Tailkinker

16th Feb 2008

The Godfather (1972)

Corrected entry: Carlo beats up Connie when she is pregnant, and she calls Sonny and he is killed on the causeway. When Michael comes back from Italy and looks up Kay, she asks how long he has been back and he says a year, maybe longer. Michael and Kay get married and then the scene shifts to a few years later (Kay and Michael have a son). The Godfather asks Michael how his son is and Michael says he is "smarter than me; he is three years old and can read the funny papers". But then, Michael decides to be Godfather to Connie and Carlos' baby. How long was Connie pregnant? This implies she was pregnant for four years.

Correction: Or, thinking a bit more sensibly, that Carlo and Connie had two children. Which they do, Victor and Michael Francis. When Michael has arrived at Carlo's house to 'make him answer for' Sunny's death, When Carlo replies, to Michael, he refers to swearing "on the kids...", plural. We are all thinking that the baby whose baptism they just participated in was Connie's first baby, but Kay and Michael (as previously mentioned) were now already married and have a 3 year old, so this has to be Connie's 2nd baby with Carlo, yes? And Carlo does say, I swear on "the kids."

Tailkinker

12th Feb 2008

Life on Mars (2006)

Episode #2.3 - S2-E3

Corrected entry: Sam refers to Chunky Kit Kat chocolate bars. Kit Kats had been around since the mid-1930s, but the Chunky Kit Kat would not appear until 1999, well after the 1973 period in which this show is set.

Correction: Sam, however, comes from the present day, so would know about them.

Tailkinker

12th Feb 2008

Ashes to Ashes (2008)

Show generally

Corrected entry: Gene Hunt's red Audi quattro was a very exclusive and expensive car in 1981. The price for a new Audi quattro in 1981 was £14,664.00. That's more (at the time) than a Jaguar XJS or Mercedes SL. How could Gene Hunt afford such an expensive car on a DCI's salary?

Correction: This is a question, not a mistake. Please post in that section.

Tailkinker

9th Feb 2008

The Mummy (1999)

Corrected entry: Imhotep was mummified (i.e. he had his arms wrapped tightly to his body) and would thus be unable to scratch the inside of his sarcophagus, let alone engrave a message.

Correction: The scarabs poured into his coffin ate away enough of the wrapping to free his arms.

Tailkinker

3rd Feb 2008

I Am Legend (2007)

Corrected entry: When in Times Square hunting the deer, we see a poster for the Broadway play "Rent" in the background. If the virus didn't hit until 2009 - the play "Rent" went (is going) off Broadway in June 2008 - the poster would not still be up.

Correction: At the time of shooting, this would not have been known. The announcement of "Rent" going off Broadway was made a month after the movie came out. Unless you seriously think that filmmakers should go back redo films to reflect new trends, and resubmit them to theaters, this cannot, at all, logically be considered a mistake.

Tailkinker

1st Feb 2008

True Lies (1994)

Correction: Try running a tap gently against a bit of fabric sometime. All the water doesn't just get soaked up - plenty of it runs down the fabric and out.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: There are many times when the moonlight is shining on the chest. But Barbossa never becomes a skeleton.

Correction: The cave has various holes leading to the outside, some relatively small, leading to a rather narrow shaft of light. As only direct moonlight causes the shift to their skeletal form, it would be entirely possible for a cursed individual to stand very close to one of these shafts and remain human in appearance.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: In the trailer of the movie, the wooden dinosaur plays with a rubber ball and pauses every time Henry looks back at the store. In the movie itself, the dinosaur plays Frisbee instead and hides under the counter. Also, in the trailer the giant ball is colored orange-blue-white, while in the movie the giant ball is entirely red.

Correction: Trailers often use alternative takes, or even scenes ultimately deleted from the film, usually having been created long before the final cut of the film is locked down. As such, differences between a trailer and the eventual film cannot realistically be considered as mistakes.

Tailkinker

30th Jan 2008

Star Wars (1977)

Corrected entry: When the empire is invading Princess Leia's starship C-3PO says, "The princess is in danger!" But later in the movie when R2-D2 shows his projection video he doesn't know who she is.

Correction: C-3PO isn't stupid. Yes, he knows exactly who it is, but he doesn't know, having only just met him, that Luke can be trusted with that information.

Tailkinker

29th Jan 2008

Apollo 13 (1995)

Corrected entry: When Swigert is being brought up to speed in the simulator (the re-entry simulation with the false indicator light), the Capcom announces loss of signal, but a few seconds later (right after the corridor light), the astronauts are talking to Houston again. (Note: this is far too soon for them to have come out of the blackout, since, according to the end of the movie, the blackout usually lasts around three minutes.)

Correction: Time compression. We could have watched them simulate the entire three minutes of blackout, but it wouldn't be particularly interesting and the film has better uses for those minutes at other points in the film. So they jump time a bit to keep the flow of the film. Absolutely standard practice.

Tailkinker

29th Jan 2008

Apollo 13 (1995)

Corrected entry: When Marilyn has the nightmare about Jim's mission meeting disaster, the Capcom says, "We show S4B shutdown," and then a few seconds later says, "when you get in the LEM." This makes no sense, because S4B (Saturn 4B Booster) shutdown happens before the LEM is even docked (and days before anybody would actually get in the LEM). Granted, it's a dream, but Marilyn Lovell was actually fairly knowledgeable about the way lunar missions worked, and you'd think that if she could dream everything else correctly (the layout of the capsule, for instance), she (or the filmmakers) would get that detail correct.

Correction: It's a dream. These are not required to make factual sense, even if the dreamer in question is well acquainted with the subject matter. I'm pretty knowledgeable about cats, and am therefore reasonably sure that they can't fly, yet have, on occasion, had a dream that involved cats doing precisely that. Factually incorrect, but that's dreams for you.

Tailkinker

29th Jan 2008

Apollo 13 (1995)

Corrected entry: When Jim Lovell is talking to his son about landing on the moon, he says his moon landing will be "Better than Neil Armstrong; way better than Pete Conrad." In fact, while Armstrong did make a less-than-stellar landing (hampered by low fuel and a problem with his targeting computer), Pete Conrad's Apollo 12 landing was nearly perfect.

Correction: So what? There's always a healthy level of rivalry among such people. If Lovell reckons that he can land better than his predecessors did, then it's not a mistake to say so; people are entitled to have opinions. Bear in mind that Lovell would consider Armstrong's landing, hampered by fuel and computer problems, to be a more impressive feat than Conrad's relatively mundane experience, so it's quite reasonable that he would rank them in that order.

Tailkinker

25th Jan 2008

True Lies (1994)

Corrected entry: Harry and his partner followed Simon after his lunch with Helen on Chinatown. The restaurant was pretty crowded, so how come they knew who to follow? Simon would not come out of the restaurant together with Helen, because he had a 'secret agent' role to play. He must have instructed her to go out a few minutes before or after him, so Arnie would have no way to know that he was the guy to follow. (00:52:30)

Correction: Simon wouldn't want to risk Helen following him, in case she found out what he really does, so he'd send her out first. But he wouldn't want to be sitting there for ages either. All Harry and Gib have to do is wait until she leaves, then look for a single man leaving within a few minutes. It's still something of a guess, but an educated one which, as we see, pays off.

Tailkinker

Hide and Seek - S1-E3

Corrected entry: When Lt. Ford and another soldier are trying to evade the entity, but are faced by a closed bulkhead, Dr. Weir tells them to turn around go down the corridor and take the exit to the west. How are they to know which way is easy and west in a building that they have not been in for that long? Isn't turn left or right a lot quicker and easier, especially where instructions are given from a civilian. When someone asks for directions in the street how often do you say take the second turn on the East, or take the second left?

Correction: When you ask someone for directions in the street, they usually aren't in the military, or, as in Weir's case, associated heavily with the military. There's nothing wrong with Weir's directions; it's just your opinion that he shouldn't use east and west and an opinion does not make a mistake. And as for how they're supposed to tell where East and West is - easy, they have a compass, part of standard issue kit.

Tailkinker

22nd Jan 2008

MacGyver (1985)

Pilot - S1-E1

Corrected entry: During the opening scene, right before Mac and the guy he rescued are going to jump off the cliff, Mac shoots The Gun. As most fans will know, Mac doesn't shoot guns, and hasn't since the "childhood tragedy".

Correction: So, what's the mistake here? No mistake in this episode, certainly - if subsequent episodes say that he's not fired a gun in that time, then there's an argument that there's an error in those episodes, but him firing off a gun in this episode cannot be considered a mistake.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: Ryan says he was on the Newport, Rhode Island Little League World Series Championship team, but Newport never won that title.

Correction: This is fiction. Not under any particular obligation to be accurate on such matters.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: The Seaview is rushing to the Guam area to launch the missile. They keep saying that time is critical but all the shots show them going there submerged. A surfaced submarine can go much faster.

Correction: The Seaview is a highly experimental craft (throughout the movie and the following TV series, it's established that the Seaview is faster and more maneuverable than any real-life submarine) whose drive method is never stated, other than it doesn't use propellors. Considering this, it's hardly implausible that the Seaview carries a drive system that functions more efficiently when fully submerged, driving it faster despite the increased water resistance.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: When Beckett tells Norrington that "The pirates know they face extinction," you can hear the sound of a sword being pulled out of its scabbard, but Norrington only removed it from the box so the sound should not have been there.

Correction: Norrington opens the box, the scene cuts away and we hear the noise of it being removed from the scabbard. When we cut back, Norrington has the sword, unsheathed, in his right hand, with his left, we can see him replacing the scabbard within the box. While the lighting and surroundings make the blade look dark in colour, similar to the scabbard, he's definitely unsheathed it.

Tailkinker

7th May 2007

Torchwood (2006)

Show generally

Corrected entry: In the first episode, "Everything Changes," Gwen is told that "Captain Jack Harkness failed to report for duty" on 21 January, 1941. However, in "Captain Jack Harkness," Jack tells Tosh that the real Captain Jack Harkness will be killed in combat, taking down 3 Messerschmidts and getting the rest of his squadron safely back to base in the process the next day. Surely, at least one of his men would have reported that the Captain died a hero. If not, how can he fail to report for duty if he was in the air? (00:39:10 - 00:39:50)

Captain Defenestrator

Correction: Gwen asks for information on a living man named Jack Harkness. The original Jack Harkness, the pilot, is confirmed as having been killed in combat - as you say, his squadron would have reported his heroic death. Being confirmed as deceased, there's no reason for the researcher to mention him. Torchwood's Jack Harkness, who took his name and who also served in the military, is the one who was listed as having vanished without trace.

Tailkinker

19th Jan 2008

Cloverfield (2008)

Corrected entry: In the scene with the *army?* fighting the main monster, there are a few military mistakes. The M16/m4 that they are using would not be loaded with tracer rounds, which are expensive to supply and would have been reserved for an M249 SAW because of its rapid fire and inaccuracy. Also, I believe the rocket launchers used were FGM-148 Javelin rockets. These would have been propelled out of the tube, ascend several thousand feet, and then descend onto the target. In the movie, it went directly at the monster. Even if it was not the Javelin rocket, there was not enough exhaust flare coming from the tube to be a real rocket.

Correction: The Javelin missile has a direct-fire mode for use against fortifications. The top-down approach is designed for use against armoured vehicles with relatively thin top armour; as this is obviously a rather different situation, there's no reason not to take the direct-fire approach. And if, say, they've run out of ordinary ammunition, there's no inherent reason not to use the tracer ammunition; if it's either that or nothing, cost hardly becomes a consideration.

Tailkinker

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