Best drama movie mistakes of all time

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Tootsie picture

Factual error: No actor is going to secure a recurring speaking role in a soap opera unless a comprehensive insurance policy has been secured. (This applies to feature films, too.) This will inevitably involve a medical examination. Mr Dorsey's plans are going to become dreadfully unstuck the minute he drops his y-fronts in the doctor's surgery. (No, he can't find a compliant or bribeable doctor - the insurance company will always use their own people.)

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Hollow Man picture

Plot hole: There must be a lot of dumb scientists in Sebastian's lab. While defibrillating the invisible gorilla, (s)he becomes completely visible for a moment. However, not once do the scientists consider that applying a mild electrical shock to the system renders the invisible animal visible again - that electricity may be the key to the whole invisibility problem. They don't even comment upon the fact that the gorilla does become visible.

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The Wicker Man picture

Other mistake: During his conversation with the landlord of the pub he ends up staying in, Sergeant Howie makes it clear that he did not intend to stay on Summerisle overnight, that he had been delayed and so needed accommodation. Makes you wonder why he packed his pyjamas. He's wearing them when Britt Ecklund does her famous naked song and dance routine, and they are not new so we know he didn't buy them that day. When he arrived he didn't even think he'd be on Summerisle for more than a few hours - we don't see him with so much as an overnight bag.

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Suggested correction: He didn't intend to stay in there but brought them just in case. A good policeman is prepared.

What, he wore his jammies under his uniform "just in case"? He isn't carrying an overnight bag.

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It's a Wonderful Life picture

Other mistake: Clarence tells George that his brother died at the age of 9 because he wasn't there to save him from falling through the ice, but when you see the tomb stone, it shows Harry Bailey was born in 1911 and died in 1919. That would make Harry only 7 or 8 years old.

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The Shawshank Redemption picture

Factual error: Towards the end of the movie when Andy is escaping, he breaks open a sewage pipe and is covered with its contents. It is physically impossible for the sewage to shoot out of the break like it did. In order for that to happen there has to be pressure. But there is none there, because the end he crawls through is empty and the end is in the open air. (01:52:20)

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Wild Things picture

Plot hole: Suzie pulls out some of her teeth with a pair of heavy pliers. This would leave conspicuous tool marks on the teeth that would be visible to the naked eye, let alone under forensic examination. The conclusion would be that Suzie is missing, not dead, and the whole plot would unravel from there.

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633 Squadron picture

Factual error: When the bombs are being taken down the lane, in the background where the lane meets the road a white mini can be seen passing the entrance.

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Draft Day picture

Continuity mistake: The owner of the Cleveland Browns drives from NYC to the Teterboro Airport (12 miles from Midtown Manhattan), flies to Cleveland (450 air miles) and drives to the Browns facility (16 miles) in the time it takes the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th picks in the 1st round of the NFL draft to be made.

James T Hampton Jr.

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The Catcher Was a Spy picture

Other mistake: Recreated newsreel of a trip to Japan by Moe Berg before Pearl Harbor attack shows copyright date of MCMXLIV (1944) in the lower left corner, 3 years after the attack. (00:16:25)

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The Fly picture

Plot hole: The whole problem with the teleporter occurs when fly DNA is mixed in with Seth Brundle's DNA, starting his transformation into the Brundlefly. Brundle is on a hiding to nothing from the word go, and the fly is irrelevant. Humans are a walking talking mass of foreign DNA - we are host to one trillion bacteria all of which has a complete complement of DNA, as do various tiny mites that live in our hair follicles and all sorts of single cell organisms in our gut. If the transporter serves to mix the DNA of all living creatures which are in the transporter pod at the time Brundle would turn into a half-man, half-bacteria. Incidentally, DNA from a bacteria, an amoeba or a hair follicle mite would be just as 'compatible' with human DNA as that from an insect. It's quite a simple chemical, really.

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Suggested correction: Being as how the bacteria and mites and such were IN or ON Seth, the machine was able to organize those symbiotic relationships accordingly as teleporting one would teleport all. The fly was separate, not touching. The machine was not programmed to anticipate two separated entities and so combined them into one on the other side.

Phixius

We leave behind a vapour trail of bacteria and viruses (among other things) as we walk, in our breath and emanations from pores in our skin, and Brundle isn't trapping any in his clothes as he isn't wearing any. Brundle has an invisible cloud of DNA floating around him in that teleportation chamber and as far as the machine is concerned their DNA has exactly the same status as that of the fly.

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Planes, Trains & Automobiles picture

Continuity mistake: When Del comes out of the passenger side of the dairy truck, he is with a black eye, for no reason. The next scene, it is not there. It is there again when he admits to being homeless. (Steve Martin punched Del in a deleted scene.)

Ryanpowell

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Flight of the Phoenix picture

Plot hole: This film is set in 2004. The thought that no search and rescue operations would be put in place after an aircraft disappeared from radar during a routine flight is absurd. The Chinese are paranoid about intrusion on their territory and the downed aircraft would have been located by a simple satellite search within hours of it crashing. Chinese military satellites crisscross the Gobi and they are equipped with optical cameras, microwave and infrared detectors and radar, so spotting a metal aircraft on the ground would be simple even if it was hundreds of kilometres off course. The crew would have been visited by Chinese military helicopters (and probably arrested!) as soon as the storm had died down.

PEDAUNT

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Suggested correction: The Chinese government, for whatever reason, may have denied there was any crash at all if it suited their purposes, and the oil company that owned the plane would have little recourse. The Chinese have done this before. For the purpose of the plot, the survivors decided that they had to save themselves rather than wait for rescue and that was completely plausible.

Suggested correction: It's now 2021, and we still can't find Malaysian Airlines MH370. So this suggestion of planes always being found is laughable.

stiiggy

MH370 crashed into the ocean, and in fact some wreckage has been found. The Chinese military does not have the south Indian Ocean under satellite surveillance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, unlike the Gobi desert where a crashed plane would be spotted within hours of it going missing.

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A Beautiful Mind picture

Factual error: In a scene that takes place in 1956 or 1957, Alicia Nash places an orange Tupperware container in the refrigerator. Although Tupperware first became very popular in the mid-50s, the particular model of Tupperware used in the film was not introduced until the late 60s or early 70s.

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Basic Instinct picture

Continuity mistake: During the infamous leg un-crossing scene when Sharon Stone is being interrogated, a cigarette in her hand disappears and then reappears.

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Joker picture

Factual error: Based on the films being shown at the theater, the movie appears to be set in 1981. One of the TV commercials shows the Energizer Bunny, which didn't make its first appearance until 1988.

wizard_of_gore

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Capricorn One picture

Plot hole: Further to the comments about the Lunar Lander being useless as a Mars Lander - who is going to believe that three men spent eighteen months crammed into a tiny Lunar Command Module? Not only would they go out of their minds, where would they store the tonnes of water and food they would need in that tiny capsule? How could the Service Module carry enough oxygen or have enough battery power to make the trip?

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Suggested correction: You're assuming they travelled from Earth to Mars in the lander alone. The astronauts didn't do this when they went to the moon. The Lunar Lander was attached to the command module during the 3-day journey. When the astronauts reached the moon, they detached the lander from the command module and landed on the surface. It is reasonable to believe the astronauts for Capricorn One did the same thing, except on a much bigger ship for a journey that lasted over a year. We just never saw it.

Mike Lynch

The posting did not refer to the Lunar Lander, it referred to the tiny Lunar Command Module, the only part of the Saturn V that returned to Earth. From 44:00 to 48:08 of the film we see a live broadcast, supposedly from Martian orbit, showing all three astronauts crammed into a Lunar Command Module. The posting is absolutely correct.

This is another Deus ex Machina explanation for a blatant film mistake. The astronauts launched into orbit in a standard Saturn V rocket which could not possibly carry anything like a spacecraft large enough to make the trip to Mars. There is nothing in the film to suggest that there was a "much bigger ship" involved.

They are also shown seated in the tiny Apollo command module, supposedly transmitting messages from orbit around Mars. The posting is absolutely correct.

You're assuming the astronauts were launched in a standard Saturn V rocket, but with all the resources needed for a journey to Mars that took 18 months round trip, NASA would have to send them on a larger rocket to accommodate the required oxygen, water, food, spare parts, supplies, etc. needed to bring them back safely.

Mike Lynch

Did you watch the film? From 1:54 to 2:25 we see an establishing shot of a perfectly ordinary Saturn V rocket on the launch pad. From 6:05 to 6:43 we see all three astronauts strapped into the tiny, Lunar Command Module. As has already been pointed out from 44:00 to 48:08 we see a live broadcast, supposedly from Martian orbit, showing all three astronauts crammed into a Lunar Command Module. There is absolutely no mention of a larger spacecraft and none is ever shown.

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The Apostle picture

Continuity mistake: When they are looking at the house and they get out of the car, the one man on the passenger side leaves his door open. When they walk to the side of the house and come back to the front, you can see the car in the background and the door is shut.

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The Final Countdown picture

Factual error: Listening to a radio broadcast, live, since no other indication is given, Joe Louis is completing the 12th round of a fight. This is December 6, 1941. Joe's last fight of 1941 occurred in September, his next fight was January 1942. (00:00:10)

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Pink Floyd The Wall picture

Factual error: In World War 2 London, Pink is shown playing with an aeroplane model - an Avro York. The earliest available plastic model kit of this aircraft was produced in 1967. Inaccurate model aside, it begs the question of what a kid of Pink's age would be doing with a plastic model kit during World War 2 anyway.

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