Character mistake: During the "Money by the Pound" song, towards the end, Doc sings, "Can't you hear that jingle jangle sound." Hoagie (Red Buttons) starts mouthing the "Can't" before he catches himself.
Character mistake: After Gru tucks the girls in for the night, Dr. Nefario tells him that there are 48 hours until the rocket's scheduled launch. The rocket launch, then, should have taken place at night, around the time the girls go to bed, two days later. The rocket, however, launches during daylight hours.
Character mistake: In the scene where the dentist is doing a root canal, Bloat says "rubber dam and clamp installed?" and another fish replies "yes", but when the picture goes back to the dentist and patient you can plainly see that there is not a rubber dam on the patient. A rubber dam is a large piece of latex attached to a metal frame, to keep water from the dental handpiece from going into the patient's mouth. Although all of the dental jargon in the film is precisely accurate, this device would have been very noticeable.
Character mistake: While pitching his shrinking machine to NASA Szalinski claims that reducing the size of a rocket's payload would result in "staggering" savings in the fuel required at takeoff. However, he makes it clear that his machine works by reducing the space between atoms, meaning that the shrunken object weighs the same as the original. Weight is the critical factor in calculating fuel consumption, not size. Anyone at NASA would pick up on that instantly.
Character mistake: When Mr. Rogue is spinning the globe to assign countries to the students he spins for Albert Morio, and he puts his finger just west of North America and says "Lebanon." Lebanon is in Asia, slightly northeast of Egypt and we can see Egypt on the globe on the other side of where his finger is at. He's nowhere near Lebanon.
Character mistake: Right after the firefighters have removed Flick's tongue from the flagpole, notice the police officer on the left (Flick's right). He is wearing his sidearm on his right but his Sam Browne cross strap is attached to his belt on his left. The whole point of the cross strap is to support the weight of the sidearm, so the officer is wearing it backwards.
Character mistake: During the game against the Cardinals in the playoffs, the announcer says that Averman passed to Guy who then scored. First, Guy does pass the puck back to Averman, but then he passes it to Banks who scores the second goal, propelling them to the playoffs.
Character mistake: At the beginning of the movie Marty is turning on a huge guitar amplifier. The two switches for the filaments are misspelled. They are shown as "filiment." (00:03:25)
Character mistake: The Matterass twins are playing a video game, and they argue about whether to destroy Milwaukee or Minneapolis. They decide on Milwaukee but destroy Hibbing Minnesota.
Character mistake: Captain McCrea tells the passengers that it's the 700th anniversary of the Axiom's first flight. The Axiom has been in flight for 255,642 days. Actually, 700 years is 255,675 days. That figure includes the additional day in 175 leap years.
Suggested correction: Leap years only occur because of the earth's rotation around the sun. As the AXIOM is in space, there is no need to correct for the earth's rotation.
First, rotation is the spin of the Earth (which cause day and night). Revolution is the earth orbiting the sun (which causes years). However, this correction is not valid on the premise you're trying to present. Many films set in space still use Earth time, so a day is 24-hours, even though they're in space and there is no sunrise and sunset (although it's stated the Axiom operates on a 25-hour day). So they would use Earth's year, which takes 365.256 days. Since the Axiom isn't orbiting the Sun, it wouldn't experience a year, so they're using something else. The fact that they're slightly off suggests it's a writing mistake and there's no evidence they use an arbitrary 365.203 day year.
That's still wrong. Even if their years were strictly 365 days, 700 years would be 255,500 days, not 255,642.
Character mistake: A big deal is made about how to walk down the aisle. At home, George shows Matty it's left-together-right. Then at the church, Matty has it written on his hand, but it's right-together-left. Then Frank's assistant mentions it as right-left. But then as everybody is walking, they're strolling casually down the aisle as if in a park, with no regard to the whole issue.
Character mistake: As the movie begins, a book opens up with various fairy tell things written in it. The name Cinderella is misspelled "Cincerella" on the second page, but is spelled correctly on the first page. It is also apparent that the second page just has some of the same text as on the first page. (00:00:20)
Character mistake: The spelling of Koreander/Coriander's name varies between the opening credits (spelled with a C), the shop window (spelled with a K), the inner cover of the book (spelled with a K) and the book's text (spelled with a C).
Character mistake: After the things let the dog out, Larry calls Joan and tells her that the kids let him out, and he will get him (the dog). Later, when he's downtown with the dog, he has the line about "when Joan finds out you've escaped, Conrad's out and I'm in". Where is the surprise? He already called her, so she knows!
Character mistake: The card that Speedy leaves for George to read says "Speedy Gonzalez" instead of the traditional "Speedy Gonzales."
Character mistake: When preparing for the parade, Shellhammer tells Dorey that her Santa is wearing a topcoat and a fedora. Kringle is actually wearing a Homburg, noticeable by the lack of a pinch at the front.
Character mistake: The Finnish businessman says something along the line of "As Scandinavians - we like her". Scandinavia includes Norway, Sweden and Denmark, never Finland (or Iceland); a Finn would know that.
Character mistake: While watching a documentary about the Soviet team Herb Brooks says that the Soviets had had 42 games in the last three months with 42 wins. This was supposed to be said in 1979. In the whole of 1979 Team USSR played 24 games only, winning 23 of them and losing Game 1 of the 1979 Challenge Cup, to the NHL All-Star team.
Character mistake: When Sean and Hank are trying to get to the Nautilus, they swim right through a big school of jellyfish. Seems really unlikely that Sean, raised by a scientist and Hank, an ex Navy man would do this, considering how many species of jellyfish can give a sting ranging from agonizing to deadly. And, while they have a limited oxygen supply in this scene, and time is a factor, the scene shows there is room to swim under them. They actually pause in the middle of the school to grin at each other. There would have been sufficient time and oxygen to avoid the school.
Character mistake: During the movie, Stallone Lincoln Hawk is referred several times as 'Hawks' by other characters (the police officer retrieving him from his cell, as well as his former father-in-law, who should know his real name). Lincoln actually calls himself Hawkes before he crashes the gate.
Suggested correction: With exception of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Sam Browne belt shoulder strap is typically worn over the right shoulder and attached to the belt on the left side.
This is correct for military uniforms - once again, the Sam Browne is used to support the weight of a weapon (in the military, this would be an officer's sword, always worn on the left side). However, for police uniforms, the shoulder strap is worn over whichever is the non-dominant shoulder (usually the left). Once again, this is to support the weight of the duty weapon. If you look at agencies such as the Kansas Highway Patrol, New Mexico State Police, and various police honor guards throughout the U.S., you will see that the strap is worn primarily over the left shoulder, since most people are right-handed and therefore would wear a duty weapon on their right side.