TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When the Emperor attacks the village in the beginning after the assassination attempt, watch closely. During the fourth shot, a soldier hits a villager over the head with something and there's an audible sound... but you can see plain as day that the soldier was nowhere close to actually hitting the villager. He stops a good 3-4" away from actually hitting his head.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When the evil general is kicked into the gears and crushed, the second camera angle gives away the fact that the gears are actually nowhere near touching at all, and thus, the general is not actually being crushed. Obviously they wouldn't actually be touching because they wouldn't want to hurt the actor... but they could have picked a better camera angle that didn't give it away.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When the Yeti arrive, the second soldier that is attacked is picked up and thrown into a doorway. When he lands, you can very briefly see the snow for a few feet on either side of him "pop up" in the wide shot, revealing he landed on a pad. The camera cuts to a different, closer angle after about 5 or 6 frames, so it can be hard to catch the first time, but if you know where to look, it's very obvious. (Slow motion can help, but is not required).

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When Rick catches himself in the neck with the fish-hook, if you look closely when Rick pulls on it, it's pretty obvious that it's a prosthetic. Not only is the skin around the hook a lighter shade than the rest of his neck, but the way it stretches and wrinkles is completely unrealistic, giving it away as a small sheet of latex.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: In the beginning of the film, watch closely when Sindel says the infamous line "Too bad YOU... will die!" When Sindel says the words "will die," two of her teeth suddenly turn gray and become blurred. (One tooth on top and one on the bottom.) The best I can figure is that it was some sort-of slip up with the special effects rendering, since the background has a CGI sky replacement effect. It can be hard to notice at first, but if you know where to look, it's pretty obvious.

TedStixon

8th Jan 2021

The Punisher (2004)

Revealing mistake: When the car Howard Saint is tied to explodes, watch Howard's body - it's clear that he's been replaced with a hilariously obvious dummy. It's especially comical if you look at his legs, because it appears that the dummy doesn't even have legs inside of its pants given how they "wobble."

TedStixon

8th Jan 2021

The Punisher (2004)

Revealing mistake: When Frank kills Howard Saint at the end of the film, pay close attention when the cars start to explode. About a second-and-a-half after the first explosion, the camera cuts to a high-angle shot looking down at the cars exploding. Pay attention and you can see a lot of errors. For example, there are two cars (one red and one blue) on the right side of the screen that are teeny-tiny models and aren't properly blended into the background with blurry edges around them. Additionally, the three cars on the bottom left of the screen also have noticeable black lines around them. (Likely from a poor compositing job.) It appears the shot was created with different miniatures layered over a background plate, and the various miniatures weren't properly comped into the shot.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When Liu transforms into a dragon during the final battle, the wideshot where he actually transforms while being held by Kahn is completely laughable. The digital dragon clips through portions of the live-action background (particularly around Khan's arm that was hanging onto Liu) and the lighting on the dragon doesn't match with the lightning flashes in the background.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When Smoke is running up to Kitana at the start of the Liu VS Smoke fight, Liu runs up behind him, jumps and pushes his foot against a pillar to sort of rebound, and grabs Smoke. There's a quick insert shot of Liu's foot pushing against the pillar, and you can see the "stone" pillar briefly bend like rubber beneath his foot, revealing it's fake.

TedStixon

28th Aug 2020

Mortal Kombat (1995)

Revealing mistake: Watch closely when Scorpion breathes fire at the end of his fight with Johnny Cage. In the wide profile shot where we see the "stream" of fire shooting out and hitting Johnny's shield, if you look very closely, you can kind of make out some sort-of "structure" within the flame. It looks kind of like a pole. It looks like to accomplish the effect, they lit a "flame bar" or pole on fire so the flames would travel upwards, then comped it into the scene and rotated it using special effects to make the flames look like they were shooting sideways. Unfortunately, the pole/flame bar is still just barely visible in the film. (It's much easier to see on the Blu-Ray version, but can be made out on the DVD).

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: During the big chase, watch closely when the car goes over the ramp and does a flip. As soon as it lands, you can catch a brief glimpse of a partially-destroyed film camera (covered in black material) rolling along the ground. Its position on the road lines up with one of the previous shots, so it's definitely a camera. (It looks like the car landed on it and threw it along the ground).

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: During the Jax vs Cyrax fight, pay attention right after Jax says "Yeah, now what?!" A few shots later, Sonya is hit in the face with a weapon by one of the extermination squad members. But you can see plain as day that the weapon completely misses her. It actually goes over her head, but she still reacts as though she's been hit in the face.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: During the Liu VS Baraka fight, pay attention when Liu and the Barakas are swinging around on the chains. Several times, you can see safety-wires attached to the chains and actors. It can be hard to catch, but there are at least three or four shots where they are visible.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When Sheeva is crushed by the cage, pay attention to the first shot as we see the cage falling towards her. You can see the cage actually come to a stop right before it cuts to the low-angle shot looking up at her screaming. (Since it would be rigged to stop above the actress so it wouldn't actually crush her. They unfortunately just cut the shot too late).

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: In the burning barn, watch closely when Zorro goes to jump on the horse. There's a low angle shot of his feet running up to the horse, and a piece of burning wood lands in the foreground. The fire on top of the burning wood is burning upwards like normal fire. However, the fire on the side of the board is somehow burning upside-down, with the fire moving downwards. Seems to be a slip-up in the digitally-added fire effect. It goes by quick, so slow-motion helps, but is not required.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: Watch closely when Zorro's horse bursts into the burning barn. The visual effect is comical. It, along with some debris in the air, simply appears between frames in an unrealistic way.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: In a few of the wider crowd shots during the pod-race, you can make out some oddities. In particular, if you look closely, you'll see the same group people copy/pasted over and over in different places and different configurations in the audience to make the crowds seem bigger. (Slow motion or pausing helps, but is not necessary.) This is actually a relatively common special effects trick to make crowds seem bigger.

TedStixon

12th Dec 2019

Red Dragon (2002)

Red Dragon mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Will's wife shoots Dollarhyde at the end, watch closely when she shoots him for a second time and hits him in the cheek. For about one frame, you can see what looks like a wire coming out of his cheek that has caught some light, and about a half-second later, you can see some sort-of small brownish cap hit the floor on the right side of the screen. (It's very tiny so you have to look closely.) These types of effects are usually accomplished by putting a small prosthetic cap attached to a piece of wire over the bullet wound makeup, which is then pulled from off-screen to reveal the "bullet hole." It looks like both the wire and prosthetic cap both managed to get caught in the shot. (Slow motion or freeze-framing help but aren't required - both the wire and the cap are easy to catch once you see them the first time).

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When Rayden and Kahn fight at the start of the film, at one point Rayden does a flying body-spear into Kahn, which sends him flying backwards. When he lands on the ground, the floor beneath him "warbles," revealing he landed on a pad. It also continues to move a bit for the rest of the shot as he moves.

TedStixon

Revealing mistake: When the Emperor's generals are introduced at the start of the film, pay attention to Sheeva's lower arms. If you look closely, her lower arms are added digitally and don't quite blend with the actress, nor do they 100% match her motion. (Especially her lower-right arm, which is on the left hand side of the screen. You can see it "clipping" with the background plate. At one point, it even briefly looks like it's floating behind her for a moment instead of being attached to her).

TedStixon

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