Corrected entry: In the Marine Corps, none of the men would have had any duty (including fire watch) the night of their graduation day. Also, never is any live ammunition allowed into the barracks (they count every cartridge at the firing range).
RJR99SS
30th Sep 2005
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
24th Jun 2005
Heat (1995)
Corrected entry: DeNiro and Kilmer were at least ten yards from the bank entrance and on their way to the getaway car when spotted by Detective Casals who was driving up to the bank. Al Pacino then gives the order to park the car and walk up to the bank. Almost 1 minute later, DeNiro and Kilmer are still walking to the getaway car. Tom Sizemore made it from the bank entrance to the getaway car in 22 seconds. Deniro took at least 55 seconds, and Kilmer took at least 1:15 to walk the same distance (30-35 meters max). Kilmer also no more than 5 meters behind DeNiro when they walked out of the bank.
Correction: The scene with Pacino dosnt necesarily show that it takes place in real time, it most likely takes place a minute or so before they start exiting the bank. He probably knows that it would be really awkward for both of them to try to get in the car, seeing how both of them have huge bags of money on their back, and assault rifles under their clothes, which would leave them pretty defensless as they tried to fumble their way into the car. Plus, if you watch closely, you can see that Kilmer starts to hang back a little bit once he gets about halfway to the car. Obviously, he's the last man to enter the car, so he's the one designated to look out for trouble. We see thats the case as he's looking out for police, and spots them in an instant when they show up.
13th Mar 2005
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Corrected entry: During the whole opening sequence of the storming of Omaha beach, not once are the barrels on the German MG-42's changed. The heat developed in these barrels due to this machine-gun's extreme cyclic rate (25 rounds pr. sec), makes it necessary to replace them with a spare barrel on regular intervals. Granted, in the heat of battle, it might get problematic to do this, but a seasoned German soldier would've managed to change the barrel in only a few seconds. There is also no barrel change in the scene where Miller's patrol attack the German MG-34 position later in the movie (where in the end the medic gets hit and dies).
Correction: In the Normandy sequence, there's no way of knowing the gunners never changed barrels. The focus is rarely on them, but rather the Americans fighting their way up the beach. Just because they don't specifically show them changing barrels doesn't mean they didn't, there's plenty of time where they're offscreen for them to do so. The second firefight is very brief, there's no way the machine gun's barrel would overheat from such a short engagement. Also, at this point in the war, many of the German troops that where stationed on the western front where very young and untrained. For example, during the scene where the American troops surround a trench and kill all the German soldiers in it, the knife that the American soldier pulled off a dead German was a Hitler Youth knife. Which is given to adolescent Germans who want to be soldiers.
8th Jan 2005
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Corrected entry: In the scene where Joker and Rafterman are at the mass grave site in Vietnam, a colonel walks over and questions Joker about the writing on his helmet and about his peace sign. When the colonel is done and is about to walk away, the colonel salutes first. This is wrong because enlisted personnel always salute officers first.
Correction: This one is pretty iffy. While that is the general rule, an officer can always elect to salute first, usually as a sign of respect for the enlisted man. The colonel chastises joker at first, then tries to re-motivate him, by suggesting that he join the Hue city offensive. He even flat out says that all he expect from his marines is that they do everything that he says. Joker is pretty smart about it, and agrees to everything the colonel says, so I can see it's possible that the colonel would salute him; sort of saying "way to go marine, thats what I like to hear!", trying to keep his spirits high in an effort to motivate him.
21st Sep 2002
Mad Max 2 (1981)
Corrected entry: When Max and the gyro captain come back to the gyrocopter after Max leaves the compound, Max puts a bullet he finds into his shotgun. During the ensuing conversation Max threatens the gyro cap. He atempts to holster the gun, but misses horribly, and while the gyro captain is flapping about "aerodynamics", Max ad libs "shut up, shut up" and points the gun that was supposed to holstered.
Correction: How do you know Mel Gibson wasnt supposed to do this? Even if it was just an ad-lib, it's still not really a mistake, as it's covered up quite nicely and adds a little flavor to the scene.
8th Jan 2005
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Corrected entry: In the scene in boot camp where Joker is teaching Pile how to lace has boots, he tells Pile to lace them left over right then right over left. As a former marine i can tell you marines are taught to lace their boots left over right then left over right throughout the entire lacing.
Correction: As another former marine, I can never recall ever getting any explicit instructions on how the laces were supposed to be tied. As long as they were tied, that seemed to be fine enough.
Correction: We were never taught either way in boot.
8th Jan 2005
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Corrected entry: In the scene in boot camp where Joker is teaching Pile to make his bed, he tells Pile to fold his blanket and sheet back with a 4 inch fold. As a former Marine I can tell you this is wrong. Marines are taught to make their beds with a 6 inch fold.
Correction: As another former marine, I can say that the bed folding procedure varies from place to place. In boot camp, I recall one drill instructor in our platoon would always tell us 4 inches, and another would always tell us 6 (this caused quite a bit of confusion, and was probably intentional). I can even recall seeing another platoon's squad bay, where they weren't even required to make a fold, they simply drapped another blanket over the pillow and the regularly exposed portion of the sheets.
5th Jan 2005
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Corrected entry: Dr. F and the monster are on a platform that's being raised up to the loft. Inga and Igor are turning the crank to raise them, but the platform is going up faster than they're turning.
Correction: Obviously you've never heard of a little thing called gear reduction.
3rd Nov 2004
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Corrected entry: When Private Joker and Rafterman are interviewing Lt. Cleves in front of the row of dead Vietnamese covered with lye, Private Joker introduces himself as "Sergeant" Joker.
Correction: There's a large gap of time that isn't accounted for between the first bootcamp segment of the film, and the later vietnam segment. It appears to be at least three or four years, obviously Joker earned some promotions between that time.
23rd Sep 2004
The Last Samurai (2003)
Corrected entry: At the last charge of the Samurai, they fall in droves to the Japanese army. The armour the samurai wore was designed to withstand blows from high pressure per impact katana swords, it would have resisted the rifle shots from the Japanese infantry more effectively than shown, maybe not from the Gatling guns but definitely from the rifles.
Correction: Not so. It was mainly designed to resist slashing attacks. In fact, most of the time Japanese armor wasnt even 'armor' at all, just woven silk, padding, and light metal, sometimes even wood. The purpose of the armor was to offer minimal protection, while full mobility for the samurai to move. Samurai put most of their faith in avoiding any blow, rather than letting his armor withstand it, which is why they needed such mobility. Even if a katana were to strike them, there would still be a pretty good chance the armor wouldn't be able to absorb it. Similarly, a gunshot would easily penetrate most samurai armor. Some of the more wealthy samurai were able to wear Euoropian type breast plates that offered more protection, but still they may or may not resist a rifle shot. In fact, you'll notice that once firearms became the major weapon in battle worldwide, armor was completely done away with, as even the heaviest full plate of armor wouldn't be able to withstand most rifle shots.
The Japanese army were using Remington Keene rifles in .45-70 caliber. The gatling guns were also in .45-70 caliber. They would most certainly penetrate their armor.
27th Oct 2004
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Corrected entry: While the Millennium Falcon is evading Tie Fighters, before they enter the asteroid field, Han and Chewie are in the back working on emergency repairs. Who is flying the Falcon? It wouldn't be on autopilot as they are trying to evade laser blasts. Leia or C-3PO certainly do not have the experience to fly the ship that well. It is also doubtful that the Tie Fighters are taking a break from pursuing them.
Correction: Leia is flying it. It does appear that she has some experience with ships, as she flew it during the Tie Fighter fight after they escaped the Death Star in the first movie.
19th Aug 2004
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Corrected entry: Willard is tearing the confidential mission paper into large pieces and throws them into the river. The pieces are large enough to reveal a lot of information or to be easily pieced together if picked up. The proper way to dispose of secret information would be to burn the pieces of paper.
1st Oct 2004
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Corrected entry: If the "Golden Ticket" can be found in any of Wonka's confections, why is the spoiled girl's crew only opening one kind of Wonka's candy?
Correction: The Golden Tickets are not found in just any of Wonka's confections. They are only placed in Wonka Bars, which is why they're opening only one kind of candy.
Correction: They're opening regular Wonka bars. We see in the film that there's many types of bars, and the regular seem to be the bottom of the line. So, Mr. Salt probably just bought as many of the bottom line as he could to minimize costs, and also maximize the chance of getting a ticket by the added volume of candy bars. Makes sense.
11th Aug 2004
Heat (1995)
Corrected entry: During the final robbery scene, Al Pacino is armed with a Belgian FNC (Fabrique Nationale Carbine) - a rifle not used by any law enforcement agency in the U.S. (01:46:45)
Correction: It's not officially issued, but officers are allowed a certain amount of preference. If they feel more comfortable with a certain type of weapon, and they pay for it themselves, and it performs the same function for whatever given operation, they'll usually be allowed to use it. You'll notice many police officers carry .45 or sometimes .357 handguns instead of the standard 9mm issue models.
8th Aug 2004
Tin Cup (1996)
Corrected entry: On the final hole of the Open, when Roy finally gets the ball in the hole from the fairway, he retrieves the ball from the hole and throws it into the water in front of the green. A few spectators then run across the green to get the ball from the water. All this happens and Simms hasn't finished the hole yet. Officials would never have permitted this to take place, since Simms hadn't finished the hole yet. As a matter of fact, he hadn't even reached the green.
Correction: The officials have nothing to do with it. In the excitement of the moment, quite a few specators went diving for the ball, to get a piece of a glorious sports moment. How would the officals stop a mob of people going nuts?
3rd Sep 2004
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Corrected entry: Throughout the movie you see machine gunners with M-60s. This is wrong because the M-60 was taken out of service before the events of this film, because of its poor reliability.
Correction: This was a VERY recent change. Only in the past 2 or 3 years was the M60 replaced by the M240b machine gun, except for very limited circumstances, due to them being labled "unreliable". However, the Mogadishu conflict depicted in the film took place in 1993, when the M60 was still in wide service in all branches of the military.
20th Jul 2004
The Goonies (1985)
Corrected entry: When the Goonies are walking on the beach at the end of the movie, they meet up with their parents. It is assumed it's morning time. How did Chunk's parents get a pepperoni pizza from Domino's at 7 in the morning?
8th Jul 2004
Star Wars (1977)
Corrected entry: After Gold Leader is killed, Gold Five says, "Gold Five to Red Leader", and Red Leader's response is, "I copy, Gold Leader."
Correction: After gold leader is killed, Gold Five becomes gold leader, as he's next in the chain of command.
9th Jul 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Corrected entry: In the movie, Moore states that on September 12th, 2001, the day after the September 11th attacks, that the U.S. government "secretly" flew the Bin Laden family out of the U.S. when the all flights were grounded. However, this is not true. The Bin Laden family was flown out of the U.S. for their own safety on September 15th, 2001, all all domestic flights were allowed to resume normal operations. Also, Moore states that the Bush family has close ties with the Bin Laden family. But what he does not mention is that the Bin Laden family had severed ties with Osama Bin Laden many, many years ago and has written him off due to his radical and terroristic behavior and ideas.
Correction: If one were to watch the film, they would see that Moore does in fact address that the Bin Ladens have severed ties with Osama. It's said that they officialy cut ties with him, but one of his experts claims that Osama was present at a large Bin Laden wedding only a few years ago, and whether they've actually cut ties with him is in question. He also does say that the Bin Ladens were flown out September 15th, he states the the meetings took place on the 12th to fly them out.
24th Jun 2003
Mad Max 2 (1981)
Corrected entry: Starting with the wounded Papagello, he remarks, "Just get them organised. We're moving out tonight." It's obvious this happens around dusk (let's say, 6:00pm). Now, this opens a bunch of plot problems: (A) the mechanics get 12 hours to complete their repairs. This makes moving out no earlier than 6:00am. (B) Max juices up and drives out at dawn; it took him all night to leave? Seems he couldn't wait to leave. (C) Max gets chased, crashes, gets rescued, then offers to drive the truck while it's still daylight. The "refinery squatters" don't leave until the NEXT morning. So, instead of "leaving tonight", they end up leaving much later than Papagello's original order. Summary - Papagello never corrects his original estimation. (00:54:11)
Correction: This is all true...but not really a mistake. As anyone knows when you get a bunch of people together and make some kind of plan, it will 99% of the time never go as planned. Papagello was probably just trying to be hard on them, and get them into motion, knowing full well it wouldnt take them that short of a time (pretty standard practice from officers or foremen or anyone in a position of leadership). I mean...say they're not ready to leave on schedule, what's he going to do? Just fly out the doors into combat against raving raiders unprepared, and with his main decoy not in working order?
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Correction: I had fire watch on graduation night. Plus, I personally saw one instance where a recruit got hold of live ammunition and brought it back to the squad bay, with the intent to kill himself. While the firing range is very cautious of these things, there is other ammunition to be had elsewhere. In this case, while on a work detail this recruit found a full magazine in an NCO's desk.
RJR99SS