The Manchurian Candidate

Corrected entry: When Raymond accidentally gets triggered at the Chinese restaurant, it's off by one word. The bartender says "why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire" but he would have had to say "Raymond, why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire"

Correction: First, this was listed for the wrong movie - this scene is from the 1962 original. Second, it's the queen of diamonds in the solitaire deck that triggers him, not anything the bartender said.

Corrected entry: When the candidate is shot embracing his mother, it is done with a single shot to his upper back. The subsequent shot that shows the candidate and his mother lying on their backs has the candidate with a wound to his lower abdomen and the mother with a wound to the chest. Since the candidate's wound is an exit wound and the trajectory of the bullet is downward, it would be impossible for it to rise to the mother's chest level.

Correction: First, the candidate is shot in the middle of the back, not the top. Second, the candidate's exit wound is at the top of his abdomen / bottom of his rib cage, not his lower abdomen. When you add in the fact that Liev Schrieber is nine inches taller than Meryl Streep, it sounds very reasonable indeed.

Rooster of Doom

Corrected entry: In New York State in "even numbered" election years (such as a Presidential election), more than the presidential/vice presidential candidates appear on the ballot. Other candidates would include the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate (possibly), State Senate, State Assembly as well as a host of state judicial, county and local candidates. Raymond only pulls down two levers when he votes. Either he didn't care about his running mates right on down the candidate list or he was in a real hurry to get out of the voting booth.

Correction: He may have voted "straight ticket" which is where one lever automatically votes for all candidates of the same party.

Myridon

Corrected entry: In the scene where Ben goes to Rosie's cousin's apartment, Rosie is wearing tall, black boots and no stockings. When Ben goes to take a shower, the shot of Rosie shows her in black stockings no boots. When did she change?

Correction: First, if she was wearing tall, black boots, how can you tell she had no stockings. Second, and more importantly, when did she change? Ummm, probably at the same time Ben got undressed for the shower, which they also didn't show.

Corrected entry: It is made clear that the implant in the shoulder was what was preventing Shaw and Marco from dreaming. Why then was Melvin having the dreams, since Rosie confirms that they found the implant in him too?

Correction: They do not say that the computer chip in their shoulder is what prevents the dreams. They even say that Marco was having the dreams before he even discovered the chip.

Corrected entry: When Denzel Washington is taking a shower at Rosie's apartment he examines a scar on his back, right over his left shoulder. However, when he gets out of the shower and is standing in the bathroom and goes to cut open the scar with his knife, the scar has moved to the other side of his back, over his right shoulder.

Correction: The scar appears to switch shoulders because we are seeing it in the reflection of the bathroom mirror (i.e., from Marco's perspective) as he tries to cut it open.

Revealing mistake: When Raymond Shaw's skull is being drilled to implant the chip, bone "dust" comes out. This never happens, since always some blood comes out and the bone debris are mixed with blood and therefore unable to "fly" like wood or plaster debris.

More mistakes in The Manchurian Candidate

Eleanor Shaw: The assassin always dies, baby. It's necessary for the national healing.

More quotes from The Manchurian Candidate

Question: There were two flashbacks of how Raymond Shaw killed one of the soldiers. One scene it showed him suffocating him in the desert with a piece of plastic. In another scene it shows him choking him with his hands in some kind of observation room. Was the desert 'killing', a dream combining the truth with the brainwashing?

Deezul

Chosen answer: Perhaps the piece-of-plastic killing was a "test run" by the brainwashers to see if Raymond would actually react to their commands. You can see other soldiers lying down wearing "halos", hinting that this happened at a different time and place than the observation room choking.

Answer: The plastic bag killing was part of the dream. Many things in the dreams are off. For example in the dream he sees himself handling the pistol while lying in a bed. When we see his actual memory, he is standing, and Shaw hands him the gun, which he immediately uses.

More questions & answers from The Manchurian Candidate

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