Best movie character mistakes of all time

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Moana picture

Character mistake: When Maui and Moana set sail after defeating the Kakamora, Maui says they must head east. He turns the boat 90° as he says this. Throughout the next scene the setting sun is to the left of them (providing a beautiful backdrop to their fight), meaning that the boat must be heading north, not east.

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Halloween 4 picture

Character mistake: As we know throughout this movie series, Michael's middle name is Audrey. However when the doctor is typing Michael's release form, he types his middle initial as "M".

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Suggested correction: Michael's middle name is only mentioned in an additional scene that was added to the television version of the original Halloween. If going by the theatrical versions Michael's middle name was never known, so not really a mistake.

Doctors at a sanatorium would certainly know Michael's middle name. It's been on file for decades.

Amy Emerick Tice

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The Lost World: Jurassic Park picture

Character mistake: When they're on the island and the INGen helicopters are flying in, Jeff Goldblum takes the binoculars and looks through the wrong end. (00:32:30)

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Knowing picture

Character mistake: The newspaper article states that Lucinda was thirty-three at the time of her death in 1988. However, that would make her just four years old when she wrote the time capsule note in 1959 - four years old in the 3rd grade?

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Mile 22 picture

Character mistake: During the opening raid of the FSB safe house, an operator is seen taking hard drives out of a safe. As he does, he states over the radio that they are "SSDs" (Solid State Drives), when in reality they are normal HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), which are noticeably larger than SSDs. (00:07:25)

Matdan97

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery picture

Character mistake: Austin is supposed to be the archetypal Swinging Sixties Londoner yet he refers to his car as a Shaguar, a pun on 'Jaguar', pronouncing it 'Shag-war'. A native of this green and pleasant land would pronounce it 'Shag-u-ar', three syllables, not two, based on our pronunciation of the car manufacturer's name: Jag-u-ar. He also refers to a truck - a 'lorry' - as a "law-ree." We call them "lurries."

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Sex and the City 2 picture Sex and the City 2 mistake picture

Character mistake: In the scene where Carrie is printing an article she has written, the title reads: The Terrible Two's. A successful, educated writer would never have used an apostrophe to pluralize a word. Ever.

tedd

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Citizen Kane picture

Character mistake: During the dancing girl scene, as they are singing the praises of Kane, the girl to the immediate right sings out of time with the rest of the dancers during the line "His favorite son." Even though she forgets to sing the line, she can be heard singing it a bit too late. (00:41:00)

Louisville Pittman

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The Sons of Katie Elder picture

Character mistake: The 4 brothers have just rode into town and are securing their horses. On the flag pole in the background the Texas flag is upside down. Note: The correct way is white flies on top and red on bottom.

James Kennedy

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days picture

Character mistake: When Greg reads the article about L'il Cutie being cancelled, cartoonist is misspelled cartoonish. The article also repeats the first column word for word in the third column.

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On the Beach picture

Character mistake: In the scenes in San Diego, all the scenes outside the sub are taking place during daylight hours. Immediately after the crewman relays the message about the mysterious telegraph transmission, the scene shifts to the sub. The commander asks what time it is in Melbourne and is told it is 1500 hours (3PM). But if it were that time in Melbourne, it would be 10PM in San Diego, and thus not during daylight hours. (01:33:30 - 01:38:05)

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Ad Astra picture

Character mistake: During the debrief meeting with the generals, Roy states the Lima Project was "some 29 years ago" and "the ship disappeared approximately 16 years into the mission." A few minutes later, Roy narrates "I was 16 when he left, 29 when he disappeared." This of course is only 13 years into the mission. (00:11:27 - 00:15:03)

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Goldfinger picture

Character mistake: When Bond is being flown to Baltimore, Pussy calls her assistant Mai Lee twice on the plane: once in person, then telling the co-pilot to give her instructions. However, when they disembark, she calls her Mai Lai.

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Unbreakable picture

Character mistake: In the final scene, one of the newspaper clippings on the killer's office wall reads something like, "Huge Mudslide in Mexico: All Killed Expect Newborn." The penultimate word should be "except." (01:35:55)

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The Great Escape picture

Character mistake: The scene in the outdoor Parisian cafe is incredibly daft. First, the cafe owners call James Coburn's bizarrely-accented Australian to the telephone to keep him out of the way as their accomplices assassinate three uniformed German officers seated in the cafe in a drive by shooting. They then toast the killings with cognac, and that is the mistake - not the shootings, not the luring away of Coburn - the mistake is that the cafe proprietors celebrate the assassination of the German officers in broad daylight, in the open, without even stopping to think that such an action would have them shot, because all of this is done in the direct view of passers-by in broad daylight. Do they think those three German officers were the only ones in Paris? How did they know Coburn wasn't an undercover Gestapo agent or a French collaborator? Don't they stop to consider that in an occupied city machine gun fire is going to draw some attention from the authorities, who might just wonder what a couple of bullet riddled corpses are doing lying about the place?

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Suggested correction: Regarding the French cafe proprietors making a toast, if questioned, they could simply claim they were celebrating surviving the incident and/or needed a calming drink. Considering any ensuring panic and confusion after the shooting, pedestrians would hardly notice the waiters. Attention would be on the dead Germans. French citizens most likely wouldn't care or cooperate with the authorities. Being indifferent to German officers getting killed is not proof of involvement. Most French hardly be remorseful over their enemies' deaths. Antagonism toward the Germans was normal. It would be more suspicious if the proprietors showed concern. As far as helping James Coburn, it was pretty obvious he was neither French or German, and they took a chance to protect an innocent bystander. Also, it was to inject some subtle levity into the scene.

raywest

Rubbish. During the occupation Paris was crawling with collaborators and undercover German agents. The cafe owners are drinking champagne - not much of a nerve stiffener! - and they clink glasses in celebration of the shooting of the German officers. Their actions are beyond obvious to anyone that can see them. They simply would not take the risk and would act as if they were horrified to see their customers shot dead in their cafe.

Nope. Even if collaborators were "crawling" around, no-one would expect any French citizen to care about Nazis being killed. If questioned they can claim it was for the other reasons already stated (and they are not drinking champagne). It does not prove their involvement. Little would come of them being interrogated. As mentioned, this is a movie, and the scene injects subtle humor and is intended to show the audience that they are involved in the coordinated plan.

raywest

Again, rubbish. The Nazis occupying Paris arrested anyone suspected of belonging to or assisting the Resistance on the slightest pretext, and the cafe owners who were celebrating the deaths of three German officers would be in a Gestapo prison cell before the bodies of the dead Germans were cold. What they do after the Germans are shot is blatant, irresponsible, dangerous and completely unnecessary. They could have saved their celebrations for later when it was safe.

Once again, NOPE. Clinking glasses is not proof of possibly belonging to or aiding the Resistance. They also were not wildly celebrating. It was a quick, low-key action, and they looked both nervous and relieved. Also, I re-watched the scene on YouTube. When the car pulls up to shoot the Nazis, the street around them is completely empty. No witnesses anywhere. People are only seen far in the background. The phone call just before the shooting is a signal and indicates this was well-coordinated and timed. Secondly, the story needs to move quickly, and insignificant characters would not be seen toasting later. This also showed James Coburn (and us) that the waiters were potential allies.

raywest

You think the Nazis needed proof of someone's involvement in the Resistance? They arrested, tortured and shot innocent people on the unsubstantiated word of pro-German informers! No witnesses anywhere? What about Coburn? They didn't know who he was or where he was from. For all they know he could have been a Gestapo agent himself. The scene is absurd. Nobody is so stupid as to do what they did at the risk of dying horribly if caught doing it.

It should also be noted that the cafe owners duck behind their counter before the car carrying the gunmen shows up, and they get Coburn to do the same. They just provided incontrovertible evidence that they knew about the assassinations ahead of time.

Yes, they absolutely were part of it, and the hit was timed and planned in advance for the opportune moment. This was not a random act, and the phone call is the signal that sets the events in motion. When they made the toast, they knew the street was completely empty and obviously felt it was safe to do so. Also, if Coburn was a spy or collaborator, he would have warned the Nazis, not hidden behind the counter. THIS IS A MOVIE, NOT REAL LIFE.

raywest

More The Great Escape character mistakes
More He's Just Not That Into You character mistakes
The Color Purple picture

Character mistake: In the scene where Sophia confronts Celie in the cornfield, she starts by saying, "You told Harpo to beat me". Later she tells Celie, "If you want a dead son-in-law Miss Celie, you keep on advising him like you do". Harpo is actually Celie's stepson, NOT her son-in-law.

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Sicario picture

Character mistake: After Macer shoots the shotgun man during the house raid, she checks his pulse without removing the weapon from his hands first.

Movie Medic

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Final Destination picture

Character mistake: At the memorial service the principal says that it's been 39 days since 39 loved ones had died. But there were 40 students on the plane and 4 chaperones, making the total 44. Now 7 people got off the plane, which means 37 people related to that memorial service actually died, not 39. Two pilots would make up the numbers, but there would be flight crew too, which still leaves the numbers off.

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Fury picture

Character mistake: On the way approaching town the camera pans to a woman's hanged body with a sign written in German around her neck. One of the crew asked Wardaddy what it said, to which he answered something like "It reads 'I am a coward who refused to fight for the German people'." That sign actually translates to "I wanted my children not to go fight" or Anglicized for better effect, "I refused to let my children to go to war." Interestingly, once into town, there appears the corpse of a hanged man with a sign written in German that does translate to what Wardaddy said of the first sign. (00:43:00)

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