Continuity mistake: When Sylvia and Dr. Forrester are in the farm house, Sylvia cooks some eggs, then places the plates of eggs on the table. As she places them down you can see a plate with toast stacked on it. This plate disappears in the next shot of them both sitting down. (00:42:40)
Continuity mistake: When the school bus is leaving Pacific Tech, the name "Southridge" is painted directly on the front of the bus. When Dr. Forrester finds the wrecked vehicles in the city later in the film, the name "Southridge" is now painted on a separate wooden sign that he picks up.
Continuity mistake: When the Martian first emerges from the 'meteor', the three men approach it, waving flags and hats. The man in the middle is waving his hat up high in one shot, yet in the following shot isn't waving his hat, but is holding it down by his side. (00:16:40)
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Forrester and Sylvia are eating in the farm house, as Forrester sits down he reaches for Sylvia's cup then commences to pour coffee in it. Yet in the following shot he no longer is holding the cup, and the cup has jumped back to its original place on the table. (00:42:50)
Continuity mistake: Look closely when the Martian "spaceships" make their first appearance, underneath are three electro-magnetic legs supporting it meaning they walk rather than fly, much like the tripod war machines in the original book, yet after this scene they can't be seen again. The studio opted to forgo the use of this special effect after this particular shot. (This is best seen on the DVD version of the film.)
Continuity mistake: The aeroplane flying the atomic mission against the Martian invaders is seen on the display console before the radar beam detects it.
Continuity mistake: After the attempt to bomb out the martians and there is white powder completely smothering the air, as one of the soldiers turns around to talk to the others, more white powder instantly appears on his face. (01:04:20)
Continuity mistake: The Sherman tank (30126777) disintegrated in Scene 141 is the same one that Ann Robinson & Gene Barry dodged in the later bug-out sequence.
Continuity mistake: One of the reporters refers to a Martian attack on Rangoon, India. Rangoon (now Yangon) is in Burma (now Myanmar), and while Myanmar had been governed as part of India under the British Raj, it achieved independence in 1948.
Continuity mistake: After Dr. Forrester has whacked the tri-lens off of the martian, he picks it up and puts it on the table, and it rocks forward and falls on its front. In the next shot the tri-lens is sitting up perfectly again. (00:49:30)
Continuity mistake: The tri-lens of the Martian camera becomes detached from its casing after Gene Barry pounds it to death. When he picks it up and puts it on a table, it rocks forward and comes to rest, facing down, on the table: the tri-lens is now firmly attached to its casing. (00:51:30)
Continuity mistake: When the Martian saucer crashes in the farmhouse while Dr. Forrester and Sylvia are eating, a long shot shows the Martian saucer crashing into the side of the house. Then it cuts to an inside shot with the wall (with a window) being smashed from outside in. Then it cuts to an outside shot again showing the meteor having collapsed the side of the house that was caving in, in the inside shot, however the meteor has crushed almost half the house - far more than what was happening in the inside shot. (00:44:30)
Continuity mistake: When the Martian probe is being demonstrated in the lab, as it first comes on, it's slightly tilted. As the camera is in wide shot, the probe is straight up.
Continuity mistake: During the beginning of the movie, as the camera zooms in on the image of Mars, some of the background stars disappear and reappear. (00:01:45)
Continuity mistake: A hatch opens-up to the martian saucer showing a very weak, limp martian arm moving slowly and lying against the door. Next scene shows a wide angle view of the people and the arm but the arm is now touching the belly of the craft. Another scene change has a close-up of the arm again resting on the hatch. (01:22:45 - 01:23:45)
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Forrester is presenting the tri-lens in the lab, the red light at the bottom of the tri-lens is in a different position in the closeup and the cloth surrounding it is arranged differently too. (00:56:30)
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Forrester whacks off the aliens' spy camera, it looks like it's virtually destroyed when he bends down to pick it up. Later in the lab when they power it up, it's in pristine condition.
Continuity mistake: When Sylvia is cooking the eggs in the farmhouse, she moves the kettle onto the centre of the stove as she serves up the eggs on the plates. In the next shot as Dr. Forrester picks up the kettle, it is back in the corner of the stove. (00:42:20)
Continuity mistake: From the time the army first attempts to destroy the Martians until the movie's end, Sylvia wears the same blue dress. Despite sheltering in an army bunker, being in a plane crash, jumping into ditches, running through woods, escaping a demolished house, and evading a frantic mob, her hair remains perfectly coiffed and her dress stays clean and undamaged.
Continuity mistake: In the laboratory, the lenses of the Martian camera were tilted in the frame in the closeup, then righted in the wide shot.
