Best movie character mistakes of all time

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Commando picture

Character mistake: The police are marching Matrix out of the gun shop, they didn't even put hand-cuffs on him! I think I would put hand-cuffs on a guy who just smashed open a gun shop and was stealing all the guns he could get into his hands. (00:55:50)

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Land of the Lost picture

Character mistake: In the scene where Rick Marshall is playing the Banjo, he says he has been "doing some thinking with just him and the old four string". His banjo has five strings and you can see the five strings when he lays the banjo down.

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Tommy Boy picture

Character mistake: When Tommy is being shown his new office the glass reads "Thomas R. Callahan III, " but when Tommy is introduced as the new President of the company he is introduced as "Tom Callahan, Jr." which would be his dad. (00:11:35 - 02:11:55)

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Suggested correction: It is possible (probably not common) to be a "III" and a "Jr." If you are named after your father, and he is still alive you are a Junior. If you both share the name with another member up the family tree say your great grandfather, then your father would be a "II" and you would be a "III." But since your father is still alive, you can still go by junior. I've known one person in this situation.

I guess you missed the part of the movie where his father died. He's made the new president because his dad is dead, not alive, negating your main point.

Bishop73

His dad literally just died, and most people don't know the specifics of the naming rules. That would be a character mistake of the person introducing him.

When Tommy is made president and introduced, that's at the end of the film. So, no, his dad didn't literally just die. Plenty of time passed. But the correction is wrong on its premise, but that's not to say a different argument couldn't be made why the mistake is wrong.

Bishop73

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The Martian picture

Character mistake: In a scene when Watney is recording his video log, he imagines what would happen if his pressurized shelter suddenly would break. He concludes that he would implode, but the correct wording would be explode.

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Columbo: Prescription Murder picture

Character mistake: After Fleming has murdered his wife, he warns his girlfriend not to touch anything in the apartment, but he hands her a drink which he already prepared for her. At his direction she also makes a telephone call, holding the receiver with a cloth he hands her, but dialling the number with her bare fingers. On top of that, he hands her a pair of gloves after she has made the call - she would have touched or handled all sorts of things in the room by then. Why didn't he hand her the gloves as soon as she stepped in the room?

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Suggested correction: This is a subtle hint that Fleming is preparing to frame his girlfriend for the murder. He would admit to having an affair with her (not a crime) but is going to deny any involvement in his wife's murder. (SPOLER ALERT!) Later he makes it clear that his girlfriend meant nothing to him and he didn't care that she had committed suicide (or so he thought).

Nowhere in the episode is this sub-plot explored or even mentioned.

Not only that, but the idea he was going to subtly frame his girlfriend doesn't make sense because he used her to establish his alibi. He tried to make it look like she was killed by an random intruder.

Bishop73

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Gladiator picture

Character mistake: When Maximus is talking to Marcus Aerelius, he mentions that his wife has black hair. But in the scenes where we see her, she actually has brown hair. (00:24:40)

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Space Jam picture

Character mistake: When Stan inflates himself, Michael asks, "How'd he do that?", implying that he doesn't know the rules of the Looney Tunes world. Since Michael was rolled into a ball by the aliens earlier in the film, this shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

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Suggested correction: When Michael was rolled into a ball, he wasn't concerned with how that was possible and soon after he forgot about it. He was more concerned with dealing with the Monstars at the time and, in particular, helping his cartoon friends preparing for the game. When Michael witnessed Stan being flattened and inflated, it looked particularly strange and unfamiliar to him, unlike before as he couldn't watch himself experiencing being rolled into a ball. And that is what triggered his response about questioning how it was possible.

Rassdyt

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Halloween II picture

Character mistake: The police claim the Myers house is at "45 Lampkin Lane." The address on the front porch clearly displays the number 709.

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Vertical Limit picture

Character mistake: Those are the most haphazardly secured cases of nitro I've ever seen in a movie. Couldn't they spare a shoelace or duct tape to secure the top?

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Disturbia picture

Character mistake: In one scene, Ashley looks into Mr. Turner's yard with binoculars. She looks through the large glass circles. That would result in seeing everything smaller. If you want to see everything bigger, you are supposed to look through the small glass circles.

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Wrong Turn 2: Dead End picture

Character mistake: Jonesy says he read about Amber going to West Point. She was a Marine, and not in the Army, which is what West Point is for.

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Now You See Me 2 picture

Character mistake: Dylan is showing Agent Cowan and the FBI director the pictures of the pigeons and Dylan and Cowan start arguing, while the FBI director continues to look at the evidence on the Four Horsemen. Whilst looking there is an article reading "FBI Investigation Stalls." On the first column of the article, it is mentioned that all four members of the Four Horsemen, J. Daniel Atlas, Henley Reeves, Merritt McKinney and Jack Wilder, all disappeared into thin air at the final magic show, and gave the audience fake dollar bills. By the time of the final magic show, Jack had faked his death and was presumed dead, so only three members of the Horsemen were present, not four. (00:08:55)

Casual Person

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Iron Eagle picture

Character mistake: When Doug Masters approaches his aircraft at the airfield before racing 'The Snake', Col Sinclair has a right hand access panel open on Doug's Cessna 150 upper engine cowling and is allegedly working on the fuel system saying "As lean as you were runnin', if it went into a stall, you woulda lost your engine, and would never been able to pull it out." The carburetor, gascolator, throttle linkage and carburetor control lines are on the bottom of the engine (Continental O-200). The panel he closes after sticking bubble gum on accesses the battery, the right hand magneto and the oil dipstick. Not only did Col Sinclair not do what he said he said he did without a sign-off in the aircraft's logbook, it would be totally unnecessary, as aviation updraft carburetors use a cockpit or engine controlled fuel mixture control that would have simply been left in 'full rich' position after engine start for the altitudes the aircraft would have been flying. And stalling is an aerodynamic condition of angle of attack being exceeded or insufficient airflow over flight surfaces, not fuel starvation, which is the condition being addressed. (00:11:30 - 00:12:30)

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The Transporter picture

Character mistake: At the end of film when the Chinese refugees are being unloaded from the lorry a policeman helps an injured man off, then goes back to help others. The injured man sits and then lies down. As he does, the policeman that helped him throws a bag without looking, which hits the injured man.

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Star Trek V: The Final Frontier picture

Character mistake: Sybok tells Kirk that no one believed the world was round until Columbus proved it. Someone who studied at the Vulcan Academy should know that the Greek philosophers had proved the world was round and calculated its circumference centuries earlier. Columbus never set out to prove the world was round, just to find a shortcut to India.

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Halloween picture

Character mistake: When Sheriff Brackett is talking to Loomis at the food stand, he calls him Don. His name is Sam. Even says it in the subtitles. (01:19:35)

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Suggested correction: He could possibly be saying "Doc".

No, he's definitely saying "Don." It's never been addressed, but I think it's an honest mistake with two people who have never met before and maybe an homage to Donald Pleasance, who played Loomis before.

It's hard to say, but it does sound like "Don." The sheriff says "doc" two times later in the same scene and those two times definitely sounds different than the first time. But I don't think it's meant to be a homage to anyone. I think it's just an actor who flubbed the word.

Bishop73

More Halloween character mistakes
More Shutter Island character mistakes
Crimson Tide picture

Character mistake: More than once the crew of the submarine salute the Captain while uncovered in the hallways of the sub. Sailors never salute without their cover on.

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Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius picture

Character mistake: When Jimmy explains to the kids of the town where the aliens took their parents, he mentions the origin of the aliens being somewhere in the Orion Star System, 3 million light years away. The Orion system is way closer than that. It is actually less than 1400 light years away from Earth. 3 million light years away would place them further than the Andromeda Galaxy.

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Suggested correction: This shouldn't be a character mistake. A genius like Jimmy would know something like this. It's basic astronomy.

That's exactly why it's a character mistake. A character mistake is when a character does or says something that they shouldn't based on who/what they are suppose to be, or something a character wrongly states as fact when they should know better.

Bishop73

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The Witches picture

Character mistake: When the Grand High Witch and her assistant enter her room while Luke gets the formula, they're wearing pointy shoes. Earlier, it was mentioned that witches never wear pointy shoes.

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