Factual error: Amongst the essential parts of a nuclear weapon's detonation mechanism is a radioactive isotope of tritium, which has a half life of just 12 1/2 years. The tritium in every nuke on earth has to be replaced every ten years or so. This is by no means unusual; there are other perishable parts including detonators made of conventional explosives which would be completely inert after a thousand years. After lying dormant with no maintenance at all for that amount of time the nuclear weapons the 'Man-animals' find would be big shiny paperweights and not much else.
Factual error: The vents that Hunt and his sidekick crawl down at CIA Headquarters are standard galvanized steel box vents; they are very common in the building trade. Try walking or crawling down one - you'll make a noise like the sky is falling down. People will be able to hear you for miles. Every person in that building would know somebody was crawling about in the vent system. (This error applies to dozens of films, not only this one.)
Suggested correction: "People will be able to hear you for miles. Every person in that building would know somebody crawling about in the vent system." No, they won't. The sound from someone crawling through a vent would carry for metres but not miles. CIA Headquarters are quite large, so it's unlikely that the sound would carry to every part of it. And even if it did, there's no reason to believe that every person in the building would know that the sound was somebody crawling about in the vent system.
The galvanised steel the box vents are made out of makes a very distinctive booming sound when it distorts under pressure, and it is loud. Unless they are deaf, the people in the room through which the vent runs would know perfectly well that there was someone in there.
Factual error: The radar guided SAMs are consistently evaded/triggered by the pilots' flares, which in reality only work against heat seeking missiles. Radar guided missiles would be defended against using chaff, basically clouds of aluminium foil strips. It was mentioned in some interviews they didn't want use chaff as it wouldn't really be visible for the audience - hence why they only deploy flares.
Factual error: When Amy is fired from S'Nuff magazine she takes her story on Aaron Connors to Vanity Fair, who run with it. That is not going to happen. Amy wrote the article while a paid employee of S'Nuff magazine and that means the copyright in the article (and, very relevant to this issue, the photographs of Aaron they paid to have taken), resides with them, not with her. It isn't hers to sell. No magazine editor of any standing is going to buy an unsolicited article without checking its provenance backwards and forwards, and that would mean checking with Amy's previous employers - after all, what would happen if they changed their minds and ran the story themselves?
Suggested correction: You still own the right to the story you wrote, regardless of who buys it. That's not how it works.
What absolute nonsense. Do some research before posting on this site. Amy wrote the article as a "Work Made for Hire" as part of her employment contract with S'Nuff magazine. Under Section 101 of the US Copyright Act, the magazine owns the article and the photographs they bought and paid for. Amy does not own any part of the article or the photographs, and she cannot sell or trade in them.
Factual error: Near the end of the film, Knox is flying a Huey helicopter, and the Angels hitch a ride by shooting it with a speargun and dangling on the line behind it. Suddenly adding about 200kg to a Huey in flight like that is going to cause all sorts of problems with the trim and airspeed of the aircraft. The pilot would know immediately that something was wrong. (01:23:20)
Suggested correction: Knox wasn't a trained pilot. Either he had no clue to what was going on, or he thought something may have been wrong, but didn't know what to do about it.
Taking off and landing a helicopter are by far the most intense and difficult part of a pilot's training. Seriously, 99% of learning to fly is learning how to land and take off. If the pilot is skilled enough to take off in a Huey he is easily skilled enough to notice a massive additional drag on his helicopter due to the additional weight of the angels and the air resistance put up by such a bulky protrusion on his aircraft. If he isn't skilled enough to notice that, he isn't skilled enough to take off in the first place.
Factual error: During the war games they have Jefferson pose as a major in order to facilitate the commandeering of the ambulance and the jeep. Regardless of their personal feelings in the matter the ambulance crew and the driver and troops in the jeep would be perfectly aware that no black man would ever be promoted to a position of authority in an otherwise all white command. We may find it repugnant today but the US Army was rigidly segregated during World War 2 - and it stayed that way until 1948. Jefferson may have been inducted into a special unit like the Dirty Dozen but considering that the future of the entire mission is riding on their success at the games, throwing it all away like that makes no sense at all.
Factual error: It is barely credible that a young Victorian woman like Elena would even think about wearing a goatskin miniskirt - exposing her legs in those days would be akin to walking about topless nowadays. Even if she did those bright yellow cotton knickers - gleefully visible in the scene in the beehive - are in no way from the 1860s. Her pants are a hundred years ahead of their time.
Factual error: Hannah's full name is Hannah Ásgeirsson. Icelandic surnames are based on the parent's first name, adding -sson for boys and -dottir for girls, so Ásgeirsson would be the surname of the male child of a man named Ásgeir. Her name should be Hannah Ásgeirdottir or Sigurbjörnsdóttir.
Factual error: Why is Hilts not wearing a uniform? A serving officer captured behind enemy lines in civilian clothing risked being shot as a spy. If a prisoner's uniform was too worn or damaged to wear, it was routine for the German authorities to replace it - a P.O.W. in civilian clothes is an obvious escape risk. He is wearing a pair of tan chinos, a cut off sloppy Joe sweatshirt, both ridiculously anachronistic - Sixties hipster fashions - and nowhere even close to a World War 2 uniform. He is also wearing Army Type III Service boots - something that would never have been issued to a fighter pilot.
Suggested correction: Hilts was a POW for a few years before being transferred to this camp. His current clothing likely changed from when he was originally captured in his uniform, so he would not have been considered a spy. After multiple escape attempts, his uniform could have been ruined. The Geneva Convention required that POWs receive shelter, food, clothing, medical care, etc. The Red Cross delivered care packages to POW camps containing food, miscellaneous apparel, and other essentials. Sweatshirts have existed since the 1920s and changed little. Also, chino pants have been around since the late 19th century. Hilts was an U.S. Air Force pilot, and light-colored khaki trousers (similar to chinos) were standard-issue uniform for some U.S. military branches, along with leather bomber jackets for Air Force pilots. Therefore, he is dressed appropriately for his military branch.
And none of them would have been available to a prisoner in a German POW camp in the mid 1940s. Not one single item of hipster fashion would have found its way into the camp. Even if it did, do you really think the German authorities would allow a prisoner to lounge about in civilian clothing? Talk about an escape risk.
The camp was in Germany, not Poland. As I previously mentioned, other than the sweatshirt, Hilts appears to wear military clothing - a leather pilot's bomber's jacket with military sleeve insignia, and U.S. Air Force khaki trousers. So not "hipster" '60s civilian clothing. The sweatshirt could be military appropriate (even issued) and something Hilts acquired at a different camp. He arrived with a small duffel bag that presumably had some misc clothing. He and two other POWs are the only Americans and have different uniforms. The current camp commandant, who apparently disdained Hitler and his Nazi minions, would decide what POWs could wear.
Factual error: When Ray leaves his wife Gina and his car is hit by the truck he should still be in England, but when he is being chased through the streets he is in South Africa, the cops in the car are not in English police uniforms or vehicle, police livery is incorrect, and all vehicles have South Africa plates, not English number plates.
Factual error: While handling the ignition coil cable to the distributor cap, Joe Pesci tells De Niro that the timing chain needs adjustment in his truck. A truck of that year with an inline Chevy motor would not have a timing chain at all, instead this truck would be equipped with a direct drive timing gear. Even if it had a timing chain, it would be behind the water pump and a cover. It would have been a several hour job to replace, not possible to adjust it.
Factual error: The whole basis of the trial and conviction of Cameron Poe is a crock. The judge can not arbitrarily mete out a sentence that is harsher based on the ability of someone to defend him/herself. In justifying the harsher sentence because of Poe's military skills, the judge effectively says that Poe is more guilty than an average person due to his honorable and decorated service in uniform to his country. In my entire time in law school, I never read one out of the literally hundreds of cases I was assigned in which a judge issued a harsher sentence because of someone's innate or learned abilities to defend themselves. But since this was a movie court room proceeding, the fact that Poe had a witness to the fight (his wife), the fact that he was injured in the fight, and the fact that his uniform was torn and otherwise ruined as a result of the fight are never examined. A D.A. wouldn't have taken this to a grand jury on a bet, because they would have never returned an indictment or "true bill."
Factual error: In circling over Washington Dulles, a plane would fly over several airports that they could land at with perfect communication, including Richmond, Baltimore, Andrews AFB, etc. Also, there is no communication from the airport to the plane but the plane would be in range of no fewer than 15 transmitting stations that could have relayed messages.
Factual error: In the museum, Peter is filming in real-time moving biological specimens shot through 'the largest electron microscope on the Eastern seaboard'. You can't film live specimens in an electron microscope. The electron beam only works in a vacuum chamber, in which the specimen - invariably dead - is held. The microscope is identified as a scanning electron microscope, and nobody can fire an electron stream through air. The electrons will collide with gas molecules and scatter, ruining the image.
Factual error: Though extremely modest by today's standards, the dress worn by Clara at the hoedown shows far too much cleavage for the time. No schoolteacher would ever wear a dress like that in the 1880s.
Factual error: No British woman measures her weight in pounds only - always stones and pounds, or kilograms (a concession to the Americans but it sounds really odd to us Brits). Yes, in the American printing of the book it's always only pounds as well, but that's for the same reason, and still wrong.
Factual error: At the end of the film Rainwood has established his innocence of the drug charges and is happily back at work as a senior mechanic for a large airline. However, part of the sentencing and plea bargain protocols at his arraignment is his previous conviction on a lesser drug charge years before. It goes without saying that he did not advise his employers of this when he started work for them - no airline in the world (even pre 9/11) would hire someone with a drug conviction on their record! Now this is out in the open the airline knows that Rainwood is a convicted drug user (on the lesser, legitimate charge) and that he lied on his original job application. They wouldn't hire him again to sweep the floors.
Suggested correction: Even today in 2023 felony convictions might not show up on a background check. Not all information has been uploaded to the internet yet. It was extremely easy in the 1980's for a conviction to be missed by a background check especially if there was no prison time served or it occurred in a rural county or town.
He just got out of prison and establishing his innocence involved the violent deaths of at least two people. Do you not think that his employers just might have followed his story? He'd be all over the news media. The idea that not one person would have followed up on his criminal history is beyond absurd - we are talking about a safety critical job that involves the safety of hundreds of people.
Factual error: The movie starts in 1985, jumps '5 years later' and then back to Sasha Luss, then '3 years earlier'. So, in her crusty apartment in an impoverished neighbourhood of 1987 Soviet Russia, Anna is filling a form on her notebook-style laptop, too modern for the era. It looks like a NEC UltraLite (considered the first notebook style laptop) which didn't even come out until 1989, let alone the likelihood of someone in the USSR having one.
Factual error: In the scene when Will is opening the drawer of films from the Leeds home, there is clearly a copy of Mrs. Doubtfire in the left column of tapes. How can that be? Red Dragon is clearly set "several years" after 1980, as the caption says, but before the 1991 Silence of the Lambs, but "Mrs. Doubtfire" came out in 1993.
Factual error: While Bridger is watching the film of the Mafia boss following Beckerman he signals for the film to be stopped so he can look at the close up shot of the man. He is watching a 16mm film shown through a bog standard projector - stop a film like that for more than two seconds without closing down the projector shutter (this doesn't happen - if it did the screen would darken instantly) and it will melt and catch fire. This doesn't happen.