Great sites

Anything Hollywood

Atomic Popcorn

Banned in Hollywood

Bits & Pieces

Blockbuster Buzz

Book mistakes

CanMag

CHUD

The Daily Column

Daily Stab

Defamer

Double Viking

The Evil Beet

Film Drunk

Filmofilia

Filmspotting

Foundry Music

Game mistakes

Geek Tyrant

Gone Hollywood

Hollyscoop

Hollywood Outbreak

I Am Bored

I Love Bacon

Joblo movie news

Movie Banter

Movie Buzz

Movie spoilers

Movie timeline

Other crap

Screenjunkies

Sky movie reviews

Something Really Funny

Tengossip

Trailer Addict

Unreality Magazine

Quotes

Evelyn: Every night I watch the sunset and soak up every last ray of its warmth, and send it from my heart to yours.

See more...

Mistakes

In the scene where Roosevelt is delivering the "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress watch the microphone placement. The MBC microphone likes to move around from left to right. See more...

Trivia

Despite the numerous historical errors and gaffs in the movie, the only historical "fact" the filmmakers managed to do research on (and admit to supposedly) is that they consulted bottle collectors on what types of bottles to use during the battle scenes to administer blood. See more...

Picture

Movie Mistakes blog

Popular blog posts:

Top 15 biggest Harry Potter film mistakes

The biggest mistakes in the Harry Potter movies

10 Twilight mistakes in pictures

The 20 biggest Friends mistake pictures

10 Biggest mistakes in The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Pearl Harbor (2001) - 58 corrections

Directed by Michael Bay, starring Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Voight, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, Romance, War

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
Pictures
Quotes
Corrections
Questions
Submit
In the scene when Jimmy Dolittle is standing on the carrier talking to Rafe about the reason for the Raid there is no wind. This is impossible as the Hornet was steaming at over 30 Knots which means there would have been a wind of over 30 miles an hour going across the deck and it would have been heaving up and down as the seas were rough for the trip. [This phenomenon is called 'apparent wind'. If they are traveling the same direction as the wind at roughly the same speed, they would not feel the wind.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
About half an hour into the film, the American president is holding a meeting to discuss sending more tanks, bullets, etc.to Britain and Russia. he refers to Britain as Brits. Britain has only been called this in the last 10-15 years. [No, I distinctly remember Britons being called "Brits" when I was a child growing up in the 70s in North America. The music industry in the UK has the Brit Awards, which were started in 1977. Also, the people of Britain were called Brits, not the country itself. The word has been around a long time, not just 10-15 years.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
For some reason, Danny believes Rafe's story that he's been officially assigned to an RAF Eagle Squadron for "combat training." It was against the law for any citizen to fight for a belligerent power while America was neutral; let alone a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. [Not even close to true. The Eagle Squadron was very much REAL. Composed of volunteer American pilots for the RAF during WWII. Just do a wiki search for Eagle Squadron. Possibly it was not factual for him to be assigned as he told Danny, but he was making that up anyway, so the validity behind the statement doesn't matter at all.]
Edit Corrected by Kimberly Mason
When Rafe says, "Why the hell is the navy practicing this early on a Sunday morning?", his mouth isn't matching what he's saying. [The reason why it's not matching is because it's Danny who's saying those lines, not Rafe.]
Edit Time
When the bombers crash land in China more than one crew member is killed. In real life only 1 man from the raid was killed. 71 escaped and 8 were captured, four of whom were executed as war criminals by the Japanese. [Actually, one died whilst bailing out and two died from drowning during the mission. Eight were captured, three of whom were executed by the Japanese and one died of malnutrition as a POW.]
Edit Corrected by terry s
When they are attaching the medals to the bomb, they are attached to the front of the bomb near the trigger button. In real life they were attached to the tail fins. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to attach anything near the trigger as it could cause a malfunction. [See note in the header of this movie regarding historical inaccuracies. They are not considered valid for this movie.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
There were no pilots from Pearl who participated in the Doolittle raid much less fighter pilots who would have needed to get retrained for bomber pilot flying which is too different from fighter plane piloting. [This is a historical drama not a documentary. Creative license is allowed.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
The B25s the Doolittle Raiders used were heavily modified for the mission. One modification was removal of the radios, both to save weight and to eliminate the chance of an accidental transmission giving them away. Another was that the only guns on the planes were a single .30 cal machine gun in the nose and a .50 cal gun turret on top of the plane. Tail guns were never part of the plan, since a B25 could outrun most fighters. In the movie the planes seem to have more guns than they did, not to mention radios. [B-25's didn't have tail guns but black broom sticks were added to make it look like they had tail guns.]
Edit Corrected by terry s
In the scene where Danny and Evelyn find out Rafe has been shot down in Europe it's raining with lots of thunder and lightning. Lightning is VERY rare in Hawaii. [Very rare doesn't mean impossible. I lived there for 6 months, not far from Pearl Harbor, and experienced thunder and lightning storms twice.]
Edit Corrected by rswarrior
During the scene where the U.S.S Oklahoma is sinking and is almost completely upside down. An explosion goes on the ship that throws people off the ship and into the air. One person gets blown straight through the propeller with the propeller still staying clean and holeless. [A human body isn't nearly hard enough to penetrate or leave a hole in a solid steel/brass/whatever-sort-of metal-was-used propeller. If you watch closely, the sailor's upper body snaps backwards as he strikes the blade, passing underneath instead; he doesn't go "through" it.]
Edit
In the scene when the attack starts there are many people doing their everyday activities. But the Japanese attack started at 7:55 on Sunday! At this time most people not on duty would be sleeping, or at least having breakfast, especially children. However, the children at the time of the attack are already playing baseball, posing as angels etc. In real life there would be much less people outside. [This occured in 1941. 7:55 AM is not that terribly early, for any day of the week. I grew up in the 70's, and on a Saturday, it was not unusual for me to be outside playing well before 8 AM. Unless you were there to take a census on who was up, and who was sleeping, you can't assume people slept late as is more common today. For one, church attendance was a higher percentage then compared to now, and it's likely a lot of people would have been getting ready for church. Also, in military families, rising early is common practice, and a habit one gets into when even loosely associated with the military.]
Edit
When the attack force is spotted on radar, the officer who decides it is a flight of B-17s is addressed as "Lieutenant". However, he is wearing an Army uniform, thus the two silver bars on his epaulets would denote the rank of Captain (O-3). [Which is nothing more than a character mistake. A recruit who hasn't been in the army for a long time, usually having a lieutenant as a superior, not having paid attention or the Captain just got promoted and the guy isn't used to it yet.]
Edit Corrected by Ronnie Bischof Time
Crashing into the English Channel at full speed, like Rafe did when he was shot down by the Messerschmitt, and then surviving the crash, is physically impossible. In the movie the airplane "dives" into the water, while in real life, it would just disintegrate against the surface of the water and the pilot would, most probably, be catapulted out of his seatbelts and then through his canopy into the water (And needless to add: he would definitely not survive). [You cannot say that, we have no indication about speed of the aircraft, exact angle of impact or any other detail that is necessary to tell how the airframe would respond to the water. And whether he would survive or not you can't tell either, two examples to show you what a body can bare: three fighter pilots who were shot down in WWII survived a free fall from over 5000m as they landed in a wood and there was a yugoslavian stewardess who fell out of an aircraft after a bombing at flightlevel 300 (10 km) and she survived the fall!]
Edit Corrected by Ronnie Bischof
When the bombing starts, someone asks Danny "What the hell is going on out there?" and Danny replies. "I think World War II just started." World War I was called The Great War until the 1950s, so there is no way Danny would know anything about the possibility of a sequel. [World War: first attested 1909 as a speculation, probably a translation of German "Weltkrieg". Applied to the first one soon after it began in 1914. "World War I" coined 1939, replacing "Great War" as the most common name for it; "First World War" first attested 1947. "World War II" so-called since 1939; "Second World War" is from 1942. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=world+war&searchmode=none.]
Edit Corrected by Rlvlk
While training for the Tokyo raid, Dolittle is the first to get his B-25 to take off in the allotted distance. In the shot that shows his plane lifting off as he crosses the line on the runway, the flag in the background shows he is taking off with the wind. Airplanes always take off INTO the wind whenever possible, especially when trying to keep the takeoff roll short. [It's correct that you try to start into the wind whenever possible, however we can't say that they didn't try to take off with the wind anyway, plus there could be wind changes. I personally had that when I once landed at an airfield, strong winds from the left however suddenly a wind from the right caught me offhand and nearly turned my plane over. No mistake in that scene.]
Edit Corrected by Ronnie Bischof
At the start of the attack on Pearl Harbor there are large explosions and noise which makes Danny and Rafe wake up suddenly, but why are there a shot of sailors fishing like nothing's going on around them? [They are not woken up by the explosions, they are woken up by the airplanes flying so near them. They even comment on "practicing this early on a Sunday" - practice does not involve blowing things up.]
Edit Time
In the middle of the film during the attack on Pearl Harbor, some of the Japanese are attacking the smaller airfields. We see Danny, Rafe and a few other pilots speeding away in a car. Various shots in this scene we see that the road goes from grass and dirt to concrete between shots. [Many possible reasons for this. The route from one airfield to the other probably isn't "concrete" all the way. So the different "road" type just suggests that the other airfield isn't easy to get to. Or more simply, they were trying to escape/avoid being shot at. Therefore they got off the road so that they're not easy targets on the road.]
Edit Corrected by XIII Time
When Danny and Evelyn are in a cafe and Danny is telling Evelyn what Rafe and Danny did as kids, the position of Evelyn's hands keeps changing. [That's probably becuase she keeps moving them. If it's between shots it should be stated, along with some more specific info.]
Edit Corrected by XIII Time
When he is shot down, Rafe's Spitfire squadron initially engages a bomber formation. In the RAF, Spitfires were never sent after bombers. Because of their higher speed, they were always sent after the escorting fighters. It was the Hurricane squadrons that would be assigned to the bombers. [Air battles are very fluid affairs. While in practice, Spitfires where launched after German fighters, a sudden course change by the German fighter formation could potentially put them out of practical intercept range for any one formation of Spitfires. As such the airborne Spitfires might be diverted after a nearby bomber formation. Examination of the historical record will show many Spitfire pilots credited with bomber kills during the Battle of Britain.]
Edit
When Danny and Evelyn are in the Black Cat Diner, a Volkswagen bus goes by. Volkswagen was started by Hitler and not introduced to the US until much later. [The vehicle that drives by has a driver in front, and four rows behind that (with two sailors sitting in the rear). No VW bus ever built was that large. The vehicle is more likely some sort of transit bus.]
Edit Time

1 2 3 • Next page • Show all