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Mistakes

When hero boy and girl and Billy are on the runaway car at the north pole, they crash into the stopper at the end of the tracks. They are flung backwards when in reality, due to inertia, they should have been flung forward into the guard rail. See more...

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Whenever Hero Boy asks Hero Girl, "Are you sure?" some dramatic music is played. This is the same music that was used in the BTTF Trilogy whenever Marty Mcfly was called a chicken. See more...

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The Polar Express (2004) - 17 corrections

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks (add more)

Genres: Animation, Adventure, Family, Fantasy

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
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During then scene where hot chocolate is being served, the girl puts a cup of hot chocolate under her seat so she can give it to the lonely boy in the last car. One of the waiters sees that she doesn't have a cup for herself and gives her another one. She then puts that one under the seat too, and the cup she previously put under the seat is no longer there. [She actually puts the first cup next to her on the seat, then she takes THAT cup and hides it under the seat. It is one cup that she moves from next to her to under her seat when no one is looking.]
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While the train is climbing the spiral-shaped mountain, the engine and cars are shown to physically bend with the tracks. [The train is literally made of Christmas Magic and defies physics at every step of the journey. ]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When the train arrives in the street the room of the boy's chamber shows moving lights from a (stopping) passing train. The room of the boy is upstairs and the train doesn't pass at that level. Outside you can also see that the light from the windows of the carriages shines downwards on the snow, but not on the house. [All events involving the train are intended to be either 1) a dream, or 2) a magical journey. Either case negates this mistake. If it's a dream there are no limitations. If it's a magical journey, the train would flash the lights into the boy's window to wake him and be sure he boarded the train.]
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When the boy and the girl are at the front of the train when they find the girl's lost ticket, it is fluttering about in the air. The train is moving quite fast and the ticket should have been blown back like the snow. They obviously did this so the children could catch the ticket. [All events involving the train are intended to be either 1) a dream, or 2) a magical journey. Either case negates this mistake. If it's a dream there are no limitations. If it's a magical journey, the ticket can behave in any way it chooses.]
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In the scene where they arrive in the village, and they are telling the lonely boy how he should see Santa, during the scene beeping can be heard. [What sort of "beeping"? I have seen this movie countless times because of my daughter, and there are a lot of sounds going on during that scene, but I can't hear anything resembling beeping.]
Edit Corrected by wizard_of_gore
If Lonely Boy has not been 'naughty', and we are meant to assume he has not, and since Santa does exist, why has he not visited the boy's house previous Christmases? [We do not know that Santa didn't visit his house the previous years. All the information we are given is that Christmas didn't work out for him so there could be another reason. e.g. His brother/sister(s) could have either taken or broken his presents the previous years. Who knows?]
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In the scene where hero boy and the other children are watching Santa's sleigh fly through the air to leave the North Pole, you specifically hear Santa call one of the reindeer, "Donder". If you turn on the closed caption, it also says "Donder". Historically that reindeer's name is "Donner". [The reindeer known today as Donner were originally Dunder (the Dutch word for "thunder"). Dunder was later reprinted as Donder, which developed into Donner (the German for "thunder") Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus. So, historically, that reindeer's name was Donder first. Santa apparently still uses that name.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When the boy gets up out of the pile of coal (after skiing to the front of the train), the coal rolls off of him very easily and he is not dirty at all. Real coal, while not being amazingly dense, is still substantially heavier and messier to touch. [MAGIC coal is light in weight AND perfectly clean too.]
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As the train moves away the boy changes his mind about getting on and runs to catch up. He jumps on the train and as he is watching the houses pass by, they pass his house. You know it's his because of the snowman with the mittens. The train car he got onto had already passed his house though while he was standing there. [Although the boy runs after the train and jumps on, he actually had walked a great distance away from his house towards the end of the train and thus it is from his postion still possible to pass his house and see the snowman.]
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When the children look out of the train and first see the elves marching by, at least one of the elf's legs are not moving as he is walking. His body is moving along the same pace as the others but his legs are stuck in mid-stride and not moving at all. [Now I have seen this film on dvd I looked at this specific scene several times but am unable to find the dreaded elf. One elf appears to make odd movements with his legs however this is in preparation for a so-called 'cart-wheel' many elves make whilst walking. I can't see any animated mistake.]
Edit
The size of Santa's sack of toys changes dramatically throughout various scenes. When we first see the pile of toys and the sack drawn up around it, it's an enormous 6 stories high. Once the sack is flying over the town, we see a shot from Hero Boy's perspective leaning out of the bag, and he "just" clears a chimney by only a few feet. Once in the town square, the bag shrinks to about 10 feet tall when the kids are sliding down, then grows to a respectable 30 feet when Santa makes his departure. [Correct, the size of Santa's sack changes, but it also weighs nothing, which is demonstrated when he leaves to deliver his presents to the WHOLE world. The sleigh should tipple over immediately on take off, however sits perfectly still during the acrobatic departure of Santa. In other words: it's a MAGIC sack and magic sacks weigh nothing AND can change in size whenever they like, especially in dreams.]
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The number of cars on The Polar Express changes throughout the movie. In some scenes, like the frozen over lake, the train has a total 7 cars including the engine. In other scenes, like the arrival at the North Pole, the train has 10 or more. [I agree that the amount of carriages (cars) changes throughout the film. But this is no ordinary train. It's the Polar Express and anything can happen on the Polar Express: it stops in your street, it has a dozen or so waiters who serve you hot chocolate in an instance and then disappear and foremost: it is able to act as a roller coaster. In other words it is a MAGIC train and magic trains can change their amount of carriages (or cars) just like that.]
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Throughout the movie it is snowing, and the boy is frequently outside, yet it appears that not one single snowflake lands on him, or anyone else, on their head or really anywhere on their bodies. [As the boy tears his pocket when the train arrives, following which he has his adventure, marbles fall on the floor. The following morning the same happens again: he tears the same pocket and the marbles fall on the floor. In conclusion: he must have dreamt it all and in dreams anything can happen, like not freezing to death in your pajamas on the North Pole and snowflakes not bothering you.]
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When Hero Boy returns home after his visit to the North Pole, in one shot the snowman in his front yard only has one mitten. All the other shots in the film, the snowman has two mittens. [I checked this scene on DVD and it appears that the snowman has two mittens, although at one stage the background snow tends to obscure the left mitten a little, but it IS visible.]
Edit
After the girl and lonely boy sing their song the northern lights appear. However the girl points and shouts 'look' half a second before the lights actually appear. [The girl does see the beginning of the Northern Lights on the left of the screen; it happens as they pass the arctic circle.]
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When the ticket flies out of the boy's hand, it floats into the eagle's mouth. It catches the ticket on the right, but when the shot changes it is holding it in the middle. [First of all, the ticket does not just fly out of the boys hand and float into the eagle's mouth. It flies out of his hand, gets stuck in a windowframe, flies up then down into a forest and lands, where a pack of wolves passing by kicks it up, it sticks to their fur for a bit, then flies back up as the eagle swoops down and snags it. The eagle never leaves frame in this continuous shot when he does turn around, making the left side of the ticket now the right, and it is in the same position in his mouth, so this is not an error.]
Edit
When the main boy rings the bell, his hand is on the metal yet the bell rings just fine. Anybody who has tried to ring a bell the same way knows that if your hand is on the metal a bell won't ring properly. [Within the story, the bells are magical and special, they can only be heard by those that believe in Santa Claus, so the rules of normal bells do not apply.]
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