Matilda

Matilda (1996)

31 corrected entries

(29 votes)

Corrected entry: When Matilda's father is telling the family the amount of money he made in one day and Matilda says the answer before anyone else, she is wrong. Matilda says the answer is $10,265. The first car was sold for $1,158, the second for $2,269, the third for $999, and the fourth was sold for $7,839. Add that all up and you'll get $12,265, the real answer.

Correction: He's asking what PROFIT he made, so you have to subtract what he PAID for those cars: $320 for the first, $512 for the second, $68 for the third and $1100 for the fourth. That adds up to $2000. $12,265 - $2000 = $10,265. Matilda was right.

Corrected entry: In the flashback where Matilda is being locked in the chokie, Miss Tunchbull says, "the apple never rots far from the tree". In the flashback, she says it when Matilda is in the chokie, but in 'reality' Miss Trunchbull says it while on the way to the chokie.

Correction: This was a memory. Matilda's memory doesn't have to be 100% accurate to what actually happened.

Corrected entry: Matilda has a lot of books in her small red wagon. Usually libraries give you a limit to how many books you can get out.

Correction: Matilda's wagon is full of big books, and in each shot I'd say she has around 20. However, at my local library, we can get up to 35 books out at a time. In fact, when the librarian is walking with Matilda, she tells her she can get up to as many books as she wants.

Hamster

Corrected entry: When Zinnia wins at the bingo and takes the family to a posh restaurant to celebrate, she tells Harry he can't wear his hat in the restaurant because it's a posh place, but the restaurant happily lets the four of them walk in, even though they weren't dressed appropriately.

Heather Benton

Correction: Restaurants commonly prefer paying customers (especially with Zinnia's bingo winnings) over under-dressed customers. Also, Zinnia may think that she is dressed appropriately, given the fact that her character is extremely vain. (She tells Miss Honey in a later scene "You chose books, I chose looks").

Corrected entry: When Miss Trunchbull calls all of the children to the assembly, the tannoy speaker bounces out. The problem is, it doesn't match with what Miss Trunchbull is saying.

Correction: It's only off by a split second. In reality it takes a split second after the person talks for the vibration to hit the speaker so this isn't a mistake at all.

Corrected entry: When Amanda gets thrown over the fence, she gets up and shakes herself. She says, "Brrrrrrrr", however the sound is delayed.

Correction: We don't get a close up of Amanda's face. The camera is in a bit of a distance and people don't open their mouths when they say Brrrrr. There is no proof the sound was delayed.

Corrected entry: When Harry asks Michael to add up the cost of the cars he sold that day, Matilda says the total is $10,265.00. The actual total is $12,265.00.

Correction: He asks his son what his profit was, not the total of the sale prices. The total sold was $12,265, and the total cost was $2,000, so Matilda is correct that the total profit was $10,265.

jimba

Corrected entry: When Matilda pulls the adoption papers out of her bag, they have her parents' names typed on them below the signature lines. Now if she got the papers out of a book at the library, like she says, how would they have her parents' names typed on them? She hasn't written the names herself, so how did they get there?

The Doctor

Correction: Because she photocopied the papers and typed the names in herself. She never says that the papers were still exactly as they were in the book. She has had them for a long time. She has had plenty of time to prepare them for this eventuality.

Garlonuss

Corrected entry: On Matilda's first day at school, she gets out of the car and is holding her blue cardigan and school notebook in her arms, which she is still carrying as she enters the gate, but when the door opens and Miss Trunchbull comes out and the camera goes back to Matilda she isn't holding anything.

Correction: The scene starts with Matilda carrying her book and sweater to the school gates. It then cuts and the next shot is Matilda standing in the middle of the playground, surrounded by children playing. A big pile of bags, coats, sweaters, books etc. is visible as Matilda enters the school gates. Matilda most likely put her sweater and book down between the timespan of the two shots, then walked off into the playground with anticipation of meeting friends. The two shots are not consecutive, so it isn't a mistake.

Hamster

Correction: She is probably used to hearing her mother say this so she is just mocking her.

littlestar

Corrected entry: In the part where the piece of chalk floats and writes on the board - you can see a wire all the time.

Correction: The special featurette explains how they did this scene - they wrote the letters the chalk is going to write backwards on the wall behind the chalkboard. They then used a strong magnet and traced these words - thus giving the effect that the chalk is floating and writing the words on the board the correct way. No wires were used in the making of this scene.

Hamster

Corrected entry: Right at the start when Matilda is a baby, when she draws the A at the end of her name, the length of one of the sides of the A shortens straight after she draws it.

Correction: The line on the 'A' gets shorter immediately because that is how viscous fluids (like spinach paste) behave in physics. The water molecules cling to each other, like when two puddles of water meet, they suddenly cling and become one. It's the same principle.

Corrected entry: When Zinnia signs the adoption papers she signs it three times. But, when Harry signs, he only signs them twice.

Correction: More of a character mistake on Harry's behalf.

Hamster

Corrected entry: When Matilda reads 'Moby Dick' at the end of the film, she opens the book and turns one page then begins to read. A book has at least 3-5 pages at the start to say who published it, who it was for, etc.

Correction: Two likely possibilities: Either she turned more than one page, and they just stuck together; or this book is part of a series/compilation of classic literature, and the 3-5 pages worth of information that would normally appear in each book appears in only the first or last book of this series.

Phixius

Corrected entry: When Matilda is beginning to learn her powers, she has difficulty slamming the door in her father's face. When she finally does manage it, notice how easily she manages to lock the door.

Correction: Because she opened the flood gate, so to speak, by getting the door to slam.

Phixius

Corrected entry: When Matilda first realises her powers, she dances in the lounge and makes cards, counters and other objects fly around. When she finishes, she sits on the couch, moves her hands in a motion, signaling she wants the curtains open. Nothing happens. Then she turns off the radio, does the same hand motion and the curtains open, so why didn't they open before?

Correction: When she signalled to stop the first time, she was telling the pack of cards/counters to stop flying around, then the second time, she does another motion signaling the curtains to open.

Hamster

Corrected entry: When Matilda impresses everyone with 13 times 379, Lavender says "wow". But you will notice that there's static around her voice.

Correction: That wasn't a problem with the sound, that was Lavender's voice.

Corrected entry: After Matilda takes out her waffles and goes to check on her dad the toaster moves to another table.

Correction: The toaster never moves to another table, I've watched this over and over and it is always at the end of the long yellow counter.

Hamster

Correction: According to the special effects featurette on the DVD, the levitating pitcher scene was done by having the pitcher on a long pole. There was a hole in the table, and the pole was attached to the pitcher, then when it was time to make it float a crewmember would push the pole higher to make the pitcher "float" up. The pole was then erased by computers in post-production. No wires were used in this scene.

Hamster

Corrected entry: In the scene when Harry Wormwood is at his car dealership he uses a two way drill to turn back the numbers on the odometer. However, he tells his son to watch the speedometer.

Correction: Harry is hardly the most intelligent person, is he. This is more of a character mistake reflecting Harry's knowledge, than a movie mistake.

Hamster

Correction: The odometer readout is built into the speedometer dial. If Harry's son watches the speedometer as Harry told him, he will see the mileage being turned back.

Factual error: It is stated that Miss Trunchbull competed in the Olympics in shot put, javelin, and hammer throw. According to her jersey those were the 1972 Olympics. The hammer throw wasn't added as an Olympic event for women until 2000.

More mistakes in Matilda

Harry Wormwood: A book? What do you want a book for?
Matilda: To read.
Harry Wormwood: To read? Why would you want to read when you got the television set sitting right in front of you? There's nothing you can get from a book that you can't get from a television faster.

More quotes from Matilda

Trivia: The two actors who play Matilda's parents, Harry and Zinnia Wormwood, are Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito. They are actually husband and wife and have been married since 1982 and have 3 children.

More trivia for Matilda

Answer: The "real world" answer is that it's a movie, and without Trunchbull, there's no villain at the school for Matilda to battle. Within the context of the film, everyone, including the staff, is afraid of her and fear if they speak up, she'll retaliate.

Answer: They would have been simply too afraid of the Trunchbull to report her.

More questions & answers from Matilda

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