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Quotes

Ray: Can you think of a plan that doesn't involve your 10-year-old sister joining the army?

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Mistakes

After Ray and Robbie's argument, as the soldiers drive by, when Rachel shouts, "Who's gonna take care of me if you go?" Robbie looks at Rachel and says something to her, but nothing is heard as the shot cuts away to Robbie picking her up. See more...

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Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, stars of the 1953 version of this movie, make a small cameo in this movie as Mary Ann's parents. You can see them at the end when the whole family is reunited. See more...

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War of the Worlds (2005) - 77 corrections

Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, Tim Robbins, Tom Cruise (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi, Thriller

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.

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The fact that alien weapons and vehicles were planted thousands or millions of years ago and no one detected any of them, even in the middle of cities, is quite a stretch but I'll accept it. What I can't accept is that these vehicles and weapons are literally eons of years old that they are using. That doesn't make any sense. We wouldn't go to war with equipment that is only 70-100 years old. why would they use equipment against us that is thousands or millions of years old? You mean they haven't improved on anything? [(1) The eons-old equipment is what's buried there for them to use. With no apparent method of bringing updated equipment along, they're stuck with what they've already put in place. (2) We wouldn't go into battle with 100 year old equipment because we know that said equipment couldn't possibly compete with the more modern stuff that our opponents would have available. The alien invaders, however, have no such concern - despite their equipment being millions of years old, it still outperforms human technology by a considerable margin, so it's simply not necessary to use anything newer.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
When Ray and Rachael are in Ray's back garden witnessing the storm after Rachael says "no it's not" it sounds like Ray is saying "oh Lucy" but if you turn on the subtitles it says " O, say can" [This is a subtitle error, not an audio problem.]
Edit Corrected by THGhost
In the scene where Ray is taken by the alien Tripod, at the part where he is taken into the Tripod interior, it is shown that he pulled the pins of a few hand grenades while he was inside. The hand grenades shown in the movie are M67 grenades, the standard US hand grenade, which has a 4 second delayed fuse. In the scene, it takes about 20 seconds from him originally getting taken in to the part where the grenades actually detonate. If it was realistic, it would have detonated earlier, before he was pulled out. [Incorrect. Pulling the pin on a grenade does not arm them, releasing your grip on the safety lever arms the grenade. At no point does Ray let go of the grenade until he's ready to, and at the point he releases it, is when it arms.]
Edit Corrected by GalahadFairlight Time
As they main characters walk to the ferry, there is a blood donation lady explaining that they are full for certain types of blood. Why are they taking blood donations? The aliens vaporise every part of the human body. The only reason they would need blood is if limbs were torn off (And people shooting people would not be the cause to ask the Red Cross to call for a national blood drive during an alien attack). [There are plenty of injuries outside limb loss and gunshot wounds that might require a blood transfusion to treat.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
As Tom Cruise yells , "Get off the car" to the mob in Athens NY and the guy in the red flannel jacket is on the roof. In the next shot he's standing next to the driver's side door. [After Ray shouts "Get off the car!" you can see the guy in the red jacket getting off the roof, when the shot cuts, there is enough time for the guy to completely get off and stand with his arms up.]
Edit Corrected by Potorrero Time
In the final scene where the military begins to fire Javelin anti-tank missiles at the tripods, the missile flies a straight path. But; a Javelin is a "top attack" missile, meaning it goes vertical and comes down at a steep angle to hit a tank in the weakest part of the armor, so they would do the same thing to the tripods instead of a straight flightpath. [The Javelin missile has both a top attack mode and a direct attack mode. With no evidence that the top armour on the tripods is particularly weak, the military have apparently decided to try the direct attack mode, possibly in hope of immobilising the tripods by damaging the leg structure.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
The same silver Mazda station wagon appears in numerous locations in the background during the attack on Ray's neighborhood. Though it is possible that that car in that color is very popular there, it is obvious the film-makers used the same car. [You said yourself it's possible the car was very popular, so no mistake unless you're able to find something (i.e. license plate) proving it's the same car.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
When the first tripod emerges there is a man filming it on his camera. As has been stated before, the camera could have still been working because it wasn't connected to a power source and was switched off. However, this cannot be, because in Ray's house, the lights which were off didn't work, and what's more his mobile phone (which was off and not connected to a charger or anything like that) also did not work when he tried it. [Ray's phone was never off, so it does not work. As for the lights in the house not working, they require "electricity" to be COMING TO THE HOUSE to operate, so whether or not they were on or off makes no difference, as a power station affected by EMP would result in no production of ANY electricity to all of the houses/buildings in the entire town.]
Edit Corrected by Jazetopher
After Ray says to Robbie that the next time he takes the car without permission he will call the cops, he says "Robbie" and slaps his hands together. As he is doing the clapping a car is driving by, but the cars are all supposed to be down so no one should be driving. [There are people pushing all of the cars that are seen moving.]
Edit Corrected by Thisbe
During the filming of the underwater scenes (where the ferry capsizes) Steven Spielberg played a prank on Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning by playing the dramatic music from Jaws through the massive underwater speakers on the sound stage. [IMDb ripoff.]
Edit
When Tom Cruise exits his ex-wife's house where the plane has crashed, you see one of the rotors turning slowly. The plane crashed late the night before, that rotor would surely have stopped turning by now. It didn't look like it was that windy outside and even if it was; it would take a big gust of wind to keep it turning. [Turbines have a lot of kinetic energy. Inertia alone could easily have kept it spinning for hours. A lot of wind would be required to start it turning, but if it was already in motion the wind speed could be substantially less and still have a noticeable effect.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
In the scene when the aliens first emerge from the ground, there is a man trying to video the event on his camcorder. If the lightning wiped out all electricity, why is his camcorder still working? [Listed and corrected several times already. Please check before submitting.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
As to the initial EM pulse, it is unlikely that changing the solenoid on the van would have helped, as the one he has to change it with was in proximity to the van when the EM pulse disabled them. Unless he keeps spare solenoids in a shielded box then it is likely that all solenoids would have been equally affected, irregardless of whether or not it was installed or not. [If an electrical object is completely turned off and not attached to a power source then it isn't necessarily destroyed by an EM Pulse. Therefore, if he had a spare solenoid on a shelf, it could have been fine.]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
As the three drive away from the bathroom stop, after encountering the Army for the first time, we can hear the sound of the EAS (emergency alert system) on the radio, then the announcer stating "This was only a test if this had been an actual emergency." If ever there was a time for the EAS to be activated for real, this would be it. [Not a mistake, however. Tests are simply automatic. That's the irony.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When Ray comes upon the news cameraman scouring the wreckage of the crashed airliner, the cameraman does not hear Ray's questions. The female reporter explains that he's deaf from a shell that exploded near him, and demonstrates this by yelling at him only inches from his head. A couple of shots later, a tripod is heard trumpeting off in the distance (and is certainly less loud than the shouting demonstration) "Hear that? We gotta go," exclaims the deaf cameraman. [The deaf guy never says anything. It's a different camerman who says that.]
Edit
At the very end, when Tom's son appears and they hug, there is no explanation whatsoever as to how he survived the explosion that engulfed him earlier. When he runs over the hill all we see is fire rising into the sky, incinerating anything that was near. It is impossible for any normal person to have survived a blast of that magnitude. [Just because there is no explanation offered in the film, does not mean it doesn't fall within the realm of possibility. Yes, there is a huge fireball at the top of the hill, but obviously Robbie had just barely made it past that specific area, before it was consumed by fire.]
Edit Corrected by lmao
When Ray arrives at his home to meet his ex and kids after he gets off work, his ex-wife is wearing a short green blouse with a long black skirt. When she's in the bedroom speaking to Ray and Robbie regarding his paper, she's wearing a long dress, then in the next shot walking down the stairs, it is a short blouse again. [Mary Ann is wearing the same outfit throughout these shots, including Ray's driveway, in Ray's kitchen, walking up the stairs, in the kids' bedroom, then walking down the stairs, to the last shots of her at Ray's front door. She wears a brown skirt, a green floral pregnancy blouse, a long blue knit sweater with a brown furled edged collar (sleeves are also furled and are visible under coat sleeves in some shots), and a long grey tweed coat.]
Edit Corrected by lmao
In the scene when the aliens first arrive, all the electrical services, phones, mobile phones, cars, etc. cease to function, but when the aliens start moving and attacking, we see a woman taking photographs with a digital camera and a man using a video camera. [EMPs only work on running electronics. For instance, cars, cell phones and wrist-watches but if a device is not on when the EMP blast occurred it can still function properly. So after an EMP is triggered, you can still use digital cameras and video cameras. Assuming they weren't on.]
Edit
In one scene after their car has been taken, the three bunch together and Robbie has a bloody nose. You see him in the next shot and his nose is clear, in fact his whole face is clean. [They don't bunch together, and it's not in "the next shot" that the blood is gone. At the diner, Robbie has the bloody nose when the gunshot is heard, and Rachel runs to his arms, while Ray sits across from them at the table. Now there are three shots where Robbie's face is not visible, the first of which he buries his face into his wet jacket sleeve while he hugs Rachel. It's very reasonable to think that the small amount of blood was wiped away during the time his face was not seen onscreen.]
Edit Corrected by lmao
When Ray Ferrier walks to the area where the lightning struck 26 times in one place, he walks past a number of cars which are between him and the camera. In the window of the last one he walks past, you can see a cameraman looking into the lens of the camera filming the shot. [The reflection in the window of this car is a gentleman with a baseball cap simply walking past the car, along with the rest of the crowd on the busy street; he does not look into a lens, nor is there any lens or any other camera part visible in the reflection.]
Edit Corrected by lmao

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