Factual error: When we see the burning 'DD' in Joe Pantoliano's glasses it is not a reflection. The DD should be backwards in his glasses. (00:26:55)
Factual error: Whenever the fire extinguisher is activated for a jet engine, that engine becomes inoperable. In the movie, the co-pilot first activates the extinguisher for the left engine, and 30 seconds later, for the right engine. At that point, both engines should be shut down. However, the engines are still operating (and revving up) and Whitaker even asks Margaret to apply full power, which is also audible. (00:23:00)
Factual error: It is not possible to be "allergic to all known anaesthetics". Amongst the amide local anesthetics lidocaine, prilocaine, bupivicaine, mepivacaine and dibucaine are naturally occurring substances and if administered without a preservative they cannot trigger an allergic reaction. If Bales is allergic to them, he'd be allergic to the metabolic processes of his own body. They are all powerful local anaesthetics and could easily be used for a radical rhinoplasty such as that required by Bales.
Factual error: While Bridger is watching the film of the Mafia boss following Beckerman he signals for the film to be stopped so he can look at the close up shot of the man. He is watching a 16mm film shown through a bog standard projector - stop a film like that for more than two seconds without closing down the projector shutter (this doesn't happen - if it did the screen would darken instantly) and it will melt and catch fire. This doesn't happen.
Factual error: The criminologist describes the events of the movie as taking place "on a late November evening". In the very next scene, Brad and Janet are driving in Brad's car, and President Richard Nixon's resignation speech is playing on the radio. Nixon resigned in August of 1974. (00:12:00)
Suggested correction: It is said by the writer of the movie that Brad taped the Nixon speech so he could listen to it later in his car, the movie does take place in late November.
Factual error: Basic physics - Hancock throws Michel from a dead stop to above cloud level in about eleven seconds. The clouds are bog standard cumulus which form at around 7,000 metres in temperate zones. This means that Michel accelerates to about 700 metres per second instantly, from a dead stop. Obviously he cannot accelerate during his ascent, so his starting speed has to be at least that. (In fact he would have to start his ascent much, much faster than 700 metres per second as he would be constantly decelerating due to gravity and air resistance, but it will do as a start point.) Michel accelerates from 0 to 2,520 kilometres per hour - twice the speed of sound - in zero seconds. He would be accelerating at around 5000 Gs, turning him into a very long streak of fine, pink mist.
Factual error: In the museum, Peter is filming in real-time moving biological specimens shot through 'the largest electron microscope on the Eastern seaboard'. You can't film live specimens in an electron microscope. The electron beam only works in a vacuum chamber, in which the specimen - invariably dead - is held. The microscope is identified as a scanning electron microscope, and nobody can fire an electron stream through air. The electrons will collide with gas molecules and scatter, ruining the image.
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.
Factual error: Then, as now, every recruit reporting to boot camp would be tested for illegal drugs, first by a urine test and then by a broad spectrum blood test in the case of a positive result. There is no reason for Elmo to try to hide his stash when the recruits are told they are to be tested - he is going to come up positive anyway. He may as well just say he has changed his mind and walk away. He is entitled to do that any time up to ten days after he signed on, and it happened a lot in real life!
Suggested correction: Those drug tests didn't exist in 81.
Did you watch the film? The recruits are told they are about to take a broad spectrum drug test - not they are going to be searched for drugs, they are going to tested for the presence of illegal drugs in their systems. As has been pointed out such drug tests were mandatory at the time the film is set but that is not important - in the context of the film Elmo's action make no sense as he is going to be tested for drugs. Hiding his stash makes no sense at all as it will not solve his immediate problem. The posting is correct and the correction is nonsensical.
Drug testing of recruits commenced in the United States on a trial basis in 1975 and became compulsory in 1977. In 1981 every single volunteer would have to take a broad spectrum drug test before being allowed to start boot camp.
What specific drug tests didn't exist? Nixon directed a military drug urinalysis program in 1971 and the DoD started random drug testing in 1974 (not that testing deterred drug use).
I enlisted in 1982. I got a single drug test at the meps and didn't get tested again during an entire 3 year enlistment. In fact, I didn't receive a drug test until 2 years into my second enlistment. The military just wasn't as strict on drug testing.
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).
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)
Factual error: The whole Bowfinger scenario is impossible. They are using a 35mm Panavision cine camera which cannot be focused through the lens; it needs precise measurements on the set in order to be properly in register. Then there are the light readings required to ensure proper exposure. Wouldn't Kit Ramsay notice the man with the light meter, or the one with the tape recorder? Both measurements would have to be done with him or an identically dressed and made up stand-in (a "lighting double") on the spot. Then there is the sound. Any sound recordist worth his salary will have the microphone within centimetres of his subject, and he'll have a boom operator keeping in there. We don't even see a microphone in use! Please don't tell me this is based on the clandestine filming of Mary Pickford during her Russian visit: that was done with old black and white film which has very wide tolerance to exposure and most of all it was silent, and she was aware of the camera crew, she just thought they were news crews. (And the results were rubbish anyway).
Factual error: When the bus is shown entering Washington, DC for the competition, the shot shows the bus traveling over the Arlington Memorial Bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in the background. That bridge is on the southwest side of the city. Since NYC is to the northeast of DC, this means that to get to that bridge and enter DC that way, the bus had to drive all the way around the city and then come back in from the opposite direction. Even if the bus driver made a mistake and missed the most direct route into the city from the north, there are dozens of other ways to get to the heart of the city without adding a good 45 minutes to an hour to the trip.
Factual error: When the bombs are being taken down the lane, in the background where the lane meets the road a white mini can be seen passing the entrance.
Factual error: The movie is supposed to take place in and around New York City. However, during the car chase where Angelina and Brad are fighting off the three BMWs, a wide shot shows a street sign announcing Los Angeles.
Factual error: Towards the end of the movie when Andy is escaping, he breaks open a sewage pipe and is covered with its contents. It is physically impossible for the sewage to shoot out of the break like it did. In order for that to happen there has to be pressure. But there is none there, because the end he crawls through is empty and the end is in the open air. (01:52:20)
Factual error: In a scene that takes place in 1956 or 1957, Alicia Nash places an orange Tupperware container in the refrigerator. Although Tupperware first became very popular in the mid-50s, the particular model of Tupperware used in the film was not introduced until the late 60s or early 70s.
Factual error: When Brendan Fraser & his son are running to reach the pyramid before the sun hits it, the sunrise line approaches the pyramid along the ground, but the sun would naturally have hit the pyramid at the top first and worked its way down to the ground. [Some people insist on trying to correct this - think of it this way. If the sun's illuminating the ground from way up in the sky, what's keeping something higher up than the ground in darkness?] (01:34:40)
Suggested correction: Despite the additional comments this posting is wrong. The terminator line - the distinct boundary between sunlit day and dark night - moves horizontally across the surface of the earth, from east to west. It is perfectly feasible for the land behind Rick (i.e. to the east) to be in bright sunlight while the pyramid - to the west - is still in darkness. What is not feasible is anyone outrunning the terminator line, which moves at around 1500 kmh in the latitudes they are in.
Try it for yourself - get a round object, such as a basketball, a map tack and a flashlight. As you shine the flashlight on the ball you will see the equivalent of the day/night terminator line. Now stick the map tack into the ball and slowly rotate the ball with the light still shining on it. As it moves, the terminator moves and the map tack will become illuminated before the surface of the ball at the base of the tack. The light will move down from the top of the tack. The only way it would work as shown in the movie is if everything is exactly flat - with no differences in altitude above the ground. Obviously that is not the case. (Of course, if you don't want to poke holes in your basketball, you can use any combination of something round and something to stick to it.)
The original post is correct. Because of its sheer height, the top of the pyramid would receive direct sunlight first, just as a mountaintop receives sunlight before it appears on level ground.
It is perfectly possible for a mountain to be in complete darkness and the low lying land nearby to be brightly sunlit if the mountain is to the west and has not yet been reached by the terminator line. I repeat, the terminator line moves horizontally (in all practical terms) across the surface of the earth and as a result anything west of the line will be in darkness regardless of its height and will stay that way until the line reaches it.
Look, you're talking about mountains miles away beyond the terminator (so far away that they would be beyond the range of sight anyway). We are talking about a pyramid, easily the tallest thing in the immediate vicinity, in the near background, only a mile away at most. Under the physical conditions and locations present in this film, the pyramid should be illuminated top-down. Period.
Factual error: Based on the films being shown at the theater, the movie appears to be set in 1981. One of the TV commercials shows the Energizer Bunny, which didn't make its first appearance until 1988.
Factual error: The hat that Brad Pitt wears in the 1985 scenes is a Padres hat with navy, orange and white as the colours. In 1985, the Padres' colors were brown and yellow. The color change didn't come until late 80's or early 90's.