Corrected entry: When the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter is landing in front of the hangar at Brazz's hanger, you can see sand on the wheels. Its as if the part of the Blackhawk you see is a model and they've practiced the landing numerous times, because any sand on the wheels would certainly have gotten blown off in flight. (00:28:30)
Corrected entry: After the "Zimsky" bomb explodes, we see the mission control, there the core is fully rotating again, and everybody is cheering. But the 30% bigger bomb hasn't even detonated yet, the one that is definitely needed to "restart" the core. (01:49:55)
Corrected entry: In the EM tear scene, our first shot is a beam coming from the sun onto the earth's surface, and, as anyone can easily see, it is fairly wide. But, after that, when we see a tree dying, it first has an affection area of about 15 feet. 15 feet is invisible from space. (01:26:20)
Correction: When we see an outer space shot of the beam, you can see the beam getting through the atmosphere. So it's natural that the beam on the earth's surface has to grow too as soon as the hole in the atmosphere is big enough.
Corrected entry: When the Golden Gate Bridge is being destroyed by microwaves, we see a guy get 'sunburnt'. When he's looking at the sunburn, you can see that no one is in the car next to him. You may only be able to see it, if you're using the widescreen version. (01:26:55)
Correction: From the camera's point of view, you can only see the passenger's seat. So there's no way to tell if someone is in the driver's seat.
Corrected entry: How was the crane attached to Virgil at the bottom of the ocean? The scuba divers are only shown down about ten feet, and they wouldn't be able to walk the ocean floor in standard suits anyway.
Correction: They are in the area of Hawaii where the waters are pretty shallow. If you listen to the pilot in the chopper, after he sees the whales, he says that the whales are circling something, and that they are getting a strong echo at about 800 feet (243m). Not too big a problem attaching a crane at that depth.
Corrected entry: Virgil's cockpit operates on a gyroscopic mechanism, which would level the cockpit, making it parallel with the earth's surface. This means that no matter what way Virgil tilts, the passengers inside would not feel anything, because it would feel as if they are sitting still. However, in the scene where Virgil hits "empty space", the ship falls vertically, and the passengers are pushed forward, as if they are going to fly off their seats (just like what happens when you ride a roller coaster) and the only thing holding them in their seats are the seat belts.
Correction: They mention that the gyroscopes only work to 45dgrees maximum.
Corrected entry: When Brazzleton steps outside to unlock the master hydraulic gear, an ax melts in his hand. Don't you think that an expert on things like that would know that it would happen, and not even bother to bring it outside with him?
Correction: He probably did know it would melt but he wanted to at least try to use the axe before it melted.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Josh & Serge are called in because of the 32 people who collapsed from pacemakers failing, they are shown one of the bodies with their pacemaker scar. The general complements him on getting it right without seeing the body or the scar. The problem is the scar shown goes down the sternum. The correct scar for a pacemaker would be a small scar under the collarbone.
Correction: The body has an open-heart surgery scar so it's possibly the pacemaker was implanted at the same time rather through a separate incision.
Corrected entry: When Dr. Brazzleton is going out into the impeller shaft to open the hydraulic door, he opens the door to expose himself to heat that is supposedly 2000 degrees above the limit of his suit. However, the incredible heat would melt everything in the room behind him.
Correction: The Dr climbs down a small lader and into a small airlock. You never see the condition of the airlock and it is never seen again. So it may well be damaged in the brief moment it was opened.
Corrected entry: In the sequence where they launch the Virgil into the Marianas Trench, they hit bottom and fire the lasers at 30,000 feet, when in reality the trench is around 7 miles deep, or about 36,960 feet deep.
Correction: The whole trench is not the same depth, they may have picked this particular spot for some other reason.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the black shows up on the screen someone I think Aaron Eckhart says that he had never taught the computer how to read crystals (I think it was). So if the computer doesn't know how to read them then why would they even show up?
Correction: The computer recognised the crystals as black. It was the empty space of the cavern which the computer couldn't read, and it showed up on the screen as static (background noise)
Corrected entry: Dr. Zimsky is explaining to everyone else that 'Wave Interference' will allow the core to be re-started after the first plan failed. This is Constructive interference, and is basic A-Level Physics, although it took 3 highly trained people to work this out, as well as one Physicist.
Correction: Constructive interference is basic A-level physics, yes, but applying it to planetary core dynamics takes rather more than a standard secondary school education - it's reasonable that it would take experts to figure out the details.
Corrected entry: The Commander of the "ship", Rebecca, must have a VERY high threshhold for heat as whilst they are inside the Planet all of her fellow "Earthonauts" sweat like crazy and she keeps cool.
Correction: This is nothing more than an observation, not a mistake. In real life, some people DO sweat much less than others.
Corrected entry: On the way back to the surface, it is explained that they found a spot "between two tectonic plates that will bring them up somewhere near Hawaii." Hawaii, however, sits smack dab in the center of the Pacific plate, which is the world's largest tectonic plate. Therefore, if they came up between two tectonic plates, they would be no where near Hawaii. Some people have said that Hawaii is on what geologists call a hot spot, ie. a plume of magma, rising up to the surface to create a "volcanic" island. All well and good, but that's a very different thing to being in between two tectonic plates, so it's a mistake either way.
Correction: She found a spot between tectonic plates, flew between them as they were closing, and then the ship traveled for quite awhile before actually breaking through to the ocean floor. At the speed they were traveling, they could very easily have traveled toward Hawaii.
Corrected entry: Delroy Lindo explains to the crew that in order to jettison the compartments of the ship, he has to go outside and do it manually, because he didn't design the ship to do that. He goes outside and dies in the process; but then, later on in the film, when they release the last compartment, the guy turns around and pushes a big red button that says "Emergency compartment Jettison". So the ship had to have been designed to do that.
Correction: It was also explained that the lock mechanism for the manual release wasn't placed inside the ship because it wasn't thought to be needed. The emergency button would be useless unless the auto-release, in emergencies/breaches, or the manual release was engaged.
Corrected entry: Braz shows his 'visitors' an example of Virgil's shell by putting a mouse in the ultratanium box and firing the laser 'through' the box, thereby creating corresponding holes in the steel plate beyond the box. Hence, you see the shape of the box in the metal plate. However, even though the laser creates a hole in the concrete block holding up the box, there is no corresponding hole in the metal plate.
Correction: That's because the lasers are switched off just about when they finish cutting through the stone block. So, they are switched on, hit the plate and the stone, cut through plate while cutting through stone, and switched off before plate in the corresponding area (under the 'box' shadow) is hit.
Corrected entry: If Virgil didn't crash into the giant geode, which wasn't even supposed to happen, the 'headlights' on Virgil would serve no purpose. Did Miss Cleo tell them that they were going to crash into a geode or something?
Correction: The headlights were used first when Virgil was launched into the ocean, when they see the wheels.
Corrected entry: When the Golden Gate bridge collapses, it appears that all of the cars are facing one direction. The bridge has traffic flowing in both directions.
Corrected entry: In the scene where 'Rat' is trying to slow down 'Project DESTINI' (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger Initiative) he incorrectly spells Destini by typing "Project Destiny" into some kind of search box on some 'Alaska Hydroelectric Ltd.' site. For someone who boasts about being so smart earlier in the film that is a pretty stupid mistake. He must have run out of hot pockets.
Correction: While the project does in fact use the word "Initiative" at the end it is always referred to as "Destiny" with a Y when it's written as an acronym.
Corrected entry: There's a shot where a sunbeam is moving from ocean to land, west to east. But the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Correction: Assuming that the "hole" in the atmosphere is stationary, and the rotation of the earth, the angle that the sunlight goes through the hole changes. The sun will move to the east, while the microwaves will go towards the west. To prove this, take a piece of cardboard, put a hole in it, and shine a flashlight through it. move the flash light, and note the light goes in the opposite direction.
Correction: I'm a US Army UH-60 Blackhawk crewchief, and have been for 8 years. You're wrong. You'd be surprised by how much sand, mud, dirt, etc,. sticks to the landing gear during and after flight. If that was a model they were jumping out of, it was -extremely- detailed as far as the gear itself and the aircraft underbody. Far beyond what would be expected of any movie budget.