Charles Austin Miller

Question: When Young Joe is waiting in the field for Old Joe's arrival from the future, the sky is perfectly clear blue, except for a single, strange and very prominent zig-zag cloud that almost looks like a contrail of some sort. What is the significance of or explanation for that weird cloud?

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland go scooting around in open space (admiring a view of Italy on the sunlit side of the Earth) with their gold solar-screen visors retracted wide open. To avoid accidental instant blindness, real astronauts would never open their solar-screen visors during EVA on the sunlit side of the Earth; yet the astronauts in this film do it constantly, with no ill-effects.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Why didn't the ape-keeper, Rodney, simply shoot Caesar? He was in the sniping platform, he was aiming the tranquilizer rifle, he had a clear shot, but he just lowered his rifle and fled when Caesar yelled "No!" for the first time. If Rodney had pulled the trigger, the ape rebellion would have been nipped in the bud.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: For the infamous closing scene, a van of drug-runners fire a double-barrelled 12-gauge shotgun straight into the windscreen of Officer Wintergreen's Electra Glide motorcycle, killing him. In the full front view, the gunfire virtually explodes the windscreen, shattering it on all sides all the way to the frame. Camera cuts to a side view and we see Wintergreen topple off as the motorcycle keeps traveling down the road. In this profile shot, the windscreen is no longer exploded, but now has a neat 4-inch hole in it.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: When Clint Eastwood catches an Indian arrow in his left shoulder, he instructs Shirley MacLaine to prime the arrow shaft with gunpowder, which he then ignites as she forces the shaft all the way through his shoulder. Presumably, the burning gunpowder would cauterize the wound all the way through his body, or that's what the filmmakers asked the audience to believe. In reality, gunpowder is historically well-known for causing gangrene in open wounds. With a shoulder full of gunpowder cinders, Clint Eastwood should have died of gangrene and sepsis by the end of the movie.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: Near the end, banditos murder Fred C. Dobbs and leave his stripped body by the waterhole as they go chasing after the burros, which they later try to sell in town. Within hours, Howard and Bob Curtin ride right past the same waterhole on their way to town, but Fred Dobbs' body is nowhere to be seen.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: The Diva gets to perform only one song of her concert before she is mortally gunshot in the abdomen. Almost simultaneously, Zorg sets a time-bomb to detonate in 20 minutes. Korben removes the stones from the Diva's dead body and barely escapes from the Fhloston cruise liner before it explodes 20 minutes later. Korben and his party immediately fly at hyperspeed straight to Earth and set the stones in place with only 5 minutes to spare. If they had followed the original plan without interruption and the Diva hadn't been unexpectedly murdered, she would have proceeded with the remainder of her concert, lasting an indeterminate amount of time; thereafter, presumably, she would have to undergo surgery to remove the stones from her body and deliver them to Korben, all of which would have taken far too long for him to save the Earth, correct?

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: While everybody's voice was overdubbed here-and-there in "Conan the Destroyer," it is the prolific character actor Tracey Walters (as the thief, Malak) who holds the distinction of being totally overdubbed throughout the entire movie, because the boom microphones couldn't pick up his soft, nasal voice.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: A young Vincent D'Onofrio was cast to play the part of Bozo in the first Toxic Avenger film; however, before filming began, D'Onofrio brashly asked for a pay raise and was immediately fired. D'Onofrio was replaced by actor Gary Schneider.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: Several shots and whole scenes throughout this film are flipped horizontally in such a blatant fashion that even the name of the ship, "Sans Souci," appears as a mirror image.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: The Sheriff clears all other police traffic on a specific radio frequency so that he can "secretly" chat with the two young boys. Of course, secrecy is crucial to the Sheriff's motivation all throughout the movie. However, police radios have extraordinary range, and police radio channels are constantly monitored by neighboring police forces, by other first-responder agencies, by civilian police scanners, and even by the news media. The Sheriff should surely know that it is impossible to conduct a "secret" or even "private" conversation over police radio.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: Not bad digital effects for a combination "Predator" and "Jurassic Park" monster movie, except that the dinosaurs don't cast shadows about half the time.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: Toward the end, in Stryker's island compound, Logan is astonished to see Kayla still alive. Kayla explains that Victor only gave her an injection that simulated her death, and we then see a flashback clip of Victor sloshing a container of blood on Kayla's unconscious body to complete the illusion that he had murdered her. What did Logan do with Kayla's body after discovering it? Did he take her body to a hospital or at least to local authorities, where it would certainly be determined that she had no wounds? Being so much in love with her, why wouldn't Logan himself inspect Kayla's body for actual wounds? How is it possible that Logan was fooled by a little spilled blood on her clothing when he had personally witnessed Victor's savage work many times in combat settings over the previous century? Is there any official explanation for this glaring plot-hole?

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: Ash faces the oval, wall-mounted mirror and tries to reassure himself that he's fine, until his mirror-image lunges out and tries to strangle him. Throughout this scene, the background set and lighting "reflected" in the mirror changes very noticeably between the real mirror and the hole-in-the-wall practical effect. Additionally, the Ash that lunges through the mirror is NOT a "mirror-image" of the other Ash, as the blood patterns on their faces are distinctly different, which is obvious in the face-to-face profile shot. For that matter, the blood patterns on Ash's face are inconsistent all throughout the film, frequently from one shot to the next.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: During the antique warehouse scene, Jet Li misses his cue to come defend Bob Hoskins; as a result, Hoskins takes a beating and is bleeding profusely from the bridge of his nose to his cheeks, on both sides. This scene transitions to Hoskins' headquarters, where Hoskins is now chewing out Jet Li, telling him how useless he is. In the close-up profile shot, Hoskins now has no blood whatsoever on the right side of his nose or face. The camera cuts as Hoskins walks to his desk and turns, and now blood is again splattered across both sides of his nose and face.

Charles Austin Miller

Here's a tough one. I'm searching for a color, live-action, grade "B" sci-fi movie from the 1970s about a modern home in the desert Southwest that seems to be at the center of a time/space vortex. The family (I recall a father and son, but there could be more) is terrified because they never know what is waiting for them outside: It might be a Tyrannosaurus Rex from the distant past or an alien invader from the distant future or anything in-between. This was not a comedy and it actually had pretty good special effects for a "B" movie back then. What is this film?

Charles Austin Miller

Question: With all of the Federation's extraordinarily advanced knowledge, science, medicine and technology, why is it that they can't seem to repair Captain Pike's physical injuries? In the original series, Pike was crippled and hideously disfigured by Delta Rays; but the best they could offer him was a motorized wheelchair with a couple of "yes" or "no" flashing communication lights. In the rebooted franchise, Pike suffered much less severe injuries; yet, once more, all they could offer him was a simple wheelchair in the first movie, and then a walking cane in the second. In Star Trek canon, we know that they have performed brain and spinal transplants, regenerated damaged organs, healed mortal wounds (in a matter of seconds), cured horrible diseases with a single hypo-injection, and even resuscitated the dead on more than one occasion. In Star Trek novels, there is mentioned even the possibility of cycling an injured individual through a previously-stored Transporter Pattern and completely removing injuries altogether. Yet the best they ever did for Captain Christopher Pike onscreen was a wheelchair and a cane?

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Near the end, during their extended nonsense bit about the stolen Beaugard painting, both Chico and Groucho were rapid-fire ad-libbing so heavily that they became irritated with one another. In fact, by the time Groucho ad-libbed, "I'd buy you a parachute if I thought it wouldn't open," he was getting really pissed off at Chico's faster and funnier come-backs. Almost instantly, Chico shot back, "Hey, I already got a pair-uh-shoes!" (which was, again, funnier than Groucho's parachute line). At that point, Groucho snapped and sprang into some improvised physical comedy, falling backwards across the card table and elbowing Chico right in the face, perhaps on purpose. Genuinely shocked from the blow, Chico recoiled wide-eyed, looked toward director Victor Heerman off-camera, and angrily exclaimed, "He's crazy!" (referring to Groucho).

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: When Dark Shadows was cancelled in 1971, several storylines were left incomplete, not the least of which was the fate of Barnabas Collins. Was he doomed to remain a vampire for all eternity? The definitive answer is no. In a 1971 TV Guide interview, the head writer of Dark Shadows, Sam Hall, revealed that the series would have eventually ended with Julia permanently curing Barnabas of his vampirism, and that Barnabas and Julia would live happily ever after in the Far East.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: The last time Eleanor Arroway talks to S.R. Haddon, he's aboard the Russian space station Mir, and Haddon explains that he's up there because the "low oxygen" and zero gravity counteracts his cancer. In fact, there is no "low oxygen" environment aboard space stations or other spacecraft. Low oxygen content would, of course, kill any astronauts or cosmonauts in short order. The breathable air in spacecraft always has at least the same oxygen content as Earth atmosphere at sea-level. In fact, most Russian missions used excessive amounts of oxygen. S.R. Haddon's original dialogue was probably "high oxygen and low gravity," but the line was bungled and allowed to remain in the film.

Charles Austin Miller