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Les Grossman: Cockburn, from now on my fist is going to be so far up your shithole that every time you have a thought, it's gonna have to tiptoe past my wedding ring...

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Watch for the vanishing extra in the background when Speedman does his spitting scene with the flaming dragon member.One second he is there, then he is gone. See more...

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Ben Stiller got the idea of Tropic Thunder during filming of the 1987 war movie Empire of the Sun. See more...

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Tropic Thunder (2008) - 14 corrections

Directed by Ben Stiller, starring Ben Stiller, Brandon T. Jackson, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Steve Coogan, Tom Cruise (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy

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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During the phone conversation with Flaming Dragon and Peck, while Les is listening, the guy on the phone making ransom demands for Speedman at first calls him Speedman. "We are Flaming Dragon. Speedman is with us now. For 50 million, you will get him back." This is the only time he calls him Speedman, when he wouldn't have anyways, only knowing him as Simple Jack. Thoughout the rest of the phone call, and the next call, he only refers to him as Simple Jack. [This is a character decision, not a mistake. He first calls him Speedman, because that is who he is. No one will take him seriously at first if he called him Simple Jack. Afterwards he goes back to what he feels comfortable with.]
Edit Corrected by MasterOfAll
When Lazarus and Sandusky are looking at the heroin plant with their scopes, they see Speedman being tortured by being dunked in and out of water. Here Speedman is still in his solder clothes that he was captured in, with dark green torn shirt and dark bandanna. Only moments later, without any indication of time passing, it shows the Flaming Dragon grunts dragging a now dry Speedman into the plant. He is now wearing a black robe and a red bandanna. [The fact that he is dry and in different clothes is the indication of time passing.]
Edit Corrected by MasterOfAll
In the scene when Grossman answers the call from the Flaming Dragons, they simply push the send button and the phone goes straight to speaker phone. On this model Blackberry, you have to push two more buttons after the send button to get to speaker phone. [First, one button press will do, not two. Second, there's an app available that allows you to set your phone to answer calls in speaker phone by default.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius Time
In the opening scene, when Lincoln is racing out to get a wounded Speedman, he is shooting at the Viet Cong with a pistol. On a cut back scene, he is suddenly carrying his shotgun. [See previous entries regarding the opening scene of this film - it is part of the film-within-a-film which is meant to be full of mistakes.]
Edit
In the opening scene after they botch the explosion, supposedly they weren't filming. Yet in the news report in the next scene, they have footage of the botch-up. [Although the filming crew were unable to get the shot, it is possible for other people (even the News crew) were likely to be on site and got a shot of the explosion.]
Edit Corrected by XIII
The guys find a water buffalo which they use for transportation. The buffalo has a nose ring in its nostrils, yet it is meant to be a wild buffalo. [Nothing about this scene implies it's a wild animal. It's an animal that was not contained in a corral or pasture; it doesn't mean it's supposed to be a wild animal.]
Edit Corrected by Brenda Elzin
Near the end of the film when he says, "Same thing happened to me when I played Louie Armstrong in Moonshot. They found me in an alley in Burbank trying to re-enter the earth's atmosphere in an old refrigerator box." Then in the next scene, he says Neil Armstrong, "Louie plays an instrument, Neil went to Space." [No, he says, "Same thing happened to me when I played NEIL Armstrong in Moonshot". No mistake there.]
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When the group of actors are lost and right before they discover the heroin camp, Jeff Portnoy stops to puke behind a boulder. The skinny guy says, "Jack, are you OK?" referring to Jack Black by mistake. [You are incorrect. He asks, "Are you OK, Jeff?" as in Jeff Portnoy. ]
Edit
Right before the group splits up and Tugg goes off into the jungle alone, he says, "Let's go get some Viet Congs" and pulls the charging handle back and releases it to 'lock and load' his weapon. However, he had just finished firing a few rounds to get the others' attention, so the round that was loaded after the last round he fired should have ejected when he pulled the charging handle back, yet no casing or round is seen ejecting from the weapon. [The whole scene is a homage to war movies with lines like that, and its also done for comedic effect. Tugg does the whole 'lock n load' thing, and he's already run out of rounds, hence no ejection.]
Edit Corrected by GalahadFairlight
The explanation of the camp is that it is located in "the triangle," a frontier between Burma (Myanmar), Thailand and Laos. Vietnam has no frontier with Burma and Thailand, so there is no way they just "walked" there overnight. [They didn't imply they just walked there, one of the characters said, "We were in that chopper for hours".]
Edit
At one point in the jungle one of the men calls Jeff Portnoy by his real name "Jack", instead of the character's name "Jeff". [Please be more specific. I have watched this movie several times and cannot spot this mistake.]
Edit Corrected by wizard_of_gore
In the beginning of the film when the helicopters are flying through the jungle and dip down into the cavern, there is actually nobody in them. Then when they get closer to the set of the movie, everybody is already in the helicopter when they start the scene. [The beginning of the film is a purposefully awful "movie within a movie", and thus the absence of people in the helicopters is not a "mistake" in the real movie Tropic Thunder, anymore than the ridiculous shots that follow up until the point the first "cut" is yelled.]
Edit
The four actors were carrying a mix of Vietnam-era weapons and modern weaponry. Ben Stiller was carrying a modern-day M4 Carbine which was developed in the late 1990's. One of the other actors was carrying an M16-A2 which was developed after the Vietnam war. The other two actors were carrying correct Vietnam era weapons (M60 Machine Gun and M16-A1). [Being the film is a story "within" the film, these type of mistakes are mistakes by the fictional (careless) filmmakers, not a "real" mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Lummie
During the scene where the fake VET decides to grab a flame thrower they show him using it longer than they ever were able to work, at most it would last 10 seconds. [The flame thrower is home-made by the effects man. There's no way to know how long it would last.]
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