Best action movie factual errors of 2009

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2012 picture

Factual error: In the poster shot and in the film, the wave from the Atlantic carrying the carrier JFK into a collision with the White House comes crashing in from the west because the south portico of the White House is seen. The Atlantic Ocean is east of Washington, so the wave should come from the other direction. And even a wave coming from the east could not have made the JFK (CV-67) crash into the White House because the carrier was retired in 2005 and is berthed in Philadelphia, which is northeast of Washington DC. (01:30:10 - 01:30:40)

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Fast & Furious picture

Factual error: During the first tunnel sequence, all the cars travel very far into the mountains, turn lots of corners, yet not only is Gisele still able to speak to them over the radios, their GPS still works. GPS signals invariably need a clear 'sight' of the sky and can penetrate light cover, but most certainly not that depth and cover. (00:58:05)

GalahadFairlight

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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen picture

Factual error: In the original Transformers, Tyrese Gibson's character is credited as and wears the rank insignia of a USAF Technical Sergeant. In Revenge of the Fallen, set two years later, Gibson's character now wears the insignia of a USAF Chief Master Sergeant, three ranks higher than his rank in the first movie. The USAF would not jump someone three grades into the top 1% of the enlisted force no matter what his heroics or experience (that does not even happen to Medal of Honor awardees). Clearly the screenwriters recognized this as Captain Lennox is bumped only one grade to Major despite his actions in the first film and Gibson's character, as noted in another mistake, is credited as Master Sergeant Epps, a reasonable promotion. The costume department simply got the insignia wrong.

Guy

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Inglourious Basterds picture

Factual error: When the real German soldiers are playing 20 questions in the bar, one of the cards shows the name of Genghis Khan. This is an English-language word; as Germans, they would have written Dschingis Khan instead. As the whole scene deals with exposing the British/American spies and subtle differences in their language or behaviour, this is especially unfavorable here.

wirthi

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Sherlock Holmes picture

Factual error: In the scene depicting life on Baker Street (after the "Sherlock Holmes" title), a horse-drawn carriage races through the streets of London. The only problem is, the carriage is driving on the right side of the road with others passing on the left. In England, carriages would be driving on the left. (00:07:05)

mphe

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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra picture

Factual error: In the underwater scene when Rex blows up the ice pack, ice appears to be denser than water in this situation. The ice sinks when it's blown up, and even if there were pieces of metal on top of the ice, it shouldn't. Some pieces the size of a five-story building have no metal and still sink. (01:43:00)

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Solomon Kane picture

Factual error: At the start of the movie you can see the Flag of Great Britain on Solomon's ship. The film is set in 1600 and the Union flag didn't exist until 1606.

p05879

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Terminator Salvation picture

Factual error: In the scene in the 'cattle car' the shadow and light from outside the bars is moving across Kyle's face as he is talking. But unless the light source moves relative to the shadow source, a shadow will not move. But the light source was just outside daylight - and not direct sunlight - so the shadow inside would not have moved.

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Daybreakers picture

Factual error: In the beginning a calendar says 2019 April, you can see April 1 being Tuesday when actually April 1 2019 was a Monday. (00:01:10)

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine picture

Factual error: When Wolverine is being chased after the explosion of the barn, there's a Humvee chasing the motorcycle. The movie is supposed to take place in the late 70's - the Humvee started production in 1984 and started service in the late 80's.

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Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian picture

Factual error: When Larry and Amelia's plane takes off, the cables it is held onto easily rip off from the canvas. For security measures, a real cable would be made of steel, therefore ripping the structure instead of just snapping like a string.

Sacha

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Up (2009)

Up picture

Factual error: After trying to get his balloon back, Carl Jr. falls and breaks his arm. The ambulance that picks him up has a modern-day electronic siren, when in the 30's it would be a mechanical siren and would be much smaller.

Low Cow

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Zombieland picture

Factual error: During the stop in the small town while still in Texas, and Tallahassee breaks all the windows in the minivan, a Bank of Coweta sign is visible over one of the buildings. The Bank of Coweta is a local bank in Georgia, and has no branches outside of the state.

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Star Trek picture

Factual error: USS Enterprise's onboard computer initially refuses to acknowledge Chekov's authorization code. The reason, it seems, is Chekov's Russian accent, which pronounces the letter "V" (pronounced labiodentally) like a British "W" (pronounced bilabially). Problem: Chekov pronounces his ensign authorization code in the NATO phonetic alphabet. ("Nine, Five, Victor, Victor, Two", which resolves to 95VV2) This alphabet is specifically designed to alleviate this exact same situation. The 26 code words in the NATO phonetic alphabet are assigned to the 26 letters of the English alphabet: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, and Zulu. The slightly mispronounced "Wictor" should not be a problem. (00:42:05)

FleetCommand

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

Suggested correction: You're applying today's standards to a fictional future. We've seen in every iteration of Star Trek that security includes both a passkey/password and voice authentication. The actual mistake here is that regardless of how Chekov speaks, the computer should recognize it as his voice because he always speaks that way.

I am afraid the computer's error message leaves no doubt that there was no voice matching at work this time; only pure speech-to-text.

FleetCommand

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Paul Blart: Mall Cop picture

Factual error: Paul has hypoglycemia. When he eats the lollipop off the floor and gets up instantly, this would never happen as it takes the sugar a while to get into the bloodstream. He would never be instantly cured.

Cynthia Gurski

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G-Force picture

Factual error: Another problem with Speckles the star-nose mole. Star-nose moles live in "wet lowland areas" (Wikipedia) but in the film, Speckle's history is shown and his home used to be a field with undulated small hills.

roykwok22

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12 Rounds picture

Factual error: When the elevator falls to the ground it passes a hotel waitress and blows her hair and pieces from her trolley away. In fact the wind gust comes after the elevator has passed, in reality it would come before it passed, as the air ahead of the elevator would be compressed and blown outwards, leaving lower pressure behind which would cause a gust inwards.

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Dead Snow picture

Factual error: Herzog is referred to as "Oberst" (Colonel) both by The Wanderer and in the end credits. But both he and his men wear SS uniforms and insignia, where standard military titles were not used. Herzog should have been called the SS equivalent "Standartenführer".

Twotall

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Whiteout picture

Factual error: In several scenes, characters drink 'Scotch Whiskey' from a bottle with a label that is obviously something the props department created. That's how it's spelled on the label, 'Scotch Whiskey'. The problem is, if it's Scotch, it's spelled 'WHISKY' (without the 'e').

matthewquick7

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