Best movie mistakes of 2000

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

Charlie's Angels picture

Factual error: Near the end of the film Knox is flying a Huey helicopter and the Angels hitch a ride by shooting it with a spear gun and dangling on the line behind it. Suddenly adding about 200kgs to a Huey in flight like that is going to cause all sorts of problems with the trim and airspeed of the aircraft - the pilot would know immediately that something was wrong. (01:23:20)

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

Suggested correction: Knox wasn't a trained pilot. Either he had no clue to what was going on, or he thought something may have been wrong, but didn't know what to do about it.

Taking off and landing a helicopter are by far the most intense and difficult part of a pilot's training. Seriously, 99% of learning to fly is learning how to land and take off. If the pilot is skilled enough to take off in a Huey he is easily skilled enough to notice a massive additional drag on his helicopter due to the additional weight of the angels and the air resistance put up by such a bulky protrusion on his aircraft. If he isn't skilled enough to notice that, he isn't skilled enough to take off in the first place.

More Charlie's Angels mistakes
Gladiator picture Gladiator mistake picture Video

Visible crew/equipment: In the "Battle of Carthage" in the Colosseum, one of the chariots is turned over. Once the dust settles you can see a gas cylinder in the back of the chariot. (01:22:55)

More Gladiator mistakes
Battlefield Earth picture

Factual error: Amongst the essential parts of a nuclear weapon's detonation mechanism is a radioactive isotope of tritium, which has a half life of just 12 1/2 years. The tritium in every nuke on earth has to be replaced every ten years or so. This is by no means unusual; there are other perishable parts including detonators made of conventional explosives which would be completely inert after a thousand years. After lying dormant with no maintenance at all for that amount of time the nuclear weapons the 'Man-animals' find would be big shiny paperweights and not much else.

More Battlefield Earth mistakes
Mission: Impossible 2 picture Mission: Impossible 2 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The tyres on the crotch rocket motorcycles they were riding kept changing from knobbly tyres to road slicks, back and forth depending on what terrain they were on. Easiest to see when Ethan skids on the road to avoid the white van - clear shot of slick tyres - then about 30 seconds later they're on the dirt, he skids into the old car and you can easily see that he's got off-road tyres front and back.

More Mission: Impossible 2 mistakes
Chicken Run picture

Other mistake: Ginger is adamant that she will not approve any plan of escape that does not get all the chickens on the farm out and to freedom. The problem is, not one of her plans gets anywhere close, and it is not that they fail to liberate the whole farm - they are never planned that way. We see her trying to escape by herself three times. The mannequin of Mrs Tweedy would (had it worked) have allowed nine chickens to escape, the upturned feed tray just seven. Even the 'crate' appears to hold not more than thirty chickens - and there must be several hundred on the farm, at least.

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

Suggested correction: Can you be sure we see the whole escape plan from start to finish or just one of the phases?

dizzyd

Of course we are sure. The "crate", with thirty six chickens on it, is flown away from the farm and is dismantled. They cannot go back to the farm for the rest of the chickens. Escaping by herself will achieve nothing for anyone except herself, totally contradicting her own principles. The posting is absolutely correct.

I believe the original correction makes sense. For example, we see them attempt to impersonate Mrs. Tweedy. While this would only liberate some of the chickens, we don't know that's the entire plan. It's likely they're trying it to see if it's successful, and if so the rest of the chickens would repeat it until they were all out. Similarly, digging out would leave a tunnel for the rest to use. When Ginger tries alone, she's likely trying to find a way out that she could tell the rest about.

This isn't a chatroom so this will be my last word. The "crate" is a single use, one-off device. The chickens fly it away from the farm, escaping to their island. They cannot go back and there is absolutely no reason to think that they do. Mrs Tweedy is still in residence at the farm and now is forewarned about the ability of the chickens to organise and act intelligently. Even if they wanted to they could not fly back, and Tweedy would be waiting for them if they did. The crate holds thirty eight chickens. That's it. There is no plan in effect that will allow all of the chickens to escape - especially this one - and Ginger makes it clear she will not consider any plan unless it does. The posting is absolutely correct.

More Chicken Run mistakes
Hollow Man picture

Plot hole: Why on earth would the military be interested in a soldier (sailor, aviator, whatever) who has to go into combat naked and unarmed, and who is detectable by an enemy equipped with a pair of cheap, mass-produced goggles? How would you treat them if they were injured? They would be utterly useless in any form of military operation, even espionage.

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

Suggested correction: Presumably the military are interested because Sebastian's research could lead to advanced forms of invisibility technology, such as the ability to turn materials and weapons invisible for use in combat.

You cannot second guess the film like that. Sebastian is making no effort to make non-living items invisible and throughout the film we see that is not possible (why else would Sebastian have to walk about naked?). His research is on animals (and later humans) not "materials and weapons" and is based on their physiology, anatomy and metabolism. How would you inject a rifle or a tank with a serum? They don't have a bloodstream. The military wouldn't see any value at all in this research - maybe they would be interested in invisibility, but not if it was restricted to living creatures as we see here.

You know how easy it would be for an invisible person to infiltrate an enemy's compound undetected and take out powerful leaders or dictators? Especially if no-one knew the technology existed.

Easy? Impossible. First, they would be naked and unarmed. Too bad if you are trying to knock off Vladimir Putin - a taekwondo black belt - with your bare hands during a Moscow winter! Being invisible doesn't mean you can avoid making a sound or triggering a pressure plate or an infrared detector and so on and so on. Final answer - a naked, unarmed combatant would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot in any form of operation, covert or otherwise.

More Hollow Man mistakes
The Art of War picture

Revealing mistake: There are supposed to be two dead young Asian males sitting in the back of the car, but in this shot, it is so obvious that there are two dead 'dummies' riding in the back. Also, in the crash, a few seconds later, very blatant dummy heads are flying everywhere. (00:40:40)

Super Grover

More The Art of War mistakes
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)

More Coyote Ugly mistakes
Meet the Parents picture

Audio problem: When Focker is going back to Chicago the woman who is typing stops moving her hands for a little while the clicking noise is still going.

More Meet the Parents mistakes
The Beach picture The Beach mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Richard and Francoise are making love on the beach. They begin kissing deep under the water and continue all the way to the top. When they reach the surface they can stand up in the water which appears to be waist-level.

More The Beach mistakes
Road Trip picture Road Trip mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the boys drive the car over the gap in the bridge, look at the side view that shows the main jump, watch the front wheels, they lift up in the air unnaturally before the car leaves the ramp. (00:34:00)

More Road Trip mistakes
Bring it On picture

Character mistake: When Missy is at her audition, Courtney and Whitney get annoyed and tell her to do a sequence, (front handspring stepout, roundoff back handspring stepout, roundoff back handspring, full twisting layout). However, when Missy starts the sequence, she starts with a cartwheel instead of a front handspring.

More Bring it On mistakes
Almost Famous picture

Continuity mistake: Toward the end, Russell goes to talk to William at his house. He turns the chair around to sit on it backwards, and throws the shirt down onto the ground. When he sits down the shirt is back on the chair.

More Almost Famous mistakes
Miss Congeniality picture

Revealing mistake: Gracie hugs the Russian waitress in order to have a better view of the disc hand-off appear on the monitor. As she raises her left hand that holds the book/camera lens, we see that the digital feed that appears on the monitor stays steady and level, even though she is raising the book/camera lens higher and closer to her face. Obviously the feed that we see on the monitor is not taken from the book/camera lens. (00:04:10)

Super Grover

More Miss Congeniality mistakes
Scream 3 picture

Other mistake: On the back cover of Scream 3 in the Scream trilogy on DVD, the town of the original killings is referred to as Greensboro twice. The correct name of the town is Woodsboro, of course.

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

Suggested correction: I'm not "correcting" this per se, but I'm wondering if there should be either a separate type of mistake for things like DVD/Blu-Ray cases or posters (Ex. "Multimedia and Marketing Mistakes" or something like that), or if these things would be better classified as trivia? Especially since it's not something everyone can necessarily observe watching the movie itself. (Ex. My Blu-Ray and 4K releases don't have this mistake.) If not, feel free to downvote/delete this. I've just seen a few of these mistakes over the years here, and it always seems a little off to me since it's not something wrong with the film itself.

TedStixon

I agree these aren't valid movie mistake if the studio wasn't involved in the mistake. It could be trivia if only certain home releases had them. These mistakes are like when episodes are aired out of order creating continuity issues,, streaming services make changes, or closed captioning (not subtitles) gets something wrong. It can't be considered a mistake of the film or TV series.

Bishop73

It's tricky - largely, if I'm honest, because adding new types to the site is incredibly fiddly. :-) There's also room for endless debate about what's a "mistake", whether it's about assigning specific blame or just looking for interesting stuff. Likewise things that can only be seen in slow motion, which arguably warrant a category to themselves because there are plenty of them, but then the "mistakes" section gets cluttered. Becomes a user interface issue as much as anything! Will think.

Jon Sandys

More Scream 3 mistakes
The Gift picture

Continuity mistake: In one of the last scenes, Cate Blanchett is standing in the doorway of her son's room. She is wearing a blue striped dress. When she walks into the room, she's wearing a floral dress.

More The Gift mistakes
Next Friday picture

Continuity mistake: When Craig is sitting on Elroy's couch, he lights a joint and puts the lighter on the table. It disappears in the next shot.

More Next Friday mistakes
Little Nicky picture

Continuity mistake: When the devil is falling apart and his 2nd ear falls off, he tells Nicky he cannot hear him, and asks the demon by his side who catches it to put it back on his head. But towards the end, when the devil is reduced to no more than a mouth and 2 arms, he is able to have a conversation with his demons about what's going on and hear them perfectly. (00:52:05 - 00:58:50)

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

Suggested correction: Its not clear that they are actually having a conversation, he is just a mouth and two arms that can only talk and hold itself up. They respond to him because he can hear but he doesn't even respond to them. Its not illogical that Satan was talking to himself while deaf and falling to bits.

More Little Nicky mistakes
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?

More The Cell mistakes
State and Main picture

Continuity mistake: William H. Macy makes dinner plans with the Mayor and writes "Dinner with the Mayor" on the dry erase board in his office. He writes "Dinner w/ the Mayor" in the "Tuesday" slot. Then an intern comes in and accidentally wipes the appointment off the board with her shirt. Macy yells at her and tells her to rewrite the appointment on the board. The whole premise of the joke and pretty big part of the movie is that the intern rewrites the appointment in the wrong day, thereby causing the Hollywood people to miss dinner, enrage the Mayor and his wife and have the town turn on them. When the girl walks away however, the appointment is clearly rewritten in the correct day (Tuesday). This ruins the whole misunderstanding because although the appointment is in the wrong day later in the movie, at the moment the joke is supposed to be set in motion, there is no mistake.

More State and Main 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.