National Treasure (2004) - 80 mistakes

Deliberate "mistake": In the scene near the beginning of the movie where Ben finds the pipe and finds the message by rolling the pipe on the paper, the message is long and has symbols, but it is impossible for all of that to fit in the pipe.

Other: When Ben is threatening to throw the flare down into all the gunpowder, knowing what would happen when the fire strikes it, there are all kinds of sparks falling from the flare down into the fire anyway. Wouldn't one of those sparks would easily have set the powder off?

Continuity: In the scene where Ben and Riley meet Abigail for the first time, Abigail's assistant ushers them into the office and the camera shows her walking out of the office. In the next shot you see the camera on Abigail talking to the two men. When the camera pans back to them, you see the assistant leaving the room again.

Continuity: When Gates and Riley are talking in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the clouds in the background change. It would be possible that they change so quickly during the shots, but only if there was a gale and not sunny weather as it is in the movie.

Continuity: When Riley is in the Subway to install the video feed, he places his laptop on a table. On its left side there is a little antenna. When the laptop is on the ground, the antenna is horizontal. In the next shot, the antenna is already folded out in a 45° angle.

Continuity: When Riley is cutting into the pipe holding the cable for the National Archives, the hole he cuts changes shape after the shot showing him examining the wires.

Continuity: When Dr. Chase is entering her password she goes for the first letter on the keyboard. Her little finger is at the right end of the space bar and her index finger is hitting the key. When the shot changes to the close-up of her hand, the little finger is in the area of the CTRL key and the middle finger is the one which hits a key, in the area of the m or comma key.

Continuity: When Abigail keys in her password to the preservation room, she only presses the keyboard 9 times including the return key. If "Valley Forge" was the password, she would have had to have used at least 12 keystrokes (including the return key.)

Continuity: When Gates takes out the champagne glass after making the fingerprints visible, the time on his watch changes from 9:11 to half past something.

Revealing: When Ben and Ian get the two different fingerprints from two different people, Mr. Ferguson [random security guard] and Abigail Chase, they are the exact same fingerprints. This can be confirmed on the DVD with pause and zoom. Moreover, the two scans show exactly the same emphasis/pressure on different regions within the print, with more light and detail on the left side and little in the center.

Continuity: When Gates enters the password he has hit the keyboard 4 times "V A (actually the "Caps lock-key, as explained elsewhere) L L" but when we see the screen with the access code, there are only 2 stars hiding the letters.

Other: When Gates enters the password to enter the preservation room he accidentally hits the Caps Lock key instead of the "a" key.

Continuity: When the two vans are driving away from the Archives, Dr. Chase tries to open the door to escape. As the camera pans from her face to the door handle, you can see by the way her hair moves that the quarter-second sequence is run in reverse.

Other: When Gates writes down the numbers from the back of the Declaration of Independence he forgets one number. On the document there are the following numbers: 11-6-6, 12-18-7, 14-3-7. Ben however only writes down 11-6-6, 14-3-7 and then keeps on.

Factual error: Ben, Riley, and Abigail are driving into Philadelphia at sunrise to go to the Franklin Institute. They are shown driving west on the Ben Franklin Bridge. The sun is actually setting in the west behind Philadelphia, not rising.

Continuity: When Gates and Dr. Chase are in the store to buy new clothes, Abigail is coming out of the changing cubicle. She opens the door wing while having both hands on the edge, when the shot changes, she leans on the edge with both forearms.

Factual error: The clock on the back of the $100 bill reads approximately 4:10 not 2:22. This is the design of both the current $100 bill and the bill used in the movie. The $100 bill will not be redesigned until 2006.

Continuity: When Ben finds the glasses at Independence Hall, it is 3:20 because of daytime savings time. However when the bad guys chase Abigail and Riley in the market they pass a large clock showing the time to be 2:37.

Factual error: In the scene when Ben, Abigail and Riley are on the tower of Independence Hall, they look at the shadow marking the secret place where the glasses are hidden. It is 3:20. The shadow of the cross is in the second third of the pillar. When Ian is on the tower the shadow has already moved to the top of the wall. As the others have left Independence Hall at 3:28 the shadow must have traveled the distance in about 4 minutes. This is far too quickly.

Continuity: When Gates is arrested by the FBI you see Riley and Chase coming around the corner twice.