Best mystery movie character mistakes of all time

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Striking Distance picture

Character mistake: At the start of the car chase scene the dispatcher identifies the stolen car as an '89 Ford, but the Ford LTD Crown Victoria shown in the chase is a 1986 or 1987 model.

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Stir of Echoes picture

Character mistake: In the scene where Maggie tells her sister she is pregnant and how far along she is in her pregnancy, her sister says the child will be a Gemini, just like Einstein. Einstein's birthdate is March 14th, making him a Pisces. Lisa also mentions that Shirley Manson from the band Garbage is also a Gemini, when in fact she is a Virgo.

Phaneron

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Super Troopers picture

Character mistake: When Ramathorn and Farva pullover the Plymouth Voyager, Ramathorn radios in and says they have a Plymouth Voyager, Vermont plates Alpha, God, Mustard, 1, niner, decade, china. When Farva gets out of the car to call the driver a chicken f**ker, you can see the licence plate, Vermont plate '1 9415'. Ramathorn radioed in the wrong licence plate number.

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A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors picture

Character mistake: The little girl asks Kristen "what's your name?" Kristen replies "Kirsten". (00:05:59)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I hear her say "Kristen." The transcript and subtitle even say "Kristen."

Bishop73

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The Manchurian Candidate picture

Character mistake: During the press conference the Secretary of Defense yells at Senator Iselin "Where is the Sergeant-at-Arms? Throw that man of out here!" The problem is that "Sergeant-at-Arms" is a congressional post and that is not a position that would exist at the Defense Department (the Pentagon), nor would the Secretary of Defense hold a press conference in the Capitol (where someone who has that title would be).

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Psycho II picture

Character mistake: There's a note from "mother" on the wheel at the diner. Right beside it is an order with the wrong total. 2 hamburgers for $1.95 each. 2 fries for 90 cents and 2 drinks for 90 cents for a total of $5.70. The waitress put $3.70 for the total.

Amy Emerick Tice

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Friday the 13th picture

Character mistake: When Annie is in the red truck, she says that she'll be cooking for ten staff. When Alice goes to the beach, she tells Bill that everyone has arrived except for Annie. Even if she had arrived, there would only be eight of them: Christie, Annie, Ned, Brenda, Jack, Marcy, Bill, and Alice. Two shy of what she told the truck driver.

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Death on the Nile picture

Character mistake: Dr. Bessner tells Linnet that the Eastern statue she'll see at Abu Simbel is 'the vocal statue', which emits a sound at sunset. The statues the doctor mentions are the Colossi of Memnon, over 500 kms north of Abu Simbel, so the movie here mixes up two very different monuments. (00:49:30)

Sammo

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Friday the 13th Part 2 picture

Character mistake: Ginny is supposed to be put head first into the ambulance, not feet first. All the monitoring equipment is in the front of the head. (01:24:20)

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Fire in the Sky picture

Character mistake: Mike, despite being an experienced logger, is filing his chainsaw blade in the wrong direction. Also, he's seen filing the teeth of the blade way too many times.

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Identity picture

Character mistake: There's no way that using a regular needle and thread to sew up that wound would work the way it's shown. Anybody who knew what they were doing - which John Cusack is portrayed as knowing - would also know that using unsterilized materials and instruments without a sterile field from an uncleaned massive open wound is a great way to kill your patient.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The main plot of this film takes place inside the head of a murderer with dissociative identity disorder. The fact that stitching up a wound in that matter wouldn't work is irrelevant to the fact that it is how Malcolm is playing out the scenario in his head.

Phaneron

You're making a good point to invalidate a "character mistake", but couldn't the entry be reclassified as a "factual mistake" and stand as written?

KeyZOid

I would say no, as it is still assigning a mistake to something that is happening in someone's imagination. Unless Jon disagrees, I don't think those types of factual errors in this instance count as movie mistakes.

Phaneron

If it was all being imagined, I'd have to agree.

KeyZOid

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Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me picture

Character mistake: Leland Palmer handles Laura's body without any gloves when wrapping her and disposing of the body. As with any respectable FBI investigation, upon finding her body and checking for fingerprints, they should've connected Leland to Laura's death within days. (02:05:00)

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The Maltese Falcon picture

Character mistake: When Spade leaves Brigid in her hotel room, he says he will buzz her buzzer long-short-long-short, so she will know it's him. When he does return, he only buzzes long-short.

kh1616

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Appointment With Death picture

Character mistake: On the way to Jerusalem, Poirot says that "that man, Weizmann, put it rather well the other day, before Lord Peel's commission", and gives a famous quote about the world being divided in 'two places' for the Jews (those where they are not allowed to live, and those they cannot enter). The movie takes place in May 1937, and Chaim Weizmann's quote is from November of the previous year. 6 months are hardly "the other day."

Sammo

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The Name of the Rose picture

Character mistake: When William finds the footprints on the ground after the body is found in the blood vat, he tells Adso that they were twice as deep as they should've been because the person who made them was weighed down by the weight of a body. Adso points out that the footprints were going away from the vats, to which William rebukes him and says that the man who made the prints was possibly dragging the body. If that was so, the footprints would not have been so deep, as the person moving the body would not have been weighed down nearly as much by dragging one along the ground. William is a learned investigator who shouldn't have made such an obvious mistake.

Purple_Girl

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The Fog picture

Character mistake: When the second fog bank rolls in, the weatherman says it is coming from the south-east, and the DJ says the same thing once; the second time, however, she says the south-west.

kh1616

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The Bourne Supremacy picture

Character mistake: When Marie joins Bourne in the bathroom while he's getting medicine, Marie says he's burning up. She gets a washcloth, wets it and dabs Bourne's neck. She only had what couldn't have any more than a tablespoon of water and dabbled it less than a few seconds. It couldn't have had any effect on someone who was burning up.

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The Manchurian Candidate picture

Character mistake: When Marco is trying to raise his rifle to assassinate Senator Arthur, he held it upside down with his scope below and turned over in the same scene, He is an expert marksman.

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