Best sci-fi movie deliberate mistakes of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Deja Vu picture

Deliberate mistake: After Doug finds where Minuti was killed and set on fire, he walks over to a dock where he sees Minuti's arm being eaten by alligators. Minuti had been dumped in the water 4 days prior, yet his hand is perfectly intact with no signs of burning, bite marks or weather/water damage of any kind.

More Deja Vu deliberate mistakes
Outland picture

Deliberate mistake: O'Niel needs a sample of a dead man's blood to test for toxic drugs. So he visits the corpse, which has been dead for quite some time and is lying on its back, and proceeds to insert a hypodermic syringe into the dead man's frontal neck, extracting the sample. But blood pools low in the body soon after death. There ought to have been no blood available from that location of the body. To get blood, O'Niel should've punctured the corpse's underside.

More Outland deliberate mistakes
Gremlins 2: The New Batch picture

Deliberate mistake: The elevator operated by gremlins starts ascending at around 5 stories per second, based on the floor readings. Yet when the elevator suddenly stops dead, Kate does not fly into the air caused by the huge speed change. (00:50:05)

More Gremlins 2: The New Batch deliberate mistakes
Saturn 3 picture

Deliberate mistake: When Adam kills himself and Hector at the end, the explosion sends a lot of water and parts of Hector into the air. But there is no sign of Adam's blood, body parts or clothing, despite the fact that the bomb was strapped to him. (01:16:10)

Daz

More Saturn 3 deliberate mistakes
Moonraker picture

Deliberate mistake: During the space battle, one of Drax's men gets his back pack blasted. (1:46:37) His entire pack explodes so that his jet pack and life support are destroyed. But as a result of that blast, all the parts from his suit FALL DOWN! Even though there's no gravity.

John.G

More Moonraker deliberate mistakes
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen picture

Deliberate mistake: After Mina leaves the car in Venice, Sawyer just manages to avoid several obstacles on the way, including a bend in the canal. But in the first scene, where Sawyer swerves the car around, its front should have slipped into the water anyway, considering the speed of the car and the tightness of the street, which makes a sharp L-turn at such close quarters next to impossible. But then the scene jump-cuts, and the car is well past the hazard.

More The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen deliberate mistakes
Resident Evil picture Resident Evil mistake picture

Deliberate mistake: When the woman is attempting to escape from the elevator, it dislodges and falls down, so then the actress is facing the ground...but when her arm hits the floor, the floor itself bends. If you watch the DVD with the commentary on, the director points out that it was a break away floor in case the actress' head accidentally snapped forward, to avoid any injury. (00:08:00)

More Resident Evil deliberate mistakes
Stealth picture

Deliberate mistake: On the map showing the location of all the 'Camel Hump' refuelling blimps, none of them are anywhere near the countries EDI visits in the film - the nearest one is more than a thousand miles away over the Pacific.

More Stealth deliberate mistakes
Men in Black 3 picture

Deliberate mistake: The Army Colonel's Class A uniform does not have a name plate on the flap of the right breast pocket as per regulations. If the Colonel's name plate was present, there would be no twist to the movie. (01:21:50)

More Men in Black 3 deliberate mistakes
Jurassic Park picture

Deliberate mistake: When the raptor breaks into the control room and is hopping around the computer workstations, we see sharp, distinct genetic coding projected from a computer screen and across the raptor's face (starting 1:55:50). Aside from the fact that computer displays have never projected focused images onto nearby surfaces, the projected text shown in this scene oddly reads from left-to-right, when it should actually be a flipped mirror-image (right-to-left). Spielberg probably realised this factual incongruity while filming but chose to use the left-to-right text for the sake of audience recognition, given that the multiple lines of "GATC" genetic code were already confusing enough. (01:55:50)

Charles Austin Miller

More Jurassic Park deliberate mistakes
You Only Live Twice picture

Deliberate mistake: When 11 is dropped into the water and eaten by the piranhas, although the ravenous fish probably ate most of her and what was on her, there should at least be pieces of clothing that would rise to the surface in the flurry of activity. Not to mention that even though the water is a murky green all the blood from her body should have created a temporary, but very noticeable darkening of the water.

Tobin OReilly

More You Only Live Twice deliberate mistakes
Village of the Giants picture

Deliberate mistake: The theatre is said to have been closed down "years ago". But all the theater props are still there, and the place shows no sign of disuse, it is not even dusty anywhere. The electricity and water are also still hooked up and functioning.

Twotall

More Village of the Giants deliberate mistakes
Resident Evil: Afterlife picture

Deliberate mistake: When Alice jumps from the rooftop, the entire roof explodes, but the wire she is on is still intact. (01:00:50)

More Resident Evil: Afterlife deliberate mistakes
The Lost World picture

Deliberate mistake: In real life, the Brazilian natives do not wear clothes at all except for speedo type shorts, even the women. This is a deliberate error to keep the film "clean."

More The Lost World deliberate mistakes
Armageddon picture

Deliberate mistake: Before the two shuttles dock to the MIR station, Lev initiates a rotation to simulate gravity. The shuttles then dock with their side hatch pointing to the anchorage. As the gravity is pointing away from the centre of revolution and the station is revolving around its main corridor, the gravity would push the astronauts back in to the shuttle and not towards the floor of the gangways leading to the shuttle or towards the floor of the shuttle. Also, the artificial gravity would be reduced to almost nothing at the main corridor. But here the artificial gravity somehow points down in every part of the station, and appears to work equally well throughout the station. (01:09:40)

Christoph Galuschka

More Armageddon deliberate mistakes
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers picture

Deliberate mistake: The aliens fire on a bell tower with a clock on it. In the next shot a different building blows up. (01:17:15)

????

More Earth vs. the Flying Saucers deliberate mistakes
Critters picture

Deliberate mistake: The explosion of the ship at the end of the film is actually another angle of the explosion of the house from a few seconds earlier. The craft's explosion is much too small for what is shown in the film.

manthabeat

More Critters deliberate mistakes
Metropolis picture

Deliberate mistake: A shot that lasts three seconds is backwards. The previous shot is a point of view outside an elevator and it shows Maria descending into the workers' city. The very next shot is a point of view from inside the same elevator and it shows the elevator ascending out of the workers' city. (Observed in both the Kino and Madacy DVD's. The timecode is for the Kino DVD.) (01:32:25)

More Metropolis deliberate mistakes
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra picture

Deliberate mistake: After being arrested, Breaker, who is Northern African, a region where French is the second if not first native language and speaks with a French accent throughout the movie, pleads with the French authorities in English. (01:10:30)

Hex

More G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra deliberate mistakes
Rocketeer picture

Deliberate mistake: When Cliff crashes into the pond after his first flight, Peevy tells him that he has to look around with his eyes and steer by moving his head. However, just before this as he is flying next to the passenger airplane, he looks over at it, turning his head to the left without changing directions at all.

BocaDavie

More Rocketeer deliberate mistakes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.