Best sci-fi movie character mistakes of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Red Planet picture

Character mistake: When the biologist guy talks about writing code for DNA he names the four codes as A, G, T, P, when they are actually A, G, T, C.

More Red Planet character mistakes
Prometheus picture

Character mistake: In the first scene inside the Prometheus, after she comes out of deep sleep, Vickers asks David for a robe, and asks "how long?" meaning how long have they been asleep. David, a robot, answers "2 years, 4 months, 18 days, 36 hours, 15 minutes." The actual statement from this highly precise robot character would have been "2 years, 4 months, 19 days, 12 hours, 15 minutes."

Frank Hale

More Prometheus character mistakes
Super Mario Bros. picture

Character mistake: After Spike comes out of the evolution device, he asks Iggy "Do you know what the square root of 26481 is?" And then answers "191". 191 squared is actually 36481. (00:47:20)

Yoshi

More Super Mario Bros. character mistakes
The Terminator picture

Character mistake: When Kyle steals the police officer's gun and asks him what the date is, the officer replies "12th, May, Thursday". The film is set in 1984. May 12th, 1984 was a Saturday. (00:08:25)

More The Terminator character mistakes
The Divergent Series: Allegiant picture

Character mistake: When Tris and Christina are going to rescue Four, Tris asks how to use the drones. When Christina tells her that she must use her left hand she can be seen using her right hand to control them.

More The Divergent Series: Allegiant character mistakes
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.

More The Martian character mistakes
The Core picture

Character mistake: The word "Storyboard" in "Storyboard Artists" during the end titles is misspelled "Stroryboard". (02:05:00)

More The Core character mistakes
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.

More Land of the Lost character mistakes
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.

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

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

More Space Jam character mistakes
Godzilla picture

Character mistake: All the characters wearing gas masks are wearing them with the straps over the hoods. I was army trained, and you always wear the mask next to the skin for best seal, with the hood over the top.

More Godzilla character mistakes
Pokémon Detective Pikachu picture

Character mistake: Some characters use the letter "s" at the end of a Pokémon's name when the plural of a Pokémon is just its name. The best example is when Pikachu says, "Roger must've sent the Greninjas to cause the car crash." Being a Pokémon himself, there's no way Pikachu, out of all characters, would say that.

More Pokémon Detective Pikachu character mistakes
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.

More Star Trek V: The Final Frontier character mistakes
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.

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

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

More Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius character mistakes
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials picture

Character mistake: Near the end of the movie, when Newt and Minho and Frypan and others are all being checked by WCKD's scanners to identify the subjects. Minho is called subject A4 when he is really subject A7, subject A4 is Chuck. Newt is also called subject A6 when he really is subject A5, Subject A6 is ALBY.

infinitejoy11

More Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials character mistakes
Transcendence picture

Character mistake: The doctor diagnosing Will's illness tells Evelyn and Max that it's caused by "an isotope called polonium." Polonium is a chemical element, not an isotope. The word "isotope" refers to a form of an element (such as carbon-12 or carbon-14) not the element itself. It does not mean "radioactive substance", because many isotopes are stable. A doctor would know this. (00:17:00)

paolog

More Transcendence character mistakes
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.

More Clockstoppers character mistakes
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

More Star Trek character mistakes
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.

More Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over character mistakes
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

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

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

More Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan character mistakes
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday picture

Character mistake: In the scene where they show Jason's mailbox, it says Vorhees. The correct spelling is Voorhees. (00:35:00)

More Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday character mistakes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.