Corrected entry: Some more errors about Princess Isabella: at the height of William Wallace's rebellion Edward I sends her as an ambassador to negotiate with Wallace (and spy on the Scots) instead she falls in love with Wallace. Princess Isabella was born in 1292: Wallace's rebellion was at its height during 1297-8, so she could have been no more than 6 at the time. (Somebody else has already observed that she was only 13 at the time of Wallace's execution.) Isabella's first language would (obviously) have been French, a 13th century Scotsman would speak either a heavily accented Scottish version of English, or Scots Gaelic, but Isabella has no communication difficulties in Scotland. The Wallace-Isabella affair is also absurd, since it is implausible that, at the height of a war, an unaccompanied young woman, let alone a princess engaged to the heir to the throne of England, would be sent into the heart of a war zone as an envoy and a spy.
Greg Dwyer
8th Jul 2018
Braveheart (1995)
10th Jun 2018
Flight of the Phoenix (2004)
Corrected entry: At the end of the film we learn that all of the survivors lived happily ever after and went on to enjoy hugely successful careers in their chosen fields. Haven't they forgotten something? Elliot committed a cold blooded murder, shooting dead a wounded nomad because he would have interfered with their construction plans. Self defence is one thing but shooting an injured man in the head in order to conserve water is an entirely different matter. Obviously the Chinese authorities are going to visit the site as soon as the story breaks and they are going to want to know who shot one of the citizens dead, and why. Elliot is going to face a range of serious charges and will be extradited to China to face trial.
Correction: There is no indication that any of the survivors would have told about the man Elliot killed. The nomads wouldn't have told either, as they committed several murders before that and tried to kill them after as well. Elliot also basically put him out of his misery. He was dead anyway.
The Chinese would not have allowed the murder of one of their citizens to go unpunished. We are dealing with a legal system that executes people for crimes that would incur a suspended jail sentence anywhere else. They would not accept euthanasia as a defence, either. Elliot would be on a plane back to China whether he liked it or not.
The USA and China don't have an extradition treaty. China could ask, the US would most likely tell them tough luck, and Elliot would still get to live a happy and successful life. Couldn't ever return to China, but I'm sure he'd cope.
Wrong. If an American citizen commits a crime such as murder or assault or other violent crimes, the American citizen is going to be charged regardless of where the crimes were committed. Even if the crime was committed in a country with which the US doesn't have an extradition treaty, They have have other ways to you charge for your crimes. They don't have to extradite you for you to be charged.
Citation? Because with zero evidence the US isn't going to take China's word for it and charge him themselves. And China can charge him with a crime without him present, and...then what? The charge may technically exist, but it won't affect his life in any meaningful way. And as the original correction notes, officials may want to know what happened, but that doesn't mean they'll find out. This entry is massive conjecture at best.
If evidence to US, like a picture of the body, or a video of the person murdering someone, and you are an American then US will charge you, and sentence you to prison. The only way court would truly decide that you cannot be charged because the crime was committed outside of the US is if you are non-American. We don't know if Elliot is an American citizen.
Again... Citation? A photo of a body isn't evidence. Without evidence you can't be charged. And given the lack of info and detail in the film this is all hypothetical conjecture which still doesn't constitute a mistake.
What about a video of you murdering someone? Would that not prove your guilty?
If you want to have a detailed debate about extradition treaties and what evidence would or wouldn't exist and justify someone being charged with a crime, great, but here isn't the place. The above mistake claims Elliot would face charges and be extradited to China. There's no evidence of his crimes and no extradition treaty with China. People get away with crimes every day. The sole opportunity for evidence is eyewitness testimony, as the correction above points out, and no-one would say anything, plus it would be questionable at best. As such the "mistake" is invalid, end of story.
The Chinese government would first have to know about the murder before they could do anything about it. Given how the sand shifts during the storm after he is killed, enough to at least cover the Phoenix, there is little chance they would ever find the body.
17th Jan 2005
Tin Cup (1996)
Corrected entry: In the final round Roy hits an errant second shot and his ball lands near a portaloo. He then hits the ball and purposely ricochets the ball off it. The rules states that if an object is not a permanent fixture on the course you can get relief, such as grandstands and camera towers. It's highly implausible that a professional golfer would not take advantage of that rule.
Correction: Roy is a professional golfer. It is his profession. He is not a 'Tour Professional'. He runs a driving range, giving out lessons and thus gets paid. There are many references to him being a 'pro' during the film. Professional golfers don't always play on golf tours. There are club professionals, coaching professionals etc etc. All have professional status and registered with the applicable governing body such as the uspga or the PGA. And, if they qualify for (in this case) the U.S. Open, they would play as professionals against the 'Tour Professionals' and anyone else who has qualified such as Amateurs, other qualifiers, wild cards and invitees etc.
Correction: Roy is NOT a professional golfer. That is his problem, he is reckless and takes absurd risks which often get him into trouble.
It's possible the port a potty is a permanent structure, being on the course at all times for golfers to use.
Correction: Either way, the port-a-potty isn't in his way. Roy's ball is stuck right behind a tree and he is using the port-a-potty to ricochet the ball. If he had it moved and went that way, he'd just be deeper into the woods.
25th Mar 2018
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
Question: I've heard that Lucius was right in Voldemort's inner circle so why is he treated even worse than Pettigrew?
Answer: In addition, Lucius is directly responsible for the destruction of his first horcrux, the diary, for the frivolous reason of trying to discredit Arthur Weasley.
Voldemort was angry with Lucius because he repeatedly failed him. Lucius smuggled the Diary Horcrux into Hogwarts via Ginny, the plan failed. Lucius also failed to retrieve the prophecy orb from the Ministry of Magic, resulting in a huge battle and certain Death Eaters being sent to Azkaban prison. Voldemort usually severely punished anyone who failed him.
Except Voldemort was still in hiding in Albania when Lucius did this. He never told Lucius to give it to Ginny.
Lucius took advantage of an opportunity to use Ginny to get the Diary into Hogwarts rather than as an act to discredit Arthur. He couldn't risk giving it to Draco, who he would not have trusted to carry out the mission.
Except that Lucius putting Tom Riddles' diary into Ginny's cauldron happened in "The Chamber Of Secrets." Not in this movie. The question was why Voldemort treated Lucius even worse then Pettigrew.
It might have happened in an earlier movie, but that doesn't mean Voldemort forgot.
20th Dec 2017
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Corrected entry: During the bombardment of the republic ships by the first order, the shots have a flight pattern that looks very much like a balistic curve. There is no gravity source strong enough anywhere nearby to account for this curve.
Correction: This is a fictional technology set in a fictional universe. We do not know the type of energy the weapon uses, therefore we can't say how it should or should not behave. Also, the ships are enormous, and therefore have their own gravitational effect due to their mass, which could account for this.
Correction: While the first is a possibility, that in some way they are able to have some kind of guided laser-torpedo something or other, but the gravity explanation is impossible. If it's guided energy, it would take gravitational fields on the order of massive planets and above to even start to bend the light. These ships are not that massive. If you want to use the "but they have artificial gravity" argument, if it were that powerful a field to affect light and quasi-light objects as is proposed, especially at those distances, then it would absolutely impossible for anyone to move within the ship - they would be either squashed completely flat or rendered immobile due to the sheer power of the field. The best explanation is that the film makers simply wanted to be able to show the guns hitting in a way that wasn't simply straight-line lasers, and hoped that people would just think it was cool.
It's established in the Star Wars universe that the weapons are not light, but rather charged gas and plasma.
Starships so large have something called "inertia dampers" which counter the massive gravitational forces the ship endures for anyone inside it.
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Correction: Her age has already been marked as an error. As someone well travelled, Wallace knew several languages and as an educated princess, Isabella would have likely known several (and this could all simply be a translation convention). And the king admits that he knew of the danger, and hoped that if Wallace or his men killed her, her father the King of France would help him defeat the Scottish rebellion.
Greg Dwyer
I concede most of your points, and, as you observe, if Isabella and Wallace can converse, this is 'translation convention'. Another error in the film that has already been marked: while the historical Wallace was a minor nobleman, Braveheart shows him as a common man, with no aristocratic or upper class traits, so the Isabella-Wallace romance forms a stock element of many romantic stories, a princess or prince defying social convention to fall in love with a lower class man or woman, entertaining as a story, but implausible in reality. And I think we agree that Isabella was only 6 at the time of Wallace's rebellion, so, in reality, she would have been far too young to have been involved in events.
Rob Halliday
First, both historical inaccuracies and things that you consider unlikely are not mistakes. Second, history is riddled with accounts of nobles having affairs with commoners and slaves.
Greg Dwyer