Best sci-fi movie factual errors of all time

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Ad Astra picture

Factual error: It is not possible that Pitt could have gone up to the ship when it was already blasting off. There was literally fire in the tunnel.

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Suggested correction: It was a bit confusing, but what I saw was a shower of sparks or hot particles and some fumes, and no fire in the tunnel until he was through the hatch. The makers may have been influenced by seeing vapour prior to a rocket launch, and then some rockets use a shower of electric sparks to ignite the engines. It was implausible, but no fire in the tunnel.

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Independence Day picture

Factual error: There is a shot of the Imperial Valley at night with the edges of the Los Angeles destroyer spinning over the mountains. The center of the destroyer is hovering over downtown LA. Imperial Valley is over 200 miles away from downtown LA, and the destroyer is no more than 20 miles in diameter. There would be no way the edges of the destroyer would extend far enough to be seen from Imperial Valley as shown unless it was over 100 miles in radius. The ship does not even hover over Steven Hiller's house which is in LA, it can nearly be seen whole from there. The destroyer would be obscured by the mountains and from 200 miles it would appear much smaller.

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day picture

Factual error: The truck that the T-1000 uses to try and run down John in the overspill, is a Freightliner FLA 9664, which uses a diesel engine - it does not use petrol. Diesel is much harder to combust in comparison to petrol/gasoline, and the spark from the battery cables on the spilt diesel would absolutely never ignite under those circumstances. (00:37:55)

GalahadFairlight

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Super 8 picture

Factual error: After the train crash, the teen characters discover cube-like items. One of them states it looks like a Rubik's Cube. The movie itself takes place in 1979, but the Rubik's Cube, although invented in 1974, was not licensed to sell in the USA until 1980. It was not even called a "Rubik's cube" until 1980 (prior to this, it was known as a "Magic Cube"). (00:21:55)

spectrauru

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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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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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Jurassic Park III picture

Factual error: There is no way a 2001 phone's tiny speaker could be heard a hundred meters away in the belly of a dinosaur or later buried in a mound of dino dung.

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The Matrix picture

Factual error: When Trinity is being arrested, you hear the cops all burst into the room and cock the hammers on their Glocks. The Glock doesn't have an external hammer. To load the weapon, you have to pull the slide back and release it. (00:01:50)

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The Cave picture

Factual error: When they go into the water, they put mouthpieces in, but, a few times, they talk to each other, which is impossible with mouthpieces in.

kh1616

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Suggested correction: Sorry to burst your bubble here but there is scuba equipment which allows for talking whilst using a regulator.

They're not wearing such equipment. In the movie they're just wearing regular mouthpieces.

In the DVD commentary the writers explain that the divers should have been wearing full face masks which allow for communication, but the director changed it for mouthpieces, but kept the talking in. They pointed out this mistake.

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Geostorm picture

Factual error: The lady hacked a tablet with he command mkdir -p on the command prompt. mkdir command is used to make a folder. (01:00:00)

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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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Spider-Man 2 picture

Factual error: Considering the brightness of the fusion process, Dr. Octavius has to wear special goggles to be able to see it. Yet no one else in the room is wearing such goggles or seem hurt by watching the whole process, just as at the end of the movie. When welding something, no one can look at the arc that's created, as it would hurt his eyes and burn his retina; presumably, the fusion process would be brighter and more powerful than that, and so should have some kind of damaging effect on everyone's eyesight (except Spider Man's, maybe).

Sereenie

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Mission to Mars picture

Factual error: Gary Sinise looks at a computer screen with a short section (about two full twists) of DNA on it and proclaims that "This DNA looks human." He could have been looking at DNA from any single-celled organism and it would have looked just as human as what he was looking at. All mammals have 90+ percent of their DNA in common, he would have to have sequenced the entire DNA strand (something like 3 billion pairs of nucleotides) to identify it as human, something that would be totally beyond the capacity of anything but a well-equipped genetics lab, something they show no sign of having.

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Life picture

Factual error: After Dr. Derry's hand is crushed by Calvin, it dangles and flops every time it is seen so that the audience can see that the bones are severely broken. However, in zero-g, the hand would float rather than swing limply.

Phixius

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2010 picture

Factual error: While the Leonov has a centrifugal section to simulate gravity, the ship's bridge is not part of it (evidenced by the stationary views outside its portholes). Yet in various scenes, including the one when Floyd rushes in to discuss his plan to return to Earth sooner with Tanya, gravity seems quite evident. Floyd marches across the compartment onto the raised pilot area's floor, then steps down from it, his foot landing audibly. Tanya's open jacket also hangs down normally as she moves about. Yet when Floyd demonstrates his plan using two pens, they float in mid air. (01:26:50)

johnrosa

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Cloverfield picture

Factual error: During the scene where everyone runs outside, the Statue of Liberty head crashes into the street. The head is scaled too small and its size can be compared to the people taking pictures. In real life the statue head is large enough for people to walk into (17' from chin to cranium).

frecklejam

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Overlord picture

Factual error: During the plane ride into France, the Paratroopers are holding/carrying their weapons by their sides. In reality, their weapons (M1 Garands, B.A.R.s, etc.) would be carried in special "bags" strapped to their parachute harness. This not only protected their weapons, but also secured them to their person.

Matdan97

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