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: The helicopter shown in the film (N801JB) was manufactured in 1979, 8-9 years after the film was set.
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.
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.
Factual error: Eleanor Falco is mentioned as having substance problems. No way would the FBI recruit someone with such a problem.
Factual error: In the film, Blackberry is shown being "raided" by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a Canadian company with its headquarters in Canada, the SEC, by itself, has no jurisdiction to effectuate such a raid on the premises. In real life, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) brought the case against Blackberry co-CEO, Jim Balsillie.
Factual error: Early in the film, as the train pulls into the station, you can see 2 European Traffic Control Systems. A signalling system that was only installed in 2010.
Factual error: When Marcus is walking down the street after first meeting the team, he gets picked up by Johnny and his sister. You can see Government of Manitoba vehicles in the background, while the movie is set in Des Moines, Iowa. (00:22:38)
Factual error: Henk arrives in Moscow. The KGB gets a copy of his passport. In the next scene, a building can be seen, and a Trabant 601 drives through the shot (one light out). Trabant was East German made and widely exported on the Eastern Block but never to the Soviet Union. This car is definitely wrong there. (00:30:40)
Factual error: The flat screen TV shown in the room with Jose Hernandez's wife is not era correct. The TV shown is manufactured post-2009. The launch occurred in 2009. (01:46:11)
Factual error: When driving to meet the Jordans you can see a white car in the distance on the right that is from the 21st century. (04:01:00 - 04:04:00)
Factual error: The storm chasers are meeting by the road and you see the sign for I-90 East in the background several times. This movie takes place in and around Texas, yet the route that I-90 takes is nowhere remotely close to that far south.
Factual error: Lenny, using a manual typewriter in 1889, would not be able to type that fast or the striking keys be able to produce a sound similar to that of an electronic typewriter (not available until decades later). A manual typewriter's single key had to have time to retract (at least partially) before the next key could strike to prevent the keys from overlapping and getting stuck together. Equally paced, rapid striking sounds were not possible for an extended period of time. (00:47:07)
Factual error: When Willie's wife drives Jerry to Indiantown to meet up with Willie, she mentions that they are entering the town and he asks if that is where Willie is from. The camera pans to a local house. There are 3 vehicles in the background: a 7th generation Nissan Maxima, which was not released until 2009; a 5th generation Chevrolet Camaro facelift, which was not until 2014; and a naughties American SUV. According to the movie, that scene is supposed to be circa 1995. (01:26:09)
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