The Core (2003) - 50 mistakes

Other: In the melting bridge scene, the space microwave was powerful enough to melt the bridge's thick metal but how come it could not melt the roof of the cars on the bridge?

Plot hole: When the crew's vessel gets stuck in the giant geode and the crystal jams the 'impeller', the magma begins to fill the chamber. They see it melting the crystals, yet they frantically continue working to free the crystal from the impeller and lose a crewman...and yet when they get back in the vessel, the magma indeed melts out the crystal that jammed the impeller. With 2 geologists onboard you would think they'd know that.

Factual error: When they realize they need to make the last nuclear explosion 30% bigger, they simply pull the fuel rods from the reactor and set them next to the bomb. This is ludicrous, a nuclear bomb is a carefully engineered piece of equipment, with carefully shaped charges imploding the radioactive material. Setting some fuel rods next to the bomb will accomplish nothing.

Factual error: When 'Rat' is trying to hack into Project Destiny control, he gets several '404' errors, but '404' is page missing, not access denied. It should say '401- Access Denied'.

Continuity: In the scene near the end where they are shooting across the F-115 carrier, you can clearly see about 15 to 20 jets parked on the carrier, the camera goes in the carrier for 50 seconds to a minute, then the camera shoots outside of the carrier and you can see that there are only 5 to 7 jets parked.

Continuity: At the end of the movie when they are looking for the survivors they have no signals and decide to give up. Rat is upset, we see a close up of him and his hair is long in the back. The next scene he is walking on the deck of the ship, he figures out the signal and calls to the general waving his arms and screaming. We see him in close up again and his hair is very short in back. Did he get a haircut on the way to the deck?

Revealing: In the burning of the Golden Gate bridge scene a man can be seen on the far top right side of the screen walking along the bridge just as it splits he walking along as if nothing is happening, even though under the extreme heat he would roast. (Widescreen only, cannot be seen on VHS).

Plot hole: When the boats are searching for the 'virgil' in Hawaii, we see a shot with all of them going full speed through the water - and their anchor lines are down.

Continuity: When Drs. Keyes and Zimsky are explaining to the military guys at the Pentagon what is going to happen, Zimsky is wearing a wedding ring (or at least, a ring on his wedding finger). There is no reference to him being married anywhere in the movie, nor is he wearing a ring in any of the other scenes.

Factual error: Magnetic fields do not stop electromagnetic radiation (such as microwaves).

Other: The word "Storyboard" in "Storyboard Artists" during the end titles is misspelled "Stroryboard".

Factual error: At the very end of the movie when the credits are rolling you see a panned view of the earth. The earth is rotating the wrong way.

Revealing: In the Trafalgar Square scene when the double decker bus flips onto its side there is a shot of it from the front, and it has no engine or radiator.

Continuity: When Beck is in the command section of the ship with Zimsky and the rest of them in the weapons center, we can see that the screen she is looking at shows a shot of the black stuff coming towards them. The shot changes but then when it comes back to the screen, you can see the exact same footage used a moment ago.

Continuity: Just before the shuttle stops in front of the bridge, we can see the worker being "touched" by the shuttles shadow. In the subsequent shot we can see the shuttle is too far away from the bridge for this to happen.

Other: When the ship punches through the geode it is eventually stopped by a large crystal. Long shot of all the crew in the cabin - they are strapped into their seats and are bouncing around, finally being thrown forward against their seat belts as the ship comes to a sudden halt. Aaron Eckhart seated on the left remains sitting upright, no movement, no sudden pitching forward as the ship stops. He then turns his head to his left and mouths what looks like the magic 'f' word. Looks like he fluffed the scene and realized it.

Factual error: When the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed by the sun's unfiltered rays (ya, right) the two towers of the bridge lean in the wrong direction. When the middle of the bridge is gone, only the tension from the anchor wires (connecting to land) would remain and they would pull the towers outward. However, in the movie the towers lean inward.

Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, the space shuttle is landing off course and they only have moments to figure something out. This makes no sense. Shuttles take a long time to land - about an hour from the time of the reentry burn to touchdown. After the burn, reentry begins about a half an hour before touchdown. There is at least 20+ minutes of glide time. Surely somebody would have noticed they were off course a lot sooner than they did.

Continuity: When Braz is showing the thing with the mouse in the box, the laser cuts a hole in the concrete, the steel plate and the wall. When the lasers reach the wall, a small plate falls from the wall, revealing another hole with the shape of a bottle. Where does that come from. If he tried the experiment before (explaining the second hole), wouldn't the bottle be vaporized as well?

Factual error: While in the giant geode, the inflowing magma is referred to as lava. It is only lava when it is erupted onto the surface of the earth. In any case the mantle is nowhere near as liquid as is shown, it is almost completely solid.