Corrected entry: The small torch handed to Thomas K. Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) as he first gets into simulator looks to be a modern Mini MagLite. They didn't come on sale until 1984.
stiiggy
27th May 2020
Apollo 13 (1995)
1st May 2018
M*A*S*H (1972)
Factual error: When the South Korean Colonel and General are in the mess tent, their rank insignia are wrong. The insignia they are wearing are for the U.S. Army.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: They could have been Korean Augmentation To the United States Army (KATUSA) officers, who were Koreans drafted or volunteered into the US military to act as a liaison between Koreans and the US military. As such they wore US uniforms and rank.
15th May 2020
Top Gun (1986)
Corrected entry: The call of "going ballistic" is totally wrong. Calling "we're going ballistic" is a warning call to all other aircraft that you have no control of your airplane and it's only being controlled by the laws of physics (diving, turning etc) and not the pilot.
Correction: While you are correct technically, I don't believe Goose was referring to the technical use of the phrase/term. He was using it as a indication of excitement. "My daughter went ballistic when she saw the new puppy."
The fact that you point out the mistake is correct isn't a good way to open a correction. Plus, there's no indication he's expressing "sudden excitement." On top of that, even if he did intend to say "we're excited", it would still be a character mistake to use a specific phrase that has a specific meaning out of context like you're suggesting.
I did not point out of the "mistake" is correct at all. I pointed out that what the poster stated is true (to my knowledge) about what going ballistic means in the technical flying a plane sense. However, this is not how Goose is using it. He was absolutely expressing excitement. Maverick states that they are going vertical. Goose replies "We're going ballistic Mav, go get'em." He is not saying it to alert other craft (thus the call out specifically to Mav). This was a phrase used a lot in the 80's, but not much anymore. "Dad is going to go ballistic when he finds out", or "She is going to go ballistic when we get to Disney." It expresses anger, excitement, craziness. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/go%20ballistic.
The NATO Brevity Code manual (google it), specifically mentions "going ballistic" as a the term to be used once you have lost control of your aircraft, a warning to others. It's a term that was adopted *after* the movie for expressing excitement.
When the couples are all together at the restaurant/bar (01:01:45), Carole tells Maverick, "He told me all about the time you went ballistic with Penny Benjamin" (the Admiral's daughter). So considering his wife, Carole, uses this specific slang expression it's believable that Goose also uses the slang in this way despite its "technical" use. During the earlier training mission (00:31:55), when Goose reacted to Maverick going vertical after Jester goes vertical, Goose, perhaps inappropriately, casually used the term only while speaking directly to Maverick, so if this is to be listed as any kind of mistake it would be a character mistake. This movie was released mid 1986, and excitedly "going ballistic" (just like "going bananas") was indeed used prior to this movie's release.
Yet, they are not losing control of the aircraft in that scene, and he is not warning other aircraft since it's not happening AMD he is only talking to Maverick (the pilot who would be well aware if they were ballistic). I don't know exactly when the term hit the main stream as a term of excitement but it's pretty clear to me that he is saying it that way. Classifying this as an error would be like saying the lines "a walk in the park Kazinsky" or "the defense department regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid" are errors because neither is true. He wasn't reporting to anyone that they were ballistic. He was encouraging his pilot and just happened to use an aeronautical statement in his excitement.
12th Jan 2008
Thunderball (1965)
Corrected entry: Two Vulcans left the airbase together. They would have flown together as well. Where did the other go? Why didn't it follow the other plane when it got in trouble - and reported where it had gone to?
Correction: It's not odd to think the Vulcans separated at some waypoint in the flight for simulated bombing runs or as practice for some sort of decoy maneuver and were to return at different times.
Spot on. The Vulcans were nuclear armed. There's no point having 2 aircraft drop a nuclear bomb on the same target.
Correction: No it was standard procedure to have multiple bombers, missile silos and subs go after the same target. That's so if the primary aircraft is shot down etc. another would take its place, it's called target redundancy.
25th Apr 2002
Days of Thunder (1990)
Corrected entry: Nicole Kidman's character is a neurosurgeon, yet she has no objection to a helmetless motorcycle ride.
Correction: So?? Even though she is a neurosurgeon and probably sees the effect of not wearing a helmet in a crash, it does not mean that she would wear a helmet. In real life people who should know better do stupid things too.
Exactly. How many times do you see doctors and nurses smoking cigarettes?
25th Apr 2002
Days of Thunder (1990)
Corrected entry: At the begining of the movie when Tom Cruise is due to test the car, Randy Quaid says that his driver has come from single seaters, when Tom Cruise arrives, he produces an open face helmet with peak and Microphone - a single seater driver would wear a full face helmet.
Correction: Randy Quaid says Cole had, "Two All-Star wins, seven straight Feature wins, and he's been driving ASA." ASA was a lower Stock Car division at the time, and quite plausibly, that could have been where he got the helmet.
Even as a very amateur race car driver, I have helmets of both type. A professional like Cole would have access to many helmets, and not have just one. He obviously knew he was about to test a stock car, so he brought the appropriate helmet. Nothing to see here.
3rd Mar 2008
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
Corrected entry: In the scenes where cars are flipping through the air, the roof flaps never deploy. Roof flaps are the two flaps on the top of the car that always deploy during wrecks, particularly if there is a chance the car could go airborne to keep the car on the ground. They are required safety devices in NASCAR and would definitely deploy if a car was airborne.
14th Oct 2004
Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
Corrected entry: When the marines go in with their helos to rescue Burnett, where is their air support? There should be at least 2 fighters and as many as four securing the area.
Correction: Actually the rescue choppers wouldn't of had any fighter escort for several reasons (A). Fighter escort is usually used for protection against enemy aircraft which the Bosnian didn't exactly have a whole lot of at the time. (B). Fighters would have been relatively useless in protecting the downed pilot and the choppers even with AGMs. (C). They did have air support. Those 2 other UH-1N's with the 2.75 in rockets and mini-guns. And finally (D). What would fighters have done to those tanks? AGMs and bombs are in to close proximity to the running pilot they would have vaporized him to.
Yes they would have fighter escorts. That's what happened when Scott O'grady was being rescued.
This film is not a documentary on Scott O'Grady.
23rd Jan 2017
Cars (2006)
Question: At the beginning, what caused McQueen's rear tires to burst?
Chosen answer: Blown tires are common in NASCAR and usually the result of exactly what McQueen did, run too long, too fast, on old tires. They show him not taking new tires during the yellow caution, and then all the green pit stops, he only took gas. Excess heat from high speed driving can increase a tire's pressure, and with "old" tires, it couldn't handle the stress.
Absolutely incorrect. Tyres bursting in NASCAR is an absolute rarity, and it is usually caused by vehicle to vehicle contact. You cannot get a race tyre so hot that it bursts unless you start at ridiculously high pressures, which would make car impossible to drive anyway. The tyre probably had a puncture from running over debris.
That's why I used the word blown and not bursts. Obviously the film exaggerated a blown tire, but I thought that would be obvious to the viewer where everything is exaggerated.
27th Aug 2001
Red Dawn (1984)
Corrected entry: In the scene where the freedom fighters are attacked by the Soviet helicopter gunships, one of them fires a rocket from an RPG-7 at one of them. It does little damage - it should have been blown out of the sky. The RPG-7 is an anti-tank weapon, so even a heavily armored helicopter shouldn't be able to withstand a hit from one.
Correction: If you look closely the RPG actually hits the Soviet guy in the open area of the helicopter. The copter actually has a open door (much like the US Huey) in the middle. The Russian is manning a gun in this middle part. The explosion kills this man (possible another) and disperses the explosion out the open sides instead of throughout the helicopter's hull.
Correction: The Hind helicopter is the most armoured helicopter in service. It will easily withstand an RPG hit because the RPG is designed to penetrate solid armour and has a relatively small explosive charge. The main enemy to all helicopters, as proven in Afghanistan, is the Man Poertable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS), like the Stinger, which homes in on the engine, and could easily drop a Hind if it hits there.
The original correction is correct: the explosion is dispersed through the open space. Had the RPG round struck the Hind elsewhere, the chopper would've been obliterated: RPG-7s have destroyed numerous main battle tanks, and an MI-24 Hind's armor was designed to withstand 14.7 mm rounds, not rocket-propelled grenades.
This is factually wrong. The RPG-7 as shown in the movie has actually only destroyed a few main battle tanks. In both Gulf Wars only 1 Abrams M1 was disabled (not destroyed) by an RPG. If the RPG had indeed exploded in the "open" part of Hind it would have killed the crew.
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Correction: We never actually see Ken being given the flashlight he'll be using in the simulations, only that he insists on being given precisely the same things the astronauts have aboard with them, and that is what he uses. That aside, what we see in the film are not Mini Maglites, though they are indeed miniature flashlights known as the Apollo astronaut penlight, model FA-5. Right after Jim tells Jack about the urine bags, there's a nice closeup of Fred holding one, with its distinctive bulb end casing.
Super Grover ★
I happily stand corrected. Thanks for improving my trivia :).
stiiggy