Best drama 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 Notebook picture

Audio problem: When Noah and Martha exit the "dream house", Allie's head does not move (she looks down all the time), nor do her lips move while she pronounces parting words to Martha.

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Suggested correction: The reason why we don't see Allie saying good night to Martha is because the camera is not on Allie but on Noah and Martha as they are going outside of the house.

You can see Allie from the wide camera angle and her mouth doesn't move at all.

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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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Tiger Cruise picture

Continuity mistake: The hull numbers of the Constellation change throughout the film between CVN-74 and CVN-68.

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Napoleon Dynamite picture Napoleon Dynamite mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Napoleon is waiting while Rico makes a sale, he checks his watch to see how much time he has before the dance. The first time he checks it, the date on the watch indicates Thursday July 17. When he checks it again a few minutes later, it shows Monday July 21.

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The Girl Next Door picture

Continuity mistake: When the guy goes to get in Danielle's car after he strips for her, he opens the door and the window is up; but when he closes the door, the window is down. (00:16:50)

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Miracle picture

Factual error: In one game the camera pans to Herb and behind him we can see a man wearing an Under Armor hat. Under Armor didn't come out until 1996.

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The Aviator picture The Aviator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Near the beginning of the film where Howard Hughes flight tests the silver monoplane (the H-1), the close up shots show an open cockpit while the longer shots show a closed cockpit.

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The Phantom of the Opera picture The Phantom of the Opera mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the end when Meg steps out of the water, her pants are wet. However, when she enters the bedroom and finds the Phantom's mask, her pants are perfectly dry. (02:10:35)

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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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Mean Girls picture Mean Girls mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the Halloween party, when Cady walks into Damian and Janis' house, Damian gets scared and tosses all of the popcorn out of his bowl. In the next shot of Damian his bowl is full again. (00:29:05)

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The Passion of the Christ picture

Continuity mistake: When Jesus tells Peter to stop fighting against the temple guards when in the garden, you can see the background behind him: a small tree by a large one. The shot cuts to Peter and then back to Jesus telling him to again stop. The background is now reversed.

sdgirl98

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Raise Your Voice picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Terri sits down to talk with her aunt after Paul's graduation, you can see between her shirt and his pants on her right side there is a 1/8" wire used for the wireless mic.

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You Got Served picture

Continuity mistake: When Rico runs to the basketball court to spill about the Big Bounce, he begins to sit down on the court. After it cuts Rico starts to sit down again for the second time.

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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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The Butterfly Effect picture

Plot hole: When Evan is in jail with the religious prisoner trying to get him to help him get his journals back he goes to the scene where he is drawing that homicidal picture in kindergarten, but he gets up and puts the spikes that holds documents through his hands, creating a stigmata-style scar. The religious guy in the cell with him is so amazed because of this he thinks Evan is a prophet and he decides to help him. If Evan had gone back in time and got those scars on his hands, he would have changed the original timeline and would have arrived in jail with those scars the whole time. Some people try to correct this using the "If I can create scars, then can I fix them?" statement Evan made to defend the mistake and suggest he can create instant scars but he was using the word "scars" to refer to the negative events; not literal scars on his body. The scar he got when he burned himself in the past didn’t magically appear on him the moment he returned from the past; it became part of a new, slightly altered timeline (just like the scars on his hands should have been) and it let him know he can change history.

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Suggested correction: This isn't necessarily a correction so much as a possible explanation. It's possible that the religious inmate (I think his name was Carlos) just simply didn't see the scars on Evan's hands when he first came to the prison in the timeline where he got the scars or Evan knew to hide them in the scar timeline (due to the fact that it was the sole purpose of him going back) and due to his fanaticism he didn't question him a second time.

Nope, after jamming those things in his hands Evan simply came into the prison with the scars already on his hands and would have never thought of showing the religious guy his powers using that particular moment in the past to convince him, or doing what he did a second time as he already had done it. It doesn't matter if the religious guy didn't see them before, they won't be the object of Evan convincing him. He would have had to try it some other way, each and ever time. That how this time travel works and its definitely a plot hole that it worked as it did, whilst it shouldn't have. Of course, it's a time travel movie and they never make sense.

lionhead

Additionally, the inmate was looking at Evan's palms when Evan traveled back, and when he returned to the present, the inmate remarked that the stigmata marks came out of nowhere.

Phaneron

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The Terminal picture

Continuity mistake: After the CBP agent smashed the potato chip bag with the apple, the shot is switched from beside the agent to Viktor's viewpoint. The number of chips and distribution of those chips on the desk change. (00:06:35)

luchador

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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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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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