The Living Daylights (1987) - 30 mistakes

Factual error: In the "Soviet" base in Afghanistan, every equipment, from armoured carriers to light tanks, are of French manufactured. And the transport plane is American C-130 Hercules.

Factual error: Austria is famous for its mountains and ski resorts. But certain parts of Austria are quite flat. And the border region between Bratislava and Vienna is VERY flat. No chance to cross the border over a mountain with a ski resort like shown in the movie, unless you take a 600km detour with three more border crossings.

Audio problem: In the sniper scene, Bond is asked if he wishes to use the soft-nosed bullets to kill the potential assassin to which he replies, 'No the steel-tipped'. There isn't any lip movement, however, after the word 'no'.

Continuity: Gen. Koskov is flown out of the Vienna gas reservoir in an RAF Harrier. Austria is a neutral country, and no foreign military aircraft are allowed to enter Austrian airspace. OK, perhaps it was a secret mission. But it would not have been secret for a long time. The Harrier is not really a silent plane and there are people living around the reservoirs - and the center of Austrian air control is about 3 km away from the reservoirs.

Continuity: When the bad guy falls to his death from the plane after the fight with Bond, in one shot you can see the plane is a two-engine one, not the four-engine Hercules it's supposed to be. According to the DVD commentary, the plane was used due to the high cost of using the Hercules.

Continuity: At the beginning, Bond sees the bad guy get into a truck and drive off - he chases after him, about 20m behind. They're travelling on parallel roads, Bond running, and the bad guy driving (quite fast), but when Bond's road runs out he manages to jump on top of the truck, having miraculously caught up with him.

Other: When James is on the top of the jeep, there is a brief shot of it from behind as they go past an armed soldier. Watch carefully, the jeep goes over a few bumps and Bond on top seems to jump all over the place in a very unnatural way. This is because the footage has been sped up to make the Jeep appear to be going faster.

Continuity: Bond drives not one, but two completely different Aston Martins in "The Living Daylights". When he drives up to the safe house early in the movie, he's driving an Aston Martin Virage Convertible (actually the 'personal' car of then Aston Martin chairman Victor Gauntlett, and loaned by him to the Bond producers). But the "stunt" Aston Martin - used by Bond to escape from Bratislavan Police and Army - is a Volante coupe. Yet both cars have the same licence plate (B549WUU). There's also a scene in Q's workshop where the technicians are "winterising" the Aston Martin, in an attempt to disguise the difference.

Continuity: The wheel that is shot off of Bonds car during the frozen lake chase scene is back on the car seconds later as Bond is jumping over the Russian/Czech soldiers.

Continuity: When Bond and the girl are escaping down the mountain on the cello case, he is steering it with the cello on his right side, but in the next close-up shot the cello is between them.

Factual error: The Bratislava Academy of Music which is shown in the movie, is in reality the Vienna People's Opera.

Continuity: The weather changes from totally overcast and foggy when Bond reaches the lake, to totally clear skies when they are 'skiing' in the cello case.

Continuity: The cellophane on Cara's flowers is foggy in the beginning of the chatting scene after the concert, but when Kamran Shah arrives, the cellophane is clear.

Factual error: Cleaning 'pigs' in pipelines move at the same speed as the oil or gas in the pipelines - which is quite slow. For example, the oil in the Alaska pipeline moves at 6-9 mph. A 'pig' would not run with the speed or make the sound shown in the escape scene.

Factual error: When the police car Bond has lasered through splits in half, the metal on either side of the wheels has been cleanly cut but the wheels themselves are undamaged, despite the fact that Bond never switched it off.

Continuity: When Bond lasers through the police car, the laser is at right angles. But, in close up shots, the angle is different.

Plot hole: When his plane runs out of fuel, Bond and Cara eject in the jeep. When the jeep ejects, the plane is just a couple meters off the ground. Cut to a shot of the plane crashing into a cliff, it's at least 10 to 20 meters up. Impossible for the plane to have gained altitude; the engines were off and no updraft of air would be strong enough to lift a plane that size.

Continuity: When Q is demonstrating the stun gas/explosive key ring, when Q holds the keyring it's very slim. However, when it is placed on the desk and emits the stun gas, in close up it is very thick. This is obviously to make such a slim device emit the gas (probably an under the table gag).

Continuity: Two paint-shots hit the windshield of the Jeep in the right side of the window, close to the steering wheel. In the next shots the paint marks are all over the windshield - and at one point there is a clear bullet mark in the left part of the window.

Plot hole: At the border crossing the gas pipeline takes a narrow 90-degree turn. The 'pig' which is about 3 meters long and cylindrical, would not be able to pass through such a corner.

Continuity: Bond is in the jailhouse and he imprisons the guard. He then smashes his arm with the iron door and makes him bleed. After that, he pushes the guard backwards on to the bed. While falling backwards, the blood on the arm disappears.

Continuity: When the woman is trying to drive the Jeep into the plane on the runway, in the close up shots there is a shiny steel ramp which we see the car wheels drive up. In the internal and longer shots, we can see that the door looks nothing like this and actually is a sort of lattice, and it has a ridge on it meaning it would be very difficult for the car to drive up.

Audio problem: In the sniper scene, Bond asks Saunders to switch off the lights. Then Bond closes his jacket using velcro. The sound the you hear is not right. This is the sound that you will hear if you pull off velcro, not attach it.

Audio problem: At the fairground, James tells Cara that he has to check a message, but his mouth doesn't move when he says this.

Factual error: While Bond is taxiing down the runway at the Russian airbase, he is nowhere near takeoff speed for that aircraft (if he was, the Jeep wouldn't be able to catch up).

Continuity: The hole in Cara's cello is different when seen in the first close up during the final concert, compared to the next two wider shots.

Continuity: In the opening scene before the credits, 3 MI6 agents parachute out of a plane and into a stronghold. The assassin is already in the stronghold. One agent lands in a sandy area and climbs up a cliff, one lands in a tree and is shot by a guard and the other lands somewhere else. In the next shot of one agent climbing the cliff at the top you can see the assassin hiding a parachute. He wouldn't need to hide a parachute as he didn't have one himself and no agents landed in this area.

Continuity: When trying to catch up with the assassins jeep, Bond is shot by a paintball gun in the waist. A few shots later when on top of the jeep you can see his waist several times but without even a speck of paint.

Continuity: When the stenographer is taking Koskov's account of his escape, there is no paper in the tray and the stenographer isn't pressing the keys. Minutes later the agent/milkman enters and removes paper from the machine.

Continuity: In the teaser, there is something wrong with the landing of the second agent. He lands on a dirt road and runs to his left behind some bushes while pulling his parachute towards the ground. To his right is a rock wall. In the next shot he lands again - presumably below that rock wall. But he was running in the opposite direction. If he changed direction and jumped over the wall to the right he would have run into his parachute. And it can't be a wall behind the bushes to the left he jumped over, because you can see from the shadows that the sun comes from the low side of the wall in both shots.