Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: Miller and his men finally find Ryan in the scene where Ryan destroys a German half track with a bazooka. The camera does not show Ryan firing the bazooka, but you hear the blast and see the effect of the shot hitting the half track, firing twice in about a three second interval. The problem is that a bazooka is a single shot weapon, and must be reloaded by hand. This takes time, perhaps 20 seconds if not more.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: On horseback, Bathsheba pursues Gabriel, and asks him not to abandon her. He mounts her horse, and helps her up, sitting behind him. The shot only shows her top half, because she is obviously standing on some sort of lift. Neither actor's effort is appropriate for lifting someone off the ground onto the back of a horse.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: As the Hudson-Athens ferry capsizes, Tom Cruise and his two children are almost crushed as a car slides off the ferry and quickly sinks, going straight to the bottom. We see that this sedan-style car has people in it, and that the windows are closed, so the passenger compartment has not yet flooded. It is still full of air. A sedan full of air would not quickly sink. It would briefly float on the surface, then slowly submerge as the passenger compartment floods.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: The firearms of that era did not use smokeless propellant (i.e. gunpowder). None of the shots fired in this film produced anywhere near the black smoke that would have been realistic.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: When the Indian band finds the body of Glass's son, one of them clears the snow off his face and touches the skin. The skin is easily indented by the touch, like the skin of a living person, This scene is in the winter in the high frozen mountains. The boy had been dead for at least a day, and the body should have been frozen rock solid.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: The mine that Rooster fires his pistol into is shown to go far into the hillside. A lot of digging has occurred here. However, the exterior shot of the mine shows no mine tailings whatsoever. There should have been a substantial amount of removed rock outside the entrance.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, Patton is reviewing Morrocan troops during a formal parade. This includes a scene of camel mounted soldiers at attention lined up side by side. These soldiers are armed with the French MAT 49 submachine gun. This weapon was first manufactured in 1949, several years after World War Two had ended.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: In the Yellowstone sequence, Jackson drives the RV looking for Charlie. They drive past a sign saying "Mount Big Horn". There is no Mount Big Horn in Yellowstone. There is, however, a Big Horn Peak outside the park to the north east.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: Parts of the scene where the brightly lit alien mothership passes directly over Devil's Tower are shot with the camera looking almost directly up, as would be the view from the people below. In these scenes, Devil's Tower remains totally dark despite having this huge light source directly above. The mothership is so huge that a shadow cannot explain this darkness.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: Holmes and Watson's first encounter with the French giant results in a large steel ship, still under construction, being prematurely launched and then sunk. As it sinks, this ship, which is more than 30 meters long, stands on its bow. There is absolutely nowhere in the River Thames near London where the water is that deep.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: When Jaguar Paw runs into the huge pit of corpses, all is completely quiet and still. No people or animals are to be seen. This much unprotected meat in the topics would attract hundreds of vultures and other scavengers.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: When American Cosair fighter planes strafe the Japanese soldiers with their machine guns, only two columns of bullets are seen striking the ground. These planes had six machine guns; there should be six columns.

Bruce Trestrail

Factual error: When Danny and Evelyn take a joy ride in a P-40, they speak to each other in soft, romantic tones. In reality, they would have had to scream at each other to be heard over the noise of the plane's engine.

Bruce Trestrail