Plot hole: After January Jones has just told Liam Neeson she doesn't recognise him. Neeson is trying to persuade Herr Strauss and two cops that he really is Dr Martin Harris of Langmore University, and suggests they look for a photo of him online. However, the cop using the computer says that it could take him ages to find a photo of Dr Martin Harris, as "there are more than 40 000 in the USA." This is very true, but as Neeson has already told him not only his name but also his place of work (Langmore university) in reality the cop would have found the photo far more quickly.
ReRyRo
1st Sep 2015
Unknown (2011)
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Suggested correction: The average cop wouldn't be that quick to realise that he could filter the results. Instead of being a plot hole, this is simply a very human initial response to an initial search result.
2nd Jun 2022
War of the Worlds (2005)
Corrected entry: It becomes quite obvious as the movie progresses that the aliens want to capture and use (or digest) humans, so it defies logic that the first one to appear immediately starts vaporizing every human in sight. Since the people posed no threat, the only reason to vaporize them would be if the aliens simply wanted to be rid of them - which they obviously didn't. So this initial vaporization was simply a manufactured plot device by the movie makers.
Correction: There are plenty of humans to go around. They don't need all of them. What they first wanted to do is collapse human society. That usually works if you start killing indiscriminately.
Maybe they needed 20 billion people. So we don't know that there "are plenty to go around." And again, the people they vaporized were no threat. And they didn't need to "collapse human society" (and you have no way of knowing what they "wanted" to do); they merely needed to remove threats. So, again, it defies logic to unnecessarily vaporize what's later shown to be desirable to them, if not required by them.
You don't know what the wanted to do either. Seeing them kill so many people, logically shows that they don't need all those people.
Maybe they didn't need 20 billion people. Maybe they didn't have the "human harvesting" equipment ready. Maybe they just felt like it. Who knows. Either way, I'm not sure we can't apply our concepts of logic to an alien race.
You might try reading the original novel. While I don't disagree that it defies logic, the fact is that the only person that could address the why of this was H.G. Wells. While the filmmakers changed a number of details to base the story in the present (2005), in the U.S., from a family's point of view, the tripods being buried...the basic story itself, on the aliens illogically torching lots of humans before they began harvesting them, is pretty much the same as in the novel.
Correction: Doesn't defy logic in the slightest. It seemed pretty obvious to me that the initial "invasion" (vaporizing every human in sight and starting battles) was to disrupt and take control of the human population. Thus making it easier to harvest human blood/tissue from the remaining population. (Which, from my memory at least, were implied to basically be used to fertilize their terraforming efforts/the red weed.) If you wanna take somewhere over, you can't just wander in and say "Ok, this is MINE now!" That's not how war works. You have to show force, assert dominance and then get rid of any possible opposition.
Correction: "So this initial vaporization was simply a manufactured plot device by the movie makers." This 'manufactured plot device' was written by Herbert George Wells, 110 years before the 2005 movie. While there are differences between the original novel and the 2005 movie, there are a number of similarities. One identical plot detail being that the aliens' tripods started by incinerating countless humans before harvesting them to fertilize the red weed. I can't recall if the novel explained why.
14th May 2022
The History of Time Travel (2014)
Continuity mistake: In the middle of a sentence, new text appears on the chalkboard behind the speaker, as well as new colouration on a globe behind him. (00:32:42)
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Suggested correction: I've changed my mind about this entry. I realise now that these seeming errors are actually intentional, albeit hamfisted, visual manifestations of the changing timeline. I personally think this is a silly way to portray the changing of history due to time travel and the butterfly effect, but who am I to argue with how a fictional construct that seems to defy logic would play out. I'd remove my original entry but I don't see any mechanism to do that.
5th Sep 2021
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Corrected entry: Nothing in space could communicate with whales in the ocean without radios. It wouldn't matter if it was generating the loudest sound in the universe, or had the most sensitive mike and most powerful amplifier - sound can't travel through a vacuum. The probe couldn't "hear" the whales, and the whales couldn't hear the probe.
Correction: This assumes that the probe, which does not appear to be a 'mechanical' device, uses a communications technology that we are familiar with, and there's no reason to assume that it does. It's a fictional, alien probe, which is likely using a fictional, alien technology to communicate with the whales.
You're describing fantasy fiction and not science fiction. The whales are not equipped with alien technology to send and receive, so it doesn't matter what technology the probe contains The movie makes a point of "playing" the sounds of whales and the sounds of the probe. Sounds, by definition, are vibrations of a medium - there is no medium here to carry the vibrations, and even if there were, they would have to be so powerful as to cause worldwide, catastrophic shock waves in order to reach.
Star Trek does often dabble in fantasy under the guise of "too advanced for our puny minds." The probe's signal is not itself a sound but some kind of energy (or something) that can inexplicably drain power from starships, cause giant hurricanes, and produce a sound when it hits a medium. The probe presumably has sensors that can detect the effects of a whale call and extrapolate/ "hear" it much the way the Enterprise bridge screen can "see" across vast distances using sensor data.
27th Aug 2001
Space Cowboys (2000)
Factual error: The Russian says that the missiles in IKON are locked onto American cities. The implication is that those cities will be destroyed if Eastwood screws up. Actually, since the orbit has decayed from geosynchronous (an altitude of roughly 22,000 miles) to low Earth orbit at 1000 miles, I don't think the missile guidance systems would get a chance to work. If the missiles were launched, they would simply shoot down toward the Earth and blow up wherever they happened to be. So, prayers to anyone unlucky enough to be directly below those missles.
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Suggested correction: Entry states an implication. This may have been inferred by this one viewer, but the movie never stated any such thing, so therefore it cannot be considered an error.
30th Sep 2007
Space Cowboys (2000)
Factual error: In many scenes in space, the stars are shown twinkling or flickering. This occurs only when seen through an atmosphere.
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Suggested correction: Stars also twinkle or flicker due to intervening interstellar gas clouds, so this is no error.
27th Aug 2001
Space Cowboys (2000)
Corrected entry: This line of thinking is repeated twice, once by the NASA scientist and once by the Tommy Lee Jones character: "To get to the moon, you only have to go halfway - gravity will take you the rest of the way". Actually, since Earth's gravity is 6 times greater than the moon's, you would have to go 6/7ths of the way, otherwise you return to Earth.
Correction: The assertion that 6/7ths of the distance to the moon is the point at which the gravity between the earth and the moon cancel out is basically correct, however, this pertains only to a stationary object at that point (known as Lagrangian 1). However, the momentum of a rocket changes this equation and depending on its speed, it could indeed be the halfway point at which the rocket could "coast" until the Moon started pulling it more strongly than the Earth. No speed is stated so this is no error.
27th Aug 2001
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Other mistake: When Riggs kills the guy who murdered his wife by dropping that cargo crate on him it's obvious the crate has no bottom and it falls around him, not least because the body's height doesn't change as the crate falls, there's no sign of impact or crushing, he just stays perfectly upright as it hits the ground. (01:39:25)
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Suggested correction: This is simply not a mistake - we obviously know that the filmmakers didn't really crush an actor, but there's no visible clue of the SFX "deception."
9th May 2004
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Continuity mistake: When Rika sits down outside of Riggs' place, the front of the trailer is half shaded by the sunroof. When the camera angle changes the shade is gone, and it's much brighter. (01:07:50)
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Suggested correction: This entry is only half right - the "sunroof" or awning is visible from both camera angles, though it's true that the sun is lower and is lighting more under the awning when the camera moves inside the trailer.
9th May 2004
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Continuity mistake: When Rika comes to Riggs' trailer he offers her a chair, and she sits down twice in different camera angles. (01:07:50)
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Suggested correction: This is too subtle to be called a mistake - she's in the process of sitting when she's facing the camera, the shot changes to behind her and she's seen finishing her settling into the chair - this could just as well be her making a natural adjustment to her sitting position. It's not an obvious mistake by any means.
14th Jan 2004
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
Continuity mistake: When the bathroom explodes, from one angle we see the toilet come sailing out over the roof of a police truck parked at the front of the house. While the angles make it a bit tricky to judge, there's a definite leftward trajectory. We then cut to a closeup of Murtaugh's car, and the toilet lands on it as if it was flying to the right. Even if the angles are misleading, in the first shot the police truck and other cars are parked to the right of the exploding window. In the shot of Roger's car he's also parked to the right, but without all the cars visible around it which there should be. (00:57:15)
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Suggested correction: The toilet is flying straight out and straight towards the car - you can see this from the perspective of the interior of the car prior to the toilet becoming visible. Next the toilet is flying towards the area in front of the police van, not over it. And the car is parked in front of the van. When we see the car again, the van and other police cars are out of frame, so they can't be seen.
The mistake is valid. When we see the toilet flying, it's moving to the viewer's left, but when it hits the car, it's moving to the viewer's right now. Even if in the first shot, with the angle of the camera, the toilet is flying straight, it doesn't hit the car straight on. And he's not saying the toilet sails over the roof, but that you can see the toilet in the background is above the roof of the van in the foreground and that's moving over it (from right to left).
1st Aug 2017
Escape Plan (2013)
Factual error: When Ray figures out he is on the ship, he makes it back to his cell, creating a flood along the way, he then swims through a lot of water. When he returns to his water drenched cell and escapes with Victor, his clothes are bone dry. (01:54:30 - 01:55:20)
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Suggested correction: I really don't think so. Their clothes are completely soaked, like their hair and skin.
Nope...watching the scene many times in slo-mo, it's clear that Arnie's shirt is soaked, but Sly's is just as obviously dry.
In the first shot when he comes out from the cell he is more than knee-deep in water, with water splashing everywhere, and there are showers of water everywhere when the shot changes: if the shirt were dry you would see stains created by the water spashes and by soaking wet Arnie leaning on him and touching him, since it is impossible for a dry shirt to stay dry through what we see onscreen, let alone the multiple takes most likely they had to do: instead the color of the shirt is uniform. Plus his hair, face, his T-shirt underneath is wet, why would they throw a dry shirt on him on that mess, and how would it stay dry? I think it's simply the light to make them appear different, Arnie is on the darker side of the corridor. However, that's just my observation.
14th Sep 2014
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Corrected entry: In the scene in the Jeep when Garlick announces to the passing troops that Cronauer is in their midsts and Adrian does his riff, after the convoy starts moving again, more than a dozen trucks go by with all the troops grinning broadly and giving Cronauer "kudos," even though the majority of them couldn't possibly have heard or seen his Jeep "performance," and wouldn't even know who he was.
Correction: Or someone spread the word via either CB, Grapevine-telephoned it down the line, or ran the news? Ask any soldier, they'll tell you how highly the entertainers are valued, how hard they'd listen, how fast the news would spread.
The "correction" is mere conjecture, not based on any evidence from the movie itself, but rather simply an opinion of how the plot could have been written and portrayed. I wrote up the actual scene as it played out on the screen as a mistake because without any supporting evidence from the movie makers this scene is a mistake. If one was to invent potential back stories for each scene in a movie then just about any mistake could be explained away as intentional, depending on the extent of one's imagination. But it wouldn't be a commentary on the movie.
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