Corrected entry: After Marv gets a nail shoved in his foot in the basement and instead of going back up stairs, he just decides to go back up the slippery ice stairs outside, why did he ditch the basement stairs, he could have gotten in the house a lot quicker without cutting his feet, all he had to do was look out for the nail.
Correction: Marv is also not the brightest bulb in the box to it's pretty reasonable to believe he wouldn't have thought any of it through.
Corrected entry: There is no such thing as a fully booked flight, especially a long-haul flight like the one Mrs. McCallister needs. Two or three seats are always kept spare in case of emergencies like this one. If not required they are given or sold cheaply to airline employees. If an airline would not find her a seat the U.S. Embassy in Paris would. One phone call from an embassy staffer and Mrs. McCallister would be on a flight. She is not stupid - she would know exactly what to do.
Correction: Airlines routinely remove passengers from flights in order to accommodate people who require emergency transport. Just ask Dr David Dao, who was forcibly dragged off a United Airlines flight to make room for another passenger. His is just the most notable case. In fact it happens all the time.
If someone thought to call the embassy.
If Mrs McAllister didn't - and nothing in her character suggests that she is so stupid as to neglect such a vital fact - the one of the airline staff to whom she tells her story either would have told her to or would have done so on her behalf. That is an essential part of their training. As one poster said, it happens all the time.
Correction: Unless two or three of the other millions of people in all of Paris happened to have some sort of an emergency (or even faked one to get a seat) and also needed a flight that same day. Not terrifically unlikely, especially during the holiday season.
Not terrifically unlikely, terrifically impossible. There are eighty flights from Charles de Gaulle airport to the east coast of the USA every day and a similar number from Paris Orly. Mrs McAllister would be on one of those flights even if that meant forcibly removing a paying passenger to accommodate her. That's not my opinion, it's a fact.
I recognize the validity of the 'Emergency Flight Accommodation" deals mentioned above, but here's the thing-a major part of the movie (however unbelievable) is that nobody except Mrs. McAllister recognizes that the situation is an emergency. Take the earlier scene, where a cop is sent over: He knocks on the door a few times. We know that Kevin is home, just hiding under the bed. With no answer, he mutters into his walkie-talkie to "count their kids again", and drives off. That's. It. No further investigation, no repeat police visit. It's basically like Mrs. McAllister is an unreliable woman-who-cried-wolf. Given this, why the hell would an airline in this same 'world' start jostling passengers around and messing with its itinerary? Now that I think about it, a lot of this movie is like a nightmare about a Cassandra Complex, lol.
Corrected entry: The McCalisters overslept because the power was out. They wake up to the airport shuttle drivers knocking on the door. When they are leaving the house the electrician from the power company tells them he got the power back on. Later on the plane Mrs McCalister says she forgot to turn off the coffee pot, Mr McCalister says he turned off the coffee. The power was out so the coffee pot couldn't have been on.
Correction: The power went out during the night, but by the time they woke up it was back on (notice the clock radio was on, just with the wrong time). They likely made themselves coffee while everyone was rushing to get ready.
Correction: The power was back on when they woke as the alarm clock was on just not the correct time. So they could have made a pot of coffee prior to departure.
Corrected entry: When the family is rushing all over the house because they're late, they show Brooke coming down the stairs and Heather going up the stairs. Then the scene goes to Mitch Murphy and then comes back to the family rushing. The scene shows the same shot of Brooke and Heather going down and up the stairs. (00:13:50)
Corrected entry: When Kevin opens the window, he overhears Marv and Harry planning to return that night at nine o'clock. At this point, Kevin could have simply called the police and told them what was going to happen. The Wet Bandits would have been caught immediately.
Correction: 2 things, 1 he was worried the police wouldn't believe him and 2 he enjoyed being home alone at that point and didn't want cops to take him somewhere else.
He may have also been worried since he accidentally shoplifted.
Corrected entry: If the water Kevin poured on the steps froze almost instantly, it would be too cold outside for the tar he put on some steps to still be soft and sticky enough to adhere to Marvin's feet.
Correction: The tarred steps are inside the house, in the basement. The temperature outside is irrelevant as far as they are concerned.
I was thinking it was done outside in the dark. Now I'd question if tar would stay that sticky - even inside a basement. When the temperature outside is below freezing, my basement is relatively cold.
Corrected entry: Kevin can manage to do the shopping, and work out how to use the washing machine; and yet he needed his mum to help pack his suitcase?
Correction: All mothers see their kids as helpless, and all kids usually end up taking advantage of it.
Correction: This is a major theme of the movie. Kevin (and his family) learn that he's not helpless. He could have packed his suitcase if he'd actually tried.
Corrected entry: After Kevin leaves the church where he's talking with the old man he runs home to make a game plan to protect his house. Kevin runs up the walkway to the front door and walks right in - using no key. Was it unlocked the whole time?
Correction: Maybe it was. It's possible Kevin doesn't have a key to the house or doesn't know where a spare set is. I wasn't given a key to my house by my parents until I was probably twelve. If he doesn't have a key, then he has to leave the door unlocked whenever he goes out, lest he locks himself out of the house. Ultimately, an unlocked door is not a movie mistake.
Corrected entry: The entire plot relies on Kevin's parents being unable to call home to speak to their son, after the phone service to their house is severed by a falling tree (when the McAllisters are getting into the van a utility worker tells Mrs. McAllister that the power has been restored, but that the phones "are a mess" and that it will take several days to repair them, especially around the holidays). Kevin, however, is somehow able to call Little Nero's to deliver his very own cheese pizza; this is never explained. It serves no purpose but to set up the use of the "Angels with Dirty Souls" tape later in the film. If Kevin is able to do this because the phone lines have been fixed at this point (an argument supported by the fact that Mr McAllister is able to call and leave a message with a neighbour who lives on the same block), then this makes even less sense. Considering the mother is so desperate that she bribes passengers at the airport to secure a seat back from Paris, it is unlikely that the family do not continue to call the house on a regular basis. (00:45:50 - 00:47:25)
Correction: The power repairman tells Mrs. McCallister the phone lines are a mess and it will take "a couple days" to get them fixed. This is simply his guess at how long it will take. As for Kevin ordering the pizza, we don't see him make the call, so we don't know how or where he ordered the pizza. We see him walk into town to buy his toothbrush and groceries, so it's reasonable he could have used a phone in town.
That seems pretty unreasonable considering he bought his groceries and returned home in the daytime but his pizza wasn't delivered until nighttime. That also doesn't explain how Mr. McCallister was able to call the neighbors across the street from them and leave a message but didn't attempt to call his own house.
Corrected entry: When Kevin prepares the house to defend it against the bandits, he pours water over the steps at the front door and on the stairs to the basement. The water freezes practically immediately. In a later shot, when Kevin is running from the bandits to his neighbours house, you see that the street is covered with puddles of (liquid) water.
Correction: The street may have been salted, which would cause ice or snow to melt into puddles. At the same time, an unsalted surface (as in the steps) would continue to accumulate ice.
Correction: Remember Kevin's neighbour salts the sidewalks each night so it may have been from him.
Corrected entry: When Fuller is drinking a Pepsi, a crew member is reflected on his glasses. (00:09:00)
Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes outside the first time and sees the cars in the garage, the light isn't on. When it shows the garage again in the next shot, the light is on. (00:20:25)
Suggested correction: The light could be motion activated. Either Kevin's movement or passing vehicles could have turned it on, regardless of the time of day. I have motion detector lights in my carport and they constantly go on and off in the daytime if it's low-light and cars pass by fast enough. People walking their dogs can also activate it if they are close enough. They sometimes stay on until I have to manually turn the power off, then on again.
That would explain it only if the light came on when Kevin "activated" it. It stays off during the first scene, and he doesn't make any motion towards the garage when the camera is on him. Nor do we see any vehicles or people pass behind him.
How likely is it that this movie - taken in 1990 - had access to the developed technology that we have today, to make automatic lights turn on?
Infrared motion sensors were around in the 80s.
Corrected entry: When Kate is calling for Kevin she has snow on her hair, but in the next shot that snow is gone.
Correction: It would have just melted.
Corrected entry: Marv is walking up steps covered in tar in the basement. He gets some tar on his feet and we see it in the nail scene. When he falls and grabs his feet, his feet are clean from then on.
Correction: His feet are not clean from then on. Although the shot referred to is not clear the next scene shows him leaving the basement barefoot with tar on the soles and sides of his feet. He even leaves black footprints on his way out.
Corrected entry: When Kevin and Buzz are fighting over by the pizza you can see a cup filled with Pepsi but in the next shot the cup is facing down on the table. (00:09:35)
Correction: It gets knocked over in all the commotion.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Kevin is sentenced to the third floor, you can see that the roof joists of this house are open and un-insulated, making this attic way too cold for use as a spare bedroom - something a resident of "Shermer, Illinois" and not southern California would know.
Correction: We never saw the full room, there could be a heater somewhere in there keeping it warm. In my house there is no working furnace so it also gets very cold here, so we have heaters.
Correction: Look closely and you will see some type of heater in the attic.
Corrected entry: At the beginning of the movie, Jeff McCallister throws his bag down the stairs vertically, yet, the bag lands horizontally at Joe Pesci's feet.
Correction: As that's a "depending" reply, you have to go with what we see and that's that the bag ending up horizontal at his feet. It should have been vertical.
Your logic is backward. What we see on screen is the bag rotating. Unless the movie shows something that indicates it could not happen, it is not a mistake.
It's a movie mistake without question.
Correction: Depending on the weight packed inside and the angle at which it was thrown, the bag may have rotated in midair.
Corrected entry: When the first shot of the rigged rope is shown outside of the upstairs window, the rope appears to be horizontal. Yet, when Kevin rides down it, the rope appears to now be sloping downward towards the treehouse.
Correction: That could be because of his weight pulling the rope down.
Corrected entry: When Kevin's father leaves the table to stop Kevin from annoying Buzz, the Pepsi bottle is going to fall, In the following shot, the bottle is not falling and the dishes have moved. (00:09:45)
Factual error: When Kevin's mom leaves Paris to return home, the plane shown departing the airport is a DC-9. No airline uses this plane for trans-Atlantic service - it doesn't have the required range.
Suggested correction: Although not explicitly mentioned, it could be a connecting flight which departs Europe from another airport. In this case, flying a short or medium range aircraft to reach a hub airport like Heathrow would be plausible.
They stopped at an intermediate airport to catch a connecting flight and still nobody noticed Kevin was missing? Absolute rubbish. The posting is absolutely correct.
This is a mistake on the trip home, by which point they already noticed Kevin was missing. They had a non-stop flight going there.
Nonsense. With a maximum fuel load, the DC9 had a range of 1450 nautical miles (2685 km). If they stopped to refuel at Shannon airport in Ireland - which is closer to New York than Heathrow - they would still have to fly 2878 nautical miles (5330 km) to reach New York. They are going for a very long swim.
Correction: It wasn't just the nail that was the problem, Kevin had also covered the basement stairs in tar which made everything stick to it. Had Marv attempted to walk up the basement stairs a second time would have taken far too long because his foot would have gotten stuck on each step. Walking back up the slippery ice stairs would probably have been much quicker.
Casual Person
If Marv tried the basement stairs a second time he could have gotten his shoes and red socks out of the tar.