Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Apparently, Captain Nemo's submarine, Nautilus, is a shape-shifter. When it first surfaces next to the dock, it appears to rise easily 100 feet above the water, and that's only the visible part of the submarine; the bulk of the craft is still below the surface. This suggests that the water is a good 300 feet deep or more right off the dock, which is impossible. At this enormous size, it's also impossible that the Nautilus negotiates inland waterways, as when she goes to Mongolia. Strangely, we also see an overhead shot in which the Nautilus appears to rise only about 40 feet above the surface (compared to three-storey buildings directly adjacent).

Charles Austin Miller

End Game (2) - S2-E17

Factual error: In the opening sequence, we see a nuclear attack submarine beneath the ice in the Arctic Ocean. When the captain orders the ship to surface, one of the crewmen mutters, "Surface to what? We're under 32 feet of glacial ice!" Except that they're not under "glacial ice," they're under Arctic sea ice, which ranges from about 6 feet thick in the summer to about 15 feet thick in the winter.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Dave shoots Justin 8 times, he empties the magazine of his semi-auto handgun, but he continues pulling the trigger, and the gun clicks several times. Semi-auto handguns do not "click" when they are empty, because it's impossible to pull the trigger. Also, the slide of Dave's handgun does not lock in the open position when the magazine is empty, as it should.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: In the opening sequence, the camera pans down on a planet and moon that are three-quarters lit in sunlight (with the sun being far off-camera to the left). A battlecruiser then crosses the images as a silhouette, eclipsing the planet and moon in total blackness. Impossible. The battlecruiser should have been lit three-quarters in sunlight, same as the planet and the moon. Stranger yet, as the stormtrooper shuttles are deployed and cross over the battlecruiser silhouette, the shuttles are illuminated. (00:01:55)

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Near the end, Mia discovers the chainsaw in the toolshed. Glancing around, she sees a clear plastic bottle of sparkling bright blue fluid that looks like window cleaner but is marked "Chainsaw Gas." Real chainsaw fuel is a 1:40 mixture of 2-cycle motor oil (greenish-black in color) and gasoline (pinkish-amber in color), which produces a fuel that is olive-green in broad daylight. In the darkened shed where Mia finds the chainsaw, the "Chainsaw Gas" in the bottle should not appear sparkling blue, but should appear very dark green, even with artificial light behind it.

Charles Austin Miller

Show generally

Factual error: Throughout the series, there are scenes of decapitated heads speaking with audible voices, in spite of the fact that they have no diaphragms, lungs or larynxes. Even if a decapitated head was somehow fully animate, it still couldn't utter a sound.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: In the opening boat chase scene, when Bond takes the Q-boat ashore at high speed and hurtles through city streets, we see that his hands are still steering the Q-boat, even though there's no external means of steering the boat on dry land. We get a good look at the Q-boat's keel a couple of times, and it has no wheels nor other steering mechanism aside from its jet-ski nozzle, which would be useless for steering on dry land. Its twin rocket thrusters, which are both firing in the street sequence, provide only forward thrust. But, remarkably, the Q-boat manages to change direction by as much as 90° without losing momentum on dry land.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Throughout the film's high-energy choreographed fight sequences, Rama is repeatedly struck in the arms, legs and back with machetes. He not only suffers no wounds, but his tactical gear isn't even lacerated.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Late in the big chase scene, Sol climbs on top of the Bentley just as Sinclair decides to drive it straight through a bus that is blocking the highway. Somehow, the Bentley levitates from the highway to about 4 or 5 feet in the air, penetrating the bus passenger cabin rather than impacting the chassis of the bus. Also, as the bus inexplicably explodes in a fireball, Sol (who was atop the car) is torn to pieces, with his decapitated head hurtling straight into the camera. Without lungs or diaphragm, Sol's head is still audibly screaming.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: In the title shot, the camera rises above the dark side of the moon, revealing the crescent of the Earth, which in turn reveals the full disc of the Sun. The Sun is surrounded by the pinpoint lights of distant stars, but there are virtually no stars visible on the darkened far left and far right sides of the screen. This is exactly opposite of how real-life astronauts describe the star scape: Astronauts say that no stars are visible when looking in the general direction of the Sun, and that stars only become visible to the human eye as you turn away from the Sun.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: At two points in the film, the Klingon vessel Bounty traverses the distance from the Earth to the Sun at maximum speed, in excess of Warp 9. The latter sequence requires about 111 seconds from the time Sulu says "Aye sir, warp speed" until they reach the Sun. While there is no real science behind Star Trek's "warp technology, " the Starfleet Technical Manual provides a formula for calculating warp speed, whereby Warp 9 translates to about 136 MILLION MILES PER SECOND. The Earth is only 93 million miles from the Sun. In the apparent time that it takes the Bounty to reach the Sun, a starship traveling at such ferocious velocity would already be outside of our known solar system and deep into interstellar space.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Jenny Hayden and Starman accidentally overshoot their destination and arrive in Las Vegas, Jenny discovers that her wallet is missing. She has no cash, no credit cards, and no identification whatsoever. The only money she has is a single quarter. Starman uses the quarter to hit the jackpot on a 25-cent slot machine, then uses the prize money to play the Horseshoe $500,000 slot machine, which he also wins. They then use the giant jackpot money to purchase a brand new Cadillac and drive it off the lot. Huge problem: In 1984 (and today), you could never collect a giant Las Vegas jackpot without several pieces of personal identification, for tax purposes. Likewise, you could never purchase and drive a brand new Cadillac off the lot without multiple pieces of identification and a financial disclosure statement (if paying cash).

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When the barracks are completely flooded, Eggsy uses his bare fist to punch through a large two-way mirror to escape. The fact is that any glass (or plexiglas) thick enough to contain hundreds (or thousands) of tons of water without bursting would be as impenetrable as concrete to Eggsy's bare fist. He would need a chisel-tipped jackhammer to penetrate such a mirror.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When the barracks are completely flooded, several of the trainees shove shower hoses down the toilets for an "unlimited supply of air" (Merlin describes it as "simple physics"). However, that old fireman's trick is a technique for surviving dense smoke, which is not under fluid pressure. In the barracks flooded 9 feet deep with water, the pressure would be so enormous that it would easily gush straight down the toilets in a powerful torrent, eliminating any "unlimited air supply."

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: In the "Groovy" shed scene, Ash holds a double-barreled shotgun in one hand and saws through the gun barrels with his newly-mounted chainsaw in about 2 seconds flat. He could no more cut through a hardened steel shotgun barrel with a chainsaw than he could cut through a marble counter-top with a butter knife.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Clint Eastwood first goes to the barber shop, the barber very deliberately sharpens his razor the wrong way, flipping the blade with its sharp edge against the strop - this would instantly dull the blade. No real barber would make this mistake, but it's a common movie error.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: In the train wreck scene at the end of the film, we hear the railroad warning bell clanging, the train horn blaring, James Caan and friends screaming, the fiery roar of the impact, and the rumble of the train plowing through the wreckage. In reality, all of these sound effects would have been drowned out for the duration of the scene by the ear-splitting, squealing screech of powerful railroad brakes that the engineer would have applied long before an unavoidable impact. Omitting the sound of railroad brakes is still a common factual error in modern train-collision sequences.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: In the scene where the ship encounters the tidal wave, the ship is located in the Mediterranean Sea and is struck by a tsunami generated by a sub-sea earthquake 130 miles off the coast of Crete. The Mediterranean is a relatively calm body of water compared to the Atlantic. Beyond that, a tsunami wave from even a major earthquake will pass almost unnoticed to ships at sea; tsunamis only rise up and become dangerous in shallow water on coastlines.

Charles Austin Miller