Best movie character mistakes of all time

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Clockstoppers picture

Character mistake: Early in the story Dr. Gibbs rationalises the story to come by using two cars traveling the road at greatly different speeds to illustrate "Einstein's theory of relativity". He basically says that the slower moving car seems to stand still as seen from the much faster car's point of view. But in real Einsteinian relativity, just the opposite happens. When two reference frames are traveling with respect to each other, each sees the other's time advancing more quickly.

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Full Metal Jacket picture

Character mistake: When the Marines are navigating through the Paris Island obstacle course, Hartman is shouting "It should take you no less than 10 seconds to negotiate this obstacle!" In other words, the LONGER it takes someone to get across, the better? (00:13:27)

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Pushing Tin picture

Character mistake: In the scene towards the end, when there has been a bomb threat in the building, Billy Bob Thornton uses a pay phone to call the operator. He asks for the airline's base operations in "Greensboro, South Carolina". Greensboro is in North Carolina.

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High School Musical 2 picture

Character mistake: Chad actually steps on first base before the baseman has the ball. He was safe.

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Star Trek picture

Character mistake: When Chekov is discussing the plan to hide behind Saturn, he says, "...if Mr. Scott can get us to warp 4...". But on the viewscreen, it shows they are already traveling at warp 4.31. (01:34:40)

wizard_of_gore

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Legally Blonde picture

Character mistake: The first law class scene involves Reese Witherspoon getting kicked out of the room for being unprepared to answer questions regarding Gordon v. Steele, a very basic Civil Procedure case. The scene closes with the professor asking Selma Blair about the result in Gordon v. Steele. She responds that the court held that there was not diversity jurisdiction. The professor replies that Selma is correct. But, this is entirely the wrong answer. The court in that case held that there was diversity jurisdiction. Merely getting a case wrong would seem trivial, but again this is literally the first case any law student studies in Civil Procedure, a first year class. How could a screenwriter get this basic case completely wrong?

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Scream 2 picture

Character mistake: During the scene in which they are all arguing whether or not film sequels are better than the original or not, someone says Sigourney Weaver's classic line from the movie Aliens: "Get away from her you bitch", and Randy makes a smart comeback and tries to correct him by saying "I think the correct line was 'stay away from her you bitch'. This is a film class, right?" Wrong - the first guy was right. This line is truly unconvincing for the Randy character, being a big movie buff and all. Jamie Kennedy decided to improvise as Joshua Jackson actually made the initial mistake by saying the wrong line, causing a different mistake. (00:16:25)

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The Big Lebowski picture

Character mistake: When they exit the bowling alley with the dog, the dog is never put in the car, only the cage.

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Swimming with Sharks picture

Character mistake: When Guy and his girlfriend are discussing why he loves the movies and how they help him remember important times in his life, Guy makes a reference to the obscure 1979 basketball movie The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, and says how he loved Gabe Kaplan in it. Gabe Kaplan was never in The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, but did star in a different obscure basketball movie from 1979 called Fast Break.

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Rocky IV picture

Character mistake: When Rocky makes his speech after his fight with Drago, he says that it's better that one person fights another instead of a million fighting a million (a US USSR war). The Russian translator misinterprets his speech and says that this is better than a million dollars. You don't have to understand Russian (although I do) to hear the translator says million dollars to confirm this blunder of a mistake. (01:22:25)

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Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over picture

Character mistake: Before the Megarace, Rez looks back at the camera and says that they'll try to help him out-but you can see Juni's tires in front of Rez's car. In a shot before this one, Rez says Arnold will crush Juni-looking at the camera, which is in front of Rez.

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan picture

Character mistake: While Khan is "interviewing" Chekhov and Terrell, he stated, "On Earth, two hundred years ago, I was a prince, with power over millions." The official date for this movie is 2285. That would place Khan on earth around 2085 by this statement. However, it is made clear in the episode "Space Seed" that Khan and his followers escaped earth in the year 1996: nearly one hundred years earlier. Quite a way off to be a rounding error. (00:21:45)

Garlonuss

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Suggested correction: I don't believe the earth year had been established when this movie was made and it was something the franchise applied to itself retroactively later on.

TonyPH

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The Expendables 2 picture

Character mistake: In the bar scene, Gunner asks Barney Ross for a pen to write an equation on the piece of tissue. He said that the equation was Einstein's theory of special relativity, but it's actually Einstein's equation for general relativity.

loserlearner

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Step Brothers picture

Character mistake: When Brennan's brother is talking to Jack in the kitchen, he is holding a Heineken beer. However when he goes out in the tree house and shows the brothers his six pack, he claims he hasn't had a carb since 2000.

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A Man Called Otto picture

Character mistake: On the train Otto says a 1964 quarter is pure silver. They are actually 90% silver and 10% copper. (00:30:28)

thetaz00

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Most people wouldn't know the chemical make-up of a quarter prior to 1965. They'd just refer to it as a silver quarter, not realizing it's partially comprised of copper.

Mike Lynch

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Runaway Train picture

Character mistake: When the front door of the old F-unit is refusing to open the guys put their shoulder to it. The door they are trying to bash outward actually swings into the area where they are standing. If they really wanted to go out that door they should have unlatched it and pulled.

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Ice Princess picture

Character mistake: When Casey is using her knowledge of physics to advise a figure skater, she states, "Pull your arms in real tight. That increases your moment of inertia". In fact, this is the exact opposite of how it really works. Reducing her overall radius makes her rotational inertia smaller. (00:21:05)

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Home Alone picture Home Alone mistake picture

Character mistake: When Kevin is shooting the toys off the laundry chute with Buzz's BB gun, he's looking through the scope with his closed eye.

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The Pink Panther 2 picture

Character mistake: In the film, five items are stolen: the Magna Carta, the Turin Shroud, the Imperial Sword of Japan, the Pope's ring and the Pink Panther diamond. When Alfred Molina's character is challenged that they had found everything but the Pink Panther, he protests that 3 out of 4 is not bad, that's 75%. In fact, they had found 4 out of 5 or 80%.

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