Revealing mistake: When the Black Pearl swings alongside the Interceptor for the battle, Elizabeth shouts, "Fire all!" The next shot is from behind the lit cannon which is aimed at the Pearl and the following shot faces the Interceptor's cannon, as it goes off. In the shot facing the Interceptor, the raw wood scaffolding type beams are perfectly visible at the entire lower part of the screen, where the painted planks (below the gun ports, above the bilges) of the hull should be. (This is only visible on the video version.)
Revealing mistake: After Gillette locks the shackles on Jack's wrists, it is clear in Jack and Elizabeth's close-ups that the wider side of the shackles' distinctively shaped straight bar faces out at his wrists. However, when Jack is in the blacksmith shop, sitting at the anvil trying to break the links, the left shackle is actually around his wrist the opposite way. (This even occurs in other consecutive shots.) (00:19:00 - 00:21:30)
Revealing mistake: When the cannonball slams into the pirate at the Swann home, a wire visibly pulls on the back of his clothes and quickly propels him through the back doors. (Clearer in slow motion.) (00:33:15)
Revealing mistake: Aboard the Pearl, just as Barbossa screams, "And the rest of you, bring me that medallion," seen to the upper right of the screen is a very apparant high cliffside. There are no cliffs, high or otherwise, where they are having the battle - they're in open water. (01:27:30)
Revealing mistake: When Barbossa cuts Elizabeth's hand her nails are short. When Will rescues an unconscious Elizabeth at the cave, she reaches for the medallion and her nails are longer. When Will ties the cloth around Elizabeth's hand and she gives him the medallion, her nails are short. However, when Jack says, "Ahh, where's dear William?" her nails are now manicured and much longer. Once she's marooned on the island her nails are short again. Most scenes were filmed out of sequence, hence the difference in nail length. Her nails should have been kept the same short length for the duration of filming. (01:18:35 - 01:29:10)
Revealing mistake: When Elizabeth first sees the skeletal pirates she stumbles backward, and when she lands on the tarp in the close-up, the flesh-covered thumb and part of a hand is visible behind her, at the top right, though the pirates are in skeletal form. (00:59:05)
Revealing mistake: Aboard Interceptor, Jack calls out, "Monkey!" as the monkey jumps onto the broken mast leading to the Pearl and Jack runs after him. In the very next shot of Elizabeth, who's trying to move the broken rigging from the hatch that Will is trapped under, the coloring is off in this one shot. The color of her dress, for example, is not vibrant, it is brown. This is visible on the region 1 DVD and on videotape. (01:29:25)
Revealing mistake: Right after Jack and Will commandeer the Interceptor and are moving away and Commodore Norrington climbs the stairs and says, "Just get them in range of the long nines," you can see a jet contrail in the sky behind him. (00:47:45)
Revealing mistake: On the way to Isla de Muerta aboard Interceptor, during the storm there is a close-up of Jack's hand holding the compass. There are many other close-ups of Jack's hand in the movie, but in this particular close-up, it is not Johnny Depp's hand holding the compass. Depp's fingers are slim and normal looking, but in this close-up Jack's thumb is stout and has a severely enlarged/deformed metacarpal at the base of the thumb joint (likely arthritis). (01:03:35)
Revealing mistake: When Jack is aboard the Black Pearl, as Will makes demands we see Jack's very grimy hands and dirt embedded fingernails. Jack dives and retrieves his sword and gun underwater, and when he does the hands that lift the sword and gun underwater are perfectly clean and have very well manicured fingernails. Once on the island, his hands are as grimy as they were on the Pearl and his fingernails are once again short and dirty. (01:34:50)
Revealing mistake: Koehler and Twig are with Jack in the prison when Koehler reaches for Jack's neck through the cell bars. In the first shot, the ray of moonlight is outside of the cell bars, over Jack's head, so Koehler's arm becomes skeletal while still outside the bars and we see the 'cursed' sleeve till the elbow. However, in the next shot, the ray of moonlight is only inside the cell where Koehler reaches, so Koehler's arm and sleeve are normal until it becomes skeletal, just when it's inside the cell. (00:37:00)
Revealing mistake: In the wide shot, when an unconscious Elizabeth reaches the water's bottom, the body is a mannequin that has been weighted down in the middle. The white mannequin head can be seen as the body meets the bottom. (00:15:55)
Revealing mistake: Ragetti has a wooden eye, yet, when he rubs it, it makes a funny squeeking sound. When he first comes ashore he has a wooden ball that he obviously palms instead of inserting. Mackenzie Crook, as Ragetti, wears a contact to simulate the wooden eye, and spins it around with his eye. When Pintel takes the fork with the eye out of Ragetti's socket, this ball at the end of the prongs is not made of wood. Props supplied a small rubber ball, and the air hole next to the fork prongs, with the painted 'iris' right above the prongs, can be seen. (00:30:45 - 01:25:30)
Revealing mistake: Keira's stunt double Sonia is obvious in different shots throughout the film. When Elizabeth walks onto the deck of the Pearl, only to see the skeletal pirates, she stumbles backward and lands on the tarp, and it's very apparent that the one who comes back down from mid-air onto the tarp and goes back up is Sonia. Later on Isla de Muerta, Elizabeth whacks Jacoby (burning beard) with the gold rod and soon after she approaches a second pirate. This pirate is very pleased with himself when he takes the gold bowl off his head, and we can then see it is Sonia actually whacking him, but in the very next shot it is Keira reacting to whacking the guy. (00:59:05 - 02:00:05)
Revealing mistake: When Will uses skeletal Jacoby's sword to skewer the other skeletal pirate, he runs behind Jacoby to avoid being slashed and ducks. However, as Will looks at the pirates, his eye contact with the two skeletal pirates and their weapons is not in sync with them. Since they are CG, they were not there during filming, same as the shot of the three skewered pirates. (01:56:35)
Revealing mistake: After Barbossa shouts, "They're clubhauling," in the wide shot of Interceptor, the seven men on deck are very obviously not Jack's crew. Even the one dressed as Will does not look like him. (01:24:50)
Revealing mistake: Three shots after Ragetti inserts his wooden eye at the Port Royal shore, two pirates, one with long hair wearing a cap and one bald, each holding a torch in their right hands, are running and screaming. In the background, the pirate who is sliced in the belly by Will in the later shot, is seen running forward towards Will, who's partially seen on the left in the background, but Will has NOT even left the blacksmith shop yet and the woman running in the background has had her dress' color altered so as not to resemble herself in the later shot. We see the two screaming pirates later in the foreground of the same shot, before Will crosses the sword and axe overhead. (00:30:55)
Revealing mistake: When Will hangs on the boom over the water, Jack says, "I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesy.." Then he brings the boom back and Will falls. While Will lies on the deck, in both shots, a band on the bottom of the right leg of his breeches is seen above his leg hose, whereas in the previous shot when he was falling from the boom, the band in not there. (00:50:10)
Revealing mistake: When Jack is standing on the mast of the Jolly Mon, as he's 'sailing' closer to Port Royal, the Dauntless is seen in the distance, as are two very small row boats and the docks to the left. There are no other ships seen along the entire mountain cliffside, some of which is CG. In the next shot showing Dauntless from the dock, there are two other large ships near her, one being loaded with goods which should have been seen in the earlier wide shot. Given the proximity and dimension of Dauntless in the second shot, the other ships should have been seen in the earlier wide shot of the area. Both shots of Dauntless are CG, as is part of the cliffside. This is not because of camera angles. (00:08:55)
Revealing mistake: The medallion's necklace has very narrow bar links, with one loop link at the end and it's not adjustable at all. When Elizabeth wears it in some shots, the necklace hangs much shorter, for example during her failed blood ritual. As the medallion falls into the Aztec chest during Elizabeth's ritual, the chain is even shorter. In other scenes it's long enough to tuck into her bodice as in a later scene aboard Interceptor with Will, when she gives him the medallion. When Will wears it, it's again much shorter, which can not be excused because he has a man's neck. The clasp closure is seen intact and it's not adjustable. It's simply a few different length necklaces used. The necklace gets ripped off, but that's also not an excuse for the length difference because as noted in another mistake the type of closure it has makes that impossible to do. (01:11:15 - 01:18:20)
Chosen answer: Because they'd have to find it. The gold may "call to them", but it obviously doesn't function as a millimetre perfect homing beacon or they'd never have missed the medallion years earlier when they attacked the ship carrying the young Will. Elizabeth drops it into the sea and they're going to have to spend what could be months trying to locate it - currents could take it well away from the dropping point. They've found the final missing piece; they're potentially just hours away from finally being cured. The last thing they want is to see it thrown into the sea.
Tailkinker ★
Well, if the crew was anxious to get the medallion then why did they act like they weren't interested in it before Elizabeth pretended to drop it?
Reverse psychology.
Ssiscool ★
What do you mean by reverse psychology?
By showing they are not interested in the medallion they are hoping Elizabeth will just drop it on the floor or chuck it to them as it's of no real value. However when she releases a bit of chain and the medallion drops, and the pirates lurch forward revealing that they really want the medallion and as such Elizabeth now has the upper hand in negotiations.
Ssiscool ★
I'm guessing Elizabeth wasn't fooled when the pirates showed disinterest in the medallion.
That's not called reverse psychology, which is used to encourage someone to change his or her mind. Doesn't work with a threat. They are feigning indifference to hide the importance of the object.
lionhead