Best sci-fi movie mistakes of all time

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X-Men 3 picture X-Men 3 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Magneto lands the Golden Gate Bridge on the island, as it hits land it is still very light. When the Brotherhood start to walk toward the island, it cuts to a wide shot of them still walking on the bridge, and it's suddenly dark.

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Transformers picture Transformers mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: At Hoover Dam, after the salute, when Defense Secretary Keller speaks with Lennox and Epps, the reflection of the white reflector screen is visible on Keller's glasses. What's more, the boom mic's reflection is actually visible within the reflector screen's reflection. Two for the price of one. (01:35:30)

Super Grover

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Thor: Ragnarok picture

Continuity mistake: When Karl Urban is defending the Asgardians, the dust covers on his rifles vary between being open and closed several times. M16 dust covers are sprung loaded - they open on the first shot and have to be manually closed afterwards.

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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure picture

Other mistake: Beethoven didn't seem fussed nor resentful of Napoleon being part of the group. Historically he temporarily admired him and wrote the Third Symphony inspired by Napoleon's ideals of Europe's new hope of enlightenment but later despised him after he crowned himself Emperor of France in 1804 and furiously scribbled out his name off the title page of his Third Symphony and named it Eroica which he originally titled it as "Bonaparte Symphony" due to his former admiration of Napoleon.

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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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Spider-Man 2 picture

Plot hole: Harry tells Doc Ock that in order to find Spider-Man he must find Peter first. Doc Ock finds Peter with Mary Jane in the cafe and throws a car through the window straight at them, then later throws Peter against a brick wall. Any normal person would've been killed instantly (or very badly injured), and Doc Ock doesn't yet know that Peter is Spider-Man. Given that Peter is his only lead on Spider-Man, it makes no sense that Doc Ock would try to kill him.

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Suggested correction: Doc Ock is being controlled by the arms. They aren't behaving rationally.

Creating a series of silly explanations for obvious plot holes never resolves them. These arms were not behaving irrationally. In many scenes they were shown to be very intelligent. A good example is the scene where they attack doctors who try to remove them from Doc Ock's body. Saying that they weren't behaving rationally is absurd.

He may not have been trying to kill Peter, he could've been trying to make more of a scene of his entry, so Peter would take him more seriously and tell him where Spider-Man was. He could've been thinking of it as a risk of killing Peter though, but his arms made him go crazy.

This is only a theory. Theories never resolve mistakes.

It's not a theory. When Otto is first giving his demonstration to everybody at his apartment, a woman asks if the advanced AI for the tentacles would make him susceptible to being controlled. Otto says that yes it would so he shows everybody the inhibitor chip that he designed so he would not fall under its control. After the inhibitor chip gets destroyed, it's seen that the tentacles have not only taken control of his mind by forcing him to commit crimes, but have slowly driven him insane.

This scene is much too confusing for many people. This entry is correct. This is a mistake.

If these tentacles wanted him to finish the experiment then they wouldn't make him kill the person who has valuable information for him.

The arms are influencing his thoughts but not controlling every part of him. Doc Ock still seems to have control when defending himself but they seem to work in tandem with Ock. The only time they work on their own is when he under anesthetic. As we don't see him before he throws the car, we can only speculate the arms were trying to hurt Peter by themselves.

Lummie

It's a cool scene regardless man.

Rob245

Killing Peter would probably send a message to Spider-Man as well, so Ock probably wasn't concerned about being gentle.

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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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Young Frankenstein picture

Continuity mistake: When Dr. Frankenstein introduces himself to the monster with a soothing "Hello, there", his right hand is on the restraint over the monster's chest. The next shot shows the doctor placing his hand on the restraint again.

Scott215

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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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Transformers: Age of Extinction picture Transformers: Age of Extinction mistake picture Video

Visible crew/equipment: Just after Lockdown stabs Optimus in the chest with his own sword, Cade runs closer and shoots at Lockdown. He then hides behind some bricks. In that shot, the bricks are a broken wall that is two separate pieces. Then it cuts to a different shot as Lockdown returns fire at Cade, and now the wall is one piece. Not only this, but some random guy suddenly appears in the shot next to the wall and right where the explosion happens where Lockdown shot the wall. He is wearing the same color clothes as the wall and only visible for a moment. There was no other guy present until that moment and he just suddenly appears behind Cade and gets hit. It's presumably a special effects member setting off the charge in the wall by the looks of it and it detonated before he got out of the shot. (02:30:55)

Quantom X

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Sonic the Hedgehog picture

Continuity mistake: When Sonic and Tails are fighting metal Robotnik, he shoots glue at Tail's tail. Tails says he can't fly to help Sonic, but when he gets the piece of concrete to surf across the water on you can see that his tails are not glued together.

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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 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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Starship Troopers 3: Marauder picture

Continuity mistake: When Hauser picks up the Admiral, after the Brain Bug attacks them, she has no yellow alien blood on her as she's being pulled up, but when the shot changes, as she's standing up, she now has blood on her face and uniform.

GalahadFairlight

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The Cell picture

Plot hole: Peter goes into Carl's mind to save Catherine. When he's in there he sees the tank with the water nymph. On the tank are strange symbols which provide the FBI with the clue needed to find the latest victim. Makes sense so far. But, go back to the scene just after the FBI have captured the comatose killer and are looking in his basement. The FBI are looking at the contraption that the killer uses to suspend himself over the victim. On the contraption is the same symbol seen later on the water nymph's tank. Why didn't the FBI follow up the symbol then?

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Planet of the Apes picture

Revealing mistake: Most of the posed, fake displays in the ape's Museum of Natural History contain real people who are slightly moving if one pays careful attention. Especially noticeable are those posing with objects held in - or above - their hands.

Hans Deutsch

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Total Recall picture

Revealing mistake: Doug has the hologram when inside the alien nuclear reactor, and a bunch of bad guys encircle the holographic image and fire at it at point blank with automatic weapons, and not one bad guy gets hit. If they encircled the 3D image, at least a few bad guys would have been hit by their own men. (01:37:00)

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