Corrected entry: In the beginning of the movie, in the scene when the oil well "blows out," pipe starts flying into the air and oil shoots out everywhere. It does not happen like this. When an oil well "blows out" while drilling, the drilling fluid would be the first to come out, followed by the oil. Besides, the crew would shut the blow out 'preventers' long before the fluid would fly out as forceful as in the movie. Also the pipe would not fly out unless no preventive measures were taken. In a subsequent shot, they show one of the roughnecks turning a valve to shut the well in. In real life, the blow out preventers would have to be closed by actuating a hydraulic closure ram.
Corrected entry: When Bear is on the asteroid lifting the tubes to drop down the hole he is straining to lift them. Since there's minimal gravity on the asteroid, why is he straining? (01:57:20)
Correction: They still have mass you have to exert to lift. Weight is the force of gravity, but human energy still needs to lift and push mass.
Corrected entry: Gruber is around to help disarm the bomb but doesn't seem to be around to make the trip home.
Correction: Gruber is killed during the 'asteroid storm' shortly after the disarming of the bomb.
Correction: Gruber's death from the "asteroid storm" is cut from many networks based on time. This event may have lead to why the nuclear bomb would have to be remotely detonated.
Corrected entry: Considering their space suits are made to measure, where did the Russian get his special anti-zero gravity suit from?
Correction: The suits they use on the asteroid could be universal as we can see two unused suits in the scene when Harry and AJ takes the elevator down for the last time.
Corrected entry: Truman is seen in Florida talking with the astronauts prior to lift-off. From the same command center, he controls the entire mission. But Mission Control for all missions is in Houston, Texas. Once the rocket "clears the tower," Mission Control in Houston takes over. How can Truman be in Florida, then appear in Texas a few seconds later?
Correction: Several hours pass between when the shuttle crews leave the NASA building to board the shuttles, and when they actually launch. Notice how it changes from sunlight to dusk in the shot of the two spacecraft after the astronauts board. The launch control room aka the firing room (the one with all the windows) is very different from the mission control room. There is plenty of time for Truman to fly back to Houston after watching the crews board the crew buses in Florida.
Corrected entry: Throughout the time span the crew was on the asteroid, no signs of any gravitational changes occurred. In fact, the gravity was much like Earth's, even though that's scientifically impossible.
Correction: No, they use their suits to push them down, remember? And the rhythm can get good enough to simulate a somewhat near-gravity environment. They demonstrate this a few times in the film, and only a few specific instances does it go away. You should not generalize with this post. Quote the specific times, like on the shuttle.
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie when they are heading back to earth the astronauts are wearing space suits and the pilots are wearing flying clothes but when they touch down the astronauts are wearing orange uniforms and the pilots blue.
Correction: There was plenty of time between leaving the asteroid and landing one Earth for everyone to put on their flight suits (the orange and blue uniforms).
Correction: They don't need to change the suits, and also they make the return flight in a few minutes.
Character mistake: When Sharp is teaching AJ to remote detonate the bomb, he says to "lift, press, hold" the trigger device. But the actions with the hands are actually "lift, hold, press." Even AJ repeats it wrong. (02:11:00)
Suggested correction: Lift (the cover), press (the button), hold (the button). That's the sequence.
The suggested correction sequence leaves out the trigger. The original mistake entry seems to be accurate. After watching again, Harry lifts the cover off the trigger, holds the trigger, and then presses the button. Lift, hold, press.
Other mistake: If the meteor shower that hits NYC is the same one that destroyed the shuttle, how was so much time able to pass that all the newspapers were able to report on the shuttle before NYC got hit?
Suggested correction: Good question. Nobody says that it's the "same" shower though. All of them come from the bigger rock, and they are coming in intervals. So it could very well be some time had passed between showers. Also, the meteorites that hit the shuttle were much smaller and probably burned up in the atmosphere before bigger ones followed.
Factual error: In the scene with the "lunar roll" (where both shuttles Freedom and Independence are being sling-shot around the moon), they are said to be experiencing "9 and a half G's for 11 minutes". But during this time, the crew members are screaming at the top of their lungs at each other. Under that much pressure it would be nearly impossible to breathe, let alone scream. Even if they're wearing G-suits, with the helmets off, they would be directly exposed to the pressure. (01:18:50)
Suggested correction: Common misconception on the effects of high G on the body. The reason why we see pilots in videos struggling to breath is not the high G, but the breathing technique they use to fight off the blood pressure drop and avoid G-loc. High G only effects are pulling the face down, making the head extremely heavy, and eventually loss of consciousness (G-loc). Also, any mention of pressure is irrelevant, as acceleration (high G) and pressure are two completely unrelated topics.
It sounds like you're saying without proper breathing techniques, they would have experienced "G-loc." So if the crew is talking/yelling and not properly breathing, they should have experienced "G-loc." And I don't know who taught you math and science, but Pressure = Force/Area. And Force = Mass x Acceleration. So pressure is 100% related to acceleration and G's.
Corrected entry: At the very end, when the camera pans across the attendees of Grace's wedding, we see the stand-ins and not the real cast. Chick's stand-in doesn't look anything like him and for awhile I thought it was the loanshark, but why would he be sitting in the front row of Grace's wedding? Apparently, those that survived the asteroid couldn't tolerate a Ben Affleck wedding and sent representatives on their behalf.
Correction: The people in the front row are the cast. The man sitting next to Chick's (ex)wife isn't Chick's stand-in. I believe this is supposed to be Harry's father, Hollis Vernon Grap Stamper, who is in a black tux. During the camcorder-like pictures during the credits we can see Chick himself in a white tux standing behind A.J.
Correction: Indeed, it is mostly the real cast, but that is Steve Buscemi's stand-in, for sure.
Corrected entry: In the beginning, when Bruce Willis is hitting golf balls off the oil rig, he gets ticked off and throws the golf club off the rig. When he storms into AJ's room, he's holding a golf club.
Correction: He does throw the club, but then he picks up another one before seeing AJ.
Correction: A standard set of golf equipment includes multiple types of clubs. If Harry plays regularly enough to take a set with him, it's likely he owns more than one club.
Trivia: Ben Affleck once stated in an interview that "I once asked Michael Bay why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts that it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers, and he told me to shut the fuck up, so that was the end of it."
Suggested correction: He stated it in the Criterion DVD commentary.
Correction: They seem to forget that Harry stated the reason he shut down that well was because the blowout preventer was not functioning.