Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: When H.I. robs a convenience store with Ed and Nathan Jr in the car, their 1972 Chevrolet Impala Sedan has 4 working tail lights. In subsequent shots, there are only 3 working tail lights, then back to 4 again by the end of the sequence.

Charles Austin Miller

Plot hole: Marty Mikalski discovers a micro-camera in the cabin and is immediately grabbed by the cursed zombie Judah Bruckner, who drags Marty through the window and plants a machete in Marty's back. In that shot, the machete is obviously buried in Marty's back, which should have broken ribs both back and front, severed spinal nerves, penetrated arteries (as well as the right lung), and protruded from his chest. Marty was dead on arrival in that one stroke. Yet Marty emerges at the end of the film as the hero, with no gushing blood from his back or chest or mouth, and no explanation of how he miraculously removed the machete from his back.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: When the Nazi doctor starts to torture Solo in the electric chair, he turns off all lights in the room except for a single dim light bulb over Solo's head; so, we know that the background is uniformly dark. Moments later, when Ilya comes to the rescue, a lighted control room appears behind the doctor, off to one side. After they strap the Nazi doctor into the electric chair, there is now a lighted control room directly behind the chair.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Near the end, Jackie Chan's vastly-outnumbered forces resort to throwing stones to somehow utterly destroy a phalanx of Roman legionnaires in close-quarter combat. This scene flies in the face of what we know about Roman military superiority in the time of Tiberius. The Roman Army was the best-trained, best-organized, best-equipped military force of the Ancient World, specializing in tireless close-quarter combat and impenetrable defense. To suggest that Jackie Chan's frantic and disorganized group of fighters (throwing stones by hand) might overcome Roman legionnaires is like suggesting that cave men might overcome the modern U.S. Marine Corps.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Why was Han Solo ever promoted to general, given that he typically ran from a fight?

Charles Austin Miller

Question: The Dark Lord Darth Vader has no military rank, he only answers to the Emperor. So, why do admirals give him orders that he obeys?

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: There are three major mistakes regarding gravity in the escape sequence in the asteroid field. Han and Chewie take the Millennium Falcon to refuge on an asteroid that, while visually huge, is still far too tiny to have sufficient gravity to allow humans to walk in anything like a normal fashion; yet, they walk normally both inside and outside of the ship. They also do not use pressurized suits outside of the ship, even though the asteroid's gravity should be far too weak to accumulate any significant atmospheric pressure; they use oxygen masks, but their blood should have boiled in near-zero atmospheric pressure. Finally, and most ridiculously, they fly straight down the giant cave worm's throat and land on the side of its throat (this is obvious in the shot where the Millennium Falcon lifts off and heads toward the toothy exit), and they get out and walk around on the side of its throat, which would mean the asteroid's gravity was impossibly perpendicular to its mass. (00:57:50)

Charles Austin Miller

Wink of an Eye - S3-E11

Continuity mistake: In the 40th Anniversary release of the complete original series, this episode opens with Scotty at the conn, making an extended log entry, wearing his third-season swept-back hairstyle, and it is very obvious that he is visually mouthing several completely different sentences than we hear in the audio. After the opening credits roll, we next see Scotty wearing his more typical relaxed hairstyle with slight bangs. It is apparent that, in remastering and editing this episode, they inserted footage of Scotty from another episode altogether. For whatever reason, it is a glaring mistake of both continuity and audio editing.

Charles Austin Miller

Plato's Stepchildren - S3-E10

Continuity mistake: Just before Parmen starts mind-controlling Kirk, McCoy and Spock, he presents them with three gifts. Kirk receives a large, gold Greek shield, which the captain holds with both hands, in front of him, as the lengthy scene continues. In the wide shot, Kirk is holding the shield high up on his chest, completely obscuring his Federation insignia. In subsequent close-ups, Kirk is holding the shield down low, around waist-level, fully exposing his chest and insignia. Every time the camera cuts back to wide-shot, Kirk is again holding the shield up high on his chest.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: What was the explanation for Princess Leia changing from an American accent to a bad British accent and back to an American again during "A New Hope"? Was this simply a case of bad acting and sloppy editing, or was Leia actually mocking Tarkin's British accent (which doesn't seem very dignified for a Princess)?

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: Amy arrives at the cabin and sets down her shoulder bag in the doorway as she searches for Mort. When she realises that Mort has become a homicidal maniac, she runs for her life, but she pauses long enough to retrieve her shoulder bag at the doorway as she flees the cabin. The camera immediately cuts to an exterior shot as Amy exits the cabin and runs for her car, but her shoulder bag has suddenly vanished and is never seen again.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: In the final duel between the Hulk and his energy-absorbing father in the remote lake, an aerial military task force drops a tactical nuclear missile on the lake, effectively sub-atomizing the Hulk's dad in an instant. While acknowledging that, yes, the Hulk himself might even survive a nuclear detonation, there is no doubt that the small lake (as well as Hulk's one-size-fits-all purple pants) should have been completely vaporized at temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees. However, immediately after the blast, we see the normal Bruce Banner drifting peacefully in the lake (which is not boiling nor even steaming) with his form-fitting purple pants entirely intact.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: When Biff and his gang are first chasing Marty on the skateboard in 1955, Marty escapes by grabbing the tailgate of a passing pickup truck which tows him around the corner. The gang jumps into Biff's convertible to continue the pursuit, and Biff's convertible actually has a rear-end collision with the pickup truck, barely missing Marty. How is it that the truck driver doesn't even react to all this insane activity and the rear-end collision? Rather than stopping and demanding an explanation, the truck driver continues away from the scene without even slowing down.

Charles Austin Miller

Audio problem: At the beginning, when Professor Broom and the young Hellboy are spending Christmas Eve at a military base in New Mexico, Broom insists that Hellboy go to bed, while Hellboy insists that Broom first tell a bedtime story: "Just one, and then I'll go to bed right away, I promise!" Which is an overdub (one of several in this scene). More than once, the young Hellboy's mouth visibly says something very different than is heard in the audio.

Charles Austin Miller

Other mistake: Dating back to the first Hellboy movie, we know that Abe Sapien has very prominent webbing between his fingers (extending almost to his fingertips). However, in the Troll Market scenes from Golden Army, Abe is wearing snug, full-fingered human gloves, which should be impossible with his webbed fingers.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: During the giant siege on the English castle, the giants use grappling hooks to pull the drawbridge open as the human defenders inside struggle to pull the drawbridge closed with an enormous hand-winch. The giants overpower the humans, and the huge hand-winch is actually torn loose of its moorings and tumbles away, useless. The humans then scramble to use "scorpion" tow lines to close the drawbridge. As the order is given to man the tow lines, the camera briefly cuts to the drawbridge entrance, where we again see the enormous hand-winch, still on its moorings, quite intact and fully functional.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Near the end, Zoe and Trey battle to the death, Zoe armed with a tomahawk and a knife, Trey armed with a Husqvarna chainsaw. During the battle, Zoe manages to amputate Trey's right hand, with which he was gripping the chainsaw's safety release and trigger (as his left hand gripped the support handle). Bellowing in pain, Trey continues swinging the chainsaw by its support handle with his left hand. Lo and behold, the chainsaw is somehow, miraculously, still revving in-and-out, which is only possible if the safety release is continuously depressed with the palm of the right hand as the fingers rhythmically flex to squeeze the trigger. Of course, with all major tendons in the wrist severed, an amputated hand cannot grip or flex or squeeze anything.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: One puzzling point for newcomers to "Hellboy" through the cinema was the scene in which Hellboy rhetorically asks John Myers, "You know what'll kill me, don't you?" The question is left open and unanswered for the rest of the movie (and it remains unanswered in "Golden Army," as well). Long-time readers of Mike Mignola's comics, however, have known for years that the only thing that can kill Hellboy is ripping his heart out of his chest. This is precisely what happened in the 2011 Hellboy comic entitled "The Storm and the Fury," when the dragon-witch Nimue unexpectedly ripped out Hellboy's heart, killing him on the spot and sending his soul back to Hell.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Actor Billy Redden (who portrayed the inbred hillbilly banjo player) actually could not play the banjo at all. Despite training for the film, Redden's hand movements simply weren't convincing, so a local musician was hired to hide behind Redden and portray the left-handed fingerplay in complex banjo-picking shots. We only see the briefest snippets of Redden handling the banjo with his own two hands; however, when the iconic "Dueling Banjos" scene reaches a fever pitch, the left hand seen working the banjo frets is that of the real musician hiding behind Redden.

Charles Austin Miller

Other mistake: When Benjamin Dingle first steps into Connie Milligan's apartment, a closed bedroom door in the background inexplicably swings wide open on its own, right in the middle of the shot.

Charles Austin Miller