Pearl Harbor

Continuity mistake: When Rafe's girlfriend is looking for him at the train station there's a train behind her that says "Silver Horizon." But when the camera shows Rafe looking at his girlfriend the words on the train are gone.

Continuity mistake: When Doolittle's raiders are first starting to practice short takeoffs, the flaps of the planes aren't extended in close ups but would have to be for takeoff especially short takeoffs. Planes shown taking off have the flaps extended. In the real takeoff from The Hornet, One pilot retracted his flaps because prop wash from previous planes was lifting his plane. He then forgot about it and took off without flaps extended and was only saved by the heavy wind and forward speed of the carrier. There is actual video of the plane nearly hitting the ocean.

terry s

Continuity mistake: When launching Doolittle's plane from the carrier the deck is smooth. When Rafe's plane launches the deck has catapults. The following planes are back to smooth decks with no catapults.

Continuity mistake: When Danny and Evelyn are starting to make love, Evelyn touches Danny's chest and after it she pulls her hand back and grabs his necklace (and dog-tag) way too fast.

nagyszabolcs

Factual error: In the scene where Admiral Kimmel is inspecting the crew of the battleship an aide comes up with a message to send some ships to the Atlantic. Admiral Kimmel starts complaining about the orders. No Admiral would ever do this especially in front of enlisted men. In fact he was placed in charge of the Pacific fleet when his predecessor complained about moving the fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.

Clarence Daugette

More mistakes in Pearl Harbor

Admiral Yamamoto: I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.

More quotes from Pearl Harbor

Trivia: When the Japanese are heading towards Pearl Harbor, there is a shot of a pilot waving to kids playing baseball. This is a true story - the pilot was trying to wave them away before the attack started. (01:26:35)

More trivia for Pearl Harbor

Question: The IMDb lists a cameo by Matt Damon during the attack sequence. Can someone point out exactly where he appears?

Answer: He is in the scene where the smaller air-base is being attacked by the Japanese. You have to look really closely but he is the driver of one of the jeeps right before the Japanese bomb drops (the one that seems to be a dud and then explodes). Also, Matt seems to be one of the gunners on one of the first ships at Pearl Harbor to return fire (this is not verified but in slo-mo, one of the gunners seems to be him).

More questions & answers from Pearl Harbor

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.