Legends of the Fall (1994) - 48 mistakes

Continuity: In the farewell scene when the boys are leaving to enlist in Canada, we first get to see Samuel hugging Decker and Alfred hugging. Behind Alfred's neck we get a glimpse of Isabel Two's head as she is jumping up. This can only be Isabel Two approaching Tristan. In the next shot we get to see this again as the camera focus on Isabel Two running towards Tristan and jumping up into his arms.

Continuity: When Tristan, Alfred and Suzanna run into each other at the fair, the baby is asleep in one shot, then awake in the next and back asleep once again in the next shot.

Continuity: When Tristan returns home for the second time, his father writes the words 'am happy' on the blackboard. But right on the next shot when the old indian is singing you can see that the word 'happy' has four letters.

Continuity: At the fair when Isabelle goes to give Suzanna the baby, she actually hands it to her in one shot, but in the next (a split second) Suzanne shows no sign as if the baby ever left Isabelle's hand.

Continuity: When Colonel Ludlow and Susannah are eating dinner alone and hear the Decker's laughter from the room next door, they decide to join them. Susannah grabs her plate and her glass, and the Colonel his plate and the wine decanter. When entering the Decker's kitchen, there is nothing but their own utensils, plates and glasses on the table. If Pet brought more mugs and maybe also glasses to the table, she must have been very quick since it takes seven seconds from the last shot of her sitting at the table to Susannah starts pouring wine into a black mug, and gives it to Pet. Even if we only see Susannah pouring wine into one glass in addition to the mug, there are two kitchen glasses on the table filled with wine. When they raise their glasses there is no longer any glass at Pet's place, neither at Decker's. Pet must have given her glass away to the Colonel which doesn't make sense since he left his own almost full wine glass at the dining room. The amount of wine in the Colonel's new glass also varies from shot to shot measured by the decoration.

Continuity: When Tristin, his father, the Indian, and another man are in a bar trying to get four drinks after they were going to hunt the big grizzly bear, the bartender will not give them four drinks because of the Indian. Watch as Anthony Hopkins tries to stop Brad Pitt and as they keep looking back at the bartender and the other people. If you watch the beer with no foam, it is a little less than full and then it becomes full again. The foam also changes a little.

Plot hole: When Susannah arrives at the ranch Pet and Isabel stand by the stairs. However, a bit later Susannah goes to the garden where Isabel Two is and greet her like they were meeting for the first time. It is very unlikely they weren't introduced to each other on arrival.

Revealing: When Tristan kill the guy in the liquor storage and the hay fork goes through his chest, you can see that parts of the hay fork's tines closest to his body are not covered with blood.

Continuity: Tristan finds a calf with its legs caught in barbed wire. In the next shot, when Tristan gets down on his knees to free it, its head is also totally entangled.

Visible crew/equipment: In a scene that occurs after the confrontation in the bar, Tristan is riding his horse. At one point, he rides off very quickly, and the horse's hoof kicks up a flourescent orange traffic cone. It can be seen at the bottom of the screen, but only in the VHS version.

Continuity: During the war scene, when Samuel gets grazed by a bullet and Tristan covers him for protection, Samuel's hat falls off. The hat reappears, then disappears again.

Continuity: The bear strikes his left paw at Young Tristan, and he stabs his knife in the paw, but when the bear leaves, he limps on the right front leg. (This is also mentioned on the production designers' commentary track.).

Continuity: When the young Tristan is wounded by the bear, his arm gets hurt and the sleeve of his shirt torn. When his father treats a few seconds later the sleeve is intact again and the wound seems to be on his chest.

Continuity: Just after Samuel and Alfred say that they are going to enlist, Samuel has a weird looking face and notice Alfreds shoulder right behind him, then Susanna takes a few steps up the stairs very sad and Samuel walks a couple of meters towards her and then she leaves and then it switches to Samuel with the same funny looking face and Alfred is again right behind him.

Continuity: In the liquor storage Tristan cuts the other guy on the cheek, and he starts bleeding immediately. This scene is intercut with a scene where Susannah cuts off a lock of her hair. When we return to the storage, the guy takes his hand to the cheek, but now there is much less blood than it was only a couple of seconds earlier, and it has not been wiped off.

Plot hole: William Ludlow writes to his wife on April 13, 1913. She replies to that letter and includes that Samuel and Susanna will be visiting William "this summer". Yet the events involving Samuel and Susanna at William's home include two occasions where Samuel voices concerns for the events taking place in Europe at the start of World War One in 1914. He and Susanna have not been at William's home for a full year as Samuel speaks with Tristan about Susanna, her ideas and their plan to "not wait for marriage" as if it is all fresh and new, and does so after the first discussion of the war. It must be 1914. The only other explanation is that mail takes about six months to cross the country at this time, and Isabelle was replying in the fall of 1913, which would be ridiculous, as even then such mail took just weeks at worst to arrive.

Continuity: When Susannah visits Tristan in the prison, she turns her head away as he says "Go home to Alfred", but in the next shot she is looking at Tristan again.

Continuity: When Alfred confronts Tristan on the porch, the morning after Tristan has done the deed with Susannah, the buttoning of Alfred's shirt becomes reversed, then changes back again.

Continuity: Tristan is seen sailing on the ocean. In all panorama shots the boat is a two-master, but when you see him behind the steering wheel there is one mast only.

Continuity: When Susannah finds Tristan crying at Samuel's grave she takes him into her arms and consoles him. This is seen from different angles, with Tristan's hair behind his ear or not, and in one strange brief shot with a straight, expressionless face, very different from all others where he is sobbing hard and his face is twisted with grief.