Corrected entry: At the time, dog tags were not round, they were rectangular. They were changed from round to rectangular in 1940. Windtalkers takes place in 1943.
Corrected entry: During the battle of Saipan we see a battleship firing and it's clearly stock footage.
Correction: Considering there are no longer any battleships available to actually shell an island for the purpose of making a movie, they had no choice but to use stock footage (or CG). At best this is triva but it's not a mistake.
Corrected entry: The pistols that Enders and Ox are carrying are 1911A1s. This type of pistol is ONLY single action. In order to fire it you MUST pull the slide to the rear and release it. When Enders puts his .45 in the back of Yahzee's Japanese uniform pants, the hammer is down. Yet, when he pulls it in the Japanese camp, it has miraculously become cocked. This also occurs when Ox is killed. Yahzee, upon learning that Enders killed Whitehorse, picks up Ox's .45 again. The hammer is down indicating that there is no round in the chamber (and a Marine would have known that) and tries to shoot Enders.
Correction: Having the hammer down on a 1911A1 do not necessarily mean there is no round in the chamber. Here is how we do it: First, chamber a round by pulling and releasing the slide. Then, hold the hammer with two fingers to slowly put it down while pulling the trigger with a finger of the other hand. This is a safety procedure to prevent the chambered round from firing accidentally. In the scene, Enders simply cocked the hammer with his thumb as he pulled the pistol from Yahzee's backside.
Corrected entry: When Nicolas Cage dies at the end, right before it cuts to the next scene, you can see him blink.
Correction: I watched this scene again and again and Nicholas Cage doesn't blink it the picture fading to the next scene.
Corrected entry: Right before the Saipan D-Day battle scene, it says "The Japanese Island of Saipan June 16, 1944". Saipan's D-Day was actually June 15, 1944. (00:33:55)
Correction: There is nothing in the movie that indicates that the filmmaker is trying to say the invasion occurred on the 16th, and no reason not to assume that we are simply picking up the storyline on the second day of the battle.
Corrected entry: In the early scene where Enders is in the hospital, the nurse gives him his pills in a plastic cup. Plastic was not in use in that manner in the 1940's and chances are the nurse would have given Enders the pill by hand.
Correction: The cup is made of paper.
Corrected entry: All through the movie when Enders fires his Thompson even in the close up shots you never see a single shell casing come out of the weapon.
Correction: This is not true. In some of the first scenes on Saipan (the slow motion ones where he is mowing down the Japanese) you can see the Thompson ejecting spent shells.
Corrected entry: During Enders patrol on Guadalcanal, all but one of the Marines with him are carrying M-1 Garand rifles. Marine riflemen landed on Guadalcanal with the older 1903 Springfield rifles. Only a handful of M-1's found their way to Marine hands which were stolen from follow-on Army landing troops.
Correction: They aren't necessarily on Guadalcanal. That island was secured in February 1943. It is more likely they were on another island in the Solomons, such as Bougainville.
Corrected entry: The clip on a Thompson submachine gun from World War II can only hold twenty rounds. In certain parts of Saipan's D-Day and the ambush, Enders shoots more than twenty rounds from his Thompson in one clip. He wouldn't be able to reload without getting shot in these situations.
Correction: The Thompson held either 30 rounds in the straight magazine as used in Europe or 50 rounds in the round magazine which was almost exclusive to the P.T.O.
Corrected entry: When Enders gets stabbed by a bayonet during the middle of the movie he gets his gun and shoots the man stabbing him, this causes blood to splatter everywhere, including the camera lens and for 2-3 seconds there are blood splatterings on the screen.
Correction: That was probably an intentional effect.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Enders and Ben first meet, Enders is watching pelicans. They are supposedly at Camp Tarawa, Hawaii. There are no pelicans in Hawaii.
Correction: Take a closer look at your pelican. It is in fact an albatross.
No, this mistake is correct. The group of birds in flight are brown pelicans. Longer bills than an albatross, white heads in older birds, distinct pattern on underside of wings. Not found in the Hawaiian islands. Also, a seagull is shown shortly after, when Enders says Yahzee is blocking his view. Again, not found in the Hawaiian islands.
Correction: Actually the US Marines and Navy used round dogtags until Vietnam.