Technical Errors in Published Works

Here I discuss the technical errors, big and small, that I1 have noticed in movies, television shows and games. Most of the technical errors are inconsistencies in the story-line, in editing or in reality. “Reality” is a tough one because these items and programs discussed are usually fictional and often fiction doesn’t follow the rules of reality, however we won’t let that discourage us.

You May Not Kiss the Bride - Epoxy Hat technical error

In some cases what could be considered a technical error was intentionally done, usually for comedic purposes – Those scenarios are not going to be referenced here. For example in “You May Not Kiss the Bride” when Masha mixes the epoxy resin and dumps the bucket over the bad guy. That should have been a lethal action. The chemical burns would have been unbearable and his ability to breath or see would have been cut off. Instead he ended up wearing a hat/mask2 made of poured epoxy that happened to not cover his glasses and allow him to see and breath.

I don’t usually allow these technical errors to keep me from enjoying movies, it’s kind of fun to find them and analyze how they could’ve done it better.

Caution – The Following Technical Error Details Probably Contain Spoilers!

Movies and Television

One of the errors I see repeated over and over in movies and television is the cell phone hang-up. The character is on their mobile phone, talking to someone else. The person at the other end of the line hangs-up and now the character on their phone has a dial tone. There are two problems here: mobile/cell phones don’t have a dial tone, not even when they were first introduced decades ago; and the other problem is that on any phone, mobile or good old copper landline, when the other person ends the call, the person left hanging doesn’t suddenly hear a dial tone. At best they’ll hear clicks and then the end of call tones on a mobile or a rapid busy-like tone on a landline.

17 Again

When Ned Gold is at the restaurant with Jane Masterson, during their conversation, when the camera view is from behind Jane towards Ned, Jane’s menu is up as if she is reading it. When the camera view is from behind Ned towards Jane, her menu is on the table with her hands folded or making other gestures. During the conversation the view changes multiple times where this technical error is seen.

Animal House

When John is up on a ladder looking in the second floor windows of a sorority house, he sees the ladies up close and personal. We’re going to ignore that they don’t see him, even when one of the them walks up to the window and seems to be peering out or at least looking at her own reflection. The inconsistency I’m pointing out here is that the full scene camera view, where we can see most of the house like from street level, the windows are completely covered and we only see silhouettes. Whenever the camera view is close to John, the windows are clear, and not blocked except for curtains pulled to the sides. Obviously we’re ignoring the hopping action to move the ladder between windows. It might be possible to some degree, but not like shown.

Armageddon

Golf Ball Conflict

At about 12 minutes into the movie, the scene changes to Harry driving golf balls off of the oil rig platform. At first a Srixon brand ball is shown with small dimples (like on practice balls) and no number. The camera view shifts to his view and then back to the ball. The ball now is a number ‘3’ Srixon with a larger dimple pattern. camera view is changed to show the swing and when returning to the ball for the club hit, the ball is still a number “3” of the larger dimple styling, but it is now turned into a different position.3 At least they kept the brand the same. The tee style and placement height changes between each shot, too, piling on this technical error.

During the psychiatric interviews of Harry’s men, when the camera view is from behind the interviewer towards the door, lights can be seen in the corners on either side of the door. In one of the shots of Rockhound during the ink blot review, the light in the left corner is missing, it is present in all others.

Placed in the movie for a comedy point, but lacks consistency is when Harry asks Colonel Sharp if there are any bullets left in the gun. There were no shots fired, so the gun should have all of the bullets to which it was loaded.

Whenever global footage was shown during the first meteor hits early in the movie and later, towards the end, the footage show the people in daylight. Only about half of the world is ever in daylight at a time – some of that footage should have been night-time.

Austin Powers

In the first installment of Austin Powers (International Man of Mystery), Dr. Evil killed Mustafa closer to the end of the movie. In the second movie (The Spy Who Shagged Me) Mustafa is alive again. It’s the same actor with the same manorisms.

In the first movie, present day (1997), Dr. Evil is introduced to his son, Scott, who was created in a lab using Dr. Evil’s specimen. Scott’s age is never disclosed, but he is either a late teenager or best case in his early twenties. Then in the second movie, Dr. Evil goes back in time to 1969 where he and Frau have a romantic moment which turns out to be when Scott was conceived. That means Scott should have been in his late twenties in 1997. This aging error aside, if Scott were naturally conceived in 1969, then why would they have introduced him as a lab creation so late in his life?

Back to the Future

In Back to the Future II, when Doc runs into himself at the “weather experiment”, 1955 Doc is tightening a bolt on a bracket for the wires, but he is turning the bolt the incorrect direction for tightening.

In a paradoxical example and technical error, Back to the Future III stated that Shonash Ravine was called Clayton Ravine in the future. Doc saved Clara Clayton from falling into the ravine, preventing the ravine from changing names. Not that big of a deal, Marty (as Clint Eastwood) is memorialized later when the ravine is renamed Eastwood Ravine. The paradox comes in the fact that Clara is mentioned as Doc’s beloved on his tombstone. The very tombstone is the reason Marty goes further back in time to help Doc. So Clara was alive and romantically involved with Doc, before Marty decides to go back in time. Doc only saved Clara because Marty was there and they were planning how to get back to the future. If Marty hadn’t gone back in time, Doc wouldn’t have been there to save Clara. Clara would have died by falling into the ravine, never meeting Doc.

Backdraft

This movie is filled with technical errors in regards to fire and firefighting. For the sake of this movie, I won’t touch on these points, since I only served two decades as a volunteer firefighter.

During the Backdraft shown at 8.5 minutes into the movie, the aerial view of the explosion shows the debris being blown from the house straight to the front yard and road. The victim’s car is parked on the road across from the breezeway (space between houses), not closer to the front of the house as seen in the aerial view of the explosion. Despite the location change of the car, the aerial view of the explosion does not show anything but small debris hitting the car. Any large debris, including what could be a human body is seen hitting the road to the left of the car. When Brian gets on scene, the victim is shown as having passed through the vehicle’s windshield.

Batman Returns

After Penguin dies, as we watch the penguins slide him into the water, we can see the rolling platform which Penguin’s body was lying on continue moving under water. The key point is that Penguin died on the ground, not conveniently on a rolling platform.

The Beastmaster

During the scene where the Jun Horde attacks Dar’s home village there are several inconsistencies between takes. Specifically character poses at camera changes. For example, Dar’s “father” is shown holding the sword at the ready to his right when the camera view is from his front, but in other camera views he is holding the sword at his left.

In that same fight sequence, Dar gets knocked out. His dog, Koto, pulls him away from danger. In several camera views, the dog is pulling on Dar’s left shoulder, but in some Koto is pulling on Dar’s right shoulder. About in the middle of the dragging sequence, Koto lets go to get a better grip on Dar’s shoulder, but Dar’s body miraculously keeps moving.

Later in the movie, two slave girls are swimming in a pond. Their clothing is still on while swimming, which of course means that the clothes are wet. Kiri hastily gets out of the water, it is obvious that her clothing is wet as she runs past the camera. Our camera view is immediately changed to see her running from the camera into the woods in dry clothing.

Beauty and the Beast (Live Action – 2017)

The introductory narration says that the enchantress saw there was “no love in his heart” and cursed the prince. The narration continued to mention that the memories of those he loved were wiped. If there is no love in the prince’s heart, then who’s memory was wiped?

Beverly Hills Cop II

During the A-crime (Adriano’s robbery), as the blonde is leaving the jewelry store she shoots down the chandelier. You hear four shots and the chandelier falls. She then turns around and there are two more shot sounds heard even though no one is firing their gun.

Axel is driving down the road, just before he “steals a house”, the movie shows cars parked on both sides of a two-lane (plus parking lanes) road with another car behind him. The view changes to an aerial shot of him turning around on a much narrower road – just two lanes with no room for side parking lanes. Plus the car that was behind him is gone.

The Big Bang Theory

Most of the technical errors found in The Big Bang Theory are story-line inconsistencies with a few other errors spattered about.

S03:E22 – During Leonard’s story to Penny about moving in with Sheldon, and the roommate agreement. In the flashback, Sheldon explains that one of Leonard’s responsibilities is to drive him places. Leonard asks him about driving and Sheldon responds he can, but chooses not to drive. Sheldon does not get his learner’s permit and driver’s license until later in the series, therefore he can’t (legally) drive and making that statement untrue, or an error. The driving discrepancy comes up multiple times throughout the series. This technical error spans multiple episodes.

S02:E05 – Sheldon gets learner’s permit
S03:E08 – Sheldon drives Penny to hospital (Learner’s permit)
S03:E16 – Sheldon goes to traffic court for an automated ticket for running a red light in S3:E08. He gets points on a driver’s license he doesn’t have.
S06:E09 – Raj says to Sheldon “You don’t have a car. You don’t even drive.” Later in the episode Sheldon says that Howard can use his parking spot “until such time as I learn to drive or get a bat mobile.”
S10:E16 – Sheldon admits to Amy that he has had his driver’s license for two years. (We’ll call that Season 8)
S11:E04 – Howard is out with Sheldon, teaching him to drive. Sheldon hands his license to the police officer that pulled him over.
S12:E21 – Sheldon offers to pickup Leonard’s mother from the airport. He is reminded that he doesn’t drive.

S04:E10 – Amy is dissecting a human brain wearing gloves to either protect herself from chemicals and bacteria on the brain and/or to prevent contaminating the brain. While describing her symptoms to Sheldon, Amy handles food that she is eating – still wearing the gloves – and then returns to working on the brain.

S09:E02 – When Leonard asks about how much marriage counseling costs, Howard provides actual pricing. Raj asks how he knows the cost. In S08:E09, Howard and Bernadette are telling what they love about each other when Raj interjects, “That’s just like when we were in couples counseling.”

S10:E20 – Sheldon speaks Hindi to Raj, then Raj tells him to say it in English since Raj never learned Hindi. This doesn’t make sense, since Raj was born and raised in India. Nonetheless, in an earlier episode (S03:E09) he was telling the guys about when he called into an Indian Radio Station and said the phrase that pays in Hindi. Plus only a half-season later (S11:E14), Raj is telling Sheldon Hindi translations for some English words as requested by Leonard.

S12:E03 – This technical error starts in episode 2 of this season. Episode 2 is ended with Stuart going on a date, bright orange from a spray on tan. Episode 3 is the following day, based on the conversation with Howard and Bernadette, but Stuart’s skin is his normal skin tone instead of the spray-on tan orange. We know he was unable to remove the excess tan spray, because they discussed that in episode 2.

Caddyshack

In the scene where Judge Smails is dedicating his boat, Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield) is driving his boat straight for a man in a fishing boat. The video cuts to the bow of Al’s boat cutting through the water, but the video is in reverse. Instead of the water splashing off the bow, it is moving in the opposite direction.

Charmed

I really enjoyed the earlier seasons of this show. I am not going to touch on the differences between real witchcraft and what is used unless it is particularly and extremely incorrect.

S01:E04 – When Piper and Mark are running away from Tony Wong, they get in her car, but there are two car doors closed – based on the sound. We don’t see Mark open and close the door, but we hear it. At the police station, Piper even opens and closes the car door for him. He is a ghost, he can’t move physical objects nor does he need to do so.

S01:E21 – At several points in the series (S02:E22, S03:E09), Leo explains he cannot heal the dead, but in this episode Piper used a spell to switch powers with him and healed him hours after he died.
At the end of the episode, Piper has Leo’s military dog tags. He was killed in action during World War II – his body would have had only one of the dog tags remaining; the second tag would have been collected for administrative purposes. This point is ignoring the fact that as a white lighter he would have no use or ability to keep the dog tags and give to Piper.

S02:E08 – When Leo can’t heal Pipers poison oak, he explains that the elders control what he can heal. In S03:E02 Leo cannot heal animals. Yet in S04:E05 he heals the P3 sign that was damaged when the nightclub was renamed “The Spot”.

S02:E15 – Near the end of the episode, Prue is playing with her new camera equipment. When talking to her sisters, she mentioned about photography being digital, blah blah blah. The camera she is using is a Nikon F5 and Kodak Professional DCS combination unit. When Prue takes a picture we hear the shutter and mirror action, and then we hear the sound of a film winding motor. There is no film to wind in a digital camera. This mistake is duplicated every once in a while for follow-up episodes. In Episodes 18 and 19 of this same season, Prue uses a dark room for developing pictures, and I’m not talking about Adobe’s photography software.

S07:E06 – This episode references the occurrence of the phenomenon known as a Blue Moon. They said that it occurs only once every 50 years, however a Blue Moon occurs about every 33 months. A Blue Moon is when a second full moon occurs in the same calendar month. Additionally, in this episode the three witches turn into violent beasts when the Blue Moon rises each of three evenings. The full moon is only a one day4 occurrence in the moon phase cycle, not three days.

S06:E15 – For the technical error in this episode, the demon used a genie to wish the Charmed Ones to be dead. Out of their bodies, floated the souls of Piper, Phoebe and Paige. When Piper calls to Leo, he moves his hand and heals her. Leo cannot heal the dead, besides there was no injury to heal.

S07:E07 – When Leo is healing the dead Piper and Phoebe near the end of this episode, he does not remove the blades in Piper’s belly, however when he is done healing them, the blades are gone. (We’re ignoring that he cannot heal the dead)

Contact

When Doctor Eleanor Arroway gets to her hotel at about one hour into the movie, she is talking on the phone and she receives a fax during the telephone conversation. Since Ellie is a scientist and needs to be online for research, etcetera, it is likely she has a second phone line, so that’s not the technical error; however the fax comes out of the machine from the document feeder exit port, not the printer port.

The Cutting Edge

Although not taking away from the movie itself, the view editing tends to contain technical errors throughout the movie. For example, When Douglas is hanging from the lumber near the beginning, hammering nails, the position and existence of the nail changes multiple times through the sequence. Arm positions and body gestures tend to vary between shots, too.

Dances With Wolves

When John Dunbar is heading to the Indian village the first time, he finds Stands with Fists in the process of slitting her wrists. The close camera view, at front, of her shows her left hand and arm covered in wet blood. The camera changes to John’s view at a distance. She brushes her hair back with her left hand, but it is not bloody. Upon return to her front close view, it is shown bloody again.

When John Dunbar returns to the fort later in the movie, Two Socks comes to visit. John offers some meat to the wolf. Frequently during the entire event of Two Socks cautiously approaching John for the meat, the camera view alternates from behind John to behind the wolf and some from the side. The shape of the meat changes multiple times, including straightness, size and general shape. I am guessing there were several takes of the event, but they didn’t bother to manage consistency.

In the scene where Stands with Fists makes love to John, we can see a shading difference in the skin of her back where a bra or bikini top would lie. This is likely a tan line which they attempted to cover with make-up but didn’t quite match her skin color.

Dirty Dancing

The first time that Baby dances with Johnny at the clubhouse, at the end of the song Johnny spins Baby and walks away; Baby is seen clapping and then stops, hanging her hands down. The camera view changes to a close-up of her and she is still clapping.

About three quarters into the movie, Lisa walks up to a cabin with a towel on door knob. The towel is still on the knob as she opens the door. The camera view changes to seeing inside the cabin. When the view returns to the exterior view, Lisa’s hand is still on the door knob, but the towel is missing.

The very next scene starts with a closeup of a record player and music is playing – a continuation of the song from the previous sequence. The needle progresses onto the trailing groove at the end of the side. This is usually silent (or has soft static), but the song is still playing. The needle arm lifts and the song abruptly stops during a chorus verse.

Edward Scissorhands

When Edward first goes into Kim’s room, he discovers the waterbed. He notices the fluid movement, how wavy it reacts. Edward then punctures the bed and gets sprayed with water. He put a stuffed animal over the hole. Later he is laying in the bed, still in tact and obviously not getting wet.

Ed is lying in Kim’s waterbed when she comes home early. She screams when she notices him; he panics and punctures the bed multiple times. Although water is shooting out of the bed, the surface of the bed is firm, not wavy like demonstrated earlier.

The Experts

"The Experts" Paramount Pictures 1989

This long forgotten classic has many absurd points that could be considered errors, but I’m not going to touch on these. Instead I’m just going to focus on the continuity errors and a spattering of other notable mistakes.

When Mr. Smith is riding around New York City in a taxi cab, the shots of the interior of the cab show that it is raining outside; however, when the shots are outside the taxi, there is no rain and the ground is dry.

During the job interview training, Mr. Smith insists that English always be spoken. On the flight to the Soviet Union from New York, he speaks Russian with the flight attendant and to himself.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Jeff Spicoli has pizza delivered to his history class. The delivery man asks, “Who ordered the double cheese and sausage?” But when Mr. Hand allows students to take slices, including himself, the pizza is clearly just cheese.

Fifty Shades of Grey

At Anna’s graduation, a photographer takes a picture of Anna and Christian together. We can hear the shutter of the camera when the picture is taken. Anna’s expression at that time is a beautiful smile, but nothing like the gaping mouth photograph that was printed in the newspaper.

The Fifth Element

Before boarding the ship to Fhloston Paradise, David puts a multi-pass into the identification slot and the attendant verifies he is Mr. Dallas and congratulates him on winning the contest. When Korben Dallas appears a moment later and withdraws the multi-pass and says “I was so afraid I wasn’t going to make this flight, so I sent” then looks at then multi-pass and continues, “David here to pick up my boarding pass.”
It appears as though Korben shoves David off with the original multi-pass that David used, then uses his own multi-pass. If the original multi-pass was in fact David’s, then the attendant made a mistake of accepting incorrect identification. If the multi-pass that David was using was fraudulent and had Korben Dallas’ name on it, then how did Korben get David’s name off it?

Full Metal Jacket

During recruit training, the Drill Sergeant is hollering at the privates as they work through an obstacle in the PT course. He is yelling that they should be able to negotiate the obstacle “in no less than 10 seconds.” Based on the obstacle and his other yelled comments, he meant “in less than 10 seconds.”

As the Viet Cong soldiers are raiding the Marines’ Da Nang base at about 55 minutes into the movie, many of the Viet Cong soldiers are seen running and firing towards the ground instead of towards the American soldiers. I know that it is common for the bad guys to be poor shots in movies, but this was too big a poor shot to not be called out as a technical error.

Ghostbusters

In the original Ghostbusters movie, when the eggs are popping out of the shells on to Dana’s kitchen counter, the fried eggs are in different positions for the close-up shots as compared to the panned out shots. When Dr. Venkman returns to her kitchen, the position of the eggs and other groceries is yet again different.

Home Improvement

S04:E18 – When Heidi is demonstrating how to turn off the natural gas supply, she explains it correctly “quarter-turn so that the wrench is perpendicular to the pipe.” However, her demonstration ends with the wrench parallel with the pipe – in other words, she turned the gas on.

Hot Dog … the Movie

About three-quarters into the movie, Squirrel and a woman get into the ski lift car. Their skis are put into bins on the outside of the car. On some of the external shots during the ride up the mountain, the skis are not on the car.

Ironman

At a party, Tony Stark puts a tip in the glass as he orders a Martini. A woman comes up and starts talking to him. When the camera view changes to allow view of the tip glass, the money Tony put in is missing.

It’s Complicated

At the end of the movie, Jane comes out of her house in the pouring rain and meets up with Adam under the pop-up. The rain is continuing to pour, but many of the camera views show deep shadows cast by brightly lit plants – most of the footage was shot on a bright sunny day, though some of it was overcast or perhaps closer to twilight. I actually see this technical error in lots of movies.

Karate Kid (2010 Remake)

Dre visits Mr. Han at his house, while Mr. Han is experiencing an emotional breakdown. Dre encourages Mr. Han to continue training with him, by using the poles with rope loops at the end. These are the ones used earlier in the movie for training Dre. Mr. Han started with his hands out of the rope loops, but as the sequence progresses, he is shown with his hands through the loops sometimes, while other times not through the loops. I’m not talking about once or twice – I’m talking about changing back and forth multiple times throughout the sequence.

Karate Kid II

When arriving at the military base in a taxi, looking for Tomi Village. The soldier says he never heard of it, then asks a nearby Sargent who responds “You’re standing on it, get them out of here.” The soldiers then tells them to go down the road and turn right, miraculously knowing where to go.

When Mr. Miyagi and Daniel are at the dock, Mr. Miyagi is pulling up the double-spiked empty net return to let Daniel try to “no be there” block with drum technique. The net return already has a cork stopper covering the spike while he is pulling it up, but then we see Mr. Miyagi putting the stopper on the spike.

Helping a villager bring his harvest to the trader (Chozen), Daniel puts the basket on the scale. In doing so, he toppled some of the weights from the scale. Daniel picks up one of the damaged weights and easily snaps in into pieces. The villagers get angry with Chozen for cheating them.
The weights were able to be broken, meaning they are likely lighter than the weights that would normally be used. Chozen would have to use more “weights” to measure the harvest, ultimately cheating himself instead of the villagers.

During the massive storm, a beam lands on Sato, pinning him to the ground. After Miyagi saves him, Chozen tells Sato “I thought you were dead.”
Daniel went to help the bell-ringing girl who was stuck at the top of the bell tower. Sato instructed Chozen to help Daniel, but Chozen let his pride get in the way and declined to help Daniel. As Daniel is struggling to bring the girl to the shelter, Sato went to his aide. Once back in the shelter, Sato tells Chozen, “Now I am dead to you.”
At the Bone Dance, Sato tells Chozen that hate is wrong and to not carry on his actions. Chozen responded, “I can not hear you, Uncle. I am dead to you. Remember?”

Knight Rider

While recently binge watching Knight Rider, which I haven’t watched in decades, I have spotted a large number of technical errors. Such a high number, I’m not going to bother listing episode by episode, just a basic summary.

  • Randomly, KITT’s hood will be slightly opened. The distance of being open is consistent with being stopped on the safety latch. As camera views change within driving scenes, sometimes the hood will be open in one or two of the camera shots.
  • When cars drive off a cliff, for example, the car in the below view as the car flies off the cliff tends to be a different model vehicle – not even similar looking.
  • The towing hardware under KITT is randomly visible on the vehicle. Just like the hood open error, in the same driving sequence, this hardware will be present in some camera views, but not all of them.
  • There are auxiliary headlamps within the front bumper of KITT. Well – sometimes there are auxiliary headlamps, most of the time they are not present.

I found it funny how the production team used recycled video game sound effects and graphics whenever KITT did something special, like showing nearby villain vehicles or connect to a remote system.

Lethal Weapon

When Riggs is on the ledge of a building with a jumper, he tricks the man into taking a cigarette so that Riggs can hand cuff them together. As they are jumping off the building, the cuffs separate – The prop broke and you can see the men jumping off the ledge, no longer cuffed together. (As shown below)5

Lethal Weapon - No Handcuffs

“I don’t know. He’s hurting. He’s in pain… there’s something eating away,” says the police therapist to Murtaugh. There are two problems with the phone conversation. First, even in the late 1980s, confidentiality would have prevented the therapist from talking to Murtaugh. Second, she claims to not know what Riggs’ psychological issue is, although she and the Captain both know that Riggs’ wife recently died – they were discussing it earlier in the movie.

In the scene where Murtaugh and Riggs are at the shooting range, Murtaugh shoots a hole in the middle of the target’s head. Riggs then moves that target further down the range to shoot several holes, making a smiling face. There are two problems with the prop in the scene. First, when a bullet pierces a paper target, it doesn’t create a clean perfect circle, but instead pushes the paper to tear a hole, usually circle-like and indented. Second Murtaugh uses a larger caliber bullet than Riggs, but all of the holes in the paper are the same size perfect hole.

Lethal Weapon 2

About 90 minutes into the movie, Riggs is using his pickup truck to pull one of the stilts out from under the hillside house/office of the South African consulate. This is Southern California. These types of structures are designed to withstand an earth-quake. One pickup truck is not going to pull the stilt out. The action would rip apart the truck first.

A neat maneuver, but when Riggs and Murtaugh start the car within the container and send it through the pallets of money and closed container doors – I don’t think that would have worked. We see the doors fly open as the car and cash pours out. Where did the pallets go? In order for that to work, the car would need more than the few feet it had to gain speed and momentum.
Then of course, there is the theatrical explosion as the car is launched through the air. The sparks are seen in the front wheel wells initially, but then the next camera view, the sparks are in the rear wheel wells and under the back end of the car.

The Longest Yard

As Paul Crewe is leaving his girlfriend’s house, he has a six-pack of beer in his hand. He finishes one of them and throws it on the ground as he walks to her car. When he is pulled over by the police, he is drinking a beer and hands it to an officer. After backing his girlfriend’s car into the police cruiser, damaging both vehicles, Paul tells the cop to finish the beer, he has five more. Must have been a baker’s half-dozen.

Speaking of damaging the police cruiser and his girlfriend’s car – As Paul is being chased by the police, there is no damage on the back of the car.

Emmy flips the wrong bird - Technical Error
Mannequin

During the scene where Mr. Richards and Felix, the security guard, are chasing Jonathan and Emmy, Emmy is shown (as a mannequin) flipping the bird with her right hand.6 If she cannot be animated while in view of other people, then how was she able to make this gesture?

I’ve seen reports that the car color for that chase changes from black to green. I thought I should point out that the paint on that car can easily reflect gray/black depending on the lighting conditions. At the beginning of the sequence, when the car appears black, look at the highlights on the roof edges – they’re showing a darker shade of the green that the car actually is. Sorry guys – it isn’t a technical error after all.

When Hollywood is fending off the security guards with a fire hose, he uses an occupant-use fire hose which do not offer the pressure or volume of water as shown in the movie. During this sequence, the security guards’ shirts change colors. At the beginning of the sequence, and at most points throughout, all of their shirts are dark blue, but in a couple frames, some of the guards are in light blue.

Men In Black

About two-thirds into MIB, the Morgue Attendant, played by David Cross, was killed by the alien bug. He is recast as Newton, in the video store, for MIIB.

At the end of the first Men in Black movie, J is seen wearing a more modern suit; buttoned tall mandarin style collar, no tie and stylish sunglasses. In MIIB (second movie) J is back to the original suit for MIB, which is also worn for the third installation.

Monk

You’d think a show about technical details would be all about making no technical mistakes. They’ve had three different actresses play Monk’s dead wife Trudy – not including the “young” Trudy in one episode.

S2:E10 – In this episode, Monk’s neighbor Kevin wins the lottery – Forty-three million dollars. At the end, he is seen no longer wearing glasses, presumably having laser surgery, and acting differently do to his new money. Later this season, and for several episodes afterward, Kevin is wearing glasses again and just as geeky as before he won the lottery.

S4:E04 – Whenever Mr. Kemp’s office is shown from the first floor cafeteria, it is shown with full height windows (floor to ceiling). From the cafeteria, you can see most of the side of his desk, even the tops of his shins and bottom side when he is sitting. Whenever shot from within his office, the windows were at least 30 inches (standing hip height) from the floor. From the angle of the cafeteria downstairs, with 30 inches before the windows, looking into Mr. Kemps office one might see the top of Mr. Kemp’s head when he was sitting at his desk.

S6:E06 – Monk and Troy are buried in Troy’s car at a quarry. When the suspect turns off the bulldozer (after burying them), it is parked about ten feet from buried car. Next view of the scene is daylight and the bulldozer is at least 20 feet from the car. We return to inside the car. Monk is panicking and trying to open the car door. During his panic, the camera view is bouncing around like the car is shaking. The problem is, with all the gravel on top of the car, the shocks would have bottomed out and the vehicle wouldn’t move due to Monks movements.

Moulin Rouge

During the stage show near the end, when Satine is raised from below the stage, her left leg is showing through a split in her skirt. The camera changes view and the skirt is closed, no longer showing the leg. Another camera change view and her left leg is seen again. Since she wasn’t dancing around yet, the change wasn’t due to her movements, but instead a continuity mistake in editing alternate takes together.

Near the end of the movie, when Toulouse (the dwarf) is hanging in the rafters, yelling his line “All you have to learn…” the special effects team forget to edit out his legs. For those that don’t know, John Leguizamo is an average height man who had to walk on his knees for Moulin Rouge. His legs were removed by special effects, except in this one spot where they missed it.

My Best Friend’s Wedding

When Julianne is sitting in the hallway outside Michael’s hotel room door smoking a cigarette, she takes a drag of the cigarette while it is in her left hand. Just then he opens the door and she falls in. Now the cigarette is shown in her right hand.

Paulie

The blue-crowned conure that stars in Paulie is shown in various stages of flighted and clipped wing feathers throughout the movie. Since his feathers would grow back after being clipped and the movie is staged over a large period of time, it makes sense that the feather lengths would vary. The technical error is when he starts flying about 40 minutes into the movie. In this scene Paulie is shown with clipped wing feathers as he walks up, but then suddenly he has full flight feathers and begins flying.

Princess Diaries II

At the end of the movie when Queen Mia is dedicating the new children’s center, a close-up of the sign next to the door shows that it says “Children of Genovia Society”, but the very next shot of the same sign show it now saying “Genovian Childrens Center”.

Private School

When Mr. Leigh-Jensen ride to the school for the open house, he and his new wife, Bambi, have sex in the car en route. (The chauffeur is driving no safety issues here.) After they arrive at the school we see them walking away from the car and we see Bambi’s panty lines quite easily, but then Bambi’s panties are seen on the rear deck of the car.

When the Rolls Royce is running wild down the hill at the Cherryvale Parents’ Day, the camera view is frequently changing between an outside view and an inside view. During the outside views, we can see the stunt driver rapidly steering the car back and forth. All but one of the inside shots, Bubba has his back or side against the steering wheel.

During the love scene on the beach between Jim and Christine, a few times we catch a glimpse of her side-boob7 and the tape that covers her nipples. The least they could have done is use flesh colored tape, though I’m not sure why she was being so shy; after all she showed her stuff in Fast Times at Ridgemont High only a year prior.

Rain Man

About 50 minutes and 35 seconds into the movie, Charlie is following Raymond down an off-ramp from the highway.8 We see cars moving on the road which they will be entering from the off-ramp. The car is on the wrong side of the road. The yellow line is to the right of the car, with the white line to the left. After Raymond gets into the car, Charlie enters the main road by driving on the shoulder.

Revenge of the Nerds

During the Greek Games, after the tug-rope competition, the score is Alpha Beta 30, and Tri-Lamb 20. The next competition is the belching contents, which the Tri-Lambs clearly win. The Alpha Betas and Tri-lambs are the only competitors, but afterward the score is Alpha Beta 40, and Tri-Lamb 25. Were Alpha Betas unfairly given 10 points for losing the competition while the Tri-lambs only got five points – or was this a continuity error in the story?

The answer to the last question is a continuity error, probably in editing and possibly the storyline. The very next event is the Javelin Throw. As the first toss is shown, we can see in the background the score board. Alpha Betas are at 25 points and Tri-Lambs have 10 points. Rho and ROTC teams also went backwards in score. Ignoring the illegal and likely not effective javelin used, Tri-Lambs got the furthest distance and were awarded 10 points, but looking at the score board the Alpha Betas were also given 10 points, bring them to 50 and the Tri-Lambs to 35.

Revenge of the Nerds II

When Poindexter goes to the pool bar to order drinks, he asks for “Two Rum and Cokes”. The bartender picks up two bottles with pour spouts and starts filling a glass. neither bottle is rum or cola.

Risky Business

When the Porsche door is opened at the body shop, a lot of water and even sizeable fish come out of the car. Even under water, with the doors and windows closed, there is no way for these fish to get inside the passenger compartment.

When Guido (Lana’s “Manager”) is selling Joel his household stuff back, the last thing that is purchased is his mother’s crystal egg. At this point, there is still a sofa and a few other items on the truck. The lady on the truck throws the egg and we still see those remaining items in the truck. We see Joel jump over the sofa, now on the lawn, in the sequence to catch the egg. After Joel catches the egg, the camera view returns to Guido, he is sitting in the truck and there are no items remaining.

Smokey and the Bandit

About an hour into the movie, Sheriff Justice gets out of his car and leaves the driver’s door open. While he is talking to a tow truck driver, a truck comes down the road and knocks the door off the car. The error is when the truck driver sees the Sheriff’s car and decides (allegedly) to hit the door, the door was closed, instead of open.

Something Borrowed

A small story continuity issue in Something Borrowed revolves around the affairs of one character as it relates to another character. This may be a spoiler alert – just warning you! After the fourth of July weekend, Darcy asks Rachel if Marcus is circumcised. The question was genuine as presented during the movie, as was the response to the answer. Near the end of the movie, Darcy tells Rachel she knows that Rachel lied to her about Marcus, because she knows Marcus is not circumcised. Darcy knows this, because of her relations on Fourth of July weekend, which occurred prior to her asking Rachel about the topic.

Star Trek: Next Generation

I was recently binge watching Next Gen and I caught a significant error on Episode 12 of Season 2. In this episode, USS Enterprise picks up a piece of a NASA shuttle which displayed the NASA name above an American Flag. The star field contains 52 stars, based on the visible pattern, and stripe configuration of the flag has the middle red stripe below the star field, instead of being to the right of it. Originally, I though this was an error. It is then determined that the craft was from a period in our not too distant future. I assume that in the future a couple of United States territories become states and the flag is slightly redesigned.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

About an hour into the movie, Spock is using rocket boots to elevate himself with McCoy and Kirk through the turbo-shaft. As they rapidly ascend we see the deck numbers displayed – Deck 35, 52, 64, 52, 77, 78, 78 just before reaching the top. In case you missed it, review the number sequence again.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

As Anakin is being treated for his injuries, near the end of the movie, we see the Darth Vader mask and helmet being installed. When the camera view shows him in the bed, panned out so that we see his knees and up, the shielding around his neck is not present. The camera view then changes so that we only see his shoulders up, and the neck shielding is in place.

Star Wars: A New Hope

When Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker are talking after Luke was attacked by the sand people, Ben says “I don’t seem to remember ever owning a droid.” But in the prequels (Episode I, II and III) Ben works with R2-D2 frequently. Even if he didn’t “own” R2-D2, he definitely should have remembered him, at least slightly.

Ben gives Luke his “father’s light saber” that his father wanted him to have, but Luke’s uncle wouldn’t allow. The light saber that Ben handed over looks more primitive than what was used in the prequels and that which he retrieved from the ground near Anakin in Episode III.

“These blast points; too accurate for sand people. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.” as stated by Ben – apparently he has never seen an actual Stormtrooper attack. They’re lucky to hit the side of a barn. Perhaps the sand people are such poor shots that they couldn’t hit the side of a mountain.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Luke uses his lightsaber to free himself from the ice cave, as he is leaving there is a sound-effect of the lightsaber powering down, but it was still extended through the sequence of him leaving the cave.

Ben Kenobi visits Luke, as he is struggling to survive the cold, to tell him to go to Dagobah for Master Yoda to train him in the Jedi Arts. Ben tells him that Yoda instructed him, but according to the prequals Qui-Gon is the Jedi Master that trained Ben.

When Luke leaves his Jedi training to save Han and Leia, Ben Kenobi states that Luke was their last hope. Yoda responds that there is another. Ben was there when Luke and Leia were born; he knows Leia exists. Later in the movie he and Luke have a conversation about Leia.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

When Luke asks Leia if she remembers her real mother, Leia responds, “A little bit. She died when I was very young.” Their mother died shortly after naming them in Episode III.

Stripes

During revelry, a beautiful sunrise is shown with wispy clouds and blue sky, but a thunderstorm soundtrack is playing and when camera view changes to inside the barracks, the windows show very heavy rainfall.

When the men bunked the night before, Sargent Hulka tells them they will have a 10-mile run after locker box inspection in the morning. When he appears in the morning, he announces a 5-mile run which gets changed to 10-miles when John Winger annoys the Sargent.

The Thomas Crown Affair

At the start of the movie, Mr. Crown is crossing the street and nearly gets hit by a truck. When the camera view is showing from the driver’s perspective, there are vehicles stopped about ten feet in front of the truck. Even as Thomas waves the truck on to pass in front of him, we see the stopped car is still there. Then the truck driver proceeds rapidly and keeps going. The traffic is magickally gone.

Technical error Capture from Thomas Crown Affair - Monet painting in briefcase.

When Thomas Crown steals a Monet painting from the museum, he puts the painting in a briefcase which forced the painting to be folded in two – snapping the canvas frame at the fold point. The canvas fabric would not be able to tolerate being stretched across the break points and would have torn at those edges.

Capture from Thomas Crown Affair - Monet painting intact. Technical Errors

In his home office, Mr. Crown opens the briefcase, takes out the Monet painting and puts it in a hiding spot behind a print of “The Son of Man.” The Monet painting is intact, with no tears in the canvas mid-length on the edges and no apparent damage to the canvas’ wooden frame.

After Thomas Crown is shown admiring his stolen artwork, the movie goes back to the museum where police are investigating. Clearly, Thomas had no time to repair the canvas frame or canvas, ignoring the fact that we just watched him take it out of the briefcase in which the painting was folded. He definitely didn’t have time for a copy to be made.

Look at the screen captures9 shown above for referencing my comments about this technical error.

Top Gun

Top Gun - Wings Back

During dog-fight training exercises, the sweep angle of  the F-14 wings changes between shots within the same sequence. This is seen when the view changes between Interior view and external view. Example captures10 shown from the dog-fighting sequence leading into the crash of Maverick and Goose. The external view shows the F-14 wings swept forward, quick change to Maverick’s (inside cockpit) view of Iceman’s plane, the wings are swept back. Upon return to external view, the wings are forward again. The wing conversion does occur during flight in normal operation, but not as fast as they are switching camera views in the sequence.

Top Gun - Wings forward technical error

In the same sequence as above, during the crash incident, Maverick and Goose’s F-14 is shown in a barrel roll (stunt control) and then shown in a flat spin. I question this chain of events, but not knowing enough about F-14 behaviors prevents me from calling this a technical error; however I suspect it is an error.

Twister

Leaving a visit with Aunt Meg, Jo is driving the truck and Bill says “Let’s get you wired” and then the camera shows Jo with the headset already around her neck. Clearly they merged takes, because we then see Bill unwrapping a headset and starting putting it around Jo’s neck which only has a necklace.

When Jo and Bill are on the road driving away from the F5 tornado (about 93 minutes into the movie) A columbine falls onto the road in front of them. The shoot from the columbine punches a hole in the passenger-side, front windshield of the pickup truck. Each subsequent view of the pickup truck shows only the driver-side damage from a few tornadoes prior. The windshield is intact otherwise.

As Jo and Bill are running away from the same F5 tornado, the picket fence is shown with the slats individually coming off the fence vertically. Since the nail holding the slats to the supports are horizontal, the slats should have come off horizontally or diagonally. Then again, if the tornado winds were strong enough to cause the slats to come off the fence, how were Bill and Jo able to stay safe on the ground as they were running and passed through that very same fence?

Two Lovers and a Bear

Lucy and Roman are in extreme cold environments, but sometimes during dialogue in the cold air we cannot see their breath. For example, when they were in the hallway of the abandoned military installation.

Two Weeks Notice

In the scene where Lucy goes into the RV to use their toilet, two-way traffic is shown on the elevated highway that is jammed with traffic. The problem is that it was actually a one-way ramp. A solid white line is between the two (opposing direction) traffic lanes and the yellow line is on the right side of the RV. This technical error was probably unavoidable to make this scene work in the urban New York City environment.

UHF

When the shop teacher cuts his thumb off with the table saw, the camera angle and his hand positioning allow us to see his thumb folded into the palm of his hand.

Under the Skin

When the Female is picking up a man from the street at about 16 minutes into the movie, while she is talking to him we see her buckle her seat belt, including the audible click. Then as he agrees to a ride, we see her buckle her seat belt, including the audible click. She was not shown taking off the seat belt in between these two events.

Untamed Heart

After Caroline helps the two men with the cigarette machine, she walks away with two packs in her left hand and gives the key to her co-worker Cindy. As she is walking away, we see that she is no longer holding the two packs of cigarettes. Where did they go? This is of course ignoring, that she didn’t undo the lever inside the machine that allowed her to pull multiple packs from the front of the machine. So now everyone can get free cigarettes.

When Caroline brings Adam some cookies, it is raining. Well – it is raining right there. It is obvious by the shadows and sky that this sequence was filmed on a bright, sunny day.

WarGames

“Who are you going to Paris with?” … When David is being questioned about an hour into the movie, Mr. McKittrick explained that David had reservations for two to Paris. But when David put in the reservation early in the movie, he reserved them under Jennifer’s name and not his own.

What Dreams May Come

Production technical errors occur as well – about twelve minutes into What Dreams May Come, a car accident happens on the road entering the tunnel. Chris Nielsen witnesses the accident and runs in to aid the victims. As the camera moves in to follow his path, you can see a shadow of the camera lift on the left wall of the tunnel.

As Chris is running through the fields of the painting the plants are not moving around him, but instead through him. Along the same lines, when Albert Lewis is stomping around in the water there are splashes – he is clearly interacting with the water, but there are no ripples in the water caused by his presence and actions.

When Chris is underwater in the painting, nothing underwater is “painted” – it is all real life as filmed. Even the surface of the water above him is not painted.

Wild Wild West

This movie is filled with technical inaccuracies, however most of them are intentional and are part of the fun in the movie – such as Artemis knitting a chain-mail “impermeable” vest.

While James and Artemis are bickering on the train, the first time, James flips a lever underneath the train that flips the chair in which Artemis is sitting upside-down under the train. Since Artemis was not strapped into the chair, he should have fallen off the chair as it flipped or even once it was upside-down. Of course, there is question to why would that lever be down there in the first place?

While Artemis is carrying one of the magnetic collars that was removed from himself and James, he is suddenly dragged a hundred feet or so as the magnet is attracted to nearby railroad tracks. I know this is one of the fun technical inaccuracies built into the movie, however it is still very wrong that they weren’t attracted to the machine that throws the blades – or anything else for that matter. At least not until James’ magnet polarity was reversed – which isn’t possible simply by banging the apparatus which a magnet is firmly attached.

The Wrestler

At the strip club, Randy meets Cassidy in the private dance area. She gives him a hug and asks “How ya been?” – at this point they are both standing and dressed. The camera then cuts to behind Cassidy as Randy starts to tell her about a match. At this point he is sitting down and she’s dancing topless for him. At first I thought the technical error was that they retook the segment and fouled up their wardrobe and positions, but after replaying the scene a few times for details to be posted here, I think this was just a poor cut. Likely, they needed to trim some time out of the movie, so they cut part of this scene and didn’t bother to do a continuity check.

Games

Candy Crush Jelly

In late 2016, King introduced a daily bonus program for free special items in Candy Crush Jelly. To get the bonus items, the player must visit the game daily and “Water” Elsa. Notice I put water in quotes – that’s because that is the word on the button. For day one though, Elsa asks for Soda. But this is the Jelly version of the game.

Technical Errors Disclaimer

Screen captures shown on this page, as part of demonstrating the technical errors, fall under the Fair Use guidelines provided by United States Copyright Law and Fair Dealing found in international Copyright jurisdictions.

This document “Technical Errors” was originally published by me on 9 March 2017. The “Published” date is changed to the current date each time the article is updated.

  1. This is not an accumulation of other person’s observations, just what I have seen. That means a number of things other people noticed were missed or ignored by me – or I simply chose not to repeat what was stated on other sites.
  2. You May Not Kiss the Bride. Copyright 2011 Hawaii Film Partners
  3. Armageddon. Copyright 1998 Touchstone Pictures.
  4. Technically, the moon is only full for about one minute of that day.
  5. Lethal Weapon. Copyright 1987 Warner Brothers
  6. Mannequin. Copyright 1986 20th Century Fox
  7. Private School. Copyright 1983 Universal Pictures
  8. Rain Man. Copyright 1988 United Artists
  9. The Thomas Crown Affair. Copyright 1999 MGM UA.
  10. Top Gun. Copyright 1986 Paramount Pictures

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