Best movie factual errors of 2004

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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

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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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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Flight of the Phoenix picture

Factual error: After calculating the amount of water they have available Townes and A.J. announce they will be living on "a pint of water per person per day". One problem - they'll be dead within three days, if they manage to last that long. A GALLON - eight pints - a day is the absolute minimum in conditions of dry, extreme heat such as they are experiencing, and that is for a resting male. Take their strenuous exercise into account and you can push that up to two gallons a day. One pint a day? Forget it.

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban picture

Factual error: In the scene immediately following Harry and Hermione's travel back through time, she tells him, "It's 7:30." The clock, however, is striking the bells for an hour, not a half-hour. (01:43:45)

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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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The Polar Express picture

Factual error: When hero boy and girl and Billy are on the runaway car at the north pole, they crash into the stopper at the end of the tracks. They are flung backwards when in reality, due to inertia, they should have been flung forward into the guard rail.

wizard_of_gore

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Troy picture

Factual error: When the Trojans flee inside the walls at the arrival of the Greeks, you can see some llamas. Llamas were only known in Latin America and not in ancient Troy. (02:20:10)

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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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Ocean's Twelve picture

Factual error: The scene where Nightfox steals the Faberge Egg is all wrong. A laser security system must have a photoelectric receptor at the other side to detect if somebody pass between the two devices. As shown in the film, the laser beams points everywhere, so the system can't work and somebody could cross a beam without starting the alarm. Even if it was some weird system based on measuring distance it wouldn't work - if the laser hits the floor at an angle it won't bounce back to the source, it will reflect towards the ceiling.

Dr Wilson

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The Day After Tomorrow picture

Factual error: When Sam climbs outside the ship he grabs the frozen metallic pipes and rails with both hands - one half covered with a glove, one is bare. He has no problem gripping the cold metal and he can get his hands free every time. If the moisture froze before contact, his hands would be frozen too, so that can't be the reason.

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Raise Your Voice picture

Factual error: The car accident involving the truck that killed Paul is not realistic. Paul made a left turn and upon completion of the turn, a truck suddenly plowed into him on the driver's side. For this to happen, the truck would have had to be going the wrong way on the same street Paul turned off in the opposite lanes. The movie made it look as if the truck ran a light in the intersection and sideswiped him. In addition, Terri said the other driver "ran a red light." This conflicts the scene - the truck would NOT have a light at all if being in the wrong lanes (the only way this could remotely happened the way the film shows).

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The Phantom of the Opera picture

Factual error: Raoul is the Vicomte de Chagny and he gets called that throughout the movie, even during the auction (which shows he didn't change titles when his parents or his brother died, for example). Yet Christine's tombstone calls her a countess when it should have read viscountess - or, even better, vicomtesse.

Sereenie

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

Suggested correction: When you watch "love never dies" he leaves her because the phantom won the bet, it's implied they got a "divorce" so she is still a countess.

But, in love never dies, it shows Christine dying in the year 1910, (when the whole thing was set) but on her tombstone, it shows that she died in 1913. Since Gustave is ten years old, this would make Christine in her late forties-early fifties when she had him, which is practically impossible. This is why I love LND's music, but the story is just too cheesy and inconsistent to the original for me. Since the original creator of the musical, Andrew Lloyd Webber, has chosen to call it a "stand-alone piece." and not a sequel, I would not use it as a reference for future endeavors with the trio.

Vicomtesse and Comtesse are two completely different titles. For Christine to become a Comtesse, Raoul would have had to become a Comte, but he didn't. He remained a Vicomte, therefore, Christine's tombstone should have read Vicomtesse de Chagny. It doesn't, so this mistake is valid.

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Eurotrip picture

Factual error: Near the beginning of the film there is a map of Europe with the countries coloured in using their respective flags. Great Britain is coloured with the Union Jack (Union Flag) pattern but so is the Republic of Ireland (Eire). The Republic of Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom (the political state) or Great Britain (the geographical term for the island), only the British Isles - they are a separate country and the Union jack is not their country's flag. Only the north or the Irish landmass (Northern Ireland) and Britain should show the Union Jack. If they are using an "old map" it would have to be very old, before the 1920's.

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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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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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Saw (2004)

Saw picture

Factual error: The Swedish subtitlers made Amanda's situation even more tragic, incorrectly translating her dead cellmate as her dead soulmate. (00:24:40)

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The Librarian: Quest for the Spear picture

Factual error: Flynn says that the chamber in the Mayan temple is "an exact replica of their great temple of Teotihuacan." But Teotihuacan was not a Mayan city, but rather the hub of a separate civilization (themselves called the Teotihuacan). It was in central Mexico, hundreds of miles from the Mayan area in the Yucatan Peninsula.

DavidK93

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