The Andromeda Strain (1971) - 8 mistakes

Continuity: On Day 2, when the two officers go into the town's doctor's office, they leave the van with the driver's door way open, beyond 90 degrees, almost 180. The door didn't move to indicate it corrected itself as they went in. When they come out, the door is almost closed. And there has been no indication of a wind other than the helicopter, and that is supposed to be 1000 feet up and not even close to the office.

Continuity: In the scene where Dutton and Hall are viewing the monitor showing where the two patients are, Dutton's symbol (initial "D" on the monitor) is shown leaving the room on the monitor. When the monitor is shown again, Dutton's and Hall's symbols are both in the room. The characters had not left the room as of yet.

Factual error: There are numerous references in the film about the type of jet, a Phantom, that crashes 60 miles outside of Piedmont, with a consultant at the crash site even saying "There's no rubber at all used in a Phantom F-4, General." The crashed tail-section of the plane at the crash site is and obviously not from a Phantom jet, but from a F-104 Star-fighter, a much smaller and older jet than a Phantom.

Continuity: When Stone and Levitt are examining the capsule, the angle of the camera changes each time the camera goes to a higher magnification. However, the following shot shows the camera mounted straight up and down with no joint to pivot for an angle change.

Continuity: In the briefing room Dr. Stone is explaining Wildfire's electronic mapping system. He advises that the old man and the baby are indicated on the diagram by the two red X's. When he says this the diagram shows that the old man and the baby are at the top of the complex, just right of the elevator shaft. Dr. Hall asks to see the patients and Stone switches to a camera view. On the video it shows that the patients have instantly moved into the elevator shaft and are already descending past levels 2 and 3, not at the top of the complex as shown on the monitor.

Revealing: When the monkey is on the autopsy table and the screen is split between the rat and the monkey, the fingers on the monkey's right hand flex twice. Of course the monkey is an actor and not really dead but he's supposed to be dead in the movie.

Continuity: Stone and Leavitt are examining the rock in the capsule and decide they need to send it to the lab for higher magnification. Stone uses the mechanical tweezers to remove the rock and place it in a transport chamber. After removing the rock they look at the monitor to see the patch moving (Leavitt: "My God, it's growing"). However, at this time the rock was moved and no longer under the camera. Could they have been looking at one of the patches around the rock? Not possible, the camera was moved to get the tweezers in (the last camera view was a lower magnification shot of the tweezers entering the capsule).

Revealing: When Hall and Stone are looking into the windows at Piedmont, they see an old man lying dead in a barber's chair. When the camera switches to a reverse angle of the man's face in close-up (looking back out towards the window), the man's bottom lip is moving.