Apollo 13

Apollo 13 (1995)

6 mistakes since 5 Nov '18, 00:00

(12 votes)

Apollo 13 mistake picture

Factual error: During the launch sequence, a car that appears to be from the 1990's is parked in the background. (00:30:15)

RymoMymo

Factual error: In the movie, Henry tells a White House rep that Blackout lasts for 3 minutes, and if they are not back in 4, then they'll know they didn't survive. This is actually not correct. During the Apollo program, blackout typically lasted about 4 minutes. Also, Apollo 13's re-entry blackout in fact lasted 6 minutes, not 4 as seen in the movie, which was 87 seconds longer than predicted.

Factual error: When astronauts are wearing their spacesuits before launch, we can see NASA's "snake logo" introduced in 1975, when the plot is happening in 1970. (00:28:29)

Factual error: On July 20, 1969, the moon phase was waxing crescent. In the movie, on the eve of the moon landing, the moon is shown in waxing gibbous phase when Lovell (Hanks) covers the moon with his thumb. (00:06:02)

Apollo 13 mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: During Marilyn Lovell's nightmare, the crew experiences cabin decompression. Right when the master alarm goes off, you see a piece of monofilament attached to Jim Lovell's suit hose, used to try and simulate zero G to make the hose appear to be floating. (00:13:20)

Matdan97

Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the "Failure Is Not an Option" scene, Gene writes "45 hrs" on the chalkboard. In the close-up as he writes it, the front of the 4 is curved into the spine, and the 5 is written with a flat top and flat back leading into the curve underneath. Then, Gene puts a period after "hrs." When the shot cuts wide, the 5 looks more like an S and the top of the five is curled back under. The spine of the 4 has become much longer as well. When Gene walks back to the board at the end of the scene, the front of the 4 is more angular than curved, and the 5 still looks like an S but the curl under the top line is gone. And, once the shot changes away from Gene writing it, the period after "hrs" disappears for the rest of the scene. (01:15:50 - 01:17:45)

Vader47000

Gene Kranz: I don't care about what anything was *designed* to do. I care about what it *can* do.

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More trivia for Apollo 13

Question: Did the interior of the Apollo 13 spacecraft really become cold, and frosty as shown in the movie?

Answer: From what I have read, according to the real astronauts, it was not as cold in the capsule as was depicted in the film. The movie exaggerated that for dramatic effect.

raywest

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