Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum is explaining "line of sight" to the President, he hands the same piece of paper to him three times.
Phoenix
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When the fleet of alien vessels is wiping out the army base, they fire hundreds of shots, yet we never see any of them hit the ground, except to blow up a few planes.
Correction: The aliens have poor aim against moving targets, but are quite skilled against stationary targets such as installations (possibly a result of lack of combat experience due to the length of their voyage). Most of the vessels are aiming at the actual buildings and hangars offscreen in the foreground, with a few aiming at planes on the ground. No alien fire aims for the ground and disappears before it hits it.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch are playing chess, the radio next to them says it's 97 degrees outside. Yet the two men are both dressed as if it were winter time.
Correction: Neither of them is really bundled up for winter. Goldblum is wearing a short-sleeved collared shirt with the top button unbuttoned and khakis, not unusual for someone as straitlaced as his character in summer. Though Hirsch is wearing a sweater over his shirt, it's a low V-neck that still allows for ventilation. Judging from his character's fairly conservative nature, this isn't surprising either.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Will Smith was flying over the remains of El Toro, there is nothing but rubble. It's flattened with only a few palm trees remaining. But when Jasmine comes to the gate, you can see planes (in good condition) behind her.
Correction: Those planes are definitely not in good condition. There are a few largely intact parts, notably two plane tails and most of a cockpit that happen to be lying relatively close together, but they are rubble like everything else.
5th Jun 2003
Murder by Numbers (2002)
Corrected entry: When the final fight on the derelict porch is over and the camera pans back from hanging over the cliff onto the porch, there is a discrepancy between the real house wall and the CG part of the scene. If you look carefully, you can see that two parts of the wall behind the two characters on the screen slide "out of place" as if they were shot from different angles.
Correction: I was watching this carefully, but I never saw the mistake happen. First, there is no pan shot from over the cliff back onto the porch. Second, though the background behind them is sliding slightly, this is because the house is old and shaky and the boards of the siding themselves are shifting under the weight of the characters. This mistake didn't make it into the final version of the movie.
14th Jan 2004
Murder by Numbers (2002)
Corrected entry: In the scene where Sandra Bullock's character is questioning Ryan Gosling's character on the bleachers of the gym, the boom comes in and out of the picture from the top.
Correction: I watched this through very carefully twice and I still don't see it on the DVD version. Chalk it up to projectionist error in the theatre, not a movie mistake.
9th May 2004
Murder by Numbers (2002)
Corrected entry: In the classroom scene where the students are taking a pop quiz, the teacher is pacing at the front of the room, about one or two metres from his desk as they all hand their papers to the front. A split second later, the camera cuts to a close shot of the teacher sitting at his desk and holding his glasses. There is no way he could have moved behind the desk and sat down that fast.
Correction: There is elapsed time in this scene. The teacher says "Exchange papers with your neighbor" when he is standing in front of the room, then says "And the answer to number 20 is D" when he is sitting down a second later with his glasses on. The movie skipped the bit in between where the teacher read off the answers to the quiz and the students corrected each other's quizzes, more than enough time for the teacher to sit down and put on his glasses. This is how Lisa was able to get Justin a passing grade.
12th Dec 2002
Murder by Numbers (2002)
Corrected entry: When Cassie and her partner are in her houseboat, Cassie's robe is loosely open in the first shot, but tightly closed up to her neck line with the following camera shot, before she leaves to sit on the dock.
Correction: This actually happens twice, but both times Cassie has her hands on her robe and the time and motivation to close it. The first time is when she sees Sam walking in, but it's not unusual for someone to cover up when an unexpected visitor walks in. The second time is after Sam mentions Carl Hudson, when Cassie again feels vulnerable and acts subconsciously to protect herself.
24th Mar 2004
Murder by Numbers (2002)
Corrected entry: When Cassie is in her boat house, her partner walks in and doesn't close the sliding door, but when he walks out he opens the door.
Correction: You can hear him close it offscreen while the camera is on Cassie.
5th Jul 2002
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum and his dad arrive at the White House, a right-to-left pan of the front lawn (which begins from inside a police cruiser) plainly shows red holiday ribbon and Christmas wreaths along the grass. Odd to the point of irony, as the movie is supposed to be set in JULY!
Correction: The alleged Christmas wreaths are actually the shrubbery of the White House hedge, and the red ribbon could either be large red flowers or another red decoration - it's too irregular to be ribbon.
10th Jun 2003
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: The entire scene where Will Smith and his girlfriend first see the spaceship is pretty ridiculous. First, Will goes out to get the paper, but instead of taking it back in the house, he opens it up and starts reading it - in the yard. Then Jasmine comes out (conveniently neglecting to notice the spaceship that's directly in her line of vision) and offers him a cup of coffee - in the yard. Were they planning to spend the rest of the morning standing in the front yard? (00:25:20)
Correction: Steve and Jasmine just woke up and are suffering from a certain amount of morning grogginess. This explains why they don't notice the saucer in the distant sky - most people don't look up at the sky as a matter of course. Steve is looking through the paper's headlines before he heads back to the house - not an unusual thing to do, before he returns to the house and the paper is completely disassembled. Jasmine would know this morning ritual since they have been together so long and looks out for him by giving him fresh coffee instead of waiting for him to come back inside. Maybe it's not what every American does in the morning, but it's not completely bizarre, either.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum is demonstrating how he puts the virus into the old alien fighter to lower its shield, he puts a soda can on the ship and asks an officer to shoot it. When he does, the bullet is stopped by the ship's shield. Then after the virus is put into the ship's system, the officer is able to shoot the can off of the ship. But when Goldblum picks the can up, there is no bullet hole in it, only a dent. The military must make their soda cans bulletproof.
Correction: No one picks up the soda can after Mitchell shoots it off the spaceship. It's knocked off by the bullet and never seen again. The soda can that Goldblum picks up at his desk is an entirely different one, used to show that he cares about recycling and saving the planet that way.
22nd Jan 2004
Big Fish (2003)
Corrected entry: After Carl signs his contract with the circus, he stands in the background as Edward makes a deal for a job - his hands are visible in the shot. Carl's height and proportions to the other people in the shot are drastically reduced. Mr. Soggybottom's head is on level with Carl's hips, whereas before he barely reached below his knees.
Correction: There are several camera angles at work throughout the shots introducing Karl and the Ringmaster. Most of them are very high angles from Karl's shoulders that look down on the Ringmaster and make him look very short. The shot referred to in the mistake simply removes these special angles and looks straight across, revealing the true proportions of these characters that existed all along but were disguised by the angles used. Also, keep in mind that this is a story being told by a man with a talent for exaggeration, so Karl's height would fluctuate with the intended effect on the audience: Since Karl's height has to impress the Ringmaster, he has to appear even more gigantic than usual.
18th Feb 2004
Big Fish (2003)
Corrected entry: When Carl's shadow falls over the four sheep when we first see him, the sheep are either drinking or grazing, but also bleating loudly, which they couldn't do while eating/drinking. Seems sound effects went a little overboard.
Correction: There are four sheep eating and three sheep wandering around the corral. These three are the ones making noise, because they notice the giant approaching.
16th May 2004
Big Fish (2003)
Corrected entry: When Bloom meets Carl for the first time outside of his cave there are shots cutting from a close up of Carl to a long shot. The long shots show prominent bruising on Carl's forehead that is absent in the close ups.
Correction: The dark spots in the long shots are actually a combination of Carl's wispy hair and the actual small bruise on the right side of his forehead. From a distance, the two combine to look much darker, but the angle in the closer shot reveals that the bruise is consistently light and small and the hair layers over it to make a dark spot.
11th Mar 2003
Eight Legged Freaks (2002)
Corrected entry: In one of the scenes where Chris and Aunt Gladys are seen riding through the mine they are shown exiting it, but after cutting to a different scene they are shown again still riding through the mine and not at the exit yet.
Correction: At one point they are shown riding toward a lighted end of the tunnel, and this is light from outside, but it is only bright relative to the darkness of the tunnel; it's indirect light that has penetrated down the shaft. The observing human eye and camera have compensated for the darkness. They're closer to the exit but never at it until they jump out.
23rd Oct 2003
The Fifth Element (1997)
Corrected entry: When Leeloo escapes from the Nucleolab, her hands are really dirty, but when she jump from the building, her feet are only a little bit dirty.
Correction: Her feet have a lot of dirt on them, but it's only on the surfaces of her feet that touch the ground: the ball of the big toe, the edge along the outside, and the heel.
22nd Sep 2003
The Fifth Element (1997)
Corrected entry: Right before Korben gets into the sleep chamber, he throws in his jacket and you can see his foot on the ledge. The camera angle changes and he is seen with both feet still on the ground.
Correction: When the camera angle changes we only see Korben's head and upper torso. The foot on the ledge is still on the ledge, he uses it to lever himself up and lift his other foot into the same chamber.
5th Sep 2003
The Fifth Element (1997)
Corrected entry: The stones are covered in dust and cobwebs when they're taken from the short pillars, but they're nice and shiny when they're put into the bag.
Correction: The Mondoshawans have great reverence for the stones and take the time offscreen to wipe off the dust before they place them in storage.
22nd Sep 2003
The Fifth Element (1997)
Corrected entry: When the cops attach the winch to Korben's cab, he takes off breaking the winch and when the camera angle changes you see that his cab door is now closed and the winch is nowhere to be seen.
Correction: As Korben drives away, his door is open and the winch cable is pulling on the cop car, then the winch breaks inside the cop car. We don't see the outside of the cab after it breaks the winch until almost a minute later. In that time, Leeloo would have identified the dangling winch and wire as dangerous and dropped it, while Korben would have closed the door as soon as he could (a safety precaution in a flying cab).
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Correction: No, he doesn't. Goldblum hands Pullman the paper exactly once, and even then it's offscreen and could merely be an illustrative gesture.
Phoenix