Phil C.

Question: Can anyone translate what Axel Torvalds and his lawyer say to each other in their conversation after Agent Roberts is decoyed away by the fake phone call? The film doesn't provide subtitles because it isn't essential to the plot, but I'm still curious.

Phil C.

Question: Does anyone know what kind of pistols Martin Blank uses in this film? Also, is the gunfire sound they make accurate? It's very distinctive.

Phil C.

Audio problem: Near the end of the film, Norrington and Jack are in a rowboat discussing an ambush of the Black Pearl's crew. Jack's line "Not if you're the one doing the ambushing" is very slightly out of sync with his mouth movements - his lips keep moving for a fraction of a second after he stops talking. (01:43:05)

Phil C.

Trivia: A bit of trivia for those who haven't read the books. In the Grey Havens scene, the three Elven Rings can be seen upon the hands of their bearers: Vilya, mightiest of the Three, is worn by Elrond; Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, is still borne by Galadriel; and Narya the Great is seen on Gandalf's hand.

Phil C.

Trivia: The famous "Wilhelm" scream makes a reappearance during the scene where Faramir's men are fleeing from Osgiliath across the Pelennor Fields. Just after the people of Minas Tirith call out, "The White Rider" a Nazgul swoops down and snatches up one of Faramir's men. The "Wilhelm" is heard as he falls.

Phil C.

Trivia: Director Steven Lisberger had several arcade games scattered all around the sets. The cast and crew often had to be called away from them to return to shooting, particularly Jeff Bridges, who would often claim he was "preparing for the next scene" in order to keep playing a bit longer.

Phil C.

Trivia: Peter O'Toole was originally offered the part of Dillinger/Sark. He was very interested in the role, but backed out when he discovered that it would involve mostly acting against a black screen, with all the sets and backgrounds to be added digitally later on.

Phil C.

Trivia: Supervising Sound Editor Mike Hopkins makes a cameo appearance in the film as Farmer Maggot, in the cornfield scene. He notes on Commentary Track 3 that it was difficult to sound angry and spout profanities without ever repeating himself and without actually swearing.

Phil C.

Audio problem: Indy's line "Those aren't big birds, sweetheart. They're giant vampire bats," doesn't match the mouth movements he is making at the time. (00:30:40)

Phil C.

Trivia: The filmmakers discovered to their chagrin that the snakes used for the Well of Souls sequence weren't afraid of fire at all - in fact, they would always try to get closer to the fire to warm themselves. At one point director Spielberg was caught on camera picking up a snake and telling it, face to face, "In the script, you're supposed to hate fire. Why do you like fire? You're ruining my movie."

Phil C.

Trivia: The canyon where Indiana confronts Belloq and the Germans and threatens to blow up the Ark is the exact same canyon where the Jawas take R2-D2 in "Star Wars".

Phil C.

Trivia: The German submarine is the same sub that would later be used for Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot".

Phil C.

Trivia: During filming of the fight scene around the German flying wing, Harrison Ford slipped and fell down and the plane's wheels rolled over his left knee, tearing his ACL. Rather than trust in the local medical care, they simply wrapped the knee up tightly, applied ice, and kept on going.

Phil C.

Trivia: The beach scene where Indy's father frightens the seagulls into taking flight and bringing down the Messerschmitt was done with fake seagulls and real white doves. The beach was covered with fake seagulls for the wide shot, and the closeup shots were done with white doves and piles of loose feathers to further confuse things. The film crew had to use white doves because it turned out that they absolutely could not train live seagulls to do anything at all on cue.

Phil C.

Trivia: In the scene in the zeppelin where Indy talks with his father, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery both elected to shoot the scene wearing no trousers whenever possible, in close ups for example, because it was so hot and they didn't want to stop every ten seconds to wipe sweat away.

Phil C.

Continuity mistake: When the tanker explodes near the end, the Terminator gets out of the truck, then falls to the ground face-first, in an open area. Then he rolls over onto his back, lying prone, and stops moving. When the endoskeleton rises a minute or so later, however, it gets up as if it had been hunched over, face down - and several pieces of the truck's wreckage fall off of it as it rises, as if it had been covered by falling metal. (01:28:45 - 01:31:00)

Phil C.

Trivia: The "smoke" effect coming off Terminator's jacket during the scene where he is riding on the hood of Reese and Sarah's car in the alleyway outside Tech Noir was created by pouring a mild acid onto the jacket. Arnold begged for an alternative method, as the idea understandably made him rather nervous, but eventually he agreed to it.

Phil C.

Trivia: Michael Biehn gave a very impressive reading for the part of Reese, but Cameron didn't like the fact that he had such a prominent Southern accent. He called Biehn's agent and said that they loved the reading, but didn't want Reese to have a pronounced accent like that. The agent was confused: "What accent? He doesn't have an accent." It then transpired that Biehn had in fact just come from an audition for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" that morning, and hadn't shaken off the accent yet. So they had him come in for another reading, verified the lack of accent, and offered him the part.

Phil C.

Trivia: The exploding tanker truck shot was done with miniatures. Director James Cameron originally wanted to do a full-size tanker explosion, but couldn't because they were shooting in a particular area of downtown Los Angeles that was directly in front of the police armory, and the LAPD wouldn't give permission.

Phil C.

Trivia: Because the production was so short on time, the "Future War" segments with the Ground H-Ks were filmed from the ground up. Fantasy II built the treads section, and then they filmed those shots. Then they added the torso section on top of the treads, and filmed those bits. Finally they added the head to the body and shot the full-on views of the H-K.

Phil C.

Trivia: The final image of the Terminator in the film - where its red eye winks out after it had been crushed in the press - was actually one of the cheapest and simplest shots to create. It was done after principal photography had wrapped, when Cameron decided they needed the final shot. The press was made of foam core spray-painted silver, the eye was taken from one of the endoskeleton models and fitted with a small LED that was dialed down, the ring of metal that falls off was made of tinfoil, and the smoke wafting across was cigarette smoke blown on-camera by somebody out of the camera's field of view. Simple - but one of the most powerful images in the film.

Phil C.

Trivia: The body bag that Reese is zipped up into at the end of the film is actually a suit bag that belonged to director James Cameron. They needed a pickup shot and Cameron happened to have the bag in his car, so he pulled it out and presto, instant body bag.

Phil C.

Trivia: A "steel fist" machine rig was used to punch through the windshield of the car in the alleyway scene. The rig was so heavy that the car couldn't be moved, so instead they moved the brick wall behind the car to give the appearance that the vehicle was in motion.

Phil C.

Trivia: The "Tech Noir" shooting was done in a building in LA that used to be a restaurant. The set was so realistic that the night after shooting wrapped, people were trying to pay to get into the "club". Producer Gale Anne Hurd recalls that "we were so desperate for cash at that point that we almost took their money, but better sense got hold of us and we declined the paying patrons."

Phil C.

Trivia: The name of the nightclub, "Tech Noir", was a deliberate allusion to "film noir" - director James Cameron hoped that critics might be interested in the kind of filmmaking they were doing with this film, the references to the dark side of technology.

Phil C.

Trivia: The production of the film was dealt a severe blow when Linda Hamilton broke her ankle and tore several ligaments just before shooting began. The production schedule was rearranged to shift most of the running scenes toward the end of shooting, and even so Hamilton had to do all of those scenes on an ankle which wasn't even close to healed and had to be taped up every day.

Phil C.

Trivia: James Cameron originally wanted Lance Henriksen as the Terminator, and Henriksen really got into the idea of playing the character. Cameron scheduled a meeting with executive producer John Daly to show how great Henriksen would be as the Terminator. Unfortunately Henriksen showed up early - in full makeup, with bits of metal exposed and utterly in character - and frightened the hell out of everyone in the building before Cameron arrived and was able to reassure everyone.

Phil C.

Trivia: The original concept for the Terminator films came to Cameron in a fevered dream he had in Rome - a persistent mental image of a mechanical figure standing in flames. Cameron has since admitted that he gets frequent inspiration from nightmares and that "pleasant, happy dreams are sort of a waste of time."

Phil C.

Audio problem: After the Keymaker has been shot, Morpheus and Neo rush to him and turn him over. The Keymaker's gasping for air is very audible, but the first reflection of him that we see in Morpheus's sunglasses shows that his mouth is tightly closed. This is only visible in that one reflection shot. (01:49:00)

Phil C.

Continuity mistake: In the breakroom scene where Horrigan is thought to have had a heart attack, the EMTs burst in and attempt to "revive" him and he shoves them away to both sides. The camera then shifts to an over-the-shoulder view, where one EMT says "I got a call there was a cardiac case." Both EMTs are present at the left and right edges of the screen. Seconds later, Frank says "Oh, I get it. Who's the wise guy?" and stands up. In that brief interval, the EMTs have vanished completely; when everyone else files out of the breakroom, laughing, they are nowhere to be seen. (00:21:15)

Phil C.

Currahee - S1-E1

Factual error: In the credits, Ross McCall's character's name is misspelled as "Joesph" D. Liebgott. (01:10:25)

Phil C.

Visible crew/equipment: When Vincent Hanna decides Neil is already gone, he heads to his hotel room. He enters the room and walks out onto the balcony. The shot of him approaching the balcony and opening the sliding door is shown from outside, on the balcony itself, and the cameraman (wearing a white shirt) and camera are visible reflected on the left side of the sliding glass door. It is more evident as the shot progresses, because the cameraman shifts position and the reflection moves further to the left, becoming larger. (02:21:54)

Phil C.

Revealing mistake: After Dante's Peak explodes for the final time, the pyroclastic cloud rolls down the mountain toward the town. Harry shouts "Don't look back, kids, don't look back." and then we are shown a wide shot of the truck zooming down the ash-choked streets. Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that this is either a miniature or CGI shot, because the truck isn't leaving any tracks behind it or trailing any clouds of ash despite its high speed. (01:28:19)

Phil C.

Character mistake: When the Terminator scans the doorman at the bar, a display comes up categorizing each piece of the doorman's clothing. The word "briefs" is misspelled "breifs". (00:13:40)

Phil C.

Trivia: The battle rifles carried by the endoskeletons in the Future War segment were created by fitting a fully-automatic Calico 950 handgun, with a 100-round helical-feed magazine, into a fiberglass shell.

Phil C.

Trivia: In the shot where the SWAT van skids across the floor of the Cyberdyne main lobby and ends up with its back end against the elevator lobby, the tile floor was so slick that an industrial adhesive was sprayed all over the floor to allow for greater control.

Phil C.

Trivia: The look of the T-1000 after its freezing in liquid nitrogen was created by covering actor Robert Patrick's face and head with finely chopped reflective cellophane Christmas garlands and then spraying over with canned flocking.

Phil C.

Trivia: The character of Sarah was originally to have a knife scar on her upper lip to make her look harder and more feral than she did in the first film. However, since this would have meant a detailed makeup job every day, the concept was dropped after the first day or two of shooting. In some of the desert scenes, you can still see the scar if you look closely.

Phil C.

Trivia: Makeup artist Jeff Dawn has said that in order to give the Terminator (Arnold Schwarznegger) a look that set him apart from the other "human" actors, the makeup artists "mixed in a little bit of K-Y Jelly into the straight make-up, to give him that 'I'm different-looking but you don't know why' look...It's a sort of plastic-man appearance."

Phil C.

Trivia: The police computer which the T-1000 uses to locate John Connor's juvenile delinquent record was a functional mobile data terminal on loan from ElectroCom Automation. The prop was the subject of many crew members' inquiries of "Hey, can you look up my record for any outstanding warrants?" They were disappointed when they found out it was not hooked into any actual police databases, but had been programmed to simply display John's record.

Phil C.

Trivia: The roiling pit of molten steel where the Terminator and T-1000 meet their ends is actually a Plexiglas trough which was filled with a mixture of water, powdered sugar and mineral oil, and lit from below with orange lights.

Phil C.

Trivia: The scene where the pirate is chasing the maid through the streets, laughing madly, is also taken directly from the original Disney attraction.

Phil C.

Trivia: During a pan shot (I believe it's just before Quatermain's car pulls up at the League's headquarters) near the beginning of the film, a poster can be seen on one of the brick walls with several names on it. The names are those of the creators of the original comics series: Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill, Ben Dimagmaliw and Bill Oakley. (00:20:55)

Phil C.

Factual error: In a shot near the beginning of the film, the gravestone for Allan Quatermain's son is misspelled "Quartermain". [People are trying to correct this, saying the spelling's correct - no it's not: http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0311429.] (00:12:50)

Phil C.

Continuity mistake: When Kobayashi first meets the Suspects, Fenster is laying on a sofa with his feet up on one of the armrests. Kobayashi says, "Mr. Fenster I recognize from his mug shots," and Fenster swings his feet down and sits upright. Thirty seconds later, Kobayashi says, "I work for Keyser Soze," and then Fenster swings his feet down from the armrest and sits up for a second time. (00:50:50)

Phil C.

Trivia: In the scene where Cleric Preston picks up the puppy to keep it from escaping, then hands him back to the Sweeper, the puppy makes several whimpering and yipping sounds. Director Kurt Wimmer had listened to all the "dog" sounds that the sound editor had in his library, but wasn't quite happy with any of them as characterizing the puppy quite right, so they actually hired a voiceover actress whose job it is to characterize dogs to create the puppy's sounds for this scene. (00:44:25)

Phil C.

Trivia: Director Kurt Wimmer designed the Tetragrammaton insignia as four T's, joined at the middle. When the symbol's (unintentional) resemblance to a Nazi swastika was pointed out to him halfway through the film, he was startled and upset, but it was too late to change by then so it was left that way. (00:09:00)

Phil C.

Trivia: Near the beginning of the film, Agent Smith drives up in an Audi with the license plate "IS 5416". This appears to be a Bible reference--Isaiah 54:16--reads as follows (from the King James Version): "Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy."

Phil C.

Trivia: Look for a cameo by noted racial scholar and professor Cornel West during the Zion Council meeting (he plays the Council Member who requests that a ship be sent to ascertain the fate of the Nebuchadnezzar).

Phil C.

Trivia: Director/writer Kurt Wimmer appears three times in the film. The first is in the opening sequence as the silhouetted Cleric performing gunkata movements during Father's voice-over. The second time is as the voice of the Tetragrammaton officer who tells Cleric Preston that they have a warrant for his wife's arrest (in Preston's flashback dream sequence). The third time is as the Resistance member who is shoved up against a column and executed by the police during the warehouse raid (he's the one who holds up his hand in front of his face in a futile attempt to protect himself). (00:01:00 - 00:57:15)

Phil C.

Continuity mistake: In the opening action sequence, one of the sense-offenders slams wide the front doors of the hideout and begins firing at the police. The camera cuts to the police, who immediately open fire; when we cut back to the sense-offender being riddled by bullets, the hideout doors are securely closed behind him. (00:02:00)

Phil C.

Continuity mistake: The photo of Cleric Partridge with Mary O'Brien is crumpled and folded when we first see it in the morgue and when Cleric Preston shows it to O'Brien. However, when Preston is sitting at his desk and looking at the photo by himself, closeups of the photo show it as smooth without the signs of wear and tear seen previously. (01:01:25 - 01:03:20)

Phil C.

Trivia: The muzzle flash from Cleric Preston's pistols appears in the shape of the Tetragrammaton insignia in several of the gun battles: first, in the nighttime battle over the dog, when Preston first fires his pistol; secondly, several times during the hallway battle near the end of the film (most noticeably just before and after the pistols are reloaded from the wrist-loaders); and finally, when Preston fires the single shot that executes Dupont. (00:51:40 - 01:37:35)

Phil C.

Trivia: The "streaks" that appear in the film when fires or explosions are shown are deliberate. This is a phenomenon that would often appear in actual WWII combat photography and was intentionally emulated when the film was made.

Phil C.

Trivia: Director Steven Spielberg reduced the color saturation of the film by approximately 60% to more closely match his artistic vision. This led to a flood of complaints by customers when the movie was broadcast on TV and cable, so the cable and TV companies had to turn the colour gain back up again.

Phil C.

Trivia: Some people have complained that many scenes in the movie have a greenish tint to them. This is deliberate on the part of the filmmakers and is meant to be a clue to the viewer -- all scenes that occur within the Matrix have the green tint overlaying them, while the rest of the movie does not. All scenes in the real world are blue-tinted.

Phil C.

Trivia: Voice actor Jim Varney (Cookie) died of lung cancer in 2000 before his recording could be finished. Cookie's farewell to Milo, "I ain't so good at speechifyin', but I want you to have this. It's the cookin' grease from the whole trip," is the only line that wasn't recorded by Varney.

Phil C.

Revealing mistake: In the scene at the beginning of the film where Faisal is in the van and decrypting the files, he says "Yeah, I got your password," and then the camera swings down to show his fingers on the keyboard, pressing repeatedly on the same set of keys and looking rather unrealistic. (00:07:30)

Phil C.

Trivia: Just after Tron pulls Flynn up onto the solar sailor, there is a shot of the landscape below. A hidden Mickey Mouse head can be seen in a nod to the Mouse House. (01:12:24)

Phil C.

Trivia: During the sequence with the explorers' huge submarine submerging, one of the computerized "extras" can be seen waving at the camera. (He is seen through the lower window for only a second or two; use frame advance to view it or listen to the Visual Commentary on the DVD for specifics). (00:16:39)

Phil C.