Quotes

Jason Treborn: You can't change who people are without destroying who they were.

An alternate ending to the film has Evan going back to when he was in the womb and killing himself by squeezing the umbilical cord to save his friends from events he may cause. On the DVD Director's cut. See more...

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The Butterfly Effect (2004) - 31 mistakes

starring Amy Smart, Ashton Kutcher, Ethan Suplee (add more)

Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Thriller

Mistakes

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Continuity: When Evan and his mom go to the psychic for a reading, the position of the money in the glass bowl differs depending on camera angle. (Director's cut)

Edit Submitted by lmao Time

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: Now a resident at Sunnyvale, when Evan looks under his bed for his journals, in the shot from under the mattress the blood stains that appear on his white tee differ from the stain in the shots before and after.

Edit Submitted by lmao

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: After little Kayleigh picks up the blockbuster, older Evan is now at Sunnyvale Institution. The blankets are not tucked under the mattress, then they are tucked when he gets out of bed, and in the shot from under the bed, as he searches for his journals, the blankets hang down to the floor, yet in the next shot they are not.

Edit Submitted by lmao

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: After Evan beats Tommy to death on the college campus, it shows him kneeling over the body, and there is no blood on his collar. The shot changes to Kayleigh screaming, then back to Evan, in the same position, but now with blood splatter on his collar. He had already finished assaulting Tommy, so there shouldn't have been anymore blood spray.

Edit Submitted by Reformed Dispatcher Picture Time

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Plot hole: When Evan is in jail with the religious prisoner trying to get him to help him get his journals back he goes to the scene where he is drawing that homicidal picture in kindergarten, but he gets up and puts the spikes that holds documents through his hands, creating a stigmata-style scar. The religious guy in the cell with him is so amazed because of this he thinks Evan is a prophet and he decides to help him. If Evan had gone back in time and got those scars on his hands, he would have changed the original timeline and would have arrived in jail with those scars the whole time. Some people try to correct this using the "If I can create scars, then can I fix them?" statement Evan made to defend the mistake and suggest he can create instant scars but he was using the word "scars" to refer to the negative events; not literal scars on his body. The scar he got when he burned himself in the past didn’t magically appear on him the moment he returned from the past; it became part of a new, slightly altered timeline (just like the scars on his hands should have been) and it let him know he can change history.

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Correction Edit text Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: When Evan tries to get his journals back from the bullies in the jail, the object that the guy on the bed is reading alternates from a closed copy of Hustler, to a journal and back several times.

Edit Submitted by SexyIrishLeprechaun Time

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: In the final shot of the hypnosis scene we see Evan from above. The blood on his shirt that was visible in the last shot has vanished.

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Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: When Evan wakes up in a mental ward, after he killed Kaylee, the camera zooms around him in bed, which is in the middle of the room. When he gets up to get his journals, the bed is on the left side of the room against the wall.

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Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: At Sunnyvale, when Evan bursts into Dr. Redfield's office the Doctor stands up and in the wide shot Dr. Redfield starts to put his books down on the desk, but the way he holds the books differs in the next close-up.

Edit Submitted by lmao

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: When Evan shows up at Kayleigh's apartment, in the close-up she covers the plate with the newspaper. In the next shot from the doorway the newspaper, bottled water, etc., are positioned very differently.

Edit Submitted by lmao Time

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: When Evan and his mom are at the restaurant together the flowers, food, etc., change depending on camera angle.

Edit Submitted by lmao Time

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Continuity: As the teacher and mom walk by the desk, one of the pink papers is not fully impaled on the spike, but a moment later it is.

Edit Submitted by Kristal Time

Correction Edit text Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: When Ashton Kutcher convinces his jail bunkmate that he is personally in touch with Jesus, by using his journal to cause stigmata to appear on his hands, a stigmata mark can be seen in his right palm before he changes the past (just as he mumbles "tell me if you see anything weird").

Edit Time

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Revealing: In the scene where Evan wakes up and notices that he has no arms, right when you see the stubs you can see a faint shadow moving next to his head and moving on the headboard. This shadow is the shadow of his hand before it was digitally removed.

Edit Submitted by BillyBlake Time

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: When armless Evan goes back, the journal, cereal bowl and OJ are visible in a close-up and in the next shot young Evan rushes away from the table. The position of the journal is quite different in the two shots.

Edit Submitted by lmao Time

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: As Evan eats the burger at the Hilltop Cafe, the bit of burger left in his hand after his last bite differs in the next shot as he puts it down.

Edit Submitted by lmao Time

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Factual error: Although the film is supposedly set in New York, there is a Canadian speed limit sign in one of the first shots. Across the street which Evan lives on.

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Continuity: When Evan goes back in time to when they are putting the blockbuster in the mail box, his cigarette falls out of his mouth and onto his shirt. He gets burnt, as is shown when he returns to modern times, but all the rest of the scenes with them in the forest just after it happens, there is no burn mark on his shirt.

Edit Submitted by Poombaea

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Plot hole: In the scene where Evan is in Sunnyvale institute and demands his journals, the doctor says he has never had any. The very same doctor told him to start writing in journals when he was seven before he killed Kaylee, so when Evan went back in time to destroy the firework, he couldn't have erased journals that were written before that. Evan was only allowed to write 2 pages before the incident where he killed Kaylee. This event completely altered his history, allowing the courts to place him in the mental hospital afterwards. There was no continuation of writing the journals because in this timeline his blackouts were not the main issue.

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Correction Edit text Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Other: When Evan finishes talking to the "prostitute Kayleigh" on the restaurant, he goes to his room, which finds his friend having sex with a girl. When Evan demands them to leave the room, he sits on the chair, and opens his diary, but you can see that when he opens it, the pages are empty. He doesn't turn to another page before he begins to read, so he appears to be reading from the blank page.

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