Best action movie mistakes of 2004

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Flight of the Phoenix picture

Plot hole: This film is set in 2004. The thought that no search and rescue operations would be put in place after an aircraft disappeared from radar during a routine flight is absurd. The Chinese are paranoid about intrusion on their territory and the downed aircraft would have been located by a simple satellite search within hours of it crashing. Chinese military satellites crisscross the Gobi and they are equipped with optical cameras, microwave and infrared detectors and radar, so spotting a metal aircraft on the ground would be simple even if it was hundreds of kilometres off course. The crew would have been visited by Chinese military helicopters (and probably arrested!) as soon as the storm had died down.

PEDAUNT

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Suggested correction: The Chinese government, for whatever reason, may have denied there was any crash at all if it suited their purposes, and the oil company that owned the plane would have little recourse. The Chinese have done this before. For the purpose of the plot, the survivors decided that they had to save themselves rather than wait for rescue and that was completely plausible.

Suggested correction: It's now 2021, and we still can't find Malaysian Airlines MH370. So this suggestion of planes always being found is laughable.

stiiggy

MH370 crashed into the ocean, and in fact some wreckage has been found. The Chinese military does not have the south Indian Ocean under satellite surveillance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, unlike the Gobi desert where a crashed plane would be spotted within hours of it going missing.

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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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National Treasure picture

Factual error: As Ben is clinging to the staircase while it is falling apart, there is a close-up of a nail being pulled out of the wood. This nail is round-headed, rather than square as it would have been over 200 years ago. It's also shiny instead of rusty, which indicates that it's galvanized. Galvanization as an industrial, metal-preservation process was not patented until 1837, and was not used in building materials until well into the late-1800s. Since the film states the staircase was made by "the Founding Fathers, " and there was no galvanization of iron nails in any industrialized nation in 1780s-1830's, this is a huge anachronism.

Kristal

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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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Kill Bill: Volume 2 picture Kill Bill: Volume 2 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Right after Budd shoots Beatrix, he kicks her sword away from her, but the sword keeps changing position in subsequent shots. Sometimes it's on the ground and sometimes it's stuck in the side of a trash can. (00:25:30)

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Troy picture Troy mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: As Achilles' ship nears the Trojan shores, Agamemnon snidely asks, "What's the fool doing? He's going to take the beach of Troy with fifty men?" At the start of the next shot, as the camera begins to pan down, on the far right, just beside a person's (who is dressed in blue) head is a metal bullhorn (ie. used to give instructions to cast/crew, and which definitely doesn't belong in this time period). (00:36:35)

Super Grover

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Resident Evil: Apocalypse picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where the Nemesis kills the 13 S.T.A.R.S members, after it blows up the sniper on the roof an additional S.T.A.R.S member can be seen outside the building on the right who wasn't there earlier. He then disappears shortly afterwards.

THGhost

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Starsky & Hutch picture Starsky & Hutch mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Hutch tackles Starsky to the ground after his gun goes off in the disco, Starsky's badge falls to the ground beside his head. Hutch grabs it and holds it up, telling people to calm down, but when the shot returns to Starsky the badge is still there next to his head. (00:49:40)

Jon Sandys

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Hellboy picture Hellboy mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Hellboy is walking at one point, holding his gun up in his left, gloved hand (just after one of the agents has said "This place is like swiss cheese"), watch the frame. It switches suddenly so his right hand (the stone one) is his left, and he's holding the gun in his "right." (00:59:40)

redbaron2000

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Alien Vs. Predator picture

Factual error: When they're first entering the whaling camp, a penguin startles Miller. That penguin was a black-footed penguin, which is a bird native to much warmer climates. If that little guy had actually been in Antarctica, he would have died within minutes. (00:20:40)

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Friday Night Lights picture

Factual error: One sweep through the town shows a Dodge Durango in a parking lot. The movie takes place in 1988; the first Dodge Durango was the 1998 model, ten years later. (00:34:15)

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Ladder 49 picture

Factual error: During the Christmas season (December) Travolta and Phoenix discuss a transfer to an aide's position. That same night Phoenix discusses the possibility with his wife - with crickets chirping away in the background. Not in Baltimore in December.

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The Bourne Supremacy picture

Continuity mistake: In the Moscow car chase, Bourne's car is hit from the driver's side by a patrol car. The driver's side window breaks. In the next few shots, you do not see any broken glass on Bourne. In the very next shot the car is not damaged on the driver's side. (01:25:25)

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Taxi picture

Revealing mistake: In the bike scene you can see that the intro biker is much smaller than Belle.

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Mindhunters picture

Continuity mistake: When Vince leaves the freezer and is making his way onto the elevator, he is carrying a Baretta model pistol. When he shoots as the elevator doors are closing the camera cuts to a Glock model pistol, then back to the Baretta again. When the elevator reaches the upper level, the woman picks up the remains of the backfired pistol and it is back to the Glock. (01:21:15 - 01:24:30)

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Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid picture

Factual error: After the scene where they fall over the waterfall, and go through what they have left of the equipment. Bill, the Latino doctor, holds up the CD-reader from a desktop computer and says that the hard drive is broken, which would be OK if he actually had the hard drive present. (00:34:35)

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Walking Tall picture

Continuity mistake: When Chris and Dani are at the police station and about to have sex, her shirt mysteriously reappears. They are kissing and Chris is shown removing her shirt (leaving her in a red bra). A few seconds later they are still kissing, and you can see that her shirt is back on. (00:58:55)

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Torque picture

Continuity mistake: After the wild end-chase explosion, Ford is thrown in front of a bus. When you first see the bus, an old man without a beard drives, yet two shots later, it's a completely different man with a big, brown beard driving.

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King Arthur picture

Factual error: I normally wouldn't bother with this sort of nitpicking, but this film specifically claims to be historically researched - and it's full of historical blunders. For a start, the film is set as the Empire withdraws its last troops from Britain - which was in 407 AD. Now Artorius Castus was a real Roman officer who really did command Sarmatian foederati at Hadrian's Wall, but he died around 200 AD. Cerdic was a real Saxon warlord who did go raiding the Britons with his son Cynric, but he did this in the early 500s. Pelagius really was tried for heresy, but he was acquitted and died of old age; the trial was a decade after this setting, and in the fifth century you couldn't be executed for heresy anyway. Also in the fifth century the Pope had no authority over Imperial troops. I could go on and on but that will do for now.

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Van Helsing picture

Continuity mistake: Towards the end of the movie, in the scene where Anna is taking the werewolf cure to Van Helsing and the vampire bride stops her on the large fallen pillar, she falls so she is in a sitting position with the cure in her left hand. She then switches it to her right. Then in the close-up shot, the cure is still in her left hand and she switches it again. (01:49:50)

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