The Core

Corrected entry: Magnetic fields do not stop electromagnetic radiation (such as microwaves).

Correction: The Earth's Magnetosphere which houses the magnetic field absolutely protects the earth from EM radiation, and protects the atmosphere from being eroded away by solar wind.

Corrected entry: Beck is an Air Force pilot and an astronaut, Purcell is Army Ranger General. Neither military branch has a say in the actions of the other and Purcell has nothing to do with the space program. So why would he have any say or knowledge about Beck's review board about the shuttle accident?

jbrbbt

Correction: Because they are acquainted in life beyond the military. He came to see what happened and to support her.

LorgSkyegon

Correction: Purcell was tasked as a commander of the special mission to restart the core. As such, he would have knowledge and say to Beck's review as she was being assigned to his team. This is also why he would have say even if they aren't in the same branch as he is now her commander officer.

Corrected entry: Why wouldn't they try to use DESTINI again before sending Virgil down? The Earth is already screwed, and it would've been a lot easier, cheaper, and faster. If it didn't work, then they could still go ahead with Virgil. What did they really have to lose? They knew it was the cause at the very beginning.

Correction: For exactly the reason Dr. Keyes suggested: using DESTINI again would permanently destabilize the core instead of just stalling it. Besides, when it comes to actual permanent annihilation of the Earth, cheaper doesn't really mean anything.

LorgSkyegon

Corrected entry: The ship they are in can't eject undamaged compartments so Braz has to sacrifice himself to override this. But later in the film when Josh has to shut all the power off to get extra nuclear cells for the last bomb he uses an emergency compartment ejecting button inside the pod. Why didn't they use them in each pod in the first place? Braz didn't have to die.

Correction: The main gear locking all of the compartments together needed to be released in order for those "emergency compartment ejecting button(s)" to work.

Corrected entry: While in the geode, you can see that the giant crystals are twinkling and there is a definite source of natural looking light. Being as light has trouble penetrating through a few hundred metres of sea water, it would be fairly unlikely (impossible) for light to reach inside a sealed geode a few thousand miles beneath the surface of the earth. (01:03:40)

Correction: The light came from the external lights on the "Virgil". Light reflected from the original source to one crystal then another and so on.

dablues7

Corrected entry: In the crystal chamber, they said the suits can hold the pressure. Therefore, the suits must be really hard. So how can a piece of rock go through Iverson's helmet? (01:07:25)

Dragon

Correction: It goes through Iverson's helmet for the same reason a knife passes through your skin but a fist doesn't even if the exact same amount of force is used. The suits are able to resist pressure because the pressure is relatively consistent accross the whole outer surface of the suit, the impact of the small fragment however wasn't consistent, it was a large force applied to a very small area.

Corrected entry: At the end when Josh and Rebbecca are at the bottom of the ocean, she says they could be 800 miles deep. Being a geologist, Joshua must have known that the deepest point in the ocean is about 6.8 miles deep and therefore had to correct her. And that would be the Marianas trench. The place where they entered the crust. (01:54:45)

Dragon

Correction: She says they are 800 feet deep but might as well be 800 miles deep. She's just pointing out how hopeless the situation is.

shortdanzr

Corrected entry: Towards the end of the movie, when Dr. Keyes and Beck were going back through the earth towards the surface, they said they were going twice as fast as they were going when they went into the core. Now, judging from the speed Virgil was going when they were headed for the core and how the pressure on your body lessens the farther you go up, the lack of pressure should have caused the veins in their bodies to burst, causing them to die almost instantly.

Correction: They are also in a specially designed ship to take them there. It is conceivable that they stayed at core pressure all the way up and had to go through decompression after they reached the surface, similar to deep sea divers.

shortdanzr

Corrected entry: When Virgil is approaching the crystal thing or the "empty space" Dr. Kieves says he never told the computer how to read empty space but earlier in the film when he is trying to fine tune his navigation device there is lots of empty space between it and the lead plate and everything else around it, yet, no static.

Correction: The space during testing isn't empty - it's filled with gases, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide. The static is caused by true empty space, i.e. a vacuum.

Correction: Just like all signals, and computers that read them, there is a range at which the system works best, and a maximum/minimum range too. The stuff in the room with them was well within the range of the computer, but the empty space was too far away and then too deep for the computer to register.

Corrected entry: When the remaining crew go back up through the centre of the earth back to the crust and home again, how come they never run into any of the obstacles that they encountered on the way down, such as the massive diamonds?

Correction: They discuss that the fastest way to the surface is along a magma flow tube. If the tube runs from the core to the surface, they would just surf the magma through the tube.

Timothy Cheseborough

Corrected entry: In the scene where Josh torched the peach, he held it only seconds after the demonstration. The peach maybe would have been the slightest bit too hot for him?

Correction: He never touched the peach. He only held the prong he used to torch it.

MoonFaery

Corrected entry: The geodes occurring in the mantle during the film are impossible in two ways. Firstly, there are no gaps at those depths. The pressure is approximately 3.5 million times surface pressure, and it is not feasible that such structures could form, let alone be maintained. Secondly, the crystals inside the geodes are described as amethysts. Amethysts are a purple variety of quartz, and as any undergrad geology student could tell you, there is no quartz in the mantle, it simply is not stable at such high temperatures.

Correction: That is why the geologists and physicists were so surprised. They didn't think it was possible either, which is another reason why the computer was never programmed to see "nothing" in the first place.

Corrected entry: When the vessel entered the geode (the great big empty hole), the crew was forced forward by the falling of the ship. They should have felt weightless - the ship was in free fall just like the "Vomit Comet" used by the Air Force to train astronauts and by Ron Howard to film Apollo 13.

Correction: Free fall would only happen once all the relative velocities were equal, until then they would be pushed back into their seats.

The crew was falling along with the ship, equalizing their velocity thus free fall happening.

Corrected entry: At the very end of the movie, Rat goes to an Internet cafe to disseminate information via the web. As the upload starts from his laptop, his screen says "On it's way". It should be "its" (without apostrophe).

Correction: Programmer error. It happens. "You've got mail" isn't grammatically correct either.

Guy

Corrected entry: Considering the nukes would be crushed by the pressure and heat in the Core, how exactly did the team plan to set them off WITHOUT having to detach the compartments in the first place? They couldn't simply seed them by "dropping them out a hatch".

Correction: Because there was a pod designed already for them.

Corrected entry: When Josh and Zimsky are briefing the military on the ramifications of the core stopping, they state that after three months, all electronic devices will fry. It takes three months to build Virgil, as stated by Braz ("I built this ship in three damn months") and yet on the surface all electronic devices are working fine.

Brad

Correction: Josh simply says "in a few months every electronic device will be fried" while presenting his findings. Se was not being 100% literal, nor does the word "few" when used in that sense HAVE to mean 3. Furthermore, everyone is dealing with a completely new phenomena. So it is certainly not inconceivable that Josh was off a bit in his calculations.

Corrected entry: When the crew are entering the geode, we can see the blue/purple crystals on screen and the empty space is shown as black. A minute earlier we were informed that empty space showed up as static and black patches were what they could not pass through. Apparently empty space is too dense to travel through?

Correction: It's not actually that empty space is too dense to pass through. When Dr. Keyes said that "I never taught the computer how to read empty space.", he may be implying that he did not program the computer to detect empty spaces, thus the computer does not know about empty spaces and probably mistook them as solid.

Corrected entry: When Drs. Keyes and Zimsky are explaining to the military guys at the Pentagon what is going to happen, Zimsky is wearing a wedding ring (or at least, a ring on his wedding finger). There is no reference to him being married anywhere in the movie, nor is he wearing a ring in any of the other scenes. (The ring is probably Stanley Tuccis since he still was married at the time of the making of "The Core")

Correction: There is also no mention of him being single that would cause this to be a mistake. Just because a wife (or ex-wife, some people still wear their rings) is not mentioned, doesn't mean she doesn't exist. Also, because he seems to be somewhat of a womanizer, he would be less likely to mention his wife.

LorgSkyegon

Corrected entry: When the ship first launches, they switch on the headlights. They use a special device to see outside the ship, and the ship has no windows, so why does the ship have lights?

Correction: Because the ship uses cameras, and the cameras probably use visible light to function. They were first entering water and you can see the light projected from the headlights light up the water around them and on their screens, that light is what the cameras pick up.

The lights and cameras aren't going to be made from unobtainium, so they'd melt not long after the mission starts, and provide a point of vulnerability for the magma to enter the ship.

Vader47000

Corrected entry: In the scene where Serge and Dr. Keyes first walk into the room with all the dead bodies, you can see that the number on the HMMWV says 69. Not only are these placards rarely ever used in the military, you'll never see one that says 69 unless a soldier is playing a joke.

Correction: None of which makes it a mistake. One of the 5-ton trucks here on base has the same numbers on it, and although I'm certain it is a joke that doesn't make it a movie mistake as it is possible for someone to have put those numbers on it.

Continuity mistake: On the ship, Dr. Zimsky reveals that project DESTINI is an acronym and that the last letter is "I" and not "Y." (INI standing for INItiative). When Rat is at his computer, he goes to the website for Project Destiny, with a "Y" and not an "I." This same thing happens when the Project Destiny subtitle flashes across the screen.

More mistakes in The Core

Dr. Josh Keyes: So what's this about then?
FBI Agent: We don't know. You have higher security clearance than us.
Dr. Josh Keyes: I have security clearance?
FBI Agent: Yes sir, we're just here to take you to your jet.
Dr. Josh Keyes: I have a jet?!

More quotes from The Core

Trivia: If you look closely with time-frame advance during the pigeon scene you will see a fish "flying" into a window instead of a pigeon. (00:08:35)

More trivia for The Core

Question: Why in this film should NASA and the military handle the operation? It is neither related to space nor related to war. Some institute related to geo sciences should handle it.

Answer: To put it simply: NASA's got all the technology and the people trained to use it, and the military is involved in every government project, not just acts of war. Also, the military has a vast and efficient logistics system making it possible to bring the major pieces of equipment together in the short amount of time available.

Phixius

Answer: They could just hire a bunch of oil rig drillers instead if you want. All they have to do is drill after all.

More questions & answers from The Core

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