Corrected entry: There is no such thing as a fully booked flight, especially a long-haul flight like the one Mrs. McCallister needs. Two or three seats are always kept spare in case of emergencies like this one. If not required they are given or sold cheaply to airline employees. If an airline would not find her a seat the U.S. Embassy in Paris would. One phone call from an embassy staffer and Mrs. McCallister would be on a flight. She is not stupid - she would know exactly what to do.
Correction: Unless two or three of the other millions of people in all of Paris happened to have some sort of an emergency (or even faked one to get a seat) and also needed a flight that same day. Not terrifically unlikely, especially during the holiday season.
Not terrifically unlikely, terrifically impossible. There are eighty flights from Charles de Gaulle airport to the east coast of the USA every day and a similar number from Paris Orly. Mrs McAllister would be on one of those flights even if that meant forcibly removing a paying passenger to accommodate her. That's not my opinion, it's a fact.
I recognize the validity of the 'Emergency Flight Accommodation" deals mentioned above, but here's the thing-a major part of the movie (however unbelievable) is that nobody except Mrs. McAllister recognizes that the situation is an emergency. Take the earlier scene, where a cop is sent over: He knocks on the door a few times. We know that Kevin is home, just hiding under the bed. With no answer, he mutters into his walkie-talkie to "count their kids again", and drives off. That's. It. No further investigation, no repeat police visit. It's basically like Mrs. McAllister is an unreliable woman-who-cried-wolf. Given this, why the hell would an airline in this same 'world' start jostling passengers around and messing with its itinerary? Now that I think about it, a lot of this movie is like a nightmare about a Cassandra Complex, lol.
Corrected entry: The McCalisters overslept because the power was out. They wake up to the airport shuttle drivers knocking on the door. When they are leaving the house the electrician from the power company tells them he got the power back on. Later on the plane Mrs McCalister says she forgot to turn off the coffee pot, Mr McCalister says he turned off the coffee. The power was out so the coffee pot couldn't have been on.
Correction: The power went out during the night, but by the time they woke up it was back on (notice the clock radio was on, just with the wrong time). They likely made themselves coffee while everyone was rushing to get ready.
Correction: The power was back on when they woke as the alarm clock was on just not the correct time. So they could have made a pot of coffee prior to departure.
Corrected entry: If the water Kevin poured on the steps froze almost instantly, it would be too cold outside for the tar he put on some steps to still be soft and sticky enough to adhere to Marvin's feet.
Correction: The tarred steps are inside the house, in the basement. The temperature outside is irrelevant as far as they are concerned.
I was thinking it was done outside in the dark. Now I'd question if tar would stay that sticky - even inside a basement. When the temperature outside is below freezing, my basement is relatively cold.
Corrected entry: Kevin can manage to do the shopping, and work out how to use the washing machine; and yet he needed his mum to help pack his suitcase?
Correction: All mothers see their kids as helpless, and all kids usually end up taking advantage of it.
Correction: This is a major theme of the movie. Kevin (and his family) learn that he's not helpless. He could have packed his suitcase if he'd actually tried.
Corrected entry: After Kevin leaves the church where he's talking with the old man he runs home to make a game plan to protect his house. Kevin runs up the walkway to the front door and walks right in - using no key. Was it unlocked the whole time?
Correction: Maybe it was. It's possible Kevin doesn't have a key to the house or doesn't know where a spare set is. I wasn't given a key to my house by my parents until I was probably twelve. If he doesn't have a key, then he has to leave the door unlocked whenever he goes out, lest he locks himself out of the house. Ultimately, an unlocked door is not a movie mistake.
Corrected entry: When Kevin prepares the house to defend it against the bandits, he pours water over the steps at the front door and on the stairs to the basement. The water freezes practically immediately. In a later shot, when Kevin is running from the bandits to his neighbours house, you see that the street is covered with puddles of (liquid) water.
Correction: The street may have been salted, which would cause ice or snow to melt into puddles. At the same time, an unsalted surface (as in the steps) would continue to accumulate ice.
Correction: Remember Kevin's neighbour salts the sidewalks each night so it may have been from him.
Corrected entry: Marv is walking up steps covered in tar in the basement. He gets some tar on his feet and we see it in the nail scene. When he falls and grabs his feet, his feet are clean from then on.
Correction: His feet are not clean from then on. Although the shot referred to is not clear the next scene shows him leaving the basement barefoot with tar on the soles and sides of his feet. He even leaves black footprints on his way out.
Corrected entry: When Kevin orders his own cheese pizza and has it delivered, he has some fun with the delivery guy. He plays the video in which someone gets shot and killed. The pizza guy is obviously scared and runs away, believing that he is being shot at. Surely someone who thinks they have just been threatened by a gun would either call the police or investigate further. And if the police got a call of that nature, they would definitely check it out.
Correction: The pizza boy probably realised he'd been pranked a minute later when he calmed down and realised how silly the situation was. Also, the man with the gun did pay for his pizza, even if the tip was lousy.
Correction: I was a pizza boy for a while, I assure you, this isn't all that worse from the way they treat us for real. The man is probably used to this.
Correction: He was probably so terrified that he just bolted and the police never even crossed his mind.
Not necessarily true. When he returns to the shop and people see he is terrified they would ring police after he explained.
OK, so he calls the police when he gets back to the shop, or stops someplace to find a phone. The cops go out and find no bullet holes in the door or walls and no signs that the place had been shot up. Where's the crime?
Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes outside the first time and sees the cars in the garage, the light isn't on. When it shows the garage again in the next shot, the light is on. (00:20:25)
Suggested correction: The light could be motion activated. Either Kevin's movement or passing vehicles could have turned it on, regardless of the time of day. I have motion detector lights in my carport and they constantly go on and off in the daytime if it's low-light and cars pass by fast enough. People walking their dogs can also activate it if they are close enough. They sometimes stay on until I have to manually turn the power off, then on again.
That would explain it only if the light came on when Kevin "activated" it. It stays off during the first scene, and he doesn't make any motion towards the garage when the camera is on him. Nor do we see any vehicles or people pass behind him.
How likely is it that this movie - taken in 1990 - had access to the developed technology that we have today, to make automatic lights turn on?
Infrared motion sensors were around in the 80s.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Kevin is sentenced to the third floor, you can see that the roof joists of this house are open and un-insulated, making this attic way too cold for use as a spare bedroom - something a resident of "Shermer, Illinois" and not southern California would know.
Correction: We never saw the full room, there could be a heater somewhere in there keeping it warm. In my house there is no working furnace so it also gets very cold here, so we have heaters.
Correction: Look closely and you will see some type of heater in the attic.
Corrected entry: At the beginning of the movie, Jeff McCallister throws his bag down the stairs vertically, yet, the bag lands horizontally at Joe Pesci's feet.
Correction: As that's a "depending" reply, you have to go with what we see and that's that the bag ending up horizontal at his feet. It should have been vertical.
Your logic is backward. What we see on screen is the bag rotating. Unless the movie shows something that indicates it could not happen, it is not a mistake.
It's a movie mistake without question.
Correction: Depending on the weight packed inside and the angle at which it was thrown, the bag may have rotated in midair.
Factual error: When Kevin's mom leaves Paris to return home, the plane shown departing the airport is a DC-9. No airline uses this plane for trans-Atlantic service - it doesn't have the required range.
Suggested correction: Although not explicitly mentioned, it could be a connecting flight which departs Europe from another airport. In this case, flying a short or medium range aircraft to reach a hub airport like Heathrow would be plausible.
They stopped at an intermediate airport to catch a connecting flight and still nobody noticed Kevin was missing? Absolute rubbish. The posting is absolutely correct.
This is a mistake on the trip home, by which point they already noticed Kevin was missing. They had a non-stop flight going there.
Nonsense. With a maximum fuel load, the DC9 had a range of 1450 nautical miles (2685 km). If they stopped to refuel at Shannon airport in Ireland - which is closer to New York than Heathrow - they would still have to fly 2878 nautical miles (5330 km) to reach New York. They are going for a very long swim.
Factual error: Kate flies American Airlines to Scranton, but that airline did not serve Scranton in 1990. Also, a DC-10 is too big to be serviced at Scranton.
Suggested correction: Air Force One, which is quite a bit larger than a DC-10, has landed at Scranton in the past (https://wnep.com/2013/08/22/air-force-one-lands-in-scranton/). Just because DC-10s don't generally land there doesn't mean they can't.
They are much more likely to make an exception for Air Force One than the are for a single family unless it was for something wrong with the flight or an emergency on the flight, not for a connecting flight to Chicago or a chance at a connecting flight.
The idea is that DC-10s can land there for whatever reason.
Kate landed at Dallas first, then flew to Scranton. This is revealed in Kate's rant at the ticket agent.
Air Force One would park at GA parking, not at the terminal. The DC-10 that lands would have very likely parked at a gate for only 737s and smaller.
Continuity mistake: When Kevin is hiding in the nativity set, you can see him on the right, just covered in the green robe. When it changes to the close up shot, he's now holding a shepherd's staff, which would have been visible in the previous shot.
Suggested correction: There is a staff but it's hard to see. If you squint a little, you will see it.
Then you're seeing something else because it would be easy to spot and there's nothing there.
Kevin is definitely holding the staff in all shots, you can see the curved head of the staff against the background.
Visible crew/equipment: When Kevin first realises he's home alone and goes into Buzz's room, there is the leg of a crew member to the bottom right of the picture (wearing jeans). (00:19:20)
Suggested correction: Not visible at all.
Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes to the grocery, he buys Tide detergent. While walking home, the two bags break, but no Tide detergent falls out.
Other mistake: When Gus Polinski talks about his music, he mispronounces "Daj mi buzi" (Die-Me-Boo-Gee) as "Domavougi." "Daj mi buzi" is Polish for "Give Me a Kiss."
Suggested correction: I think this is meant to be a "deliberate mistake ", which didn't show up as an option to suggest making the change elsewhere (under "edit"). It appears to be part of the comedy - he should know how to pronounce it. Another opinion would be helpful.
Corrected entry: When Marv is trying to break into the basement with the crowbar but slips on the ice, he hooks the crowbar on the sill of the door and then slips again. The crowbar then falls on his head. The mistake is that when he slips and the crowbar is hanging it is not hooked on the sill of the door, but is obviously hanging by a wire as it swings freely in front of the door.
Correction: The crowbar doesn't hang by a wire, there's a raised panel about an inch inside the more visible edge, which the crowbar snags on for a second, pivots on and then falls off.
Revealing mistake: In the scene where John Candy and Catherine O'Hara are in the van and John Candy plays the clarinet, he never changes the positions of his fingers, but he plays a different note.
Suggested correction: He does move his fingers while playing his clarinet.
Correction: Airlines routinely remove passengers from flights in order to accommodate people who require emergency transport. Just ask Dr David Dao, who was forcibly dragged off a United Airlines flight to make room for another passenger. His is just the most notable case. In fact it happens all the time.
If someone thought to call the embassy.
If Mrs McAllister didn't - and nothing in her character suggests that she is so stupid as to neglect such a vital fact - the one of the airline staff to whom she tells her story either would have told her to or would have done so on her behalf. That is an essential part of their training. As one poster said, it happens all the time.