Best movie factual errors of all time

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The Meg picture

Factual error: Our heroes find a boat belonging to shark poachers, smashed to pieces by the Meg. Floating about in the debris are the bodies of a number of dead sharks. Sharks do not have swim bladders and dead sharks do not float - they sink.

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The Expendables 3 picture

Factual error: Their 'spot' for drinking is apparently in the French Quarter because of the street signs. That said, they are drinking Budvar beer. If you know about Budvar, it is the original Budweiser beer from the Czech Republic. Budweiser sued Budvar and won, preventing them from using the name 'Budweiser', even though Adolph Busch came up with 'Budweiser' after going to Pilsner, Czechoslovakia. Budweiser being the bully, and their lawyers and all, won the lawsuit. So now the beer is sold as 'Czechvar' in the US and 'Budvar' everywhere else, meaning they couldn't be drinking it in the USA.

22theman

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Aladdin picture

Factual error: The animators have clearly tried to make all the writing in the film look Arabic. However in one scene we see the faces of Jafar and the Sultan as they read a scroll. Their eyes move from left to right; Arabic is read right to left.

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Twister picture

Factual error: When they are at Aunt Meg's the first time, they get word that a tornado has been spotted and somehow they already know its rating. Tornadoes get their ratings from the amount of damage they do. This is determined after the tornado is gone.

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Suggested correction: The scale back then was based on the size of the tornado, it's only more recently it is based on damage. So during the time of the movie, the scale was being used correctly for size not damage.

The Fujita scale was introduced in 1971 and was in use during the 90's when this film came out. The Fujita scale measured the damage caused by a tornado to man-made structures after ground or aerial surveys, it was not a measurement of tornado size (an F5 tornado is a tornado that's rated on the Fujita scale). It is true the Fujita scale was replaced by the enhanced Fujita scale in 2007, but that was only to align the ratings to the damage better, it did not change rating tornadoes from size to destructive powers.

Bishop73

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Bohemian Rhapsody picture

Factual error: In a scene in 1980, Brian May is teaching everyone the beat for his new song "We Will Rock You." However that song was released in 1977.

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The Matrix Reloaded picture The Matrix Reloaded mistake picture

Factual error: In the scene where Neo is shot at by the French guy's henchmen, they shoot with different types of guns. 4 of these are submachine guns which would fire 9mm. Another is a M1928 Thompson would fire .45 APC. Lastly there is a Heckler and Koch G36K which would fire the drastically different 5.56x45mm NATO. When Neo stops the bullets, they are all 9mm Parabellum rounds.

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Never Been Kissed picture Never Been Kissed mistake picture

Factual error: In the montage sequence showing Drew Barrymore hanging out with the math club, they have a Pi poster with 3.1457869986. Only the first 3 digits are actually correct. (Pi = 3.1415926535897...) (00:25:20)

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Everest picture

Factual error: On the bus ride in Nepal, they're playing a Hindi song from an Indian movie (Kabhi Khushiyan Kabhi Gham) that was released in 2001. The time frame on the bus is 1996.

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Shooter picture

Factual error: When Swagger is fleeing from the police in the car wash after being shot, the radio says that he is at a car wash at 9th and Girard. There is no such intersection. On Girard Ave, 9th street picks up south and north of that street.

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Now You See Me 2 picture

Factual error: When it's 00:00 on January 1st, it's not night in Sydney, it's 11 AM. When they 'reveal' stuff at the end of the movie, and they show that things happen exactly at 00:00 in the night in London, it can't possibly be dark in Sydney, Australia.

oddbeck

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Suggested correction: It shows that Sydney is at dusk and is becoming dark, so around 5pm-6pm-ish, not 11am during the day.

Russel Denton

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Octopussy picture

Factual error: In the balloon scene, it seems like Q can circle around and land on a spot where he flew past previously. A balloon can only fly in the direction of the wind.

Jacob La Cour

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Dr. Strangelove picture

Factual error: When the B-52 is flying low over Russia, the shadow on the ground is a Boeing B-17G, a World War II propeller driven bomber.

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Argo picture

Factual error: It's mentioned that the British and New Zealanders turned the Americans away. This is untrue - the Americans stayed with both for a time until it was decided that they would be safer with the Canadians.

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Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit picture

Factual error: Jack Ryan takes the enlisted oath, not the officer's oath, when commissioned into the Marines. (00:02:35)

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Fast & Furious 8 picture

Factual error: Throughout the "Manhattan" race scenes, it is obvious that the location is nowhere near New York. The wide two-way streets, west coast-style traffic signals, street furniture, and architecture look nothing like Manhattan.

throcko

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Dora and the Lost City of Gold picture

Factual error: Dora picks up the solid gold statue - by the size it would weigh in excess of 500 lbs. She then lifts it up and places it back on the mantle above her head. A grown man could not do that, let alone a child. (01:31:06)

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Dracula picture

Factual error: At the cinematograph, Mina says to Dracula, "How can you call this science? Do you think Madame Curie would invite such comparisons? Really!" The movie takes place in year 1897, but Marie Curie's works weren't published until 1898. (00:49:30)

Kylantha

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Hidden Figures picture

Factual error: The green car that the 3 ladies are always in has a shot where you can see the brand of tires being a Hankook Optimo. This was in 1961 and these radial tires didn't exist yet.

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Aquaman picture

Factual error: Aquaman lifts a submerged submarine towards the surface, which should start to sink again straight after releasing it, as its ballast tanks are still full of water. It shouldn't stay floating like that.

lionhead

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The Martian picture

Factual error: After Watney patches the blow out of one of the HAB's airlocks with plastic sheeting, tie down straps, and duct tape, he pressurizes the HAB and the plastic sheeting pushes out like an inflated balloon. Assuming the plastic and duct tape would hold this is correct, however the plastic would be much more taut given the pressure difference inside and outside.

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Suggested correction: The plastic would certainly be flexing in and out because of the pressure of the wind gusts during the storm. We saw earlier that the gusts of the storms were strong enough to blow a suited explorer off their feet and push them across the surface. Let's say that the HAB is pressurized as much as it can be without blowing out of the plastic, tape, and bungees sealing the airlock. A storm gust would still be able to push the flexible plastic in momentarily, and it would pop back out after the gust passed.

The movie took liberties with the physics of Mars. The gusts on Mars wouldn't be able to blow over a person or a spaceship, let alone push them across the surface, but they needed it for the plot. But using the same physics they then have wedded themselves to, it could then be strong enough to cause the plastic to flap, even though in real life it wouldn't. This is more of a deliberate mistake than a factual error since the writers certainly knew what they did didn't match reality.

Except they didn't 'wed' themselves to their fictional physics. Towards the end of the film NASA tells Watney that a flimsy plastic covering on his ascent vehicle will not be dislodged on acceleration to Martian escape velocity because the atmosphere is too thin to cause any problems. That's cheating in anyone's books.

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