the mothership's shadow creeping along the ground, enveloping the shadows of the crew there. It's a dramatic shot, but since the mothership was not between the ground and the light source (the stadium lights of the base) it should not be blocking out the light, or creating a shadow.

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Continuity: Roy is stalled in his truck at the railroad track. We see the mailboxes behind him burst open and all the mail comes flying out. Next shot, from inside the truck, the mailboxes are closed. Then another outside view shows them open again.

Edit Submitted by Jean G
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Factual error: Parts of the scene where the brightly lit alien mothership passes directly over Devil's Tower are shot with the camera looking almost directly up, as would be the view from the people below. In these scenes, Devil's Tower remains totally dark despite having this huge light source directly above. The mothership is so huge that a shadow cannot explain this darkness.

Edit Submitted by Bruce Trestrail
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Continuity: Jillian's hair keeps swapping from messy to brushed and back to messy during her climbing down the rock and after hugging her son.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: When Roy wakes up his wife to tell her about the UFOs, the pink tissue paper in the box behind swaps from lying flat to standing up between shots.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: In Sonora, the scientist walks towards some Mexican officers standing by a stone wall, and a wooden fence is ahead. A frame later, they're standing next to an iron spring and a wicker basket that have appeared out of nowhere.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: The mess next to the fridge differs between shots, the egg box flips over for example.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: When Jillian's kitchen goes wild, the heater's lids fly off and reveal some red foam which ends up breaking and making a hole. A frame later from a new angle the foam is fixed.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: Roy is about to run Barry over with his truck and stops on the side of the road. The position of the papers on the dashboard changes between shots.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: Ronnie says "It's one of those things" and Roy follows her with his hand filled with shaving foam. In the next angle the amount of foam on the right hand is bigger.

Edit Submitted by Sacha
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Continuity: When Ronnie rescues Roy from the bathtub, a rope next to him disappears between one frame and the other.

Edit Submitted by Sacha