Best movie mistakes of all time

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Halloween picture

Continuity mistake: When Annie and Laurie leave the hardware store to go to their babysitting jobs it is broad daylight. When they reach the houses apparently just a few blocks away, it is already dark.

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About a Boy picture

Continuity mistake: During the Xmas day scene, Markus receives a Sony portable CD player as a gift from Will. However, before the gift's unwrapped, the Sony box is visible on the table. (00:51:45)

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The Truth About Cats And Dogs picture The Truth About Cats And Dogs mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Uma Thurman visits the radio station for the first time, she asks Janeane Garofalo if she can sit down by the microphone. As she's standing in front of the desk she's wearing a cardigan with a handbag over her shoulder. When she turns round to say "you promise not to laugh?", the cardigan and bag have disappeared. (00:16:10)

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Oppenheimer picture Oppenheimer mistake picture

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.

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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

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Nobody picture

Continuity mistake: In one scene after Hutch is beaten up on the bus, he has no facial injuries. Then in the next scene, they are back.

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Spectre picture

Factual error: The 15 bus in London does not go over Westminster Bridge.

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Jumping Jack Flash picture

Continuity mistake: When Terri is at the party, her blonde wig changes shape and size many times.

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Resident Evil: The Final Chapter picture

Continuity mistake: It was briefly stated in the second film that the T-Virus was created by Dr. Ashford to cure his daughter Angela and that the Red and White Queens were based on her. This movie contradicts that by suggesting that Dr. Marcus created the T-Virus to cure his daughter Alicia, and that the Red/White Queens were modeled after her. While the rest of the movie stays true to the continuity of the previous films, this rather obvious ret-con is still a major continuity gaff.

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Wonder Woman 1984 picture

Other mistake: Fireworks use heated metals to produce the various colors seen when they explode - Iron, Nickel, Cryolite, magnesium and copper filings. Flying a jet engine through exploding fireworks would cause serious damage to the engine.

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Suggested correction: Diana had conjured an invisibility shield around the jet that would likely protect it from the fireworks.

raywest

Agreed, the spell does obviously do more than just make the plane invisible. When looking at the invisibility of Themyscira, the spell obviously filters out the atmosphere and only can't keep out solid objects like planes and ships.

lionhead

If the cloak of invisibility "filters out the atmosphere", how is the air needed to run the engines getting in?

It filters the atmosphere, not keep it away. So it keeps the atmosphere that comes in clean.

lionhead

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Evil Under the Sun picture

Plot hole: Patrick Redfern needs someone to be in the boat with him to corroborate his and his wife's deception and be his alibi. That is whole point of his wife lying on beach - he gets this when taking Myra for a ride - but it was portrayed as a random ride she got, he did not intend or plan giving her a ride, he did not see her loitering near the boat, or even in view of him untying the boat. Even if that was intention in the story for him to be seen ready to cast off, the movie viewers did not see her viewing him, only her appearing just before he was set to cast off. Without someone with him the whole deception would not work, he would have no alibi, he could have killed Arlena unseen.

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Swimfan picture

Continuity mistake: When swimfan85 is trying to talk to Ben and he tells her he has homework to get done, she is talking with the nick name swimfan85 but when she signs off it says "swimfan has signed off." They forgot to add the 85.

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Flightplan picture

Plot hole: The whole concept of a kidnapper 'pretending' his victim didn't get on the plane in the first place is utterly laughable. Even if nobody saw her in her seat, why didn't they see her walking down the aisle to her seat, or waiting to board the plane, or in the boarding tunnel itself? Why isn't she listed on the passenger manifest, or on her mother's travel documents or airline ticket? And there would have been security cameras all over the airport.

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Spider-Man 3 picture Spider-Man 3 mistake picture

Factual error: During the fight scene with Sandman in the armored car, the Terminal Tower can be seen in the background, which is a landmark in Cleveland, Ohio (where the scene was shot), not in New York City.

ctown28

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day picture Terminator 2: Judgment Day mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The T-1000 punches his body through the window of a helicopter to get inside. An instant later, the hole in the windshield is gone. (01:56:35)

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Chernobyl Diaries picture

Factual error: The idea that anyone survived living long term in Pripyat Hospital is absurd. At the time the film was set the hospital was still radioactive and prolonged exposure by living there would be fatal. Nobody could survive on the grounds for more than two or three months without receiving a lethal dose of radioactivity. Incidentally, prolonged exposure to radioactivity doesn't turn you into a deranged zombie - it turns you into a corpse.

PEDAUNT

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Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi picture

Revealing mistake: When Luke is being fed to the Rancor, in Jabba the Hutt's dungeon, there are black outlines around the beast's legs, from the composite's blue screen special effect. This was edited out in the special edition rerelease.

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Suggested correction: This was not a "mistake". The outlines showing around the beast's leg were due to the limited CGI technology at the time the film was made. With advances in special effects in the following decades, the filmmakers were able to enhance the CGI quality in later releases.

raywest

But it is a mistake to show that the Rancor is not real, and the outlines show that. It's certainly not intentional.

lionhead

Not sure what you mean that the rancor is not real. Of course it's not real. The issue is, at that time, it was not technically possible to show the beastie without the lines showing. I classify a mistake as something that was not intentional. In this case, it was, due to the limitations of CGI in the 1980s.

raywest

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Coyote Ugly picture

Continuity mistake: When the real 'manager' comes outside to yell at "Mr. O'Donnell', you see the manager walk back into the club. If you look in the background of the next shot, you can see the manager walking through the door again. (00:13:25)

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Hobbs & Shaw picture

Continuity mistake: The final battle starts around dawn, and it's very dark when the bad guys arrive, but between shots it suddenly gets much brighter. (01:38:50)

Jon Sandys

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Suggested correction: When you see the helicopter start flying in after Brixton asking them to bring it in, you can see the sun in the distance, so perhaps some time passed by.

But the weapons are only disabled for 6 minutes and the 6 minutes end when they're hooked up to the chopper, which is way later.

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The Day After Tomorrow picture

Other mistake: At the end of the film when they arrive in NYC looking for the library, we know that they survived because they are inside with a roaring fire burning. But where is the smoke up above, as Jack Hall approaches? There must be a chimney, or else they would have all died of asphyxiation.

kiazersoza

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Suggested correction: As already corrected, just because we can't see an outlet for the smoke doesn't mean there isn't one. White smoke against white snow is very hard to see.

Nik Rolls

But they were still burning the books, which meant the smoke should be black, if they stop burning the books, the smoke would have been white, which isn't the case in the movie.

Just looked at a boatload of videos of burning books, including one in a fireplace, and the smoke was indeed white.

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory picture

Other mistake: In the beginning of the song about Augustus Gloop, computer generated Oompa Loompas can be seen running through the Chocolate Room, preparing to sing their song. In the DVD release, some Oompa Loompas can be seen running to places that no real person could possibly stand on. This mistake was later corrected in the Blu-Ray release.

throast

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