Character mistake: When Captains Fry and Darrow are advising General Hummel to launch the rocket, Captain Fry says "Let's be all we can be." This was the slogan for the United States Army, but repeatedly throughout the film the men are called Marines which are the United States Navy. A Marine would still never use the Army's slogan.
Greg Dwyer
4th Apr 2018
The Rock (1996)
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: He's just making a statement. He's not saying he's in the Army.
A Marine would still never use the Army's slogan.
26th Mar 2018
House, M.D. (2004)
Corrected entry: The doctors tell House that blood tests did not show anything wrong with the teenage boy, but near the end of the episode, he realises that it is naphthalene poisoning. Naphthalene poisoning is something that is easily noticed by doctors through blood tests.
Correction: Naphthalene is fat soluble. It was only released in his bloodstream when he started losing weight in the hospital.
He didn't start losing weight while he was in the hospital. He started losing weight before he was in hospital. And the naphthalene would have been released into his bloodstream before he was in the hospital.
Did he start losing weight before or after the blood tests?
26th Mar 2018
Tremors 2 (1996)
Corrected entry: Kate finds a Graboid fossil and explains that the rock is from the Precambrian era (which ran from about 4.5 billion years ago through about 500 million years ago), thus making them literally the oldest complex life-forms in the history of Earth. Cool idea, but it makes no sense. Life in the Precambrian era was mostly bacterial or simplistic organisms such as sea-sponges and jellyfish late in the era. Something like the Graboids just couldn't have existed, both because they're too complex to have existed in that time-frame and also (and more importantly) because there wouldn't be an adequate food source for them to thrive. Sure, maybe they could have existed during the time of dinosaurs, but that only started about 250 million years ago, way after the end of the Precambrian era.
Correction: They retconned this in the TV series, saying that Kate had misdated the fossil, which was actually from the Devonian Period.
I don't think a retcon validates a movie mistake.
Correction: The oldest known life forms. Graboids existed, therefore other life forms existed too, which they ate, we've just not discovered them yet.
Correction: The graboids might not have originated from earth. Like suggested they could be aliens and their species landed on Earth 5 billion years ago.
The movie states that they are from Earth. The suggestion that they're aliens is invalidated in the film itself, as it is proven wrong by the scene in question. Ergo, this correction is invalid. Also, this correction fails to address one of the key issues brought up in the mistake - they wouldn't have a viable food source and would have died out, even if the preposterous notion that they were aliens were true.
Correction: This is speculation at best regarding creatures that don't exist in real life. There's no way to say they wouldn't have adequate food source without knowing what they needed to survive, or how they evolved.
25th Mar 2018
A Bug's Life (1998)
Corrected entry: When Heimlich gets stuck distracting the bird and almost gets eaten, he could have easily sucked himself in as he does right after when Gypsy distracts the bird.
Correction: He was panicking. It's not easy to think logically when you're panicking. Notice that he only sucked it in after Slim told him to.
22nd Mar 2018
Jurassic Park (1993)
Corrected entry: Why aren't there subwayesque service tunnels all round the island to permit the staff to travel hidden from the dinosaurs/sundry other emergencies/all the other incidental occurrences that make every other undertaking on our planet use similar tunnels? Expensive and laborious, but if you have the resources to make dinosaurs, everything else is a breeze.
Correction: Despite Hammond's catchphrase of "We spared no expense", that would have been a huge expense, as underground tunnels suitable for travel are extremely costly. Also remember that Isla Nublar is a volcanic island. The ground may simply not be suitable for that kind of construction.
Correction: Given that "Jurassic Park" was author Michael Crichton's re-imagining of his own film "Westworld" (in which a high-tech amusement park goes haywire and the guests must run for their lives), the whole point of the movie was to place humans and dinosaurs on the same deadly-dangerous playing field. Like "Westworld," this movie was a purely visual film (a graphic novel, basically) that smoothed-over lapses of logic in favor of frantic spectacle. If John Hammond had the foresight to make his Jurassic Park a hermetically-sealed, perfectly-safe environment for humans to observe and maintain dinosaurs, it would have eliminated the thrill of the movie, turning it into a National Geographic documentary.
But the point is the park was safe, without Nedry's sabotage things would have worked perfectly. Hammond spared no expense and it shows with the fancy security. Because of this Nedry's sabotage was put in.
The fact that Jurassic Park could be sabotaged by a computer geek is proof that it was not perfectly safe. A perfectly-safe facility would be foolproof and sabotage-proof.
Any place can be sabotaged, the point is that it was safe enough to receive visitors, without the sabotage the inspection would have gone smoothly. Adding tunnels or even more security wouldn't change a thing. You are just making stuff up.
Correction: They didn't think about it. They didn't need to because they felt they had the place pretty well secured. Besides it wouldn't have helped them much anyway, once the fences were down the predators could get anywhere and a lot of the predators are small enough to get inside the tunnels, the velociraptors could even open doors. Most personnel was already gone so there is no lacking in their infrastructure that would require tunnels. This could have helped Dennis Nedry escape as well. He shut the park down to create chaos and move unseen.
20th Feb 2018
M*A*S*H (1972)
Last Laugh - S6-E3
Corrected entry: Leo Bardonaro supposedly left his hat at the hotel where he used BJ's name as an alias. General Fred Fox made BJ put on the hat to prove he was at the hotel. When Leo shows back up at the Swamp he has his hat back on.
Correction: He could easily have more than one hat.
17th Feb 2018
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Corrected entry: Elrond could have easily stopped and taken the ring from Isildur inside Mount Doom, destroying it, but he simply lets Isildur walk out freely. (01:22:10)
Correction: Isildur would have fought back against Elrond. Elrond having to kill him for the Ring may have caused him to desire it for himself. Or them two fighting may have caused a war between men and elves.
8th Feb 2018
Groundhog Day (1993)
Corrected entry: When Phil is driving on the railroad tracks in the evening, the weather is clear and it is not snowing. Later on in the film, Phil is dancing with Rita in the park at around the same time of night and it is snowing. There was no way for Phil to have affected this - the weather should be identical every day.
Correction: Just because it's approximately the same time doesn't make it exactly the same time. It is possible for it to snow for very short periods of time.
8th Feb 2018
King Ralph (1991)
Corrected entry: When Ralph escapes the castle to meet with Miranda and the photographer hired by Graves finally gets his photo (he only clicked the button once) but at the Ball, when Gordon gives the envelope to the King of Finland, he takes out multiple photos from the envelope. (00:50:00 - 01:10:00)
Correction: Just because we only see/hear him take one photo doesn't mean he didn't take more.
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.
21st Jan 2018
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Corrected entry: In the chapter 'The Rogue Bludger', Harry breaks his arm in the quidditch match against Slytherin and Madam Pomfrey said "This boy needs rest, he's got thirty-three bones to regrow!" There are only 30 bones in an arm.
Correction: There are 30 bones in the arm and hand. Add in the clavicle and scapula for two more. There are also likely to be sesamoid bones - bones embedded in tendons or muscles that develop in response to stress or strain. Harry has certainly been through plenty of both. She could also be referring to the epiphyseal plate, AKA the growth plate.
21st Jan 2018
The Godfather (1972)
Corrected entry: Prior to going off to kill McCluskie and Sollozzo, Michael is "trained" by Clemenza in how to shoot a pistol - as if Michael has no experience with firearms. Yet as a Marine who just returned from war - especially one decorated for battlefield heroism - it would be expected that Michael had both formal training and practical "fluency" with a range of firearms. Granted Michael might be anxious about committing brazen murder in public and even more so about whether the gun indeed will arrive for him in the right place at the right time at the restaurant - these are natural and plausible things for Clemenza to counsel him on. But the actual *use* of the firearm should present Michael no problem at all. And yet Clemenza talks to Michael as if he has never fired a weapon... Plot-wise, is there too much effort here expended on trying to depict Michael as being, at this point, naive, so as to enhance the "end-of-innocence" pivot that the murder of McCluskie and Sollozzo will come to signify, both for Michael's father Vito and the audience?
Correction: Clemenza is basically telling him specifically how to use that gun, such as about the tape and why it's so loud. As well, killing people in war is far different than murdering someone in cold blood. Clemenza is telling him how to keep calm while doing it and how to avoid being caught by the police.
23rd Mar 2011
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Corrected entry: When Salt is about to go down the shoot in the scene with the golden geese, she fades away before she gets a chance to drop because she doesn't actually drop. (01:19:20)
Correction: Actually in the commentary with the actors she stated that actually did drop right onto a mattress set in place for her and she was told to keep her arms glued to her sides or they would've been ripped off by the sudden movement of the fall.
Correction: Not only that, but there was a cute PA down there and she kept her arms to her sides because she didn't want her dress flying up in front of him.
13th Sep 2003
Star Trek: Voyager (1995)
Plot hole: In this episode Kes states that she has to decide now whether to have a child or not because Ocampa women can only get pregnant once and deliver one child. If that was the case they would have died out a long time ago, or never even evolved, as two people only getting one offspring would reduce the population to 50% of the original figure each generation.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: It's also possible that it's simply required of Ocampan women to give birth the first time they go through it, and can then experience it again.
Nothing in the dialogue suggest Ocampa's can have additional children. While we can speculate about fictitious species, it's still a plot hole due to writing. Kes states she's going through the "elogium" which is a time of change where her body prepares for fertilization. She then explicit states the "elogium" only occurs once. While the doctor compares it to puberty, the elogium is both sexual maturity and "heat", that is, the time a female is ready for fertilization.
But it doesn't ever state the normalcy of birthing for Ocompans. Perhaps sextuplets is the norm?
Kes frequently used the word "child." If it was normal to give birth to more than one, she would know this and should say "children."
Do not forget that this is all done through the universal translator. For all you know the Ocompan word for child and children is the same so the translator cannot tell the difference.
19th Dec 2017
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993)
A Man Alone - S1-E4
Corrected entry: Odo becomes the prime suspect in the murder as he, being a shapeshifter, could have got between the cracks of the holodeck door in his liquid form. However, no one realises that even if he were the murderer, the murder weapon, a knife, would not have got through the door cracks with him. Odo wouldn't have needed a weapon anyway, as he can turn his arms into tentacles to strangle the victim.
Correction: Odo could have had the computer replicate a knife quite easily.
27th Aug 2001
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Corrected entry: The movie supposedly takes place in April, however based on Chicago's climate, it is quite clear that the actual filming was conducted well into the summer months based on how full and leafy all the trees are, not to mention the ivy on the outfield wall at Wrigley Field which does not become fully developed with leaves until late May at the earliest.
Correction: Given the baseball game they went to, the movie took place on June 5.
The baseball game was obviously staged for the film.
The baseball game was definitely not staged for the film. The baseball scenes were filmed during a real Cubs game in September (when filming took place). John Hughes added footage from the earlier June game during editing to make it appear they attended the June game.
2nd Nov 2017
The Karate Kid Part II (1986)
Corrected entry: When Daniel and Mr. Miyagi are picked up at the airport in the car, they are driving and the steering wheel is on the left of the car. In Japan, steering wheels are on the right. And if you look carefully, all of the other cars are also driving on the right hand side of the road instead of the left side of the road.
Correction: They aren't in mainland Japan, they are in Okinawa. Okinawa was under the control of the American military until 1978 and during that time, traffic flowed on the right not the left. While it changed in 1978, there were still many cars that had left-side drivers.
29th Oct 2017
Star Wars (1977)
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie when the rebel pilots are attacking the Death Star, red leader was able to get a shot off at the thermal exhaust port. He reports the proton torpedo didn't go in. Rather, it impacted on the surface, evidenced by a massive explosion. but when Luke gets off his shot, there is no visible damage to the exhaust port.
Correction: There is an extreme closeup when Luke's torpedo enters the port. If Red Leader missed by a significant margin, we wouldn't see the damage.
28th Oct 2017
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Corrected entry: When Sergeant Pepper reloads his musket and talks about settling the whole business with high stakes poker, he pours powder down the muzzle and then proceeds to ram the rod down but without having placed any bullet (buckshot) inside the barrel. The purpose of the rod is to ram the buckshot all the way down to get it seated on the powder. (00:07:05)
Correction: Wouldn't be buckshot, it would be a minie ball. The bullet would be in the paper cartridge. No, he is not out of bullets and just firing blanks.
So he tears the wrapper, pours the powder down the barrel, throws the wrapper containing the bullet away and then rams the powder. He never put anything other than powder in the barrel. But then, this being a movie set, he would only have the supplies to load blank.
Correction: It's possible he's out of bullets and trying to simply scare the Confederates.
Or the bullet was a part of the powder pack.
27th Oct 2017
The Big Bang Theory (2007)
The Geology Elevation - S10-E9
Corrected entry: A person wearing a blue shirt is seen poking out behind the refrigerator for a moment when Leonard is talking. (00:12:55)
Correction: That's Raj wearing a blue jacket getting condiments.
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