Best Christmas movie factual errors of all time

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Die Hard 2 picture

Factual error: It is impossible for a stream of burning jet fuel to follow a plane through snow and catch up. Not only is jet fuel extremely hard to ignite, almost as soon as the plane was off the ground the fuel stream would be too dispersed for the flame to climb up into the tank, and even if not it wouldn't burn fast enough to catch the plane.

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Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer picture

Factual error: During the opening credits, the show's copyright date is shown in Roman numerals as MCLXIV. In Arabic numbers, that's 1164 - it should have been MCMLXIV for 1964.

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Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town picture

Factual error: A toy modern four-door automobile and a clear plastic ball can be seen as the children play when the Burgermeister comes in on his wheelchair. Both unlikely for a story set (presumably) in the 1800's, at the latest.

Scott215

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Home Alone 2: Lost in New York picture

Factual error: No airport in NYC has the view of the New York City skyline that Kevin has when he realizes that his family is in Florida and he's in New York.

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Home Alone picture

Factual error: When Kevin's mom leaves Paris to return home, the plane shown departing the airport is a DC-9. No airline uses this plane for trans-Atlantic service - it doesn't have the required range.

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

Suggested correction: Although not explicitly mentioned, it could be a connecting flight which departs Europe from another airport. In this case, flying a short or medium range aircraft to reach a hub airport like Heathrow would be plausible.

They stopped at an intermediate airport to catch a connecting flight and still nobody noticed Kevin was missing? Absolute rubbish. The posting is absolutely correct.

This is a mistake on the trip home, by which point they already noticed Kevin was missing. They had a non-stop flight going there.

Nonsense. With a maximum fuel load, the DC9 had a range of 1450 nautical miles (2685 km). If they stopped to refuel at Shannon airport in Ireland - which is closer to New York than Heathrow - they would still have to fly 2878 nautical miles (5330 km) to reach New York. They are going for a very long swim.

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Serendipity picture

Factual error: Jonathan is lying in the middle of the skating rink when the second cashmere glove falls upon him. Looking around, he notices Sarah at the edge of the rink. Despite Sarah being a female and the fact that it is snowing, even Nolan Ryan would have a difficult time throwing something as light as cashmere that distance. (01:22:05)

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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation picture

Factual error: In the scene where Clark is working on the lights the full moon is shown. This is December 14th according to the advent calendar. On December 24th when Santa's sleigh goes sailing over the moon, it is still full.

David Schaal

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The Santa Clause picture

Factual error: Finishing his rounds on the morning of Christmas Day, flying over downtown Chicago, the sun is over the horizon west of Chicago, Sunrises occur in the east, not the west. (00:26:10)

Regulus

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The Polar Express picture

Factual error: When hero boy and girl and Billy are on the runaway car at the north pole, they crash into the stopper at the end of the tracks. They are flung backwards when in reality, due to inertia, they should have been flung forward into the guard rail.

wizard_of_gore

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Die Hard picture

Factual error: The cops try to get in the building by cutting some metal part of the door, it might be the lock. All they have to do is break the glass. SWAT teams aren't going to worry about a bit of property damage with hostages' lives on the line.

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Jingle All the Way picture

Factual error: When Howard is running after the bouncy ball he is on the second floor of the Mall of America, however, you see him run through the LEGO store which is located on the lowest floor of the Mall of America, which is impossible if he was on the second floor before.

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Trading Places picture

Factual error: When Beeks is locked in the cage with the gorilla, it reacts in an overtly aggressive and sexual manner. First, gorillas are shy and gentle creatures. The male gorilla would be scared of him, not the other way around. Second, gorillas identify each other by their smell, and the smell of a female in heat is very specific. Beeks would smell like a horsehair rug and the male gorilla wouldn't be the slightest bit interested.

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White Christmas picture

Factual error: While travelling up the east coast from FL to ME they show a Santa Fe passenger train, which only runs out west.

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Joyeux Noël picture

Factual error: A very common error in First World War films. British soldiers were not permitted to shave their upper lips until 1916 - in 1914 almost all (unless physically unable to grow them) would have had moustaches.

Necrothesp

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Rent picture

Factual error: One of Angel's lyrics (in "Today For You, Tomorrow For Me) refers to the movie "Thelma and Louise." Rent (the movie) is set in 1989-90. "Thelma and Louise" was released in 1991. This was caused when they did the move from Broadway to the screen. The stage show did not specify the year. So when they adapted the stage show to the movie, they didn't check the references. Plus it just sounds cool. (00:28:25)

K.C. Sierra

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The Apartment picture

Factual error: Jack Lemmon cooks spaghetti for Xmas dinner. On New Years Eve he picks up the tennis racket, through which he had poured the spaghetti, and one piece hangs limp from the racket. It would of course, have long dried and be hard as before cooking.

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Love Actually picture

Factual error: In the scene where Karen plays the album "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell, she cries to the title track "Both Sides Now". A shot of the CD player indicates that track 7 on the album is playing, but "Both Sides Now" is track 12 on the actual album. (01:29:00)

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The Holiday picture

Factual error: When Iris is unable to sleep she looks over at Amanda's bedside clock which displays 5:00 pm, however, moments later Iris discovers a button to lower the shade. There is bright sunlight coming into the room, however, in December the sun sets prior to this time (about 4:45pm according to timeanddate.com)

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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang picture

Factual error: On Day 3, look at The Embrey Star newspaper when it zooms into the headline. Above the headline is the newspaper's web address, hardly appropriate given the paper is from 1980.

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A Christmas Story picture

Factual error: The movie was set in the mid-to-late 1940s, however, the red wagons shown in the display in Higbee's corner window at the beginning of the film, bear a Radio Flyer script logo which was designed in 1967. (00:03:10)

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