Corrected entry: Right after Jack discovers the camera mounted on the bus, Payne is seen drinking and watching the news. The anchorman on the far right of the screen says, "Amazing story as a city bus, rigged to explode if it slows down, races around literally in circles at the Los Angeles Airport. The two dead are a female passenger and the driver of another bus, both blown up by the bomber. And the other people in jeopardy are of course the passengers on the bus, held hostage at the whim of a madman." The female passenger was of course the woman who tried to get off the bus after Sam was let off, but the "driver of another bus" was obviously Sam. Number one, the only bus we know that Sam drove was number 2525, the same bus. Number two, he may have died of his wound, but we never find that out specifically. Number three, he wasn't blown up by Payne - another passenger on the bus accidentally shot him earlier in the film. (01:24:30)
Tailkinker
6th Apr 2005
Speed (1994)
20th Mar 2005
The Last Samurai (2003)
Corrected entry: When Algren wears Taka's dead husband's armour, it is in pristine condition. At the beginning of the film Algren killed Taka's husband by stabbing him - surely the armour should have a hole in it?
Correction: Algren stabs Taka's husband in his unprotected throat - his armour is never touched.
14th Mar 2005
Robocop (1987)
Corrected entry: When Robocop is being developed, his LED display is lowered over his eyes and the scientist fastens it with 4 screws. Later on when Robo's helmet comes off, we can see that: 1, there are no screws at all (as if the LED is part of the helmet itself), and 2, Robocop is still able to see L.E.D commands without his LED visor. (00:26:35 - 01:34:45)
Correction: The display is nothing to do with the helmet visor - it's built directly into his eyes. The screws are under his face.
12th Mar 2005
Red Dwarf (1988)
Out Of Time - S6-E6
Corrected entry: When it is believed that Lister is a droid, why does Kryten be so rude to him, considering that this is the same person who helped him override the program preventing him from lying to humans? Also, wouldn't he have realised that Lister came out of Stasis with a long beard and nails? These wouldn't grow on droids.
Correction: Kryten is rude to Lister because he feels betrayed - he believes that the individual who taught him about being human is a droid, and a less sophisticated one that he is. Kryten also states that the 3000 series mechanoids, which he believes Lister is, was disliked because it was too realistic - authentic hair and nail growth is presumably part of the realism that he's referring to.
12th Mar 2005
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Corrected entry: When Benedict talks to Rusty on the phone, his security manager tells him that the S.W.A.T. team arrives 10 seconds before Rusty says his last words to Benedict and leaves his phone in the casino. But Rusty is joining the others as part of their fake S.W.A.T. team and we see them entering the vault a minute after. He would not have the time to change from suit (we saw him wearing suit when Tess found him in the casino) to a S.W.A.T. outfit in that time. Even if he went out of the casino the last time we saw him and changed clothes whilst still talking to Benedict, there was only 30 seconds until the arrival of the S.W.A.T. team. (01:30:35)
Correction: Just because only a minute of film goes past between Rusty leaving the phone and the 'SWAT team' entering the vault, it doesn't mean that that's how much time passes in actuality. It would take the 'SWAT team' much longer than a minute just to get themselves and their equipment out of the van (let alone move through the casino and the back corridors to the lift shaft, abseil down and head into the vault). Rusty has more than enough time to get changed.
12th Mar 2005
Angel (1999)
Corrected entry: No one ever mentions to Angel that Jasmine eats people, nor does he learn of any hints that leads towards her eating people. Yet somehow when e confronts Jasmine on the bridge, he somehow already knows this detail.
Correction: Angel was around Jasmine for long enough to know that she takes people into her room and they apparently vanish - once released from her spell, it's not difficult to realise what's almost certainly happening to them, particularly as the priest in the other dimension refers to her as "the Blessed Devourer".
7th Mar 2005
The Core (2003)
Corrected entry: Dr. Zimsky is explaining to everyone else that 'Wave Interference' will allow the core to be re-started after the first plan failed. This is Constructive interference, and is basic A-Level Physics, although it took 3 highly trained people to work this out, as well as one Physicist.
Correction: Constructive interference is basic A-level physics, yes, but applying it to planetary core dynamics takes rather more than a standard secondary school education - it's reasonable that it would take experts to figure out the details.
6th Mar 2005
Hellboy (2004)
Corrected entry: According to Agent Manning Hellboy is supposed to be about 2.13 metres tall. But, compared to the other people in the movie, Hellboy does not appear to be remarkably tall - some of the other characters are even taller than him.
Correction: In the museum Manning says that Hellboy is six foot five, which is about 1.9 metres, not 2.13. This is tall, but not remarkably so, so it's not unreasonable that some of the other characters could be taller than him.
7th Mar 2005
The Rock (1996)
Corrected entry: Ranger Bob said that he spent a couple years in Alcatraz. If the prison is closed since 1963, he must have been a baby when he was arrested. (00:15:30)
Correction: He doesn't say "I spent a couple of years in there", he says "Spend a couple of years in there..." and is then interrupted. He would presumably have continued to say what sort of effect spending all that time locked up would have on a person.
6th Mar 2005
Hannibal (2001)
Corrected entry: When Inspector Pazzi visits Hannibal to pick up the previous librarian's belongings, Hannibal steps into another room and dons a pair of gloves on the excuse that the building is very cold. At least two shots during the scene, however, he is walking barefoot on the stone floor.
Correction: Lecter has to give some excuse for putting on the gloves - he can hardly say "I'm a wanted psychopath and I don't want you to get my fingerprints". Given that he's barefoot, the excuse isn't particularly good, but he doesn't have the time to come up with anything better. Pazzi may not pick up on it, or, if he does, he doesn't say anything, but that's a character mistake, not a movie mistake.
4th Mar 2005
Troy (2004)
Corrected entry: When the men are trying to turn Briseis into a Spartan slave, one of them yells "Give the b**ch to me." There's no way that swear word existed 3100 years ago.
Correction: The entire English language didn't exist 3100 years ago - the use of colloquial English in a historical film, including obscenities, cannot be considered an error. They would have had words of that nature back in those times - the filmmakers are simply using a modern-day equivalent.
23rd Feb 2005
Alien Vs. Predator (2004)
Corrected entry: Near the end, Predator and Lex Woods escape the pyramid area via a lift and the Mother alien is just behind them. Seconds after they crash land on the surface, the mother alien is emerging from ice. How can the mother alien travel such a long tunnel within seconds without any lift while the entire pyramid area was getting nuked?
Correction: The Alien queen is ahead of them and has plenty of time to ascend the tube under her own power - it's the other aliens that are behind them.
2nd Feb 2005
I, Robot (2004)
Corrected entry: In the scene where Del Spooner was attacked by NS-5s from the carrier vehicles, he tried to fight for control while trying to get rid of the robots. When the car skidded from side to side, we can hear that the screeching sounds created are similar to tires rubbing on the ground. It is impossible for Del Spooner's car to make the screeching noise as the bottom is entirely metal as seen in the next scene, and that the car is itself levitating.
Correction: The car is not levitating - it uses four spherical tyres which can be seen protruding through the bottom of the car. It's these that are making the screeching noises.
1st Feb 2005
Shrek (2001)
Corrected entry: When Donkey first meets Shrek, he calls him a "mean green fighting machine". How would he know Shrek is green? We later find out he is colour blind.
Correction: Donkey knows that ogres are green.
How? Shrek is the only ogre around. Before you tell me about the others we learn about in Shrek : Forever After, shrek didn't know about them, and Donkey belonged to an old lady so he couldn't have known.
It's made clear that Donkey knows about ogres, as proved by what he says when they're walking through the vegetable field: "Why don't you just pull some of that ogre stuff on him? Throttle him, lay siege to his fortress, grind his bones to make your bread, the whole ogre trip." Donkey has heard about ogres before, or at least stories of what they can do, so why couldn't he know they're green? And how does being owned by an old lady negate his ability to know about ogres?
Correction: Just throwing in that there are different kinds of color blindness. The term means difficulty telling some colors apart, not necessarily the inability to see color at all (though that is one of the kinds of color blindness). It is possible Donkey can see green but not red and/or blue, hence his trouble finding a blue flower with red thorns.
1st Feb 2005
Apollo 13 (1995)
Corrected entry: Okay, it's an accepted science fiction convention, but "Apollo 13" is supposed to be an authoritive, documentary-style film about a failed NASA mission, not a Buck Rogers space opera. So did there really have to be sound in space in this film?
Correction: It's supposed to be a reasonably intelligent portrayal of the Apollo 13 situation - it's not and never was intended to be a documentary, nor is it particularly done in the style of one. Some things have been fictionalised, characters have been combined, eliminated and so forth - ultimately, it's still an entertainment piece. As such, there's no reason why it can't use some of the standard movie conventions.
24th Jan 2005
Alien Vs. Predator (2004)
Corrected entry: It is shown the Predators can make metal that the Alien blood can't dissolve. In that case why didn't they make the restraints holding the Queen out of that metal? She was extremely important for the ritual so wouldn't they have used the strongest materials possible?
Correction: There are any number of plausible reasons. The acid-resistant metal may be very rare, so they can't spare enough of it to make the restraints - after all, it's shown that not all the Predator weaponry is made from it, implying that it may be quite uncommon. The possibility of the Queen getting loose may be part of the test, to force the Predators to take a proactive role in hunting down the Aliens before they can get her free. It may even be a simple oversight - honour-obsessed alien killing machines are quite capable of making mistakes.
20th Jan 2005
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: Sam tells Frodo that Sauron's eye passed on towards the north. But Sauron's eye passed on towards the south.
18th Jan 2005
Die Hard (1988)
Corrected entry: When Hans, Theo, Karl and Takagi come to Takagi's office, Hans quotes that when 'Alexander the Great saw the size of his realm, he wept, for there was nothing left to conquer.' Actually, he did weep because he couldn't conquer more - but not because there was nothing left, instead because his men refused to go any further (they were homesick); and reluctantly, Alexander had to turn back.
Correction: Hans is quoting Plutarch. Whether the quote is actually true doesn't matter - this is not a movie mistake.
We would not judge here as a movie mistake the words of an ancient historian, obviously. Thing is, Gruber is saying something that is NOT what Plutarch said at all. Plutarch's passage had Alexander say: "Is it not worthy of tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?" The story as quoted by Gruber (not that he ever said it was Plutarch, mind you, how could he when Plutarch's story has the exact opposite wording?) is entirely made up, and therefore would qualify as a character mistake. It's like the "Helsinki syndrome": something this movie got wrong but that generated a misconception that still survives decades later.
16th Jan 2005
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Corrected entry: This would only be noticeable to the true movie geek, but when Doc and Marty are looking at the map to plan their trip back to 1985, Clara is standing in the background waiting for Doc to pick her up as he promised he would do. Since he doesn't show, she apparently rents a wagon herself and. . . well, the rest is history.
Correction: Clara's presence in the scene is (a) blatantly obvious and (b) the whole point of the scene. Hardly something only for true geeks.
15th Jan 2005
In the Line of Fire (1993)
Corrected entry: In the scene where Eastwood is chasing Malkovich after he call hims from the pay phone across the street in the park, Malkovich darts across the path of a passing bus to disappear. If you watch the bottom of the bus, you can see Malkovich's footsteps as he runs to the right (the same direction the bus is heading) to create the appearance that he disappeared into thin air once the bus had gone by.
Correction: Leary has to disappear somehow - given that the film's grounded in some sort of reality, he can't genuinely have just vanished into thin air. We can see Malkovich's feet moving behind the bus because that's exactly how Leary did it.
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Correction: No, they're not talking about Sam. The "driver of the other bus" referred to on the news report is the one who greets Jack at the coffee shop, whose bus is subsequently blown up by Payne, exactly as stated on the news report.
Tailkinker ★