Factual error: After the successful Trinity test in 1945, people in a crowd are holding small US flags with 50 stars on them (offset rows). At the time there were only 48 states and the flag had 48 stars in even rows. The 50 star flag didn't exist until 1960, after Alaska and Hawaii were made states in 1959.
Factual error: Poirot attends a Halloween party in Venice in 1947. Halloween was never publicly recognized as a holiday in Venice or Italy in general in the XX century, especially with the traditional pumpkin-centered iconography. One could argue that, for the most part, Poirot is attending a private party organized by an American soprano. But, besides how unlikely it would be for 1947 Catholic nuns to take part in such a pagan-themed event, there are scenes showing Halloween decorations in the streets of Venice far away from the party location, as if it were a public holiday and not a private gathering from an eccentric foreigner.
Suggested correction: Besides what Oliver says to Poirot in the beginning about Americans bringing over Halloween to Italy, it's not true. Halloween has a European and Christian origin. A day called All Hallow's Day on November 1st has been a national holiday in Italy since the 9th century. There have always been activities in Italy the evening prior to All Hallow's day. This includes games, themes of death, carved pumpkins (turnips before), and masks ("guising"), all of which are very old traditions done all over Europe.
Being Italian and having lived in Italy for the past decades, may not make me an authority over all things Italian, but I can assure you that Ognissanti (which is what you quote as being "All Hallow's Day," since we obviously haven't been borrowing English names for our festivities) has never been observed as a national holiday with anything remotely close to what is shown here, which is, like Ariadne Oliver says, plain and simple Halloween. Like I said in the entry, it'd be perfectly fine for Americans to celebrate it, but no pumpkin banners in the public streets and parades with people shouting "Happy Halloween!" with nuns in full garb, no less! Halloween has never been celebrated here with any mainstream fanfare until the very, very recent years.
Factual error: This is set in summer 2007 but they watch Superbad (released August 2007) on DVD.
Suggested correction: The movie actually takes place in 2006. Superbad coming out in 2007 was correct.
Do a word change if the mistake is valid. Not a correction.
The movie starts in late 2006, then Oliver is invited to spend the summer (2007) with Felix, where the bulk of the movie takes place.
Character mistake: In the meeting in 1984 when Jason Bateman first appears they have players on the whiteboard in the background. They have "Hakeem Olajuwon." He didn't put the H back in his name until 1991. So it should have been "Akeem Olajuwon." (00:08:40)
Continuity mistake: His lazy eye is not consistently on his left or the right. It switches from scene to scene. Even though in the end he says it's his right eye people should always look at.
Factual error: In the introduction to the movie, set in 2002, a young Adonis has a Naruto: Shippuden poster in his room. Naruto: Shippuden did not premiere until 2007.
Continuity mistake: Towards the end of the movie, when Mills and Koa are battling the dinosaurs, it is nighttime. Mills lures one of them towards the hot springs, and at this point, sunrise is beginning. After they defeat the final dinosaur, they go back to the escape pod, and it is back to being nighttime again.
Continuity mistake: During the drive to the mansion, the number of pages Noah has read in her book ("Pride and Prejudice") varies with front/back views. After she has read to almost the end, she's back to the middle or about two-thirds left to read. (00:02:00 - 00:02:44)
Continuity mistake: Byron walks towards the maid and surrounds her waist with his arm. From the angle behind, he is repeating all previous movements.
Continuity mistake: When Lenny is directing the choir, and really getting into it, the cigarette he has jumps from his mouth to his hand instantly.
Continuity mistake: The cases of "Gatorade" next to Trevor's left side are stacked to his waist. Trevor moves the case that is under Megan's elbow. When Trevor turns around, the cases next to him are instantly stacked to his chest. (00:09:25)
Continuity mistake: After Marcus moves his coffee cup and glass of water, the water is about its width away from the coffee cup, but is closer when the camera shifts to the opposite side of the table. When Sonny gets up to leave, the coffee cup and glass of water suddenly exchange places. (01:02:15 - 01:03:20)
Continuity mistake: The amount of tomato juice in Lou's [Lily Tomlin] glass fluctuates with camera angle/distance, increasing two times. More distant views from the table show about one-third full, whereas close-ups show about one-half full. (00:27:10 - 00:28:10)
Continuity mistake: When Greg (Joel Courtney) is taking photos/videos and meets Charlie, rear views show strands of his bangs dangling down the side of his right cheek, but front views show his hair neatly combed back. (00:05:52 - 00:06:15)
Continuity mistake: When his daughter shoots a hole in her hat at target practice, it can be seen as she rides away. Later in the film, the hole has magically disappeared.
Continuity mistake: The covered object (storage container or pet carrier?) is at an angle to and extends past Bob's desk, but is against the side of the desk when "Binky" the rabbit jumps onto it, as well as when Binky jumps from it onto the floor. (00:12:53 - 00:13:47)
Other mistake: In the movie, the mission takes place on the Space Shuttle Discovery. In the scene with the shuttle on the crawler, coming out of the Vehicle Assembly Building, Atlantis is pictured instead of Discovery. (01:39:48)
Deliberate mistake: Ryan was cooking venison (deer meat) in a pan over hot coals. He speared a piece with his knife and held it up for his young son, Billy, to take, which Billy did with his fingers. But did not get burned or show any signs that the meat was hot. Billy was even able to take a bite of the meat. The meat could not have cooled off that fast, even outdoors in jacket-wearing weather. (00:07:04)
Character mistake: Mama says to Jeremiah, "Does Willie ever tell you he's one of 11 siblings?" Jeremiah replies, "I have 13 children of my own." Willie Gary says, "Y'all have 26 kids between you," but 11 + 13 = 24. (01:26:42)
Continuity mistake: The desk lamp (which has an odd 2-3" "halo" around its perimeter) faces the screen (angled away from Sid). Suddenly, the lamp aims at Sid spinning in his chair. The lamp goes back to its original angle but varies a couple more times. (00:41:20)
Suggested correction: While this is correct, an argument can be made that since the colour scenes are meant to be subjective and the black and white scenes are meant to be objective, Oppenheimer could have been unintentionally mapping the modern US flag onto this scene.
THGhost
That's a ridiculous stretch with zero evidence, not least as 48 star flags are seen in colour in other scenes. Sometimes a mistake is simply a mistake.
There is evidence, though. Nolan said so himself. Look it up. As for the mistake itself, I'm merely repeating what I've read on Twitter, and this correction was merely a suggestion. Seeing the 48 star flags in other colour scenes still doesn't disprove this theory. It is just a theory though, so no need to shoot it down so hard.
THGhost
He's said subjective in terms of the colour scenes being "first person", and maybe not strictly factual in terms of creating moments between characters and conveying emotion, but nowhere does that stretch to "one random scene happens to feature 50 star flags because Oppenheimer is mapping the modern flag onto it, when nothing like that happens anywhere else in the film."
Meh, take it up with Twitter. I just thought it was interesting, so I posted it here for a different point of view/perspective for others to read. It is most likely bull**** though.
THGhost
The fact that a director realized they had made a mistake and retroactively made up a deus ex machina explanation for it in no way invalidates the mistake. Nice try, Mr. Nolan but this posting is absolutely valid.
While Christopher Nolan's talked about the subjective/objective colour/black and white thing, which is entirely fair and no doubt exactly his intention, I don't think he's actually tried to "excuse" this by using that explanation, that's just other people trying to connect the two things. I'm not sure Nolan has commented on the flag issue in interviews at all.
Precisely, and I was in no way trying to invalidate the original mistake. I just found the whole theory interesting and posted it here. It is rather hilarious that a director with such attention to detail like Nolan would have missed something like this. We shall see if he gets it fixed for the streaming/physical release.
THGhost
It's not fixed in the home video version. However, the behind-the-scenes materials provide a reason for the mistake, in that putting a crowd in the scene was apparently a spur-of-the-moment decision. It's like that in their haste to bring in the crowd, the set decorators bought some modern miniature flags and put them into the scene without anyone realizing the 48/50 discrepancy.
Vader47000