Corrected entry: When Leaven finds out that there are 26x26x26 rooms, it's because at a certain point she thinks there's a fault in the numbers. She says "it's impossible to have a number higher than 26". Now how can that be true when throughout the rest of the movie they struggle with big numbers?
Tailkinker
14th Oct 2003
Cube (1997)
27th Aug 2001
Cube (1997)
Corrected entry: The math sucks in a number of cases throughout the film. Worth (the designer of the cube) says the dimensions of the cube are 434 square feet (possibly meaning one side of the cube). That makes about 21 feet a side. So there would be exactly one room inside the cube since Leaven measures the room to be 14 feet wide. Still she figures out that there are 26x26x26 rooms. Also when Kazan is calculating the number of factors he tells a wrong answer more frequently than a right one. There are even even numbers he says are prime.
Correction: He doesn't say 434 square feet, he says 434 feet square i.e. 434 feet along each side. Allowing for the thickness of the walls of the individual cubes, this works out about right for a grid of 26 cubes on a side.
13th Oct 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Corrected entry: In the prologue we see the three Elves that received the Elven rings, with Galadriel in the foreground. The elf behind her looks elderly. Elves did not age beyond adulthood, (Tolkien says of Galadriel and Celeborn, "but no sign of age was upon them"). (00:01:10)
Correction: Not actually correct - elves do age, according to Tolkien. To quote from his Letters "The Elves were sufficiently longeval to be called by Man 'immortal'. But they were not unageing or unwearying". The Elf in question is almost certainly Cirdan the Shipwright (who may or may not appear at the end of the final film). Cirdan was one of the very first Elves and, as such, he would have been around for long enough to show some signs of aging.
25th Nov 2002
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989)
Corrected entry: Why doesnt Elza just drink from the cup while they are still in the room with the knight before Indy takes it to his father?
Correction: The Grail doesn't grant immortality after one drink - it requires the owner to drink regularly to maintain their life. Ilsa needed to take the Grail with her, hence the collapse of the cave and her subsequent demise.
26th Nov 2002
Die Another Day (2002)
Corrected entry: Right before Bond detonates the C-4 in the briefcase of diamonds, all the soldiers are scrambling to get the weapons out of the location and the firing squad is just about to fire at Bond. People are rushing around, there are fires in the background, and there is STILL someone examining the diamonds with an eyepiece. Why continue to examine the diamonds at this moment? (00:08:05)
Correction: It's his job. The diamond expert has nothing to do with regard to removing the weapons, nor to do with Bond. And given his boss's violent temper, it would undoubtedly be wise for him to finish the examination of the diamonds immediately, rather than stop and have to explain why to the Colonel.
13th Oct 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Corrected entry: In the director's commentary, Peter Jackson says that for the prologue sequence in Gollum's cave they used tape to pull Ian Holm's (Bilbo's) skin tighter to look younger. They needn't, as even though that scene takes place many years before the story proper, because he then bore the Ring, as Gandalf later says, "You haven't aged a day." No-one who has the ring ages in any way. (00:07:20)
Correction: Clearly not true, as Bilbo does look different - Gandalf is merely commenting that Bilbo has aged remarkably well. The opening narration observes that the ring granted Gollum "unnatural long life", not immortality, and the Ring has certainly not prevented Gollum from undergoing significant changes.
30th Sep 2003
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Corrected entry: When Ethan and Claire are explaining the mission to Luther and Krieger, Krieger says "While we're in Virginia, we should stop by Fort Knox." Fort Knox is in Tennessee.
Correction: Actually, Fort Knox is in Kentucky. Virginia does border onto Kentucky, so Krieger's suggestion to travel over to Fort Knox from there is not unreasonable (the distance from the state line is probably about 200 miles).
27th Sep 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Corrected entry: Balin's tomb is directly under a beam of sunlight. Yet, when the cave troll enters the chamber, why isn't it turned to stone when the sunlight hits it? (01:55:50)
Correction: Given that Balin's tomb is deep underground, an excavated hole to the surface would only provide a beam of direct sunlight for a very short period of time on any given day - most likely only a few minutes. In order to keep the tomb illuminated during the day, the dwarves must have employed some sort of system (either magical or mirror-based) to redirect the sunlight down into the tomb chamber. As it's not actually direct sunlight, it probably causes the troll some discomfort, but doesn't have the full stoning effect.
Corrected entry: In the opening scenes the 'young' Elizabeth looks to be around the age of ten, whereas Norrington looks at least 25. In the main section of the film, it looks extremely unlikely that there is a 15 year age difference between them.
Correction: Jack Davenport is 12 years older than Keira Knightley. If this is considered consistent with the characters they play, then Norrington would be about 22 in the opening scenes (if Elizabeth is 10) and in his early thirties for the majority of the film, which seems plausible. Governor Swann is actually considerably older than Norrington - given that he has a ten-year-old daughter at the beginning of the film, he must be at least in his early forties during the main section of the film.
26th Aug 2003
Aliens (1986)
Corrected entry: When Ripley goes to rescue Newt, she only uses the tracker bracelet to try and find her. Why didn't she also take along a motion sensor? It could have not only helped her find Newt quicker, but would have given her warning if there were any aliens closing in.
Correction: They only had two motion sensors on the planet. At the beginning of the final battle, Hudson has one, which was presumably lost with him, and Ripley has the other. She carries this for some time, but seems to drop it in the lift (she has it when they enter, she's lost it by the time they leave) either to help the injured Hicks, or possibly it's been damaged by acid from the alien who attacked them there. If there were no spares on the second dropship, and there's no indication that there were, then she simply doesn't have a motion sensor available to take with her.
12th May 2003
Aliens (1986)
Corrected entry: Did it really make sense for the Marines to try to search for the aliens with infrared viewers *after* setting everything in the area on fire with a flamethrower?
Correction: Of course it does - the fires are reasonably localised and given that, at that point, the marines have been unable to see the aliens directly, the next logical step is to try infra-red. The presence of the fires nearby might degrade the images to some extent, but that doesn't mean that it's an mistake to try.
21st Feb 2002
Aliens (1986)
Corrected entry: As somebody has correctly pointed out in another submission, the hangar in the main spaceship is decompressing when the doors are open, and the draft from the escaping air is what causes the mother alien to loose grip on Ripley. How come therefore, when the doors are closed again, Ripley and Newt are able to breathe in the hangar? If all of the air inside the hangar was just expelled out of the airlock door, how come the hangar has air pressure? Admittedly, the hangar is very big, but the door is like 7 or 8 metres across, and the wind blowing is strong enough to push out the alien, so the amount of air lost in the time it is open for is massive.
Correction: While a substantial amount of air has escaped, most external views give the impression that the Sulaco is a huge vessel with an enormous volume of air on board - there is no reason to assume that the hanger is totally isolated from the rest of the ship. As such, even considering the amount that escapes, there would still be a reasonable enough pressure in the hanger once the doors have been closed, enough to breathe, anyway. Also, the ship would undoubtedly carry air reserves, which ought to be automatically released in the event of a serious drop in air pressure.
Corrected entry: When "The Interceptor" is lying next to "The Black Pearl" during the sea battle, "The Interceptor" should have been destroyed after the first salvo by the much heavier armed "Black Pearl." Both ships are 10 meters away from each other, and they hardly damage each other with their main guns.
Correction: The pirates still need to retrieve the missing medallion from the Interceptor, which would be far easier with the ship still mostly intact. As such, they would aim the guns to cripple the ship, but deliberately avoid destroying her completely until they'd had a chance to board and locate the medallion.
11th Sep 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Corrected entry: I just get a hoot out of the fact that the Uruk-Hai are these huge, ferocious, twisted and unbelievably strong warriors, yet at the end when they attack the Fellowship, many of them are being felled by the rocks that Merry and Pippin are tossing at them. Though those rocks may seem big to the young Hobbits, compared to the Uruk-Hai they would be no more than small stones, yet many of them are being laid out easier than Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are doing with their swords.
Correction: It's stated in the books that hobbits are extremely good shots - even Uruk-Hai have vulnerable spots that could be exploited by somebody with good aim. It doesn't seem unreasonable that the impact could at least stun the Uruk-Hai temporarily.
Corrected entry: If Will's father took the medallion out to send to Will, he wouldn't have the curse because he didn't take it out in greed, in which case he would have drowned when the cannon was tied to his feet, and from what I've seen here, every one is convinced he was alive.
Correction: Will's father took the gold out of greed like all the other pirates, so would have been affected by the curse. Once he found out about the curse, he felt that it was justified because of what they did to Jack - they broke the code - so he sent the medallion to Will so that his fellow pirates couldn't break the curse.
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Correction: Leaven is deriving the room numbers from the larger numbers that are inscribed in the cubes. It's the room number that cannot be more than 26 (other than the 'bridge' room), not the actual numbers that they're finding.
Tailkinker ★