Continuity mistake: When Marie is at the family dinner table and gets mad, saying she's not imagining it, her plate is shown. It has a full variety of food, green stuff, bread, some mash potatoes, and a bit of meat. Then just a couple shots later when Drosselmeier is about to speak, her plate suddenly is covered in just meat.
Continuity mistake: The drawer in the nightstand next to Marie's bed is facing parallel to her bed away from the wall. When she opens the drawer to give her candy to the Seven Headed Mouse King, the drawer opens up towards her bed perpendicular to it, parallel to the wall.
Audio problem: After Marie's mom bring her food, she walks out the door and closes it behind her. Before her arm leaves the shot through the door, you can hear the sound of the door finish shutting, as if she shut her arm in the door, but she keeps moving and then her arm slips through.
Continuity mistake: The day after Drosselmeier tells Marie the story of Nutcracker, her mom brings her breakfast in bed and the Nutcracker is on the nightstand beside her bed. In various shots, his arm changes from being outstretched to tucked by his chest, and the distance he is from the edge of the nightstand is constantly changing.
Continuity mistake: After the 15 year search, Drosselmeier returns to the castle with the Crackatook nut and a boy that can crack it. They come up to the throne and then Princess Perlypap walks in and confronts them. In the top shot of her on the red carpet, Drosselmeier is off to the right, not on the carpet. But a couple shots later when Drosselmeier begins speaking, he is suddenly standing on the edge of the carpet.
Continuity mistake: After Drosselmeier and the scholar find the nut and Drosselmeier's cousin that can crack it, they return to the castle and walk into the throne room. When the door opens, they walk in almost single file, Drosselmeier first, followed by his cousin then the scholar. Then it cuts to a top view and suddenly Drosselmeier and his cousin are side by side with the scholar next to him, and the red carpet becomes smaller.
Audio problem: When Drosselmeier and his fellow adviser, the astrology scholar, run into Drosselmeier's cousin and are presented with the Crackatook nut, the scholar snatches it and then exclaims, "it is a Crackatook nut!" After he finishes saying that, his mouth continues to move for an extra syllable that looks like he says nut twice.
Other mistake: When the Mouse Queen is standing on the baby princess' crib, the baby's head is towards the wall with the hole which the Mouse Queen came out of. The Mouse Queen is standing at the baby's feet, with her back towards the nursemaids. Yet after she casts the spell on the princess, she leaps straight backwards in a back flip and somehow lands right next to the mouse hole. For that to have worked, she would have to have jumped over the baby's head the opposite direction.
Continuity mistake: When the 6 nursemaids are guarding the princess with cats in their laps, and all fall asleep, the camera pans across to show a mouse hole. When it cuts to a close up of the hole for the Mouse Queen to emerge from, the shape of the hole changes, becoming a more uniform shape.
Continuity mistake: After the Mouse Queen threatens to put a curse on the princess, the King calls his advisers, Drosselmeier and a bald guy with a beard, to find a way to prevent this from happening. The establishing shot from behind shows the bald guy standing almost in the center of the red carpet that leads to the thrones, and Drosselmeier is off to the side, not on the red carpet. It cuts to a frontal view of the two men, and suddenly both are on the red carpet at either edge.
Continuity mistake: In the montage of mice getting tricked by the traps Drosselmeier made, the second set is two mice jumping on the bed. Behind then is a table with candle and a cup. When it cuts to a close up of the mice, the candle is smaller and the cup changes shape.
Continuity mistake: When Drosselmeier at the castle is shown working on a red cage mouse trap, the far shot shows there is no cheese in the trap yet, but it cuts to a close-up and suddenly cheese appears inside.
Continuity mistake: When the King is first shown, screaming about mice, the crowns on top of his and the Queen's throne are very large. Then it cuts to a view from behind the throne at Drosselmeier and suddenly the crown on the King's throne is about half the size it was.
Continuity mistake: After she knocks herself out, Marie awakens in bed cause Fritz is playing loudly at the foot of the bed. Shots from the perspective of anybody looking at the bed from the foot show that there are lots of studded animals on the trunk, the animals sitting against the railing at the foot of the bed. But the close ups of Fritz looking through the railing shows that the animals have vanished. They keep appearing or disappearing repeatedly throughout the scene, depending on the camera angle.
Continuity mistake: After Marie throws her shoe at the Seven Headed Mouse King, then slips and knocks herself out, she awakens the next morning in bed. The first shot of this is a close up, and the nightstand beside her shows the side of a lamp. This is the only shot where the lamp looks the way it does, with handles on the sided and a traditional lamp shape, ans is on the nightstand alone. After this, the lamp has a different style, and there is a book and cup with it on the nightstand.
Continuity mistake: When the battle starts, the Seven Headed Mouse King yells, "destroy them all!" and then knocks down the Nutcracker. The Mouse King's sheath has vanished from his side.
Continuity mistake: When the army of mice marches out of the fireplace, you can see between their legs behind them that the logs that were smoldering and smoking only a moment ago have disappeared. Then a few shots later when the mice are advancing on the toy soldiers, the fireplace is visible behind them and the logs are suddenly there again, and don't appear to be the slightest bit burned.
Continuity mistake: When Mari gets up from the chair to go put the Nutcracker away, she walks towards a china cabinet. You can see by the shapes of the items through the windows in the doors of the cabinet that it is full of various dishes. But when she opens it, it is suddenly full of dolls and doll accessories.
Continuity mistake: When Marie goes to sit down by the fireplace to care for the Nutcracker, who just had his teeth broken by Fritz, the chair has purple cushioning. Moments later when she is about to get back up, the chair changes styles, and the cushioning is blue.
Continuity mistake: After Fritz shoves too many nuts in the Nutcracker's mouth and breaks his teeth, he gives it back to Marie and she cries out, "now you can't have him!", in this shot only a few teeth are missing. About 1 from the top row, and 1 or 2 from the bottom row. After the shot of Fritz saying, "will I ever survive?" in a very sarcastic manner, it cuts back to Marie with the Nutcracker, and suddenly a lot more teeth are missing. About 2 or 3 from the top row, and 4 or so from the bottom row, and they are more spread out in the bottom row.
Answer: The original 1816 story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by ETA Hoffmann features the seven-headed Mouse King. Since then there have been numerous adaptations and re-imaginings of that story in literature, on stage and screen in different forms. In the classic versions the Mouse King has seven heads wearing seven crowns, other versions he has only one head, and in a few versions three heads. In the original and other adaptations the number seven is specified several times: Marie Stahlbaum is seven yrs old; the seven-headed Mouse King; the seven steps backwards; seven little crowns. The makers of this animated movie chose to feature the classic Mouse King.
Super Grover ★