Deliberate mistake: The Messerschmitts have painted yellow fronts, this wasn't done by the Germans until after Dunkirk. Christopher Nolan has admitted doing this deliberately so the audience could tell the difference between the Spitfire and the Messerschmitt during the combat scenes.
Visible crew/equipment: After burning the car, when Dave takes the trash out there is a camera operator at the end of his driveway. (01:11:00)
Continuity mistake: Wardaddy raises his cigarette lighter to his cigarette twice while he speaks to Norman after the town has been taken. (00:51:30)
Plot hole: The fact that a five minute timer starts after the three Cerberus codes are entered defeats the purpose of the program. If they program was made to destroy their own nuke warheads in case of a misfire you would expect them to be destroyed as soon as all three codes are in. (01:38:20)
Continuity mistake: Gimli is lying with his face under the water, after jumping off the Deeping Wall and landing on the Uruk-hai. In the close-up, the right arm that grabs Gimli's shoulder to help him out of the water is Legolas' right arm. Yet, in the wide shot, suddenly it is Aragorn helping Gimli to his feet, not Legolas. (01:11:10)
Other mistake: When Ace rescues the dog and replaces it with a toy dog, the toy dog is in an impossible position. Ace had to place it there when the door was still open, but if the door was closed after that the man would have knocked it over. (00:03:25)
Continuity mistake: Throughout the entire film the tattoo on George Clooney's neck moves position and changes shape.
Factual error: Though extremely modest by today's standards, the dress worn by Clara at the hoedown shows far too much cleavage for the time. No schoolteacher would ever wear a dress like that in the 1880s.
Visible crew/equipment: After Willie spits in Indy's face it cuts to Short Round running through the mine, and just as Shorty turns his head toward the camera behind him, we can catch a glimpse of something blue which does not belong in this dark dreary environment, at the right side of the screen. There is a tall spotlight and two crew members, one is wearing a solid blue shirt and a cap, and the other a blue/white striped shirt with white pants. (01:21:25)
Character mistake: Jim Sturgess uses a sentence that contains the word 'me'. He is corrected, being told that the word 'I' would have been correct. However, he was grammatically correct in his use of the word 'me'. The correction was in error.
Visible crew/equipment: The scene where Spencer throws the boomerang for the first time and misses the bikers they take off running. While they are running from the bikers, there is a shot right before the boomerang hits the bikers where you can see a camera man sitting in the bushes on the left side. You don't have to pause it, but can to see it better. (00:36:30)
Revealing mistake: In one shot when the boat is pulling away from the waterfall, you can clearly see that the shot is the same one they used earlier in the movie. The water from the waterfall now is going up the cliff! They have just put it in reverse.
Plot hole: There is a barely credible explanation for the fact that a guest cannot be injured or killed by being shot in Westworld, but what about the vicious fistfight we see in the bar? People are injured or killed in bar brawls all the time, and this one was incredibly violent. How do they prevent guests from being injured or killed by the cutting and stabbing weapons we see in Medieval and Roman World? Guests are supposed to fight each other, not just robots - they cannot be 'programmed' to lose! Delos is going be sued into bankruptcy within a week of the first guest arriving. Quite apart from the legal position, think about the bad publicity! Who is going to pay the huge fees demanded by the parks owners when the media is constantly reporting on the guests who wound up dead or with life changing injuries?
Suggested correction: The explanation given in the TV show would seem to easily apply to the original film as well: guests can be injured, but not to the point that it would leave a lasting mark. The park has access to futuristic medical techniques, so they can heal most non-life-threatening injuries easily. Also the guests almost certainly sign waivers, so in the event of serious injury the park isn't liable.
Suggested correction: It's easy to nitpick the factual details of "Westworld," the screenplay of which was written on-the-fly on a fairly limited budget, even by early 1970s' standards. Author Michael Crichton (who also wrote "The Andromeda Strain," "The Terminal Man," "Congo," "Sphere," "Jurassic Park" and several other technological thrillers) himself acknowledged that Westworld was more a visual story (like a comic book) than a cerebral piece of science fiction, and he learned on this movie that suspension of disbelief outweighed technical or even factual details, if he wanted to expedite the story in an hour-and-a-half. Crichton said he was having more fun and devoting more time to shooting the film than actually writing it, comparing the experience to playing cowboys and indians as a child. So, yes, Westworld is not much more than an adult fantasy with a number of plot holes that we are supposed to gleefully overlook, rather than analyze.
Except for blatant continuity mistakes you just invalidated every single entry on this site.
Suggested correction: Westworld ensure that any interactions with the robots are entirely safe for the patrons of the park. They cannot prevent humans fighting amongst themselves, just as Disneyland can't prevent people fighting there. People are also injured or die all the time in horse-riding accidents, but that won't lead to people suing Westworld. Due to the nature of the park, all the guests likely sign a waiver stating that any injuries are not the fault of the park.
Utter rubbish. Guests who were completely innocent bystanders could be killed or injured by the actions of other guests, notably in the bar brawl or by the explosion used in the jailbreak. We see one guest smash a barstool against the back of another guest - not a robot - which could easily have broken his spine. There is no question whatever that the owners and managers of the park would be held liable in this and many other cases, just as amusement park owners and managers nowadays are held liable when roller coasters or other rides go awry, injuring or killing guests.
The most plausible explanation would be a waiver that visitors to the park have to sign. The waiver would explain that while the robots cannot harm humans, other humans can, and the park is not held responsible. In the event of death or serious injury, the guest who caused it would face criminal charges and possibly a civil lawsuit. But a waiver would protect the park. Also, the rules of the park may be similar to those in the HBO Westworld series, where the robots cannot cause a "permanent mark", meaning they can injure guests as long as the injury is repairable.
Factual error: Twice in the film it is made clear that the Pym particle works by reducing the space between atoms in order to shrink an object, and by increasing it to enlarge them. This means that the object will weigh the same, whether shrunk or enlarged - it cannot be otherwise. A 90kg man the size of an ant would punch a hole through any surface upon which he stood (and couldn't ride ants), Doctor Pym has been walking about with a 60 tonne tank in his pocket, Darren Cross lifts a full grown sheep between finger and thumb, and the supersized Thomas The Tank Engine would be far too light to crush the police car (in fact it would float harmlessly away as it would probably weigh less than the air it displaced).
Other mistake: When Adam comes in and says "when I woke up this morning, the pain was gone", Connie is mouthing his lines behind him.
Visible crew/equipment: When Dr. Okun is about to unlock "the vault", and says, "The freak show," a crewmember wearing a black and white striped shirt is hiding under the vault's floor, right behind Okun. (Only visible on fullscreen DVD.)
Plot hole: Why on earth would the military be interested in a soldier (sailor, aviator, whatever) who has to go into combat naked and unarmed, and who is detectable by an enemy equipped with a pair of cheap, mass-produced goggles? How would you treat them if they were injured? They would be utterly useless in any form of military operation, even espionage.
Suggested correction: Presumably the military are interested because Sebastian's research could lead to advanced forms of invisibility technology, such as the ability to turn materials and weapons invisible for use in combat.
You cannot second guess the film like that. Sebastian is making no effort to make non-living items invisible and throughout the film we see that is not possible (why else would Sebastian have to walk about naked?). His research is on animals (and later humans) not "materials and weapons" and is based on their physiology, anatomy and metabolism. How would you inject a rifle or a tank with a serum? They don't have a bloodstream. The military wouldn't see any value at all in this research - maybe they would be interested in invisibility, but not if it was restricted to living creatures as we see here.
You know how easy it would be for an invisible person to infiltrate an enemy's compound undetected and take out powerful leaders or dictators? Especially if no-one knew the technology existed.
Easy? Impossible. First, they would be naked and unarmed. Too bad if you are trying to knock off Vladimir Putin - a taekwondo black belt - with your bare hands during a Moscow winter! Being invisible doesn't mean you can avoid making a sound or triggering a pressure plate or an infrared detector and so on and so on. Final answer - a naked, unarmed combatant would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot in any form of operation, covert or otherwise.
Factual error: During CONTROL's paintball training session, a barrel view of a bullet exiting the gun is shown as it travels to its target. However, the entire bullet is shown, casing and all, instead of just the bullet. (00:09:10)
Continuity mistake: The tyres on the crotch rocket motorcycles they were riding kept changing from knobbly tyres to road slicks, back and forth depending on what terrain they were on. Easiest to see when Ethan skids on the road to avoid the white van - clear shot of slick tyres - then about 30 seconds later they're on the dirt, he skids into the old car and you can easily see that he's got off-road tyres front and back.
Visible crew/equipment: When the men are pushing the catapult to the gate look at the far left of the screen for a few seconds you can see a crew member in a baseball cap and then a large movie camera. There's also a twig palisade next to him where two more crew members are visible.
Suggested correction: This takes place in milliseconds and there's no way to see it unless you pause the image or play it in slo-mo. It should be under trivia.
Sacha ★
Right now I have it playing on Netflix, and there is no slow motion. The striped blue shirt is noticeable as it plays without any slo-mo. If something catches my eye onscreen, it is fair game to go back and rewatch what was noticed in the first place. And in order for me to confirm what I find, I do pause, and may take screenshots. By the way, I've seen this movie countless times over the years, and it was just a matter of catching that glimpse of the color blue because it popped out against the dreary surroundings. I'll leave it up to Jon whether to move it to trivia or not.
Super Grover ★
Fair enough :).
Sacha ★