Question: When Kirk and McCoy try to rescue Chekov at Mercy Hospital, Kirk removes the 20th Century medical team into an adjacent room and uses his phaser to instantly fuse the metal door lock. The medical team cannot directly see Kirk do this, as they are visibly several feet away on the other side of the door. It's also safe to say that the medical team has never seen a phaser and can't comprehend its function or capabilities. As Kirk turns away from the door to rejoin McCoy, the trapped medical team only then rushes up to the door, and the trauma surgeon exclaims, "He melted the lock!" However, it seems that you'd have to laboriously dismantle the doorknob to determine that the lock's internal components were fused. So, how did a 20th Century surgeon deduce at a glance that Kirk had somehow melted the lock?
Charles Austin Miller
26th May 2018
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Answer: The doctors were watching through the window the entire time. There was a visible red laser beam from the phaser, culminating with a puff of smoke or vapor emanating from the knob. It wouldn't be a huge leap for anyone to surmise that the knob had likely been melted.
Try watching the scene. No doctors are looking through the window when Kirk phasers the door lock.
Answer: Or perhaps the part of lock on the doctors' side is visibility melted.
Answer: The knob would have been super-heated by the phaser blast. Enough that it could be felt without touching, and he simply could have come to the conclusion that a metal object that hot would likely have its internal components melted without a systematic analysis of the doorknob. He's also a surgeon and needs his hands. He wouldn't last long at the job if he was someone who went around putting his hand on glowing-hot doorknobs.
He could've also been guessing as it appears he tries opening the door. Why they don't break the glass is beyond me, but that's a character mistake, and not up for debate here.
25th May 2018
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)
Trivia: Originally, Metro Goldwyn Mayer had planned for producer Roger Corman to make a film entitled "Captain Nemo and the Floating City," but the project collapsed early on. Producer Steven Pallos later resurrected the project as "Captain Nemo and the Underwater City," and this time the film was completed.
25th May 2018
Mysterious Island (1961)
Revealing mistake: When the castaways discover two women and a man washed up on the beach, they quickly determine that the women are still alive. The journalist, Gideon Spilitt, checks the pulse of the male and pronounces him dead; but the dead man's limp left hand very noticeably and unnaturally jerks twice just as Spilitt releases his wrist. The actor playing the dead man obviously had an anticipatory reflex action, but they chose to keep the shot in the film, anyway.
25th May 2018
Mysterious Island (1961)
Factual error: Captain Nemo takes the castaways on an underwater tour around the island, where they observe Greek temple ruins on the sea floor. The ancient Greeks were pioneers of philosophy, politics and engineering, but they never colonized beyond the general area of the Mediterranean and they certainly never colonized the South Pacific (which is the setting of Mysterious Island).
25th May 2018
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)
Plot hole: At the very beginning, as the passenger ship is foundering in a powerful storm, the little boy places his kitten in a box and tucks the box inside his shirt just moments before he is cast into the churning sea. Sinking into the depths, the boy and other passengers are presently rescued by Captain Nemo's team of divers, who supply the drowning passengers with oxygen until they board the submarine Nautilus. Once aboard, the little boy opens his hidden box to reveal a wet but very much alive kitten that could not possibly have survived submersion for that length of time in a box that was not waterproof.
5th May 2018
From Hell (2001)
Trivia: While based on actual events and characters, "From Hell" takes considerable liberty with facts, in addition to leaving much of its convoluted fictional plot unexplained. The real Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline's first wife died of tuberculosis two months after they married (she was not pregnant at the time). Abberline remained married to his second wife for over 50 years, and they never had children. Abberline was not clairvoyant, was never an opium or absinthe user, either, and he died at the ripe old age of 86. The movie fabricated everything except a handful of essential historical facts regarding the Ripper murders.
4th May 2018
Casino Royale (1967)
Question: At the beginning, M and agents representing the USA, Soviet Union and France try to convince James Bond to come out of retirement. Bond steadfastly refuses; whereupon, M lights his cigar as a signal for British troops in the distance to destroy Bond's estate with mortar fire (M is accidentally killed in the mortar attack). But what was the purpose of destroying Bond's estate? Wouldn't that action only drive Bond further away from rejoining the spy corps? Why would the British government go to such lengths to punish Bond? And then why did Bond return to the secret service, anyway, after such treachery?
Answer: Given that this is a comedy, the thinking was probably "Well, we'll just blow up your retirement so you've got no choice but to come out of it."
2nd May 2018
Casino Royale (1967)
Continuity mistake: When Sir James and Mata Bond infiltrate Dr. Noah's headquarters, they hurry down a corridor with dozens of doorways. There are no flashing lights, but the corridor color repeatedly changes from blue with blue doors to red with red doors from one camera shot to the next.
Suggested correction: And exactly how would this have happened unintentionally? This was obviously done on purpose to create a disorienting, surreal effect. It may not be "realistic" but this is not a movie that concerned with realism.
Your attempt to speculatively explain it away as a stylistic choice does not negate the fact that this is a continuity error in a film that is full of continuity errors. It's important to remember that this film had 6 different directors, as well as disgruntled and uncooperative actors (Peter Sellers even quit and walked out in the middle of production). As a result, the movie has a piece-meal appearance and is riddled with plot holes and continuity errors.
Are you suggesting the two parts of the scene was directed by two different directors and one of them decided to change the color scheme before shooting? Considering the difficulty in creating the two different looks, it is practically impossible for this to have been done accidentally. A break in continuity is not a mistake if it is intentional.
Early in the sequence, Sir James and Mata Bond are looking for an escape route: They glance down one corridor, which is a dead-end that is all blue with blue doors; but they choose another dead-end corridor that is all red with red doors. As they flee down the red corridor, the camera cuts to show them from the front, back and profile as they hurry down the corridor. Although they deliberately chose the red corridor, the color changes from red to blue and back to red from cut to cut. The obvious answer is that they tried alternate takes Sir James and Mata Bond fleeing down the red corridor and then the blue corridor, but then sloppily edited the shots together into one sequence.
16th Apr 2018
The Craft (1996)
Continuity mistake: When the girls wake up on the beach, they see Nancy out in the surf, walking on water. As she casually strolls back to the shoreline, a wide shot shows the water is calm and flat and blue from the beach to as far as the eye can see. However, as the camera cuts to Nancy reaching the beach, the surf behind her is suddenly rough and crashing and murky brown, with 3-foot waves breaking on the shoreline.
10th Apr 2018
Dementia 13 (1963)
Question: At the very beginning, John and Louise stroll down a dock, get into a row-boat and start across the lake; but John dies of a heart attack half-way across, and Louise dumps his body into the water. Throughout this entire scene, John's transistor radio is warbling a rockabilly song that sounds Elvis-inspired (but it's not Elvis). What is the song and who sang it?
Answer: "He's Caught" by Buddy Fowler and the Fads. It was an unreleased song used for the movie.
9th Apr 2018
Curse of the Faceless Man (1958)
Factual error: This horror-fantasy film (a 1958 knockoff "The Mummy") was inspired by the faceless whole-body plaster casts taken from the volcanic ash of Pompeii, at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius. The running mistake in this movie is the assumption that the faceless bodies of Pompeii were 2000-year-old mummies preserved by volcanic ash and could, thus, be re-animated (by radiation, in this case). The fact is, the victims at Pompeii were originally encased in hot volcanic pumice and ash, and the corpses then disintegrated, leaving hollow "molds" of human bodies underground. It wasn't until the mid-19th Century that archaeologists first discovered the molds, filled them with plaster, then extracted the whole-body plaster casts for display. Since the faceless bodies of Pompeii are nothing but modern plaster casts, there would be nothing to re-animate, by radiation or any other improbable means.
7th Apr 2018
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969)
Trivia: This film is based on a true story; but, of course, much dramatic license is taken with the facts. For example, while the movie depicts Lola shot in the chest (either by Willie Boy or by herself), the real-life "Lola" was shot in the back by the posse that was chasing them. Also, while the movie depicts Sheriff Cooper gunning down Willie Boy at the end, the real-life Willie Boy committed suicide by his own hand.
4th Apr 2018
The Angry Red Planet (1959)
Continuity mistake: When the MR-1 first lands on Mars, the sky visible through the portholes is fiery red, which is the uniform color of all exterior shots in the film. However, a whole series of interior shots throughout the film show that the sky visible through the portholes is suddenly and inexplicably baby blue. At two points, when Iris sees a Martian through the porthole, the sky momentarily turns pitch black.
4th Apr 2018
The Angry Red Planet (1959)
Deliberate mistake: For all exterior shots on the surface of Mars, the crew's "pressurized" space helmets have no face-plates (their faces are fully exposed to the hostile Martian environment). The transparent face-plates they intended to use reflected far too much studio set lighting, such that the glare would have obscured the actors' faces. On a $200,000 budget and a 10-day production deadline, they simply scrapped the face-plates and shot the scenes with wide-open helmets.
26th Mar 2018
Star Trek (1966)
Continuity mistake: An Orion spy (disguised as an Andorian) attacks Captain Kirk in the corridor on Deck 5 and plainly stabs Kirk in the back on the right side. As he staggers to his feet, Kirk first reaches to the wound with his right hand, indicating that it is, indeed, on the right side of his back. He then reaches far across his back with his left hand to touch the wound, and we see blood on the back of his hand (but not on his sleeve). So, it is visually established that the wound is on the right side of his back. But, a few moments later in SickBay, Dr. McCoy announces that Kirk's wound is a "puncture to the left lung." Then, later in the episode, Kirk his holding his left arm as though he is suffering pain on the left side.
26th Mar 2018
Addams Family Values (1993)
Question: In the very last scene of the movie, we see Christina Ricci and David Krumholtz sitting in the Addams Family graveyard, and Krumholtz is placing flowers at Debbie Jellinski's tombstone, when a full human arm (presumably the late Debbie's) shoots out of the grave and grabs his wrist, sending him into screaming fits. However, Debbie was completely cremated to ash by electricity a few minutes earlier in the film. Nothing left of her but ash, shoes and credit cards. So, whose arm reached out from Debbie's grave?
Answer: We are never told whose arm it was that came out of the grave.
Answer: It was a prank Wednesday was pulling on Joel. She mentions she would scare her husband to death and then smiles when Joel starts screaming.
Yes, she said she'd scare her husband to death. But it is a very animated human arm that reaches out of the grave, causing me to wonder WHO was in the grave to pull off the prank?
I mean, if it was just a hand coming out of the grave, I would be satisfied that it was "Thing" taking part in the prank. But it was a whole human forearm (which Thing does not have).
There's no evidence in the film to answer the question. They never show you who the arm belongs to, and with good reason. It would ruin the joke. This is just one of those questions that can't be definitively answered.
This is also a reference to the end scene of Carrie.
26th Mar 2018
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Continuity mistake: After George knocks out Biff, Biff has an obvious contusion and blood on the right side of his nose and mouth. As the hoverboard chase scene progresses over the next several minutes (particularly in the lighted tunnel), the contusion and blood repeatedly disappear and reappear on Biff's face from one camera cut to the next.
26th Mar 2018
Star Trek (1966)
Trivia: This episode (which first aired on October 27, 1967) was the only "holiday-themed" episode of Star Trek TOS. It was supposed to be a Halloween-ish story with witches, a spooky castle, black cats, skeletons and zombies, and there are repeated references to Halloween and "Trick-or-Treat" throughout the episode.
25th Mar 2018
Star Trek (1966)
Deliberate mistake: At the very end, the Talosians send a final visual transmission of Vina and Christopher Pike, now whole and happy and reunited after 13 years, holding hands as they enter the Talosian elevator in the hillside. However, in this last shot, the elevator is still half-disintegrated, exactly as it was 13 years earlier when the Enterprise crew destroyed the hillside with a laser cannon. Within the context of "The Menagerie" storyline, this suggests that the Talosians never attempted to repair the elevator for 13 years (even though they continued using it). This incongruity is due to Gene Roddenberry cannibalizing his Star Trek pilot "The Cage," which contained zero footage of Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver entering the intact elevator together (only the destroyed elevator). So, Roddenberry deliberately tried to "slip one by" the audience in this brief shot.
Suggested correction: There are reasons why the elevator would appear damaged. As the Talosians were in control of everything shown on the ship's viewer, the entire scene could be an illusion, or at least the elevator's condition may have been, with the Talosians choosing to allow the viewers to see the elevator in the same condition they last saw it. Just as likely, however, is that the Talosians truly never did reconstruct the elevator, as the whole point of their having a menagerie of other beings was an attempt to breed a race that could physically serve them, for their concentration on their mental powers had led to a complete inability and unwillingness to perform physical tasks (like repairing an elevator).
Still, as long as the Talosians are creating the illusion of Christopher Pike and Vina in their "restored" bodies, why not create an illusion of the elevator and hillside restored, as well? One big illusion of restoration, rather than a composite of dismal reality and happy-ending illusion? Again, to the point of my original post, the obvious incongruity is due to Roddenberry using the only happy-ending footage he possessed, that of Pike and Vina entering the half-obliterated elevator as they did at the end of "The Cage." Certainly, if Roddenberry only had the foresight to shoot Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver entering the intact elevator, he would have used that footage instead. Any attempt to explain away the 13-year incongruity is mere wishful thinking.
This would qualify as a question, not a mistake. It is entirely plausible that the Talosians wouldn't bother to repair the elevator. It's also possible, as the previous correction points out, that the entire scene is an illusion. Remember, Captain Kirk sees Vina and Pike together on the planet literally moments after Spock wheels Pike out of the room. It's unlikely Pike had already been beamed down.
25th Mar 2018
Star Trek (1966)
Revealing mistake: When the Talosians place Christopher Pike and Vina into the "picnic" illusion (in the countryside on Earth), Pike wanders around marveling at how real it all seems. Well, "real" except for the fact that Pike's body is casting 4 distinct shadows in 4 different directions on the ground, the result of studio set lighting.
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Answer: The lock, and the area around it, would have become hot as a result of melting the lock. The hospital staff would then jump to the conclusion that the lock was melted. The real reason they mention it, however, is so the audience knows what he did to the lock.
But you would think, if the doorknob was still searing hot two seconds after being fused, that the first thing out of the surgeon's mouth would be a scream of pain, rather than "He melted the lock!"
Charles Austin Miller