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: 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.

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.

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 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: 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.

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.

Plot hole: Susannah first comes to the ranch during the summer of 1913. In the garden, Isabel Two tells Susannah that she is 13 years old. If you pay attention to the dates in the letters written, Tristan has left Susannah on his journey in 1918 and sends a letter saying he has become a hunter in 1919. The voice over by Stab then describes "many years" that Tristan is still supposed to be absent after his last letter before he returns, however when he marries Isabel Two she is said to be 20 years old. That would mean he would have had to come home in 1920 at the latest.

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.

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.

Continuity: After Susannah's arrival at the ranch she takes a walk around. When she passes by the Deckers the sun has already set. In the next shot, when she talks to Isabell Two, the sun is shining again.

Visible crew/equipment: When the British troops try to overrun the German lines soldiers are catapulted into the air by German grenades. At least once you get a good view of something like a springboard that was used for this purpose, that is when you hear Samuel's voice saying :"...the souls of those wounded so terribly...".

Continuity: When Tristan attacks the policeman who has shot his wife he gets hit on his cheek with a rubber truncheon. However, in the next shot the blood is running from his temple.

Continuity: Susannah visits Tristan in prison. Whenever the camera is on her her face is touching the bars and Tristan's is a bit away, and vice versa.

Continuity: In the end when they have killed the bad guys you can see the indian singing and dancing over them with a knife and he throws his hat off and it lands on the ground at the car but then there is a wide shot off the whole scenario and the hat is gone.

Continuity: When Suzanna comes in for dinner the first night there, all the guys raise something to give her, but Tristan goes to raise his plate. But cutting back from her reaction, he has only lifted his glass to drink.

Continuity: When Tristan and Samuel hug in the trenches in the war, at first Tristan's chin is on top of Samuel's hat, but when it cuts to the other angle, their heads are level, side by side.

Continuity: When Samuel dies in the movie, if you watch closely there is blood running down his face in only every other shot.

Continuity: During Samuel's death where Tristan is cradling him in his arms, there is a stream of blood at the corner of Samuel's mouth. The camera cuts to Tristan's reaction, but when it cuts back to Samuel, the blood is gone. In later shots of Tristan preparing to remove his heart, the blood stream reappears.

Factual error: Prior to WW1, Colonel Ludlow picks up Samuel and Susannah at the train station in an all steel Model T Ford. This style of car did not come out until 1917. The correct car would have brass lights and radiator.

Factual error: During the battle scene the voiceover says that it is February 1915. The battle being portrayed is obviously the Second Battle of Ypres because it involves Canadian troops and it's the first time that gas was used in the war. The actual battle didn't take place until the end of April 1915.

Continuity: Susannah's hair problems during her first encounter with Tristan after his many years of absence have been stressed already. But Tristan's hair has an even stronger mind of its own, as there is a wide strand combed back covering his parting, which looks as if it has been fixed elaborately, but which nevertheless comes and goes during the scene.

Continuity: After Tristan's second return he comes to Susannah's house. They make eye contact while he is still standing behind the wall. The camera cuts to Susannah and then back to him, and he is standing in the garden, with no time in between to walk further down to the gate and enter.

Audio problem: When Tristan returns the second time he is driving horses along, shouting loudly, but without moving his mouth.

Revealing: On her first evening at the ranch Susannah watches Tristan breaking in a mare. When he falls on the ground you can see that he merely climbs off instead of being thrown.

Continuity: When Susannah comes to the ranch she takes a photograph of the three brothers. Alfred is holding a glass and has both legs up. At the end of the movie Tristan looks at the picture, and Alfred's glass is missing, and one leg is stretched out.

Continuity: When Tristan pushes one of his bootlegger opponents into a pitchfork the spikes are coming out of his chest. The way they were wrestling chest to chest Tristan should have been seriously injured too.

Continuity: When Samuel is dying and Tristan is sitting over him, from one angle Tristan's hand is covering his mouth, but in the reverse angle it's down.

Continuity: When Susannah and Alfred talk at Samuel's grave the way Susannah's hair is blown back, forward, or not moving at all changes from shot to shot.

Continuity: When young Tristan gets attacked by the bear he looks for cover behind a huge tree. In the fight he cuts off one of the bear's claws which falls to the ground. When his father, brother, and One Stab come to help him Old Stab finds the claw on the opposite side of the tree.

Continuity: When the barkeeper refuses to serve One Stab beer he flaunts his club and puts it on the counter, with the handle towards him. When Tristan picks it up to hit him the club is turned by 180 degrees.

Revealing: When Tristan takes revenge for his brother and scalps two German soldiers you can see that his knife just goes through the hair.

Continuity: When Tristan and Samuel talk about premarital sex, some strands on Tristan's right temple hang down or are tucked behind his ear alternatingly.

Continuity: In the scene of Alfred and Tristan at Susanna's grave, when shots of Alfred show him speaking to Tristan, he looks to his right, as if the two men were side by side and facing the grave, and they seem to have been side by side in the last shot in that scene, when they leave the grave-site. However, the sun lights the left side of Alfred's face, and in the alternating shots, which show Tristan listening to Alfred, the sunlight is on the right side of Tristan's face.

Continuity: When the second German cavalryman attacks Tristan he is aiming his rifle at him. When he gets shot down he is holding on to the reins, and the rifle is gone.

Continuity: When Tristan returns to see Suzanne at her new home with Alfred, her hair is down. But in every shot her hair is either pulled behind her ear, then both sides in her face, then one side pulled back, and so on.

Plot hole: During the war sequence, when Samuel dies, how necessary was it for the two Germans to go through the trouble of setting up a machine gun to shoot him? I find it hard to believe they had no other weapon but that. It seems to have been done only to build suspense.

Visible crew/equipment: When Tristan pulls the third German cavalryman from his horse you see the face of Brad Pitt's double who, with his mustache, bears a strange resemblance with Adolf Hitler, something that can not at all be said about Brad Pitt.