Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Zephram Cochrane, Riker and LaForge activate the warp drive of the prototype starship Phoenix, the prismatic starscape is seen streaking past (same effect as in the Star Trek: TNG series). However, the Phoenix never leaves the solar system or even the vicinity of Earth, achieving only Warp One (the max velocity of the Phoenix) for a few seconds. Even at lightspeed, the Phoenix did not enter interstellar space nor pass any other stars; therefore, the starscape should have remained almost motionless.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Captain Nemo takes the castaways on an underwater tour around the island, where they observe Greek temple ruins on the sea floor. The ancient Greeks were pioneers of philosophy, politics and engineering, but they never colonized beyond the general area of the Mediterranean and they certainly never colonized the South Pacific (which is the setting of Mysterious Island).

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: This horror-fantasy film (a 1958 knockoff "The Mummy") was inspired by the faceless whole-body plaster casts taken from the volcanic ash of Pompeii, at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius. The running mistake in this movie is the assumption that the faceless bodies of Pompeii were 2000-year-old mummies preserved by volcanic ash and could, thus, be re-animated (by radiation, in this case). The fact is, the victims at Pompeii were originally encased in hot volcanic pumice and ash, and the corpses then disintegrated, leaving hollow "molds" of human bodies underground. It wasn't until the mid-19th Century that archaeologists first discovered the molds, filled them with plaster, then extracted the whole-body plaster casts for display. Since the faceless bodies of Pompeii are nothing but modern plaster casts, there would be nothing to re-animate, by radiation or any other improbable means.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: This film begins with a foreboding quote attributed to Edgar Allen Poe: "Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them." Problem is, Poe never wrote any such thing (and neither did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), despite decades of misquotes and misattributions across the Internet. So, where did the quote actually originate? The answer is Walter Reisch, lead screenwriter on the 1959 film "Journey to the Center of the Earth." In Reisch's screenplay, the antagonist Count Arne Saknussemm is urged to get some rest, to which he memorably replies, "I don't sleep. I hate those little slices of death."

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When they first power-up the Stargate in the military facility (using Jackson's decryption), the thing surges to life, and electrical sparks spray out of overloaded connections all around the control room. This could only happen if there were no fuses or electrical breakers in the military's control system, which is a ridiculous notion for such advanced military technology. In real life, a powerful overload situation would instantly burn out fuses and trip breakers and the whole system would simply go dead (there would be no sparks). Showers of sparks are a common error in many science fiction and space fantasy films dating back many decades.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Vinny Panzienza has his cervical halo brace removed (without anesthetics), he yells and groans and grunts in pain, but his hands are relaxed on the arms of the chair. I can tell you, from experience with this exact situation, the pain is so intense that his hands should have been clenched as tight as a vise.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: At the airport, Jack attempts to disarm the bus bomb from underneath, on a dolly towed by another vehicle. Meanwhile, Annie must continue driving the bus in circles on the runway at a speed above 50 mph. This scene takes 8 minutes, meaning Annie makes at least 2 laps of the entire 2-mile-long runway, complete with turns at the ends. There is no way that the towed dolly could remain positioned directly underneath the bus through the turns, as Jack would have swung out under centrifugal force.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: After the raven attacks journalist Joan Hart, pecking her eyes out, she blindly staggers into the highway and is run down by a Mack tractor-trailer. As the truck locks up its brakes and strikes her, we see Joan Hart levitate straight up into the air, arc completely over the truck's massive front-end (even over the cab of the truck), and finally impact the top of the freight trailer, which is about 13 feet in height. More than merely absurd-looking, this sequence utterly defies Newtonian physics. From her standing position at ground level, Joan Hart should have been instantly pulverized on impact and launched many meters down the road in the same direction the truck is traveling.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Following his lecture on cold fusion, Ed Walters attends a reception, mingling with the academic crowd. At one point, millionaire Louis Bamberger approaches Walters and excitedly presents him with a Bic 4-Color Ballpoint Pen, which suggests that the pen was new on the market in the early-to-mid 1950s. Problem is, the Bic 4-Color Ballpoint Pen wasn't invented and marketed until 1974, some 20 years after the setting of this film.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: The Kiss of the Dragon acupuncture point, known as "Point 15," is in a delicate area of the spinal column, a little below the second cervical vertebra. It's a definite knock-out target in fighting, and it can even be a lethal target. But Jet Li's explanation that it somehow prevents blood from flowing away from the brain is pure nonsense.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Scarlett and George use the Rose Key to translate the inscription on the back of Flamel's ancient tombstone, and it translates into a rhyming English lyric puzzle. Problem is, they are translating this lyric puzzle from Aramaic (an ancient and virtually dead Middle Eastern language) to modern English. Aramaic would not and could not translate into rhyming modern English.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: At the beginning, MacReady dumps a tumbler of ice and scotch into his computer, which spews a shower of sparks as it shorts out. No electronic device, not even an old 1980s personal computer, sparks like that when shorted out. It simply goes dead.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: At the very beginning, "Hereafter" makes the same factual mistake as was made in "2012" and "San Andreas": Crystal-clear tsunami flood waters. Of course, tsunami floods are always inky-black, filled with churned-up silt, sediment and debris.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Robert Neville is driving golf balls off the deck of the ship, he sees a deer on the mainland. He and his dog go in pursuit. In a wide, distant shot, we see the deer fleeing full-tilt down a city street, with Robert Neville pursuing at the same speed as the deer, only about 10 yards behind the animal. Impossible. A panicked deer can run over twice as fast as the fastest human being.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Writer/director Adam MacDonald boasted that he studied black bear predatory behavior and black bear attacks on humans for years in preparation for making this film, because he wanted to depict a black bear attack in as factual and as authentic a manner as possible. But, at the most crucial point in this film (when the black bear actually does attack Alex and Jenn), factual accuracy goes out the window. As Alex and Jenn cower in terror, the bear lunges into their tent and bites into Alex's leg; whereupon, Jenn fires a can of bear spray (a stifling pepper-based chemical) point-blank into the animal's face. The startled bear retreats for a moment, but then lunges into the tent again, dragging Alex outside and killing him; thereafter, the bear continues pursuing Jenn for the remainder of the film. However, according to years of extensive study by the University of Calgary, no bear has ever attacked a human after the animal was sprayed with bear spray, much less resumed an attack, as depicted in this film. To date, the success rate of defensive bear spray is 100%. So, the factual accuracy of "Backcountry" was abandoned for the sake of cheap thrills.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Near the end, Ethan Hunt and Sean Ambrose engage in a high-speed motorcycle chase that culminates with them crashing their motorcycles head-on. Just before the crash, both men leap off their bikes and their bodies collide in mid-air above the crash. However, if Hunt and Ambrose were racing towards each other at 40 mph (a conservative estimate), then the combined force of their bodies colliding would be equivalent to an 80 mph impact, which would pulverize their skeletons and kill both men instantly.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Frank to the year 1969, where he watches his younger self giving Claire a set of twelve Ginsu knives on Christmas Eve. Young Frank even remarks that the Ginsu knives are sharp enough to cut through a tin can as easily as a tomato. Problem is, Ginsu knives didn't arrive on the market until 1978, which is when the tin-can-cutting demonstration was first used.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Near the end, Scott Lang inadvertently shrinks to subatomic size, drifting through a kaleidoscopic quantum universe, and we see him reacting to the visual effects. However, at subatomic size, Scott shouldn't be able to "see" anything, because the rods and cones in the human retina can only "see" in a narrow band of light frequencies, and Scott is far, far smaller than the frequency of visible light waves. Additionally, Scott couldn't possibly "hear" his daughter Cassie crying "Where are you, Daddy?" Human hearing is based completely on air vibrations at certain frequencies, and Scott is millions of times smaller than sonic frequencies or even the nearest air molecule.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: At the onset of the Third Wave (avian-transmitted disease), Chloe Moretz narrates: "There are over 300 billion birds in the world. That's 75 birds for every person." Apparently, the screenwriters couldn't use a simple calculator. Given that the movie is set in the present (with our current human population of about 7.4 Billion), the ratio of birds-to-people can only be about 43 birds for every person, if we accept the film's "300 Billion birds" statistic. Indeed, if there were 75 birds for every person on earth, the total population of birds on the planet would be about 555 Billion, or nearly twice the number stated in the film. Additionally, if she is basing her narrative statistics on reduced human and bird populations (because so many people AND birds were exterminated in the first and second waves), HOW would she know that? The first wave knocked out electronic communications, including the Internet.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: The Mariner's tiny gill-slits behind each ear could barely oxygenate a one-foot-long fish, never mind a full-grown human being. To accommodate his 6-foot body, the Mariner would need multiple 8-inch gills stacked on either side of his neck, at least. Compounding this error, the Mariner then draws Helen to safety underwater, telling her, "I'll breathe for both of us!" So, now his grossly undersized gills are oxygenating two full-grown human beings.

Charles Austin Miller