Continuity mistake: When Danny & Debbie are having their New Year's dinner at home, the champagne foam instantly disappears in the very next camera angle after pouring it.
Factual error: The lake that Jack told Rose he went ice fishing on when she was threatening to jump is Lake Wissota, a man-made lake in Wisconsin near Chippewa Falls (where Jack grew up). The lake was only filled with water in 1918 when a power company built a dam on the Chippewa River, six years after the Titanic sank. (00:39:05)
Factual error: A force of Russian Tu-22 Backfire bombers attacks the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) by sneaking in under the ship's radar. This is all well and good except that carriers usually don't use their own radar, they have Airborne Early Warning aircraft (E-2 Hawkeye's) that can see much further and not give away the carrier's position (let alone the F-14s which would be patrolling too) not to mention the fleet of destroyers other ships guarding the carrier. The whole point is, the US Navy practiced and planned for such a "carrier versus Backfire" battle for years. I guess in the interest of furthering the plot Hollywood has to ignore the immense measures the USN takes to protect those multi-billion dollar assets, not to mention the 5000+ sailors that man them.
Factual error: After the successful Trinity test in 1945, people in a crowd are holding small US flags with 50 stars on them (offset rows). At the time there were only 48 states and the flag had 48 stars in even rows. The 50 star flag didn't exist until 1960, after Alaska and Hawaii were made states in 1959.
Character mistake: When Lisa is taken to the hospital, she tells Kathy that she saw the ghost of Jodie DeFeo. The name of both of the DeFeo's daughters wasn't Jodie. Their names were Dawn and Allison. Jodie was the name of a demonic pig that the Lutz's daughter Missy had befriended.
Suggested correction: While this is true in the original novel, the writers chose to change it to the DeFeo's daughter's name in the movie. Creative license doesn't count as a mistake.
Except that this is based on the real-life incident of the DeFeo family. This entry is not applied to the novel.
Visible crew/equipment: As Jake approaches the house after the van drives off, it looks like a crew member got caught at the side of the house and moves back as Jake is taking camera footage. (01:03:25)
Plot hole: During the later parts of this movie there is much talk about 'continental displacement' and this appears to be happening in the film. The Earth's crust is falling apart because of the heating of the inner core, and all the cities seems to be falling apart since the ground can no longer hold them. When our cast finds themselves surprised to be already over China when they figured to be over the ocean, it is explained that Asia has actually moved from where it was. If this phenomenon is taking place globally, how come the monks in China don't seem to have been disturbed at all? In fact the bell the monk rings as the ocean approaches hasn't even been shaken. The arks are built in between the mountains, but the mountains are apparently fine. Shouldn't they be falling like the rest of the crust?
Factual error: Denham is obviously shooting a sound film - he has a sound recordist with him along with the bulky and awkward recording equipment typical for the era, and they discuss the problems of recording dialogue on board. But not once do we see him filming with sound. We see the crew recording dialogue - synchronised sound, recorded on location, which is utterly impossible given the equipment they have and the circumstances under which the film is being shot. We never see a microphone, a boom pole or a tape recorder. His camera isn't even 'blimped' - soundproofed - and it's handcranked, which makes a racket. They can't be planning on adding the sound later - why have the sound recordist and his bulky and heavy equipment there with them if they are? The whole point of post dubbing dialogue is that you don't need a sound recordist in the first place.
Revealing mistake: When John picks his wife up at the airport, it's raining. But look at the people around outside, they are in T-shirts, in the sun, and not getting wet. Obviously the rain is being sprayed on the car.
Factual error: The "brick mansions" are in Detroit, but when the surveillance satellite footage is shown, the initial, close-up skyline shown from above is of San Francisco. Then as it zooms out it's looking at Chicago. (01:04:00)
Continuity mistake: The morning after Christian brought a drunk Ana back to his hotel room, she is sitting in bed eating some breakfast. The piece of toast she is holding keeps changing shape, having one bite taken out of it, then two, then one again in a different pattern. This is before Christian leans over and takes a bite just before he goes to shower.
Factual error: When Glass saves the Indian girl from the Frenchmen the flintlock pistol he gets off the Frenchman fires multiple times without reload, as it does later while being chased by the Indians.
Factual error: In the scenes where Gardner is messaging his Earth based female friend Tulsa from his Mars home, their communication is shown as being in real time. In truth, there would be minimum of a 4 min lag between messages due to the distance. (00:24:00)
Suggested correction: The tech is supposed to be highly advanced. This is at least kept consistent throughout the film as all communication between planets is in real time.
There is no tech that can alter the laws of physics that we know of. The near future setting of the film limits the scope of what's feasible.
Revealing mistake: When the new Pope is announced, the New York Times headline is shown, and 'Copyright 1990 The New York Times' is visible. The event took place in 1979.
Visible crew/equipment: When Charlie walks down to the front of the class in the hanger, Jester is the only one at the front. Look at the reflection of Maverick's glasses, and the reflection shows lots of people standing in front of him, likely film crew. (00:26:20)
Factual error: During the scene where Mozart is being carried away in his coffin by horse and cart there is a brief shot where he is being taken down a muddy path and a farmer is seen with his cows. If you look closely to the left side of the screen you can see a large overhead power line. If you look even more closely you can even see the wires coming out of the pylon. The movie is set in the 18th century and obviously it should not be there. (02:50:50)
Continuity mistake: When Richard and Francoise are making love on the beach. They begin kissing deep under the water and continue all the way to the top. When they reach the surface they can stand up in the water which appears to be waist-level.
Factual error: During the 31st year of the Avalon's voyage, the ship passes close to the star Arcturus, which is about 37 light years from Earth. Later in the movie, it was stated that the Avalon was moving at around 50% of the speed of light. The ship would not have reached Arcturus in the time allotted.
Continuity mistake: When Danny gets shot at the end of the film, his paper flies out of his hand. But the very next shot of him shows that the paper is still in his hand being held over his head while he falls backwards. In one of the following shots the paper is back on the floor, but it's on the opposite side it should have been when it flew out of his hand. It's all shown in slow motion and it's very obvious.
Visible crew/equipment: During the "full attack" at the start of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace repeatedly shouts, "Hold," and in the wideshot right before Wallace finally shouts, "Now!" as the horses gallop towards the right side of the screen, we can see a white car at the left side of the screen. Viewed widescreen version. (01:27:15)
Suggested correction: While this is correct, an argument can be made that since the colour scenes are meant to be subjective and the black and white scenes are meant to be objective, Oppenheimer could have been unintentionally mapping the modern US flag onto this scene.
THGhost
That's a ridiculous stretch with zero evidence, not least as 48 star flags are seen in colour in other scenes. Sometimes a mistake is simply a mistake.
There is evidence, though. Nolan said so himself. Look it up. As for the mistake itself, I'm merely repeating what I've read on Twitter, and this correction was merely a suggestion. Seeing the 48 star flags in other colour scenes still doesn't disprove this theory. It is just a theory though, so no need to shoot it down so hard.
THGhost
He's said subjective in terms of the colour scenes being "first person", and maybe not strictly factual in terms of creating moments between characters and conveying emotion, but nowhere does that stretch to "one random scene happens to feature 50 star flags because Oppenheimer is mapping the modern flag onto it, when nothing like that happens anywhere else in the film."
Meh, take it up with Twitter. I just thought it was interesting, and certainly don't see it as a stretch, so I posted it here for a different point of view/perspective for others to read. It is most likely bull**** though.
THGhost
The fact that a director realized they had made a mistake and retroactively made up a deus ex machina explanation for it in no way invalidates the mistake. Nice try, Mr. Nolan but this posting is absolutely valid.
While Christopher Nolan's talked about the subjective/objective colour/black and white thing, which is entirely fair and no doubt exactly his intention, I don't think he's actually tried to "excuse" this by using that explanation, that's just other people trying to connect the two things. I'm not sure Nolan has commented on the flag issue in interviews at all.
Precisely, and I was in no way trying to invalidate the original mistake. I just found the whole theory interesting and posted it here. It is rather hilarious that a director with such attention to detail like Nolan would have missed something like this. We shall see if he gets it fixed for the streaming/physical release.
THGhost
It's not fixed in the home video version. However, the behind-the-scenes materials provide a reason for the mistake, in that putting a crowd in the scene was apparently a spur-of-the-moment decision. It's like that in their haste to bring in the crowd, the set decorators bought some modern miniature flags and put them into the scene without anyone realizing the 48/50 discrepancy.
Vader47000