Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds (1964)

232 mistakes - chronological order

(5 votes)

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Revealing mistake: Throughout the film, whenever part of a wheeled vehicle lifts off the ground, the wheels stop moving instantly. In real life, the wheels would continue to turn at much the same rate, showing that these are unpowered models being pulled along.

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Continuity mistake: When Thunderbird 1 prepares for take-off, it moves down a ramp and the launch site is seen at the end. It then cuts to a shot of it moving down the ramp, and then of it arriving at the site. The Thunderbird has suddenly rotated 90 degrees between shots.

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Other mistake: Every time Thunderbird 3 is used during a mission, members of the Tracy family enter it by being lowered on the settee onto a mini rail system, which takes them to Thunderbird 3's hangar before a pole raises the settee into the ship. However, during the initial descent, there is usually an empty settee that passes behind the descending one carrying the impending Thunderbird 3 crew, to fill in the resulting hole in the floor. If the ascending one passes behind the descending one then there is no way that it could fill that hole as it would be too far back.

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Suggested correction: As we see the replacement sofa correctly located, the fault is that we do not see the mechanism for doing this. For example, the poles might have been angled to achieve the effect or the start of the rail track might shift over a bit.

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Continuity mistake: When Thunderbird 3 takes off from Tracy Island, look at the "3" at the bottom of the rocket when it goes up from the hangar. It is a completely different "3" to the one that was seen in the previous shot.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Revealing mistake: When the dummy plane is shot out of the sky by the fighter pilot, a piece of the plane shoots off into the top left of the screen and bounces off the sky background. (00:23:05)

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: Near the end of the episode, Jeff activates Operation Cover-Up to change the wall-mounted pictures of the International Rescue members from the usual pictures of them in their uniforms to ones of them in casual clothing before a doctor who has just examined Kyrano enters the room. However, while he and Jeff are talking, a couple of shots of Scott and Gordon contain enough of the pictures to show that they have reverted back the ones of them in uniform. (00:48:35)

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When the Hood is taking photographs of Thunderbird 1 at London Airport, one of the photos shows the letter "T" of Thunderbird painted on the red nose cone. All other shots of the craft show the nose cone free of markings.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When the Hood is taking photographs inside Thunderbird 1, we see a close-up of his hat. On the hat, it says "Airport Police" on the lens, but when we see a full view of the Hood, the words are no longer visible.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: As Fireflash makes its first landing attempt onto the elevator cars, the radio control elevator car on the left can be seen to bear the number 4, even before car 3 had crashed and car 4 had left the pod.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Audio problem: When Scott and Lady Penelope are communicating with each other via mobile control, the timing on the lip sync between the two characters during the split screen effect is completely out of place.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Revealing mistake: When we see the passengers in the departure lounge at London Airport, one of them is reading a newspaper. If you look carefully, the front page is on the wrong side; it is on the left instead of the right.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When Bob Meddings boards the Fireflash and grabs hold of the pipe, the pipe is red both in a long-shot and a shot of him grabbing hold of it. When we see Meddings moving his hands along the pipe, it is now silver.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When we see the Hood's Airport Police jacket, you can see that underneath "Airport Police" there is a five-pointed star, but when we see a close-up of the star in the next shot, it has changed to a six-pointed star.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When the Hood informs Commander Norman of Air Traffic Control that there is a bomb on Fireflash in the videophone booth, you can see that the Hood has one hand on the button panel, but the next shot shows him with both hands on the panel.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When Jeff is speaking to Kyrano at the beginning of the episode, he has a letter in his right hand and an envelope in his left, but when Jeff raises his left hand in the next shot, the envelope has disappeared.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Character mistake: When Gordon and Scott are playing chess at Tracy Island towards the end of the episode, the chess board is oriented incorrectly, as there is a white square in the bottom-left corner.

Trapped in the Sky - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When Jeff pushes the button next to his seat to do "Operation Cover Up" at the end of the episode, there's a closeup of his hand as he leans over to press the button while he is sitting down, but in the next shot he is suddenly standing up near the portraits of his sons.

Pit of Peril - S1-E2

Revealing mistake: When Scott has retrieved Virgil from the Pit using The Mole, when it reverses back onto its chassis above ground, you can see dust flying upwards from the ground. It is therefore obvious that this is footage played backwards. (00:39:05)

Pit of Peril - S1-E2

Continuity mistake: When the shaft that Virgil slides down connects to Thunderbird 2, we can see Pod 3 to the right of Thunderbird 2. Seconds after Virgil's chair has locked into place, we see the pods slide across from left to right, including Pod 3. I thought that was to the right of TB2? It couldn't have been quickly moved to the left, as we see that Pod transportation is very slow. It couldn't of been a spare, as there is no sign of it when we see Pod 1, etc, roll to the right.

Trivia: Although he is the main villain, the Hood appears in only six episodes throughout the entire series.

More trivia for Thunderbirds

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