2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - 34 mistakes

Continuity: When Dave begins to disconnect HAL's circuits, one angle shows him unlock the first, second, then third unit. Just as he's about to remove the key from the third lock, the angle changes and he's pulling the key from the second lock and then goes for the third again. We know this is consecutive time as HAL is pleading with Dave the entire time.

Revealing: During the "Dawn of Man" sequence, the ape-man scenes were shot on an indoor stage with projected background images on a huge screen behind the stage. The screen itself was a highly reflective cloth. In most shots, it is quite convincing, but in several (especially when facing the aggressive, victorious group during the first fight, then again when facing the tool-using group in the last fight), the rear screen appears to be a patchwork of smaller pieces of cloth as very obvious puzzle-like shapes of varying reflectivity appear in the sky. Once you notice them, it's incredibly distracting.

Factual error: When we see the space station from the cockpit of the approaching shuttle, the station does not appear to rotate because the shuttle is rotating at the same speed. OK...except that the station IS still rotating with respect to the sun, which means that the light source and shadows on the station should be moving.

Continuity: The view of the front of the moon buggy shows the sunlight coming from the right side of the screen(Pilot's left shoulder) But when we see his view out the window, the sunlight casts shadows as if the sun was behind them.

Continuity: When Dave gets his supper,the order of the slop from right to left are: yellow, light brown, light brown, dark brown. Later when he's eating the order is: yellow, orange brown, dark brown, light brown.

Continuity: Several times during Heywood's speech to the team at the crater, his arms shift from his sides with hands in pockets to in front of him with hands on the podium.

Revealing: When the astronauts are on the way to the monolith on the Moon, there are two windows seen within the interior of the small space shuttle. During their small lunch, in the left window, the horizon is seen as the surface of the Moon is flowing back against the direction of the flight. However, although sometimes this horizon fills up to half of the window, no horizon can be seen in the right window despite being located directly beside the left window. Nevertheless, the inclination of the Lunar surface should allow for it to be seen.

Continuity: The Discovery's crew quarters has five beds, three for the hibernating crew, two for the Bowman and Poole. The exact beds occupied by hibernating crew changes from one scene to the next. This error is caused by Frank's last two running shots (the ones where the camera stayed just ahead or just behind him as he ran) having been accidentally reversed in editting. Frank's hair is parted on the wrong side and the sleep tube layout and the body positions within are precise mirror images of the layout seen in all prior and following shots.

Continuity: When Dave recaptures Frank with the pod, one of Frank's legs is outside the pod's pincers, but when Dave releases Frank to reenter the ship, both legs are in the pincer. Seems a bit risky to try to get another grip in the vacuum of space...

Continuity: When Frank receives his parents' birthday message he is relaxing on the sun-bed. As the message drags on there is some intercutting with various other views about the room. One shot happens to be of the sun-bed from an alternative angle, and Frank is nowhere to be seen. In the next shot Frank is once again lying on the bed.

Continuity: The formation of the astronauts on the ramp to TMA-1 shifts from shot to shot.

Continuity: When the astronauts are approaching the monolith on the moon, the earth is clearly seen in a gibbous phase near the horizon. In the next scene, the sun passes behind the earth, which is now in a "new" phase overhead. The earth does not change its position in the lunar sky, and certainly cannot change phase that fast.

Continuity: When Dr. Heywood is talking to his daughter, her hands shift between the first full shot on the screen and the shot over Heywood's shoulder.

Other: When Dave goes to retrieve lifeless Frank the computer screen to his right which is supposed to show continuously updated data, twice displays a jagged line like those found near the end of a reel of a motion picture film.

Factual error: On board spaceship Discovery, the crew's living area is the spinning centrifuge, which spins about its axis to generate a gravity-like acceleration at its perimeter, the floor. When exiting the centrifuge a crewman climbs a ladder from the floor up to the hub, where there's a door leading to other parts. When Poole & Bowman climb this ladder, it's evident that they're under full body weight the whole way up. But in reality they'd get steadily lighter toward the hub. In fact, they'd be practically weightless within a few feet of it.

Continuity: For most of the sequence during which the Orion space shuttle closes in to dock with Space Station One, we see the space station rotating counterclockwise, as viewed from the side the Orion is approaching. But the first two times we see the station (immediately before and immediately after the scene in which Floyd's pen floats free aboard the Orion), it is rotating clockwise. It is also apparently rotating clockwise in the shot from inside the station, looking out at the approaching Orion. The stars in this shot are turning clockwise, implying that the station is moving anti-clockwise, hence must be rotating clockwise when observed from the Orion.

Continuity: When Floyd and his team are heading to the Lunar excavation site, they start to eat those synthetic sandwiches. One of the shots shows a closeup of Floyd. As he is right about to take a bite, the camera cuts back to a shot of the three men. However, Floyd's sandwich is instantaneously about a foot from his mouth and he is fully chewing.

Factual error: During the base briefing all the participants are walking quickly as they would on Earth. This kind of motion is impossible in the lower moon gravity and it is made clear throughout the film that no artificial gravity technology exists that might allow Earth-normal movement. Later, at the monolith excavation site, the walking is slower and more deliberate as it should be.

Revealing: When Dave Bowman is attempting to break into the Discovery after being locked out by Hal you can see, reflected in the Pod window as the Pod is spinning around, the edges and top corner of the small set of the Discovery hatch area. (Second timecode is accurate for DVD release)

Revealing: In the beginning of the film where we see the ape-men, it looks as if they are wearing Converse All-Star type gym shoes that have been painted to look like feet. Perhaps the rocky terrain was too hard on the costumed actors' feet.

Continuity: Frank is running around the centrifuge. He passes the ladder with two bunks to the right and the work station to the left. When Dave comes down the ladder, the bunk is to the left. This error is caused by Frank's last two running shots (the ones where the camera stayed just ahead or just behind him as he ran) having been accidentally reversed in editting. Frank's hair is parted on the wrong side and the sleep tube layout and the body positions within are precise mirror images of the layout seen in all prior and following shots.

Continuity: In the white hotel, the first transition shows a middle-aged Dave with graying hair. In the shot over middle-aged Dave's shoulder to show that the pod is gone, he has dark hair again.

Other: When Dave Bowman blows the explosive bolts on the pod to get into the Discovery, he flies into the long airlock, then back out towards the exit. Watch the pod through both of these shots; it doesn't move a single centimeter when the bolts explode and is in the exact same position when Bowman's body heads back towards the exit. Even with the best possible maneuvering thrusters automatically set to hold the pod in place, it would have moved significantly when the explosive bolts were set off. One corrector proposed that the pod would be held in place because the mechanical arms used to open the airlock would have held it there. Incorrect; Bowman released the pod's grip on the discovery in order to turn it around. The same corrector proposed that the expolsion would not overcome the forward inertia of the Discovery. Wrong again, the pod and Discovery are traveling at the same speed; an explosive decompression would push the pod forward at great velocity.

Visible crew/equipment: During one of the scenes where one of the two astronauts do an EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity or "Space Walk"), you see him floating slowly from the Pod shuttle towards the Discovery.  This was filmed by hanging the pod on the cieling and lowering the actor from it with a rope towards a camera that's poining up.  If you look carefully, you can see the shadow of the rope.

Factual error: In the sequence of the shuttle approaching the moon the pilot talks to Dr. Floyd. Floyds food-tray moves away from his knees because of the zero gravity in the shuttle. But it doesn't drift straight away, it swings like a pendulum, so it`s obvious, that the tray hangs on a string.

Continuity: In the famous scene where the ape throws a bone into the sky, in one shot the bone at first revolves anti-clockwise and then in the next shot, just before the jump cut to the shot of the spaceship, it now revolves clockwise.

Factual error: The scene at the Tycho excavation site where the uncovered monolith emits a radio signal after being illuminated by the rising sun incorrectly shows the sun directly overhead. This would be impossible as the crater Tycho is in the moon's southern hemisphere and the sun would never rise that high during the lunar summer.

Continuity: Dave only takes one utensil on his tray, later he has two.

Factual error: While Dave Bowman & Frank Poole are in the pod bay they lean against the workbench much as anyone would on Earth, yet the pod bay is a weightless environment.

Visible crew/equipment: When the astronauts are approaching the monolith on the moon, you can see the reflection of a cameraman in the visor of the first astronaut off the ramp, in the close up of him walking around the monolith.

Revealing: When the lead ape-man is attacking and beating the rival ape-man group leader with a pig bone, the bone bends with each blow, revealing that it was made of rubber.

Revealing: When all the apes are gathering around the big block at the beginning of the film, look carefully at the sky. The clouds never move, not even slowly.

Audio problem: On Dave's deathbed, sometimes the breathing matches his chest movements and sometimes it really doesn't.

Other: When Dave is deactivating HAL, he unlocks memory blocks one by one by turning a key for every one of them. When he's done the first five memory blocks, from number 6 to 2, he changes the key from right to left hand, and jumps to the logic terminal blocks, unlocking number 5 of those. However, number 1 of the memory blocks slides out.