Sammo

14th Apr 2020

Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac (2019)

Der Kampf gegen den Drachen - S1-E3

Plot hole: Shiryu states that the Dragon Cloth, which has been 'for eons' under the waterfall (let's just say it's an exaggeration) is harder than diamond and invulnerable to any attack. In the original manga and anime series, Pegasus uses a sudden dodge during a daring grapple to get Shiryu to strike his own shield with the glove of the armor, shattering both ("invincible sword meets invincible shield") and causing him to fight barechested. In this remake, this whole part does not happen, so when Seiya wins the fight with a heart punch like in the other versions, he does it when Shiryu has his heart still covered by the thick breastplate of the armor, making the whole "Shiryu's armor is impervious to any hit and much stronger than any other Cloth" plot point completely moot.

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Suggested correction: It is only said that the "Dragon Shield" is unbreakable.

No, says much more than that. "That might be true for other armors, but the Dragon Armor is special. Nothing can get past my shield. It's unbeatable. The day my Cosmo forced the waters of the Lushan to flow upwards, it revealed the Dragon Armor. Battered for eons by the falling water, the Armor had grown harder and more radiant than a diamond. My Armor is the hardest substance known to man. No matter how fast or hard you strike, you've lost, Seiya." He parried the blow with the shield and so that deserves a special mention, but they keep mentioning the armor as having intrinsic properties, and he is wearing the armor when he is struck by Seiya, which guards his heart. In the original anime and the manga he was armorless after Seiya wrecked it, in here it's intact. It makes no sense, which is why I categorize it as a plot hole and not just as Character error: it's not that maybe he's wrong about the armor, it's the whole situation that now is flawed reprising the original with key differences.

19th Mar 2020

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Character mistake: Dissecting the chrysalis, Dr. Roden says that "Somebody grew this guy. Fed him honey and nightshade." Nightshade is indeed one of the typical plants eaten by the Death's head moth, but since "he" is only a pupa, would have not eaten honey, which is something only the adult specimen eats. (00:48:50)

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Suggested correction: I don't see this so much as a mistake, but rather a shortcut so there would be no need to explain the entire metamorphosis process. Feeding "it" would refer to the larva stage, necessary to reach (grow to) the pupa stage. "It" may have transformed, but "it" is still the same "it." The men working there are experts and would know what he means, not interrupt and say, "Pupae don't eat, dumb @$$." Likewise, having to specifically say that someone fed the larva "honey and Nightshade" so that it would become that pupa doesn't seem to be necessary given the nature of the film. [And the larva - not just "adults" - might eat honey.].

Sorry, I don't really understand the point of the first part (like, 90%) of the correction; at no point I was disputing the concept of 'feeding a pupa', but just what it could have eaten to be raised to that stage. The only relevant part of your correction is that last phrase; "And the larva might eat honey." Which is not how it works from what I understand. If you want to correct this entry, please dispute that aspect; I never bred bugs (...on purpose!) and surely not of that kind, but the larvae of that species are strictly herbivores, and the honey plays into their diet only later in life - to the best of my knowledge they can't even process it at that stage. Assuming it can (which I have no particular reason to believe), it would be an exception and not what an entomologist would say to describe a well raised specimen. For what it is worth, also, Harris' novel never mentions honey, but specifically leaves, although it's a different plant.

Sorry if I misconstrued what you were trying to say. By writing that the pupa would not eat something only the adults eat, you left the impression that the pupa eats other things (just not the honey). I think I understand now. Your answer is specific to the honey and my response addressed how much information the experts needed to present about metamorphosis and food/no food to the audience. I hope this helps you understand at least some of that 90%.

14th Sep 2020

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Stupidity: When the Turtles are leaving the junkyard they rescued Raphael from, the incredibly agile ninjas of the enemy clan can't simply jump over a van, or just slide over the hood. (00:54:00)

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Suggested correction: Remember at the beginning of the film, one of the clan members is angry that so many of their members were arrested. They have been looking hard for new recruits. The new recruits won't be as good right away.

I am sure even my mom could slide across the hood of a parked car if need be.

1st Sep 2003

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Corrected entry: When the time traveling first beings, it is explained that the dynamo and the high ranking people in the palace speak English because of the trade and western influence of their partnerships with the westerners in the movie. But later in the movie, all the common towns folk speak english with the turtles and rarely use japanese.

Correction: Those aren't 'common townsfolk', those are members of a rebellion. It stands to reason they'd 1)learn a language used by their enemies to better understand what they're plotting, and 2)refrain from using a language their guests can't understand.

I doubt that the little Japanese kid in the burning house who shouts "Help! Grandfather, heeeeelp!" in English is doing it because he saw that there are non-Japanese guests and wanted to be inclusive for the minorities.

12th Mar 2005

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Corrected entry: When the turtles travel through time they switch clothes with the other people they are switching with. But, if they are totally switching clothes. Why do they still have head bands on?

Correction: The same reason Kenshen kept his sword, April kept her Walkman, and three of the Honor Guard kept their 'underwear'. It's not explained in the film how or why, but it's shown to have been done repeatedly and deliberately. Not having an explanation does not make it a mistake.

Not having an explanation, it does not make sense. Like with the absurdity of English being widely known is explained with reasons that don't hold up to scrutiny, the movie goes out of its way to 'explain' magic with 'rules' that then are violated whenever it's convenient. It would be deliberate if the contradictions made some sort of sense, not when it sneaks in constant arbitrary contradictions.

13th Sep 2004

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Corrected entry: When the turtle Tokka (Rhazar?) jumps in the hole to chase after the turtle brothers, he gets stuck. If you look at his shell, one of the spikes has bent as if the shell is rubber. Seeing as he was a turtle before, the shell should be rock hard.

Correction: The outer layer of a turtle's shell (where a snapping turtle's spikes would be) are made of keratin, just like your fingernails which will bend with enough force. Snapping Turtles don't have very protective shells to begin with and Tokka certainly weighs a fair bit. It's not unreasonable that the spike could have warped under that kind of pressure.

If your fingernails are shaped like cones and a few inches thick, good luck bending them! If they budge it's more likely that they are coming off the bed. I understand that we're talking about the bodyweight of this big creature here, but the spikes around the lower edge bend, and in particular when Tokka is already stuck in the manhole and squirms annoyed as Michelangelo tickles its foot, one of the largest spikes in the back comes up in view. The whole shell of the turtle would have to be completely soft, sorta spongy, to allow that, but it's not a creature designed to be a hedgehog or something like that: the shell is a solid one.

21st Feb 2003

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Corrected entry: There is only one full canister of Ooze in the entire movie. Shredder uses some of the Ooze on the animals to create Tokaa and Razor but then in any other shot with the canister, (as in the one with Vanilla Ice or when Shredder puts some in a glass vial) it is completely full once again.

Correction: As the movie progresses, the canister is tossed about. It's likely the level of the ooze changes, but since we only get to see a small section of the ooze through the canister, it's likely we can't tell it's changed. The ooze probably sticks to the sides of the canister.

I disagree with the correction. We see practically all the length of the canister, far from being a small section, and for prolonged periods of time with the canister being tossed and turned. When Perry was emptying the canisters in the lab there was no evidence of the ooze being particularly viscous to the point of sticking to glass not allowing anything inside to be seen, in fact none of it was sticking it to the surface.

19th Mar 2003

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Corrected entry: At the end, after Shredder has taken the ooze and his suit has changed, look at the 'muscles' he's grown. They're just painted onto the cloth.

Correction: This is so obvious it was almost certainly intended to be just a design on the cloth. If they wanted muscle definition, they'd have just used a muscle suit like they made for the turtles (but leave off the shell...).

"If they wanted", yes. They did not because it was a cost-cutting measure and in a movie like this for a final fight that lasts about a minute they could get away with the Power Rangers look. I am not sure you can say it was a design choice but more like a budget constraint. In the context of the movie the fact that he suddenly has a painted-on shirt does not make any sense.

1st Aug 2005

XXX: State of the Union (2005)

Corrected entry: Stone hooks the tank up to a catapult shuttle, and launches it. If it was actually the Independence (CVA-62), the cats use steam power, and if it was the Hornet (CVS-12) the cats were hydraulic. In neither case would the cats have been charged while the vessel is in port.

Correction: Not so. The USS Bennington CV-20 corrected to the problem of hydraulic catapults. USS Bennington had a hydraulic catapult fire in the 1950s that killed over 100 men. After that, the U.S. Navy rejected the use of hydraulic cats in favor of steam. All were swapped for steam cats.

I appreciate the added information, but the correction only specifies a marginal part of the entry and does not disprove its point which is in fact to my knowledge correct; even if we establish that the cats were 100% steam cats, still they would have not been charged.

5th Mar 2003

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Corrected entry: At the end of the movie, Shredder takes the last of the ooze for himself. When the Turtles see him larger, and stronger, his suit is changed. The ooze would only change his body, not his suit.

Correction: Only if he really drank it like the turtles claim. Shredder may have poured the ooze on himself therefore it would mutate the suit as well.

Wait so the...suit has DNA that mutates? I understand that this mistake is questionable because of the cartoonish nature of it all, but this reason to refute it is not quite...reasonable. It forces us also to assume that the Turtles (acting as exposition for the movie plot) are deliberately wrong for no reason, when the explanation is simply that they wanted him with a cool new armor and not in stretchy Hulk underpants for this final fight and trusted that given the kind of movie we'd simply accept this unexplainable costume change.

18th Apr 2004

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Corrected entry: When the turtles are fighting the Foot in April's flat, it is daylight. However when they have to evacuate because of the fire, it is pitch black.

Correction: It is not incorrect for it to be night. By the time Ralph was on the roof top it was later in the day, by the time April came home from work it was a little later, then April shows the Turtles around her dad's old shop this takes up some time (and not a little time) as well, then there is the fight between the Turtles and the Foot. So by the time everything is over it would make sense for it to be night.

I don't see how this is possible. Take as reference the moment when the Foot clan ninjas drop en masse on the weakened floor causing its collapse. That's the darkest the sky through the window view is, and it's still definitely day. They fight downstairs for two and a half minutes of the movie, double it if you want to assume the time is 'compressed', surely they can't keep going on fighting in close quarters and with a fire soon erupting for longer than that. They break the fight off as the police arrives (law enforcement in this movie has insanely fast response times when it's convenient) and it's pitch black outside. It can't get dark THAT insanely fast.

24th Jan 2003

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Corrected entry: When the two turtles are waiting for the pizza guy to come to their sewer grate, one of them is sucking on a popsicle stick. The actor in the turtle suit can't see what he is doing, though, and subsequently pokes himself in the face with the stick a couple of times before finding the mouth of the costume.

Correction: I always saw this as him absent-mindedly (purposely) poking himself, in the same way someone at a desk might poke/tap himself in the face/mouth/chin area with a pen while thinking.

I don't. If it were deliberately pensive poking, he'd tap the same spot perhaps at a regular pace; here he rapidly pokes once, twice in a different spot and finally finds the mouth; he's fumbling trying to blindly catch the hole.

21st Sep 2002

XXX (2002)

Corrected entry: Towards the end of the film they resolve they must destroy the submarine and hence all of Prague to save the world - Why oh why does Samuel L. Jackson, and all the other executives, drive to the middle of the soon to be destroyed city? It seems a waste that such important people would be willing to die for no good reason, especially considering they had 30 minutes to get away and weren't even aware at first that Xander was actually on the sub. (01:49:45)

Correction: The weapon is supposed to be more powerful than a nuclear weapon. Thirty minutes to get out of the area wouldn't be enough to be safely out of the area. They are militarily trained and go to downtown in hopes of discovering some way to neutralize or destroy the sub. It's a pretty cowardly military person who would save their own skin before doing everything they can to protect civilians.

I don't agree with the correction. Thirty minutes would be plenty, with the kind of resources Gibbons has, since he has plenty of planes at his disposal, but more than that; the bad guys earlier detonate one of those rockets inside their own basement and cackle madly at death being unleashed through a security glass door. All it takes for Gibbons, or anyone really, to be 'safe' from that is lock yourself up somewhere, probably even your car with air recycling on and get the hell out of there. It seems awfully uncharacteristic of Gibbons and the other top brass to just stand there on the bridge (with no hazmat suits or anything, and they knew well in advance the nature of the weapon) and be cheerleaders. The entry should be at least a Stupidity (although then #320720 becomes a Duplicate entry).

17th Jan 2011

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

Factual error: During the scenes where the drivers are all racing to the impound lot, Verone and Fuentes are doing background checks on the drivers. When they show the shot of Roman Pearce's California driver's license information, it shows his DOB as Apr 12, 1973, A License issue date of 03/24/90, and Expires Date of 03/24/01. Driver's licenses don't expire on the anniversary of the issue date, they expire on the driver's month and day of birth. So his driver's license should show an expiration date of something like 04/12/01 instead. (00:31:45)

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Suggested correction: Not all state's driver's licenses expire on their birthday, or at least not anymore. Example: my current driver's license expires on the anniversary of when I got it Aug 16th, but my birthday is in June.

Pearce's is a California license; in the timeframe of the movie expiration date matched DOB.

I've never heard of a State license doing this. Which State is this? Although the mistake is valid.

According to google, "Every California license expires on your birthday five years after it's issued" (I can't seem to access the CA DMV website at the moment) but it does seem as though the mistake is, as you say, valid.

My reply was to the corrector who claims his/her State's driver's license expires on the issue date, which is something I've never heard of. So I was asking which State his/her license was from, not the movie's license.

Sorry, my mistake. On my page it was formatted as though you were replying to Sammo. Looking online, Delaware is one state where the licence expires 8 years after issue and not on your birthday (at least from what I can see).

Delaware driver licenses, while issued for 8 years, still expire on the driver's birthday.

27th Feb 2020

Joker (2019)

Factual error: It is established that Penny Fleck adopted Arthur and that he's been abused. In her file, when Arthur reads it, you can see that she was admitted the first time to the psychiatric hospital at 15 years of age, had multiple episodes with drug abuse, and the file mentions she is 25 and single on the date of the report, 11-2-1952. A single parent already had rather slim chances to adopt in the 50s, but a known mental patient and drug abuser, not a chance. (01:13:40)

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Suggested correction: She could have bribed her way into adopting a child. Someone who is desperate for attention could find ways to get what they want.

Suggested correction: It is not firmly established that Penny actually adopted Arthur - in fact, it's strongly hinted at that Thomas Wayne forced her into signing adoption papers in order to cover up Arthur's true parentage.

The established, as in recognized, backed up by documents, 'official' version the main character finds out and acts by, is the one contained in the report, newspaper clippings and flashback; son abused by the boyfriend of an adopted mother. Such story is impossible the way it is presented the moment we see details in a document that overblows it painting this 'adoptive' mother as single and with a history of drug abuse since 15 years old. Penny is not eligible to be an adoptive parent, and yet nobody seemed to have raised an eyebrow about that. If you want to assume that rather than being a mistake with overzealous details in a prop (check out of the original script of the movie, which has none of this ambiguity) whoever arranged the fake adoption documents kinda forgot to also make quietly disappear the mental and medical record invalidating their own fabrication, sure, do that! It's not exactly a small oversight - and really one would wonder why Wayne kept his bastard son with her at all.

Arthur is not Thomas Wayne's son. That was all in Penny's head.

27th Sep 2004

Collateral (2004)

Trivia: The film was almost entirely shot in high definition. Director Michael Mann states he did this to capture the night scenes more vividly.

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Suggested correction: The number of movies shot in less-than-HD could be counted on one hand.

I believe it refers to the fact that Collateral is considered to be the first major movie to use a digital camera, not the traditional film support.

8th Apr 2020

Common mistakes

Factual error: In almost every movie from the introduction of sound on to present day, lightning and thunder happen simultaneously, while in reality there's always a delay between the former and the latter.

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Suggested correction: Hardly always, if the lightning hits right in front of you you hear the thunder immediately. I'd say from about 100 meters you perceive it as instantly, as it's only 0.3 seconds between flash and thunder.

This is a mistake about in almost all movies, not in all thunderstorms. The common mistake in the movies is when lightning isn't hitting 100m away from the character, but the sound is still instantaneous.

I assume it's about thunderstorms in movies. Name an example.

Instant thunder (even at a considerable distance of miles from the lightning or explosion source) is, indeed, a common and probably deliberate error in most films. The reasoning for it is simple: a prolonged and realistic delay between lightning and thunder could change a 1-second shot into a 6-second shot, for example, compromising the director's intended pace and mood for the scene. Steven Spielberg films have utilized both instant and delayed thunder. In "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," for example, when the UFOs zoom out into the distant background (certainly miles away) in a wide landscape shot, they produce a lightning effect in the clouds that is simultaneously heard as thunder. But in "Poltergeist" (a Spielberg film directed by Tobe Hooper), there is a very deliberate scene of characters realistically counting the seconds between distant lightning and resulting thunder. Choosing to obey physics or not is a matter of the director's artistic license.

Charles Austin Miller

I posted this while I was watching Death in Paradise, episode 7 of the third season, but really, you have never seen in pretty much any horror or cheap slasher movie whenever there's a storm, the flash of a lightning coming at the *same* time as a thunder jumpscare sound? It's vastly spoofed, even, when some ugly/creepy/terrifying character makes its appearance. One example randomly picked? Dracula by Coppola, in the first 10 minutes, carriage, lightning in the distance, not even a split second after, rumble. In RL it would reach you a couple seconds later. But really, it's such a movie archetype, I am sure you can find it in any Dracula movie.

The Dracula example doesn't really show how far away the lightning is, it could right above them. It's fake as hell, I agree with that, but the fact there is lightning and thunder at the same time without actually seeing the distance is not a mistake to me. It's also highly unnatural lightning as it only happens twice and then nothing, it's not even raining. It's obviously meant to be caused by the evil surrounding the place. The idea is there is constant lightning right on top of them.

There's a scene in Judge Dredd where every few seconds, there is a flash of lightning instantly accompanied by the sound of thunder. It happens frequently in Sleepy Hollow as well.

I know the scenes you are referring to. In both those instances you have no idea about the distance of this lightning. It could be (and probably is) right on top of them. You can hear that from the typical high sharpness of the sound, only heard when the flash is very close. Thunderclouds are never very high in the air so even the rumbling within the cloud itself can be heard, sometimes you don't even see lightning when it rumbles (yet there is). It's a bit far fetched but you could hear a rumbling or the thunder from a previous flash and mistake it for the flash you see at the same time. Can happen when there are continuous flashes.

9th Feb 2010

Avatar (2009)

Question: Jake's paralyzed legs really look small and thin and weak. How did they make the actor's legs look like that, since he's not really paralyzed? Or did they edit a pair of fake legs in?

Chosen answer: It would have been done with digital effects.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: They used prosthetics.

Indeed. They used prosthetics, the mould of which was taken from a real paraplegic person.

27th Feb 2020

Joker (2019)

Plot hole: Arthur's appearance on the talk show makes hardly any sense. The show is a close port of Johnny Carson's Tonight show, for a huge audience, and yet he receives no screening at all, they put him (someone NOBODY in the staff knows the first thing about) on the air literally without a clue of what he is gonna do or say, and wearing a highly controversial costume. And, when he murders Murray, it is implied that everyone was able to see him doing that right away and he is cut 'off the air' at some point, as if the show were really live, which is preposterous for this sort of program outside of specific events (similar to how in contemporary TV "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", is not live). Even earlier when Arthur opened the letter his mom addressed to Wayne, you could hear the end credits of "Live with Murray Franklin" with the announcer saying the show is "Taped live in front of a studio audience." (00:48:00)

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Suggested correction: I don't see this is a problem due to the fact that we can't be sure what really happens as apposed to what only happens in Arthur's mind. So if the whole TV show appearance is just another fantasy, he would have skipped the who screening process.

You are free to treat the whole movie as something where things don't make sense because in the fan theory of your liking it's all meant to have subtle hints that the movie is all a fantasy, but the movie does not present that particular talk show scene as a dream sequence. It'd be silly to nitpick the logic in the scene when he is picked from the audience by Murray at the beginning because it's obviously presented as nothing more than his fantasy, but his appearance on the show is what the movie built up to up to that point and is not treated as a parenthesis where logic should be suspended, nor disproven like the scenes with his girlfriend standing in.

13th Apr 2020

Death in Paradise (2011)

The Complex Murder - S5-E1

Corrected entry: In the close captions (Prime Video) Goodman on the boat in the dark says "So much that Nancyand I are going to do together", missing a space. (00:21:50)

Correction: While subtitles on an official DVD normally count as a mistake, on streaming services I'd be more tolerant, because that's more Amazon's responsibility, and they're often corrected once alerted to the problem.

Will remember that in the future! Thanks. I understand the part about the fact that it's easy for them to fix and therefore the mistake could be corrected very easily (although I could take a screenshot, which is hardly worth the hassle for very minor mistakes of this nature) and is in fact corrected if reported (that's a bit like bugs submissions for games tho?), not sure about the responsibilities, since DVD subtitles too are normally done by external companies as well.

True, I guess my attitude has generally been that by the time it's crystallised onto a DVD it's been signed off by the distributor/filmmakers, and the whole thing is sort of a package, whereas if Amazon/Netflix get the subtitles wrong or make a strange edit, etc. that's more a one-off, plus can be fixed after the fact. Grey area though!

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