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Quotes

John Koestler: How am I supposed to stop the end of the world?

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Mistakes

When John Kostler arrives in New York from Massachusetts, they pan out and show him crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. There is no logical way, on the route to Manhattan from New England, that one would cross this bridge. It would require him to travel completely out of the way, and judging by the competence of the protagonist, it becomes obvious this was used for visual effect only. See more...

Trivia

The same actress plays Lucinda and her granddaughter Abby. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

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Knowing (2009) - 27 corrections

Directed by Alex Proyas (add more)

Genres: Drama, 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 transit cop on the NYC subway is the same actor as the policeman in the crash scene where Diana is killed. [It's not considered a movie mistake for an actor to play multiple roles.]
Edit Corrected by Serious B
When the paramedic calls Diana's time of death after the car accident, she says 12 midnight. Time of deaths are recorded in military time so she should have called it at 00:00 hours. [While it is true that TOD is usually given in military time (24 hour scale verses 12), it is absurd that a paramedic could even call a TOD. Unless a person is well beyond saving such as already decomposing or in rigor mortis or decapitated or some such malady, they are required to attempt to revive until a DOCTOR calls time of death. And times are often given in regular time, but dictated in military time on official documents.]
Edit Corrected by Kimberly Mason
When Diana calls John from the car when they are going to caves, there is a NO SIGNAL sign on the mobile-phone. Under that sign, there is an unlock button. There is no way that the mobile-phone locked itself that fast. [I automatically lock mine with the simple push of a button every time I'm done with it to avoid "pocket dialing" someone. Sometimes I do it even though I'm not finished, just out of habit. Even if I don't do it manually, the lock timer is set to something like 5 seconds. Doesn't take long.]
Edit Corrected by Kimberly Mason
Movie continuously states 50th anniversary being in 2009 and that the current events are taking place in 2009. However, the "date codes" that are used on the "paper with numbers" has the current events (plane crash, subway, end of world) for the year 2008, ie. 10/17/08, 10/26/08. [Not so. The paper's date codes all along the bottom indicate dates in October 2009.]
Edit Corrected by John W Rosa
John, Diana and the kids show up in John's truck at Diana's mother's home. John and Diana stand in front of John's truck with the headlights on. Diana's mom's home has no power going to it, but it appears that a porch light is on above the door. It can not be from the truck's headlights because their shadow would be cast on the side of the house. So a house with no power has a porch light on. [Or a house with a generator. Since they live in a rural area, it's not unusual for people to have an emergency power generator.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
During the class at the beginning, the teacher says, 'Yesterday, the staff selected the winning idea' for the opening contest. It would take a lot longer than 24 hours for them to build the time capsule, the hole in the ground and the lid to cover it. [Time capsules, and all the accoutrements, like what is shown are purchased from a manufacturer, not made by the individual or group using them. These could easily be acquired in less than 24 hours.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius Time
If you pay attention to the first date on the list that John types in while deciphering it, the date is 2/12/59, if this movie is based in October around the time of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the school in 1959, this disaster would have already happened when the list was written. [Why is this a mistake? This was a list of major disasters. Who said it had to be only future predictions?]
Edit Corrected by XIII
This could be a mistake but its so complex I have marked it as 'Trivia'. The alien or "being" race talks to the little girl and gives her the dates of people's deaths, including her future daughter's death. The daughter is killed in a car crash chasing down her children who where kidnapped by the very aliens or "beings" that sent the message in the first place. In conclusion it's strange that these "beings" should make this poor women aware of her own death but be entirely responsible for putting her in that position in the first place knowing that she would die that day. [You're attaching sentimentality and/or human emotions to the alien race that aren't necessarily present. This alien race is looking toward the greater good -- to have the boy and girl ultimately responsible for creating a new race.]
Edit Corrected by MovieFan612
In the scene at the museum, John is talking to Diana about how he knows her. He hands her the envelope with the dates enclosed. She get very scared/ angry and puts it down on the table. John follows her, leaving the envelope on the table. Later, he has the paper. [John doesn't leave the paper on the table. When he walks away from the table to follow Diana, you can see him putting the paper back in the inside pocket of his jacket.]
Edit
When Caleb is outside and Nicholas Cage is on the phone inside, he notices Caleb talking to the strange men in the car. When he runs out to stop them, he yells out "Taylor" instead of "Caleb". [No, he yells out, "Hey there".]
Edit Corrected by GalahadFairlight
The son attempts to reach her father near the end via cell phone, but it doesn't work (it is not made clear whether the "no signal" is geographical or the result of solar activity as it is at other parts of the movie). Nonetheless, when he goes to a landline pay phone at the gas station and calls his father, he receives the call on his cell phone without any problem. [The solar activity is what was causing the interference to cell and cordless phones. As heard on John's cell phone call to his father earlier, the signal comes and goes depending on the flare activity.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
When John is getting out of his car right before the plane crash, he leaves the sheet with the numbers on it in the car and he never returns to get them, but later he has them again. [Of course he returns to get them, he drives his car home.]
Edit Corrected by MovieFan612
Screen shows Nicolas Cage at his computer typing in the Latitude and longitude coordinates for the next disaster. He types in Lat 40.71 Long 74.00. That location is on the Kyrgyzstan and China border. Correct Latitude is 40.7156 and Longitude -74.0031. Should have been a negative number for Longitude. [Longitude can also be exressed as E or W, instead of + or -. Some GPS systems that I have used, only need numerical information entered, because they are programmed for regions where they are going to be used. In other words, since the unit is only used in North America, there is no need to designate a - or + when entering data, or E and W, as the program recognizes that all the data will be for the region programmed into it.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior Time
When John first realizes the next happening event, it reads 102708. Later on in the film when he is showing Phil the next occurring event, it appears as 102709. The whole movie occurs in 2009. [October 27th, 2008 is the date of his wife's death in Phoenix. He's completely shocked when he first notices this, so he accidentally drops his glass. The subway accident occurs on Oct. 17th 2009 and the solar flare on the 19th - John mentions this to Diana, it's shown on the paper, and even Lucinda's prediction regarding her daughter's death proves accurate - the paramedics pronounce her dead at 12 midnight, October 19th.]
Edit
In the scene where Cage is sitting in front of the TV watching the news, he looks at the clock and it says 11:59pm. It is supposed to be midnight, but a few minutes later when they show his son on the stairs and he's still watching news, the clock reads "3:28pm". [It shows that he spent three and a half hours watching news, to see if there would be a disaster killing 81 people. At that point, he hadn't realized some of the numbers were coordinates (he finds that out just later that day, when the plane crashes).]
Edit
When Diane tries to call John, her phone says no signal, though the phone shows 5 bars in the corner. [Phones can have bars showing signal but it might not let you call like in this case there is the no signal sign but there are 5 bars. It happens to my phone too.]
Edit Corrected by bozkewycz
In the scene where Nic Cage sits at his computer and discovers what will destroy the world, he describes it as "A super-flare. a 100 micro-tesla wave of radiation that would destroy our ozone layer, killing every living organism on the planet." First, "tesla" is a measure of magnetism, not radiation. Second, destruction of the ozone layer would eventually kill all life on the planet, slowly, through radiation poisoning. It would not burn the planet to a cinder, as depicted in the movie. [1. Nick Cage is explaining his theory, not facts. 2. A documented case of a super flare effecting a "earth type" planet has yet to be found. So it's impossible to know how it would effect a planets ozone, etc.]
Edit
The entire plot of the movie doesn't make sense. At the end, the "beings" who have been communicating simply show up and take the children away. Obviously they needed no help from any of the other characters, and the fact that John [Nicolas Cage] figures it out actually makes it more difficult for them to take his son away. There is no way to prevent what is happening, and it would appear that they were in on the ultimate "plan" anyway, so why would they bother to tell anyone. [They need to tell people so that 1) The "chosen few" who can hear the message will know to go to the right place to be picked up. 2) The co-ordinates and dates of the other tragedies will show that the message is real and should be obeyed.]
Edit
The sheet of numbers contains only digits, no signs or anything to encode the geo coordinates as east/west or north/south, yet there are disasters in the west and also in the east (for example the indian ocean earthquake). [There are also no spaces between the dates or any other punctuation between the digits. There is no reason she can't have omitted the other information as well. A degree of interpretation's needed.]
Edit Corrected by SexyIrishLeprechaun
When John is talking to Diana on the way to Lucinda's house at night time, he mentions that his wife died at 4 in the morning, from a hotel fire. He then says that "I thought you we're supposed to sense when someone you loved was in danger. I didn't feel a thing, I was just on the front lawn, blowing leaves". He was blowing leaves at 4 in the morning? [John also says that his wife was on a business trip in Phoenix when she died. They live in Massachusetts, so with the time difference he would have been blowing leaves at 7:00am.]
Edit Corrected by Ingabritzen

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