The Parent Trap

The Parent Trap (1998)

40 corrected entries

(12 votes)

Corrected entry: When the girls are playing poker in one of the cabins, Halley lays a deal, then after a while, Annie lays her cards first. Then Halley says, "Very good James, but just not good enough," but when she says, "A royal flush," she says it in an English accent instead of an American one.

Correction: She's just making fun of her.

Corrected entry: When Annie is going down the dock naked, somebody in the background whistles and says, 'OOh, ooh, Parker,' but Annie's last name is James. Hallie's is Parker.

Correction: She doesn't say, "Oooh, ooh, Parker", she says, "Ooh, ooh, baby."

Corrected entry: When Hallie and Annie are playing their game of poker, you can see that Annie has a straight flush of the ace, two, three, four, and five of diamonds. When Hallie says she has a Royal Flush, you could expect the ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of one suit in her hand. When she shows her cards, however, we can see no ten in her hand, yet the order of her cards from left to right are: King of Spades, Queen of Spades, Queen of spades, Queen of Spades, and the Ace of Spades. Hallie must have been cheating, or it would have been a trick deck. Yet even then, Annie, as a pro poker player must have noticed the flaw in the hand.

seanzilla1

Correction: Just not true. Hallie's hand is a correct Royal Flush.

Corrected entry: Near the beginning, after Hallie and her mom stopped by the store in London to help the bride with her veil, when they are leaving the mother calls for a taxi. The taxi stops, but it is driving on the right side of the road, and in London it would be on the left side of the road.

Correction: They are on Albermarle Street. Albermarle Street is one-way. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albemarle_Street.

Corrected entry: In the shot where Meredith's air-bed is seen in daylight, having been on the water for a few hours, the lake is flowing at about 5 or 6 knots from left to right, yet she is in plain sight of the camp site. Even more so her air-bed doesn't seem to be moving with the current (thus defying the laws of physics). If she really was left on the air-bed for that long she would be a few miles down stream by the time she woke up.

Correction: There is no current, because this is a lake. As for the laws of physics: when Hallie and Annie pushed Meredith from shore, her momentum carried her a fair distance, which is where she would have remained for the duration of the night, until she woke up.

Corrected entry: When the girls and the mother are talking in the hotel room in San Francisco, the girls use their normal accents. But when Annie says, "Mum, Daddy's getting married", Hallie says, "to Cruella De Ville." How could she know about Meridith being evil if she only met her when she was coming out of the lift, as Annie was the one who experienced Meridith's evilness in disguise of Annie.

Correction: Annie and Hallie have been talking on the phone so Annie told her twin all about Meredith. Also, she's probably not going to be Meredith's biggest fan either, as when Meredith and her father marry all chance of their parents getting back together will be gone.

Corrected entry: If Hallie did in fact fly from Maine to London in the late morning/early afternoon, there is no way she could have gotten home during daylight, much less in time for tea because of the time difference.

Correction: It could be the next day.

Correction: Annie tells Hallie that Martin is going to pick her up at the airport tomorrow right before she leaves camp.

Corrected entry: When Hallie puts a huge prank in Annie's cabin, they use such supplies that you could not get at a camp, and you wouldn't bring it along with you.

sdgirl98

Correction: You could easily get those items at camp, from the kitchen. You could also assume they have a craft's cabin at the camp, where they could have gotten some supplies.

Corrected entry: When Haley is calling Annie from England, she makes a collect call. The operator simply patches Haley to Annie without asking Annie if she will accept the call. I would be very upset if I unwillingly accepted a collect call from Europe.

Correction: The film would be rather boring if it showed each stage the operator has to legally take.

Corrected entry: In the scene where the dad is reunited with Hallie and Annie at the pool, Annie appears to arrive from right behind her mother, where the previous shot clearly showed that there was no one there. And why doesn't the dad see the girls coming - can't he see beyond the frame lines?

Correction: Nick is only concentrating on Elizabeth. He doesn't seem to notice anything else in his surroundings, like the chair he just tripped over.

Corrected entry: When Annie (The English girl) gets to camp, her butler comes with her out of the limo. He takes with him a small little box bag type thing which is supposed to be holding all of Annie's stuff for camp (it's the only bag he took out of the car). Also, the butler at the same time was going over a long list of things that Annie's mom made her take - way more things than that bag could have held.

Correction: You can clearly see the Driver take out 2 or 3 more suitcases from the limo a few minutes after that conversation.

Corrected entry: How in the world did Annie and her friends manage to get three beds up on to the roof of the cabin? They'd have to be either very strong and nine feet tall or use a crane and I doubt the camp allows it.

Correction: They took them apart on the ground and rebuilt them on the roof. This would only require regular strength and a ladder, which the camp would allow.

Corrected entry: After the two girls are finished playing poker in the cabin and Annie lost and had to jump in the lake naked, you can see the outline of the bathing suit she is wearing. (00:18:30)

Correction: Annie jumps into the lake naked when she loses. The item around her neck looks like the outline of swimmers but it is her locket with an 'A' on it. This locket is similar to Hallie's except it has an 'A' instead of a 'H'.

Correction: You can see the bathing suit, but the moonlight is needed to see it.

Corrected entry: When Nick is showing Liz his vintage wine collection, he shows her a bottle and calls it a "Burgundy." By naming conventions in the Burgundy region of France, only low-quality pinot noir is simply called "Burgundy." A fine pinot noir from that region would be called "Grand Cru." Someone like Nick, who owns a winery, would know that.

Correction: It's vintage wine, which only means it must be old, not necessarily of superior make. A sufficiently old and rare wine would be valuable and therefore worth saving regardless of quality.

Phixius

Corrected entry: When Annie and Hallie show each other the ripped pictures in the isolation cabin, a chunk in the right hand corner seems to be missing. When they reassemble the pieces on the wall, the picture appears to fit together perfectly.

Correction: The way she's gripping the photo bends it so it looks like there is a chunk missing, but it's whole.

Corrected entry: In America, when Annie is with her dad pretending to be Hallie we understand that she has been at camp for 8 weeks. But in England when the butler goes into the room where Hallie, her mom and grandfather are eating and he is holding the 911 message from the fax machine her mother says really, Annie, 6 weeks is too long to be at camp. So how long were they at camp? 6 or 8 weeks?

Correction: This is just bad memory on her mother's part, not a movie mistake.

Corrected entry: Before Annie reveals to Chessy that she isn't really Hallie, Chessy starts to say "It's almost as if you were Annie." Chessy has not been around Annie in the past several years, so she should have no idea how Annie acts, what she likes, etc. Elizabeth has obviously not kept Chessy up-to-date on Annie, because at the hotel, Chessy is not sure if Elizabeth remembers her. This shows that they have not kept in touch over the years.

Correction: Chessy does not know how Annie would act. All she knows is that "Hallie" is not acting the way that Hallie normally acts. Since she knows that Hallie and Annie are identical twins, she comes to the conclusion that Hallie may really be Annie.

Corrected entry: When Hallie (playing Annie) walks up to her home in England and opens the door, she doesn't turn the handle but just pushes it open.

sdgirl98

Correction: So? There are many types of door hardware in England, one of which is handles that don't turn. They don't have a latch, and it's easier to open the door, since you don't have to turn the knob. A smaller bolt is usually installed above it to lock the door when needed.

Corrected entry: Throughout the fencing scene, Hallie and Annie switch accents. Hallie's wearing the green fencing outfit and speaks with an English accent at certain points, although she was the American girl.

Correction: You must have just been looking at it wrong or hearing it wrong. Sometimes it does sound like it, but they do keep their proper accents.

Corrected entry: They go to camp for eight weeks, and when Hallie comes back to England (in Annie's place) she and her mother still have time to go out and go shopping. The English school summer holiday is only six weeks - not enough time.

Correction: It could have been that Annie attended an independent, private school. These type of schools in England always have longer holidays than state schools, especially in the summer (some can be up to 10 weeks long), because they are not state-owned and therefore don't have to comply with government laws on length of holidays.

Plot hole: The parents meet and get married on the QE II and then we jump to the girls getting to camp 11 years and nine months later. We learn their 12th birthdays are on October 11, so at the time of the camp (which must be around July/August) they are 11 years and around 9 months old. They should only be 11, given it takes 9 months to grow a baby, but instead they're nearly 12.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Elizabeth James got pregnant sometime within the 11 years. Their parents sent them to camp in July because in October they both turn 12. So they are 11 years 9 months old.

The mistake is valid, but perhaps not specific enough about why. The opening scene takes place Jan 8, 1986 (as seen on the marriage licence). Then it says 11 years and 9 months later, which would mean in the next scene it's October 1997 (when it's July 1998). It's 11 years and 9 months after the twins' birth and/or the parents' divorce. But we're not actually shown that part.

Bishop73

More mistakes in The Parent Trap
More quotes from The Parent Trap
More trivia for The Parent Trap

Question: When Hallie and her mom are on the way to the studio, they are showing crossing the street. On the road behind them, the white lines are zigzagged at the beginning. Why are they like this?

Answer: They are crossing on the zebra crossing on Abbey Road in London. The Zigzags are a warning for drivers that the crossing is near. They serve as both strict 'no parking' and 'no crossing the centre line' warnings.

umathegreatstationarybear

More questions & answers from The Parent Trap

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.