Best movie factual errors of 2008

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Journey to the Center of the Earth picture

Factual error: Trevor - a Professor of Geology - boasts about having an article published in Scientific American, and that is not something any scientist would do. Scientific American is looked upon with slight disdain by the scientific community, considered to be a populist crowd pleaser. It is not even peer reviewed. Considering that he has just turned the geological and archaeological worlds on their heads he would have been better off publishing in Journal of Geological Research or Geology, both prestigious professional journals.

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Hancock picture

Factual error: Basic physics - Hancock throws Michel from a dead stop to above cloud level in about eleven seconds. The clouds are bog standard cumulus which form at around 7,000 metres in temperate zones. This means that Michel accelerates to about 700 metres per second instantly, from a dead stop. Obviously he cannot accelerate during his ascent, so his starting speed has to be at least that. (In fact he would have to start his ascent much, much faster than 700 metres per second as he would be constantly decelerating due to gravity and air resistance, but it will do as a start point.) Michel accelerates from 0 to 2,520 kilometres per hour - twice the speed of sound - in zero seconds. He would be accelerating at around 5000 Gs, turning him into a very long streak of fine, pink mist.

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Get Smart picture

Factual error: During CONTROL's paintball training session, a barrel view of a bullet exiting the gun is shown as it travels to its target. However, the entire bullet is shown, casing and all, instead of just the bullet. (00:09:10)

Razvaluha

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The Hurt Locker picture

Factual error: In one scene they are playing on an Xbox 360, but the Xbox 360 did not come out until 2005, and the game being played, Gears of War, wasn't released until 2006. The movie takes place in 2004.

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The Dark Knight picture

Factual error: After escaping the hospital, Harvey Dent wears the same charred suit he was wearing when he was brought to the hospital. That suit would not have been neatly taken off and left intact. It would have been cut off with shears so as not to accidentally remove any damaged skin and flesh when pulling the pants and shirt off. The blazer might still be intact but certainly not the pants and shirt.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull picture

Factual error: In the warehouse scene, the lights and other metal objects are affected by the box's magnetic field. Yet the soldiers easily lift the box into a metal truck to load it and slide it forward. If the box's magnetic field was as strong as suggested, it would have dragged the soldiers forward as it was magnetically attracted to the truck, and it would have taken much more effort for them to slide it onto the truck bed once it was stuck there.

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Solstice picture

Factual error: The moon is full every night the highschoolers are at the lake house.

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Quantum of Solace picture

Factual error: During the boat chase scene, Bond throws a grappling hook/anchor from the old boat he is driving onto the deck of the rubber boat "riding" his. The rubber boat is then violently yanked off of Bond's boat and crashes. This makes no sense. For the rubber boat to be yanked off that way, the other end of the anchor line would have to be tied to something stationary. However, the other end of the line is just lying in Bond's boat. There's even a shot of it sitting there.

Guy

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Yes Man picture

Factual error: All the Cisco VoIP phones seen in the film have the booting Cisco logo on them and would not work due to no connection.

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Cloverfield picture

Factual error: During the scene where everyone runs outside, the Statue of Liberty head crashes into the street. The head is scaled too small and its size can be compared to the people taking pictures. In real life the statue head is large enough for people to walk into (17' from chin to cranium).

frecklejam

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The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor picture

Factual error: The aircraft used to fly to Shangri-La is a Bristol Beaufighter, a single seat long range fighter bomber. It was not a transport aircraft and could not carry passengers. Some variants of the Beaufighter were two seaters but none at all could be used as small airliners as they do here. It is not possible to simply reconfigure the aircraft as shown here - the centre of gravity, balance and trim would all be thrown out. The resulting jury-built aircraft would be uncontrollable in flight.

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Definitely, Maybe picture

Factual error: In the scene where the camera shows Times Square, visible on the right of the screen in the front of the shot is a poster for the Broadway show "The Lion King". The Lion King just celebrated 10 years on Broadway and was not playing in 1994.

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Happy-Go-Lucky picture

Factual error: In the title sequence, Poppy rides her bike down Kingsway, along the Strand, and south over Blackfriars Bridge. The next shot of her shows a street with an EC1 postcode (north of the river) and the following shot an SE1 postcode (south of the river again).

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Fool's Gold picture

Factual error: After the boat has blown up and sunk, Ben swims over to it and checks it out, very little to anything is even a little charred, with that big of an explosion everything would be burnt, and black.

Disney-Freak

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas picture

Factual error: At the end we see a soldier replacing the canister that the Zyklon B is kept in. However, he is not wearing an SS badge as all SS soldiers did. Zyklon B was only handled by members of the SS, as no other unit had authorisation to carry the sensitive stuff. (01:28:00)

Ssiscool

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The Bank Job picture

Factual error: We see Jason Statham walking into a shop in 1971 which has a Visa/Barclaycard logo on the door. Only problem with that is that the name Visa wasn't brought in until 1977.

Jon Sandys

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Eagle Eye picture

Factual error: There is no possible way to cause a power line to drop from its support pylons and hit a person on target. These wires are fastened extremely securely, designed to withstand extremely high tension through all kinds of weather, and they are not equipped with some sort of explosive charges to release them.

throcko

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What Happens in Vegas picture

Factual error: In the scene when everyone is in the white Hummer, the vehicle is moving north on the Las Vegas Strip; on the right is Bally's and the Flamingo, with Treasure Island straight ahead in the distance. Yet a few seconds later, when Joy asks the driver to let them out, they are in front of the fountains at Bellagio, which indicates that they are now travelling south on the Strip - yet we never see the Hummer change direction or turn around.

Chris in Texas

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Rambo picture

Factual error: When John is going back to the pirates boat to set it on fire you can hear his boat's engine running. However in the closeup the pulley for the water pump is not turning. This means the engine isn't running.

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Australia picture

Factual error: Outside the Territory Hotel, during the storm, and once earlier in the movie, the taxi cabs are shown with the modern "flip over" vacancy/hired signs that were not used then.

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