X

Great sites

Anything Hollywood

Atomic Popcorn

Banned in Hollywood

Bits & Pieces

Blockbuster Buzz

Book mistakes

CanMag

The Daily Column

Daily Stab

Defamer

Double Viking

EHOWA

The Evil Beet

Film Drunk

Filmofilia

Filmspotting

Foundry Music

Game mistakes

Geek Tyrant

Gone Hollywood

Hollyscoop

Hollywood Outbreak

I Am Bored

I Love Bacon

Joblo movie news

Movie Banter

Movie Buzz

Movie spoilers

Movie timeline

Other crap

Screenjunkies

Sky movie reviews

Something Really Funny

Tengossip

Trailer Addict

Unreality Magazine

Virtually Existing

Quotes

Guinevere: This is heaven for me.

Lancelot: I don't believe in Heaven, I've been living in this Hell. But if you represent what Heaven is, then take me there.

See more...

Trivia

According to negative test screening reports, the filmmakers were forced to make post-production changes to it, such as reshooting battles and adding a wedding scene to give an uplifting ending. The expensive post-production changes were done within three to four weeks before the film's North American release on July 7th. See more...

Mistake pictures

Movie Mistakes blog

Popular blog posts:

Top 15 biggest Harry Potter film mistakes

The biggest mistakes in the Harry Potter movies

15 biggest mistakes in Titanic

The 20 biggest Friends mistake pictures

10 Twilight mistakes in pictures

Update alerts | Exclude type?

King Arthur (2004) - 40 mistakes

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, Keira Knightley, Ray Winstone, Stellan Skarsgard, Stephen Dillane (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, History, War

Mistakes
Trivia
Quotes
Corrections
Questions
Submit
⇑
⇓

Factual error: The major Saxon invasion (the one we see in the movie) was set around 400 A.D. After a short time in the film, the battle of Badon Hill starts. This battle occurred in 512 A.D. Arthur must be VERY old.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Audio problem: When Arthur is telling the knights about their final mission, just after Bors storms out, he says, "Venora'll kill me.", but his lips don't move.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Deliberate "mistake": From outside, the dungeon where Arthur finds Guinevere has no windows. When the knights force themselves in, it is pitch dark. But in some scenes a window is to be seen in the background, although the jails are one floor down. Even better the cages, in which among others Lucan sits: they are lighted from below.

Edit Time
⇑
⇓

Factual error: At the very beginning of the movie, the voice-over tells us it's around 300 AD. We see Roman soldiers, carrying shields and standards with the Chi Rho symbols. Those weren't introduced around 300 AD, but much later. Legend has it that emperor Constantine ordered his men to paint the symbols on their shields before a battle in 312, but Constantine's Arch in Rome, which depicts his victorious soldiers, doesn't show any of these symbols and the symbols in the movie are made of iron, not paint.

Edit Time
⇑
⇓

Factual error: All the Roman troops wear armour and uniforms appropriate to the 1st century AD (the "classic" era most often depicted in illustrations). The film is actually set several hundred years later, by which time Roman soldiers looked very different.

Edit Submitted by Necrothesp
⇑
⇓

Other: The movie starts with scenes from a battle between Romans and Sarmatians. For a few seconds, we see a (very dark) shot of a warrior holding a severed head in his hand. That very same shot is used later in the battle between the Woads and the Sarmatian knights protecting the Bishop. Director's cut only.

Edit Time
⇑
⇓

Factual error: The Romans left England in 410 AD and the Anglo-Saxons didn't arrive in England until the late sixth century. Between these times the Britons were in control of the island.

Edit Submitted by ton van mierle Time
⇑
⇓

Factual error: Two things are wrong about the trebuchets. While Romans did have siege engines, like the catapult and the ballista, the trenches apparently is a Chinese invention. In any case, it wasn't introduced in Europe until the Middle Ages. Also a trebuchet is a complicated device, much more difficult to operate then it looks. Firing it is easy, but hitting a target certainly isn't. (With modern reconstructions, even when using ballistic calculations, it still takes days of practice to get to a point of some accuracy.) When the Roman army left, the trebuchets were completely useless. In the final battle the Woads nevertheless use them to great effect - impossible.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Factual error: The Saxons are seen invading to the north of Hadrian's' wall. In reality, they invaded to the south of it, and that is the reason why they managed to take control of Southern England.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Revealing: At the start of the film when the Bishops convoy is ambushed by the Woads Arthur stabs his sword at the ambusher, totally missing but the Woad still falls as if stabbed.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Continuity: When Cedric holds wounded Tristan to show his triumph to Arthur, the underdog is standing (you see his head at the height of Cedric's), next (when he looks at his falcon) he is kneeling, and when Tristan receives his deathblow, he's standing again.

Edit Time
⇑
⇓

Factual error: The artillery in this movie are counterweight trebuchets, a type powered by a falling weight. The Romans had many spring and torsion powered artillery, such as scorpions, ballistas and catapults, but did not have trebuchets. By the 3rd century BC the Chinese had the "torsion trebuchet", similar to a trebuchet but powered by men hauling on ropes instead of a falling weight; it didn't reach Europe until the late sixth century. The pure counterweight trebuchet as shown in the movie sometime in the fifth century AD probably didn't exist before the late 12th century and the first one in Britain was built in 1216 AD.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Continuity: In the shot of Bors (during Venora's singing), Galahad is shown in the back with Gawain being the closest knight to him, a stream directly behind, and a wall far behind. Cut to Lancelot, then to Tristan who is near a wall, then to Galahad with Tristan right behind him and the wall closer.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Continuity: When the knights & the Bishop are around the round table, the Bishop's assistant is heard saying to Jols (after introducing Bishop Germanius), "A round table? What sort of evil is this?" and he is not on screen. Jols, however, is and he stands as though there is no one talking to him. In the very next shot he is looking at the assistant and speaks to him as though they were talking the whole time.

Edit Time
⇑
⇓

Factual error: The scene in which the two armies confront each other on the frozen lake contains several flaws. First, when thick ice is broken with a sharp object like a pickaxe, you merely get a hole through the ice, it will only fragment into large pieces if it is thin. Clearly, this is not the case, as the armies are able to walk on it. Second, ice does not shatter in the way depicted in the film, with cracks travelling outwards a great distance, but just crumbles around the area where force is applied. Third, if cracks did radiate outwards, they would propagate sideways and backwards as well as forwards (like glass does when it is punctured by a small, sharp object), meaning that both armies would end up falling through the ice.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Continuity: When Cerdic is about to kill Arthur on the final battle, look at Cerdic's hair which changes position on his forehead during close-ups.

Edit Submitted by Malaver
⇑
⇓

Revealing: Just before the battle of Maldon, the British spy climbs into the big tree and you can see the tree is fake. The spy isn't actually climbing the tree (by grabbing branches), he's using some kind of ladder.

Edit Time
⇑
⇓

Audio problem: In the ice battle scene, after the Knights unsuccessfully attempt to make the Saxon army cluster to break the ice, Arthur tells the Knights "It's not going to break". But if you look at Arthur, his lips aren't moving when he says it.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Revealing: Despite at least two days of near blizzard conditions there is never more than a few inches of snow on the ground. The amount of snow we see falling should have left well over a foot of snow.

Edit
⇑
⇓

Continuity: When Cerdic calls for the main body of the Saxons to go through the door Cynric is shown drawing his sword, waving it over his head and yelling. In the next shot seconds later his sword is sheathed and he is walking calmly beside his father.

Edit