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Plot hole: Revelations in this film create a potential plot hole in Episode IV, in which Vader says Princess Leia is his only link to learning the location of the Rebel base. In this film, Vader captures the Profundity (Raddus' command ship), which is transporting the Tantive IV in its cargo hold. Vader then watches the Tantive IV fly away with the Death Star plans, leading into the beginning of A New Hope in which he captures that ship. So, the first question is, were there no survivors of the Profundity Vader could interrogate to learn of the location of the Rebel base (assuming the navicomputer has been scrubbed). Even if the entire crew were killed, in A New Hope we see several crewmembers of the Tantive IV have been captured. This film shows that the Tantive IV was at Yavin prior to the battle (evidenced by R2-D2 and C-3PO in the hangar). That then raises the question of why Vader couldn't have interrogated those other crewmembers to learn the location of Yavin as the Rebel base.

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Factual error: The movie seems utterly ignorant of the 25th Amendment. According to the 25th Amendment, the VP and a majority of the cabinet can declare the president incapacitated if he is not in a position to do so himself, such as the coma Trumball was in. This is a textbook example of why that provision of the amendment was implemented. Yet the movie goes straight from the doctors saying Trumball was in a coma to showing the VP being sworn in as acting president (which is a dubious movie/TV trope on its own). Granted, maybe the implementation of the 25th amendment happened offscreen somehow. But later, an advisor says there's no precedent for a president to resume power from an acting VP. The 25th Amendment actually spells this out - the president submits a written declaration to Congress that he is fit to serve. And there is precedent for this, as both Reagan and Bush43 stepped down temporarily for medical procedures and resumed power shortly after.

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16th Nov 2019

Cheers (1982)

Ill-Gotten Gaines - S11-E8

Character mistake: Cliff tests Norm's memory by asking him who the bad guy in 'Herbie The Love Bug' was (presumably meaning the first movie, which was just 'The Love Bug, ' no Herbie in the title, and not the TV series that actually had the 'Herbie, the Love Bug' title). Norm answers Keenan Wynn, and is told by Cliff that is correct and that his memory is OK. Wynn was the antagonist in the second movie, 'Herbie Rides Again' (reprising his role from the 'Absent-Minded Professor'). The bad guy in 'The Love Bug' was played by David Tomlinson of 'Mary Poppins' fame.

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Continuity mistake: Iron Man, Cap, Ant-Man and Hulk are shown leaping into 2012 just as the original six Avengers formed their circle. Cap then immediately begins reminding the team of their assignments. The dialogue is continuous so there is no time compression involved. Within 10 seconds of their arrival, they watch 2012 Hulk jump into a nearby street and begins smashing Chitauri and jumping on a car. However, in the original film, after the Avengers form the circle, the events that follow include Loki ordering more troops, then Cap giving orders to the rest of the team to hold them off, ending with the order for Hulk to "smash." Hulk then jumps up and starts fighting Chitauri along the sides of buildings before being knocked down into the street, where he could have presumably landed where the 2023 team sees him (the original film cuts to Thor at this point). These events in the original film take at least a minute to unfold in real time. (01:07:35)

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Continuity mistake: The first time period the film cuts to after the quantum jump is New York 2012, and shows the clip of the six original Avengers assembled for the first time, forming a circle, as seen in the 2012 film, It then cuts to new footage from this film - an overhead shot of the original team that then pans over to the alley where the future versions arrive. In the original footage, to Hulk's left and in front of Hawkeye are two overturned cars, then a couple of cabs in a row. However, in the overhead shot, in this spot there is just a bunch of rubble from the damaged streets, and a single car right-side up, and no cabs where they should be. Also, there should probably be pieces of a leviathan creature lying around too since Iron Man blew one up just before they formed up. In the original film the creature crashed and then fell over the side of the raised road onto the lower road. But nothing indicating this is visible in the overhead shot. (01:07:25)

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16th Jul 2019

Stranger Things (2016)

Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy? - S3-E1

Factual error: When Dustin's toy collection "comes to life" (thanks to Eleven), one of the robots is the Transformer Ultra Magnus. Though it appears to be modified with a motorized engine that the actual toy didn't have, that's not the mistake, as there no reason Dustin couldn't have modified it. The error is that the season is set in July 1985, but Ultra Magnus wasn't released in the U.S. until 1986. (Yes, the toy was available as a Diaclone in Japan, but in a different color scheme. Dustin's has the coloring of the U.S. version, and even if he somehow ended up with the Diaclone version, it's highly unlikely he would have repainted a Japanese toy to resemble a Transformer he wouldn't know about the existence of yet, as the 'Transformers' animated movie wasn't released until August 1986).

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28th May 2019

Veep (2012)

Inauguration - S5-E10

Factual error: The show depicts the vote ending in a 50-50 tie, and then shows VP Doyle casting a tie-breaking vote for Montez (which the show then erroneously treats as Montez being elected president - she would simply be the VP "acting as president" for as long as the House fails to resolve the stalemate). 67 senators have to cast votes for the meeting to count, and 51 votes are needed to be VP. A 50-50 tie in this case. The 12th amendment actually provides a procedural exception to the tie-breaking power, by stating that the majority of whole Senators, in this case, 51, are necessary for the selection of the VP. As the vice president is not a senator, his vote would not have an effect on reaching the necessary 51, and thus a 50-50 vote would simply trigger a new ballot, and the senate would continue to vote until someone is elected. In this regard, the show makes another mistake with an on-screen graphic identifying Doyle as a senator, and not the vice president, who while given the constitutional role of president of the senate is not actually a senator.

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28th May 2019

Veep (2012)

Show generally

Plot hole: In season five, the show depicts the aftermath of an Electoral College tie. The procedure in this case should be the House holding subsequent ballots until a president is elected. On the show, however, Tom James convinces the Speaker of the House to hold one ballot, and then not vote again. James' plan is to win the Senate vote for VP, then act as president for four years before being elected to two full terms as actual president. James is outmaneuvered and his rival Montez is elected VP, and subsequently acts as president for the remainder of the series. After season 5, the show makes no mention of the House ever taking up a vote for president again, and the show simply treats Montez as the actual president. A Speaker of the House blocking the election of a new president would likely cause a political uprising from supports of both candidates, and both candidates would rightly take to the airwaves to demand a new vote. The idea of a power-hungry politician such as Selina, who uses every trick in the book to promote herself and elevate her own power, putting up no fight is just bizarre.

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14th Apr 2019

Holmes & Watson (2018)

Factual error: Though the movie is playing with historical events for "laughs," it should at least be pointed out for the record that Queen Victoria died in 1901, and the Titanic didn't launch until 1912 (and its construction didn't even start until 1909). So, obviously, there's no way Victoria could have toured it before its maiden voyage. (And the movie acknowledges that it's supposed to be THE Titanic since it shows Moriarty reading a newspaper reporting that it sank, to say nothing of the Billy Zane cameo).

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14th Jan 2019

Moonraker (1979)

Factual error: The station's gravity is turned on and off several times before and during the battle. The film establishes the gravity is on because the station is rotating. Bond and Holly turn off the gravity to prevent the Americans from being shot down. Then, after the American Marine shuttle docks, gravity is restored and is never seen being deactivated again. However, the station begins to take on serious damage from the battle and literally begins falling apart. Even setting aside the fact that the mass shifts would affect the station's ability to produce gravity, the external shots of the damaged station don't indicate it's even rotating anymore, but everyone inside is still able to move around as if gravity is still active up to the final destruction of the station.

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12th Jan 2019

First Man (2018)

Factual error: As depicted in the film, the lunar lander touches down and settles onto the surface of the moon (as shown by the shaking of the landscape stopping). Buzz then reports a "contact light" and Neil orders the engines turned off. In reality, three of the LEM's legs had probes extended for a couple of feet below them, and the contact light would activate when one of the probes touched the surface. This meant the ship was still several feet from touchdown, so the astronauts would turn off the engine and let the moon's gravity complete the landing cycle. So either the film's depiction of the contact light being called would be several seconds too late, or the actual touchdown is depicted as being too early. Take your pick.

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11th Jan 2019

First Man (2018)

Factual error: The Apollo 11 lander Eagle detaches from command module Columbia with its landing legs already extended. Neil is then shown saying "the Eagle has wings" as if to mean the ship is flying on its own. Actually, the ship's legs wouldn't be extended until after the undocking. It was the extension of the legs that prompted Neil's quote about the Eagle having wings.

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5th Nov 2018

Apollo 13 (1995)

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)

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6th Feb 2018

Air Force One (1997)

Character mistake: At the end of the movie, the rescue plane changes its callsign to Air Force One because the protocol is "Air Force One" is the callsign for any U.S. military plane (or, more specifically, an Air Force Plane) with the President on board, not just the blue and white 747. Thus, it would not be used for a plane on which the president is not on board. This is an important detail considering that for most of the middle section of the film, the terrorists believe the president has escaped and that they are dealing with a random secret service agent resisting them. The vice president and other administration officials dealing with the terrorists don't want them to know the president is still on board, as it could motivate the terrorists to threaten his family further. So, when the fuel tanker shows up to refuel the plane and addresses it as "Air Force One" to give instructions on the procedure, they are inadvertently confirming that the president is on board. To maintain the ruse, they should use the callsign "SAM-28000" or "Air Force 28000" when talking to the terrorists, referring to the plane's tail number. Similarly, any time an official makes a statement about the incident in public, they could refer to the plane as "28000" to keep up the ruse to the press (though it's not uncommon to refer to the 747s as "Air Force One" for the sake of simplicity in casual or non-official capacities, an instance of one plane communicating with another would not be).

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2nd Nov 2017

Space Camp (1986)

Plot hole: The shuttle achieves its accidental orbit, and in need of oxygen they decide to go into a higher orbit to rendezvous with the space station and borrow some tanks stored there. If the shuttle is as ill-prepared for flight as the ground controllers keep saying it is (as it lacks backup oxygen and a communications system), it is highly unlikely the shuttle would have enough fuel to pull off the maneuver to enter a higher orbit (especially given how much fuel was burned off during the test before the accidental launch was triggered). Typically shuttles were launched during specific time frames (launch windows) to enable them to achieve the necessary orbit for their mission directly from launch (such as going to the International Space Station). One of the reasons a damaged Columbia, for example, couldn't unload its astronauts at the ISS was that, aside from not having a docking module, is that it was in a different orbital plane and didn't have the fuel to speed up to the ISS's orbit (which, it is said, would have been roughly equivalent to the fuel needed for takeoff). And even if the orbiter did have enough fuel to pull off the orbit adjustment, it just raises the question of why NASA felt the need to mount the shuttle on two fully operational SRBs and give it all that extra fuel when all they wanted to do was test the orbiter engine (for which empty mockup SRBs would have sufficed if the test really needed to be done on the pad). What is the point of fully mounting a shuttle if it's not for a mission to the point where you don't bother to install life-support or communications?

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Character mistake: When discussing the potential fallout of ousting the new president, Douglas says that because there's no vice president that according to the 25th Amendment the Speaker of the House is next in line. Not true. The Amendment itself is silent on the order of succession after the Vice President. The Constitution leaves the order of succession after that up to Congress, and the Speaker of the House is listed according to the Succession Act of 1947, not the 25th Amendment.

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18th Jul 2017

Fast & Furious 8 (2017)

Deliberate mistake: The coordinates listed for Hobbs' soccer game (34.1381N, 118.3534W) at the beginning are not actually a wooded suburban area with a recreational field, but are in fact the longitude and latitude for the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park in Los Angeles. (00:15:20)

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23rd May 2017

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

Factual error: During Travers' trip to Disneyland, several aspects of modern Disneyland can still be seen in the background despite filmmakers' attempts to work around them. In 1961, the opening of the park was gated with a chain-link fence and paved with asphalt, the iron gate and pavers seen in the film were added decades later. The planter retaining wall, in front of which Walt is standing, was concrete, not brick, which was added in 1999. There are good pictures for comparison here: http://www.yesterland.com/entrance.html As Walt and Travers board the King Arthur Carrousel, hints of the new Fantasyland that debuted in 1983 can be seen. This expansion changed the theming of Fantasyland behind the castle from Renaissance Faire tents to a Medieval village. The Carrousel was pushed back and the planters at the entrance seen in the film were added. In 1961 the Carrousel was surrounded by little more than a chain-rope. The modern stone village look of Fantasyland can be seen several times in the background as they approach the Carrousel and ride on it, although some signage has been placed in the background to emulate how things would have worked in the 1960s (such as each ride requiring its own cost or ticket to get on) - the 10-cent sign is historically accurate. On the Carrousel itself, the pictures from Sleeping Beauty on the inner core of the ride weren't added until later.

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Continuity mistake: When Kylo Ren interrogates Rey, he removes his helmet and sets it down on a table of ashes. This table is not present in any of the wider shots of the interrogation room. [Director JJ Abrams has stated that the closeup of the ashes (the ashes of his victims, apparently) was actually from an earlier scene taking place in Kylo Ren's quarters on the star destroyer, which explains why the table is not visible in the Starkiller Base interrogation room. Still a mistake but there's the reason.] (01:26:25)

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Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Benji imagines putting on a mask of an agent he plans to impersonate, when the camera pans around to first show the mirror, the mirror Benji's hands are further up on his face than the reflection, and the mirror Benji's hands move down his face slightly before the reflection starts to move them. Also, the mole that Ethan has on his left cheek isn't reversed in the mirror image. The "mirror" was actually a hole in the wall between two identical sets (one mirrored), with Simon Pegg and a Tom Cruise double in the foreground, and the mask actor and Tom Cruise in the background "mirror" set. (00:57:20)

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