Cast Away (2000)

5 revealing mistakes - chronological order

★★★★☆

Starring: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Lari White, Paul Sanchez

Revealing mistake: When Kelly is copying her dissertation, there is no paper being fed through the copier feeder or any printed pages going into the output tray. (00:12:40)

raywest ★

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Watch carefully. When Kelly turns round, you can see, by her right hand, paper coming out of the copier and landing in a pile on top of each other.

Ssiscool ★

Revealing mistake: The container that breaks the net is made up to be an AMJ container, with the 45 degree angle on the upper corner to fit the contour of the plane. However, as the camera zooms back out to show Tom Hanks, you can see that the side of the container towards the center of the plane is entirely clear, with packages visible. If it was a real AMJ, this side should have a white or purple curtain covering almost the entire side. That can is a prop. (00:25:45)

Jason Sieberg

Revealing mistake: As Tom Hanks escapes from the sinking aircraft, it shows him still underwater, looking back and the plane breaking apart. It shows an AKE-shaped container (which fits the contour of the bottom of the aircraft) which has no markings at all, it appears to be just a computer generated solid with no color. (00:27:00)

Jason Sieberg

Revealing mistake: When Chuck is writing on the rock waiting for the wind to change direction, you can see that when the wind changes direction the trees behind him are duplicates.

Revealing mistake: When Chuck is lying on the raft, and sees the giant cargo ship that rescues him, there is a closer shot of him and the raft as he stretches his hand out in order to be noticed by the ship's crew. He's supposed to be out in the middle of the deep ocean, but the water below him is pale green and very shallow. You can even see the bottom (hard to notice but it is there). It's obviously the water tank they were filming that scene in.

More for Cast Away

Mistakes

Continuity mistake: Chuck is on the plane going back home with a noticeable sun tan on his face. When he is talking with the dentist he is way paler, only to be slightly darker during the welcome party thrown hours later.

Sacha ★

More mistakes in Cast Away

Quotes

Chuck Noland: Aha. Look what I've created. I have made FIRE.

More quotes from Cast Away

Trivia

Trivia: When the shots on the island were finished, the sound had to be completely redone, as the surf was too loud.

More trivia for Cast Away

Questions

Question: At the end when the pick-up truck drives away, there is an angel on the back flap of it, similar to the angel in the garden of the house where Tom Hanks delivers the parcel. Are we to assume that the parcel belongs to the woman in the pick-up, and that this is significant in some way?

Answer: It's a little complicated. The angel wings are a plot device to show that the parcel Tom Hanks just delivered to the ranch belongs to the woman (who is an artist) in the truck, which also has the wings painted on the tailgate. There are also metal wing wind sculptures in her yard. The wings are her artist's "logo." As Hanks stands in the crossroads deciding which way he will go, his looking back in the direction that she just drove off implies he will go back to her house, probably to let her know that she had given him hope while he was on the island that he could someday deliver that package, and possibly to restart his life with her (she is pretty, after all). She was married to the guy in Russia who she was sending packages to, but he was cheating on her. If you notice the gateway over the entrance to her property where another package was delivered at the beginning of the movie, both her name and her husband's was on the overhead ironwork, as well as the angel wings. At the end, his name has since been removed, indicating that she is now single.

raywest ★

Wow, you are extremely observant. Thank you, I was totally confused at the end.

You're welcome.

raywest ★

Also, the artist would have been on the island with him just like Kelly was in the watch.

Answer: The Angel wings are an important symbolic thread that run throughout the move. They appear in several scenes. They represent love/hope/salvation. We first see them in a seemingly unrelated scene at the pretty redhead artist's ranch when she is still married to the cheater dude. She sends him the wings on a package but the package is not important. Rather the Wings on the package are important. She intended the wings to go to her cheating husband but instead they went to Chuck. Chuck preserves the wings. He caresses the wings. Later we see that he has drawn dozens of the same wings on the inside of his cave wall. On the raft, he takes only Wilson and the Wings which he carefully wraps in leaves. When finally delivering them home, Chuck writes "this package saved my life" when he means hope/love/salvation have saved his life. The wings have make the exact same journey as Chuck. They have finally returned to the redhead and bought Chuck with them.

I agree with your assessment, though the wings also serve as a practical plot device. It helps the audience to recognize and track the package as it moves through the story and for Chuck to link it to the woman's truck at the end, which also had the wings painted on the tailgate.

raywest ★

Nailed it! My thoughts exactly I just needed confirmation that all of this was reasonable to assume. Thank you.

Answer: The package that Mrs. Peterson sends to her husband in Russia contains divorce papers. The winged package that Tom Hanks' character saves as an unfinished task represents his desire to eventually deliver. He opens all the other packages and finds a few useful items. And the package sent by Mrs. Peterson, he uses to motivate himself to make that delivery. He only took bare essentials on the raft when he leaves the island. This package is essential to him. For some reason, he does not deliver the package to the destination to which it was addressed, but instead takes it back to the original sender. It helps close the loop in a way that could not have been done if he just delivered to the original destination 5 years late.

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