Mars Attacks! (1996) - 29 mistakes

Continuity: At the beginning when the President is deciding to go public to the American people, Jerry moves his arms into his lap twice.

Continuity: In the first scene with the Lands, the handles on Barbara's bag continually switch from up to down.

Continuity: Jason Stone stands a knife in his food as he passes the phone to his wife at the breakfast table. The knife disappears in the next shot, but reappears in every closeup on Jason.

Continuity: When Byron's ex-wife is driving the bus, she sees her two sons playing at the arcade, when the bus passes right in front of the building. She makes an announcement to the passengers, then she brakes, but the bus stops right in front of the arcade.

Continuity: When Sarah Jessica Parker is talking to Pierce Brosnan on her show, her dog suddenly ends up in her lap. While she is talking her dog is beside her sleeping, when the camera cuts to another angle the dog is suddenly wide awake and sitting on her lap.

Deliberate "mistake": At the end just before the president is killed he fixes his tie, but it keeps on getting fixed to messed, to fixed, etc. Deliberate homage to "A Few Good Men", but worth looking for nonetheless.

Continuity: When General Casey answers the phone en route to Pahrump, the helicopters following him drop back in an instant.

Factual error: Casey arrives at the desert landing in a jeep that is flagged with 4 stars (for a 4 star general) although he is only a 3 star general (as evident by the 3 stars on his shoulder boards).

Other: In the English DVD subtitles, during Jason Stone's reporting at the landing, his line about "many" is mistranscribed "may".

Continuity: The helicopters at the landing site escort the saucer down, then immediately disappear. They are completely gone as the saucer touches down and do not participate in the ensuing battle, even though the Martians are never seen aiming their guns in the air.

Continuity: When the martians first visit earth in the desert you can see that the shadow from the poles at the red carpet is on the left side, a few seconds later after the silver ramp is unrolled and the martian ambassador walks down it and onto the red carpet you can see that the shadow of the poles is on the right side.

Continuity: When the Martians are attacking the people in Nevada, the truck which Natalie is on falls to the ground, but when Jason runs to save her it's back on its wheels.

Plot hole: If the president thinks it's so important that the Martians comes to the Congress to present their excuses, why didn't they bring the translating machine?

Revealing: The majority of the Army rifles and all the machine guns are obvious props, incapable of even firing blanks. If you watch carefully when they're "firing" you can see that the muzzle flash is actually animated and no shell casings are coming out.  The sound has been added in post production. This is most obvious when the general is firing a havy machine-gun (with no belt) at the saucer over the capitol.

Other: When the general passes the clipboard to the President to sign the nuclear release, the clipboard is actually upside-down.

Continuity: When the press secretary kisses the hand of the alien-dressed-as-a-seductive-woman, the eyeball ring is on her right middle finger but after she knocks him out (or kills him) the ring is on the finger between the middle and the pinkie. In subsequent scenes it's back on the middle finger.

Revealing: After the Martian who is dressed up as a women spits a finger in the fish tank a bit of the Martian's mask near its mouth is torn away. As she chews the nitrogen gum the human lips move but her real teeth don't.

Other: When those cute little Martians break into The White House and begin to blast away everything, a few of them get shot in the process. One gets shot in the helmet, and collapses to the ground, suffocating. A few minutes later, during the same scene, another gets shot, and likewise collapses. The animation of the two Martians collapsing is the same, just reversed.

Revealing: When the Nancy Reagan chandelier fall on the first lady, it is obviously a dummy with a wig.

Continuity: When Land is presenting to the investors during the invasion, a saucer flies behind him just as he puts on his hat. In the next shot, that saucer is gone, though there are others still in the background. It didn't move quickly enough to get offscreen in that time.