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Ben Gates: I'm gonna kidnap the president of the United States.

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When water is breaking through the wall you can see that at times the water is going through preformed squares. See more...

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National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) - 40 corrections

starring Diane Kruger, Ed Harris, Harvey Keitel, Helen Mirren, Jon Voight, Nicolas Cage (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Mystery, 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 reenactment of Lincoln's murder is not historically correct. Booth shot the president in the back of the head. Lincoln slumped over in his rocking chair, unconscious. One of Lincoln's guests - Major Rathbone - jumped from his seat and tried to prevent Booth from escaping, but Booth stabbed the Major violently in the arm with a knife. Rathbone quickly recovered and tried to grab Booth as he was preparing to jump from the sill of the box. Booth again stabbed at Rathbone, and then attempted to vault over the rail and down to the stage. His foot was caught on the Treasury flag, and Booth came down full-face to the audience thus, breaking his leg. [This is essentially what is depicted in the film, though for time the sequence had to be abridged and the fight with Rathbone is omitted. Booth's foot is shown catching in the flag, causing him to crash on the stage. The scene even includes the correct line being spoken during the play right before Lincoln is shot. There are other minor details about the scene the film flubs, but the broad sequence isn't one of them.]
Edit Corrected by Vader47000
While investigating the Statue of Liberty, Ben says, "Laboulaye had to leave a clue somewhere". However, when he says this, his mouth doesn't move. [Mr. Cage has a tendency to speak without moving his mouth a lot and as he says those lines with the camera to his back, it is difficult to claim that he is not moving his mouth at all.]
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Although there are two resolute desks, one being in the Oval Office of the White House, the other is not in Buckingham Palace. It is in the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth, England. It is also smaller than the White House desk, and does not contain any drawers. [According to Wikipedia, the desk in Portsmouth is actually a writing table but was also made from Resolute timbers. The duplicate desk to the Presidential desk is actually in Windsor Castle. A fourth desk, a smaller ladies desk was given to the widow of Henry Grinnel who was responsible for restoring the Resolute.]
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In the Easter Roll scene at the White House, the bunny tucked into Nic Cage's jacket pocket is different to the bunny we see tucked into his pocket later on in the scene just after he has found the seal in the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. [It's the same bunny that Abigail hands to him earlier; the carrot is just not visible when he follows Connor and Abigail into the White House.]
Edit Time
While the group was in the gold cave, Riley helps himself to one of the gold bricks, which appeared to be roughly three inches thick, eight inches wide, and about twelve inches long. A brick of gold this size would weigh around 250 pounds, which would make it nearly impossible for Riley to carry around, even in a backpack. [A typical gold brick is 400 troy ounces, or 27.5 pounds, and has dimensions of 8.3 inches long, 3.33 inches wide, and 1.9 inches thick. Movies generally show this size for gold bars/bricks. This is also the size of bars stored at Ft Knox, KY. Your estimation of the size in the movie is bigger than the 400 ounce size by about 1/3 overall. Depending on the purity of the gold, the dimensions you gave would weigh about 37 pounds, which, far from light and easy to handle, is nowhere near 250 lbs.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
The city of gold has presumably been underwater for centuries, but when the chamber is drained and we see it for the first time, there is no mud, silt or algae on it at all. It is perfectly clean and gleaming. [The city of gold has not been underwater; water had been flowing through it throughout the centuries, so not all of the city had been completely touched/submerged by water, so there is far less of a chance, if at all, of algae or anything, especially with the strong currents of flowing water.]
Edit
Ben's mother recognises the symbols on the wooden plank as being Olmec and proceeds to translate their meaning. Only problem is that, to date, only one example of Olmec inscription has been found and it has never been deciphered. [This is called "fiction". If the film-makers wish to portray a character as capable of deciphering Olmec, then it's irrelevant whether such experts exist in the real world, in exactly the same way as, say, a superhero or a scientist working on a fictional technology can be portrayed without them actually existing in reality.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
The model of the Statue of Liberty was built in 1870. The Resolute was only retired in 1879. How could the makers of the statue know that the Indian markings would be hidden in desks made of wood from the Resolute 9-10 years in advance? Or were the markings only put there in 1880? That would mean that the diary entry was made 15 years in advance of the clue being put on the Laboulaye Lady. [Actually, the Statue seen in the movie was dedicated on November 15, 1889. The Statue you're referring to is the smaller replica used by the sculptor himself for the final version which is at the Jardin du Luxembourg.]
Edit
The easter egg roll scene was filmed on Mount Vernon, with the White House added in the background. [Everything has to be filmed somewhere - there is nothing notable about one location pretending to be another.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
The idea that Queen Victoria would side with the South because of, as Cage and Kruger say in one scene, cotton and to divide the U.S., has little historic basis. Prime Minister Palmerston thought positively about a break-up of the United States; however, this was never a issue he expressed during the war. On the other hand, with cotton stocks high and overproduction in the British textile industry, cotton had lost its influence on Great Britain during the Civil War. Queen Victoria siding with the South is absurd as she was pacifist and wished to keep the country out of any military struggle at the time. British help to the South would have required just such a military action. [An opinion on what a person would or should do is not a mistake. The whole premise of Victoria's "aid" to the South is that she could not openly state it; the letter and all help she could give had to be done in the utmost secret. Publicly, she would of course present a different and more politically correct view, but she could still harbor secrets and have a different opinion in private.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
How could the diary in 1865 have a code word saying Laboulaye Lady - when the first model of the Statue of Liberty was not made until 5 years later? The movie said Laboulaye was to hide clues later, but in 1865 no one knew he was going to construct a 'Lady'. [The movie mentions that he had the *idea* for the lady, not that the statues were built. It's likely he was commissioned to build the statues to include the clues by the time the diary was written. It takes the artist time to plan and build a sculpture of those scales, while probably working on other pieces at the same time, so having the idea come to completion five years later is not unusual.]
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During the scene where Ben Gates' father is stopped by the police in the boat, the side of the police boat says Maryland police, yet they are in Virginia. [Mount Vernon is on the bank of the Potomac. The border between Virginia and Maryland is actually right there on the bank, thus it would be the jurisdiction of Maryland police. More specifically the Charles County, Maryland police.]
Edit
In the water wheel scene toward the end of the movie, Cage says they must go down because the chamber would be filled with water if there was no place for the water to drain. They stop the flow of water using the first water wheel and enter into the chamber containing the City of Gold. When the water breaks through the walls of the first chamber, it begins filling the lower chamber because the final escape door is closed. The only way to open this door is for someone to turn the second water wheel and hold the door open. Thus, with no place for water to drain out of the City of Gold chamber (other than for someone to hold the second water wheel in place), both the lower and the upper chamber would fill with water. [Not sure where the mistake is here. The wall to the first chamber bursts, probably due to water pressure, in which case the water wheel doesn't do anything to regulate the water. If the walls held, the second chamber would fill both chambers up, so no mistake there. Either way, the group would drown if not able to leave the flooded chambers via the water wheel's opening.]
Edit
In the scene when everyone is moving the wheel so to close the (gates which would eventually stop the water) there in one scene the lamp is on the wheel which is being turned and in the other scene when a top angle shot of the wheel is taken it is not there. [This is not true the oil lamp does not move it is there in the top view it is just more difficult to see.]
Edit Time
In the end of the movie when Riley walks along the sidewalk there are no cars there. When he backs up in his returned car, he crashes into something. It is highly un-likely that he backed up over the curb. [There's at least one car parked behind (plus another in front) of his car. The car behind him is what he hits.]
Edit
When they are in the room that is filling with water, Mitch says that he will go first and if anyone else does, they will stop and go through it all again. However, in the next shot he is holding the door open while everyone else goes through. [Realizing he can't get out (there's no way for him to get any of the others back to hold the wheel for him) Mitch has a change of heart at the end and chooses to save them.]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
Nicolas Cage and his friends were viewing a digital photo of their speeding offence pretty much immediately when they had access to a laptop. This is only possible when the image is sent from the camera through transmission. UK speed cameras use old photo reels to prevent fraudlant offences, so there is absolutely no way for them to see the photo. [Digital speed cameras have been in use in UK since at least 2005. Otherwise the Average Speed restrictions would be difficult to enforce.]
Edit
Considering that the Olmec civilization was confined to southern Mexico, it would not have been able to construct a gigantic gold city in South Dakota. [It is extremely unlikely, but we cannot assume it was impossible. Who really knows what happened hundreds of years ago, or what the ancient cultures were capable of? With their primitive technology they were able to construct massive pyramids. It would not stretch the imagination to think that they could transport gold through (what was then) the wilderness of ancient America to start a new society.]
Edit
Near the end, inside the treasure chamber before the water rushes back in, Dr. Appleton is standing next to the sacrificial platform and runs her finger through a series of Olmec characters and says, "This will give an incredible insight of pre-Columbian history." Among those sets of characters showing, only the first two are heliograph characters. The next two sets of 3 each are all ancient Chinese Seal Script characters. [The messages are in Chinese because it's like the Rosetta Stone, saying something in one language and then saying the exact same thing in a different language.]
Edit
Towards the end of the movie, when they are in the City of Gold and they see Ben Gate's parents, Ben yells out, "Helen, we found it" instead of the character's name, Emily. [It doesn't make sense that Ben would call his mother by either name, since he refers to her as "mom." He said "Here, we found it!"]
Edit Time

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