Plot hole: This film is set in 2004. The thought that no search and rescue operations would be put in place after an aircraft disappeared from radar during a routine flight is absurd. The Chinese are paranoid about intrusion on their territory and the downed aircraft would have been located by a simple satellite search within hours of it crashing. Chinese military satellites crisscross the Gobi and they are equipped with optical cameras, microwave and infrared detectors and radar, so spotting a metal aircraft on the ground would be simple even if it was hundreds of kilometres off course. The crew would have been visited by Chinese military helicopters (and probably arrested!) as soon as the storm had died down.
Other mistake: At the end of the film when they arrive in NYC looking for the library, we know that they survived because they are inside with a roaring fire burning. But where is the smoke up above, as Jack Hall approaches? There must be a chimney, or else they would have all died of asphyxiation.
Suggested correction: As already corrected, just because we can't see an outlet for the smoke doesn't mean there isn't one. White smoke against white snow is very hard to see.
But they were still burning the books, which meant the smoke should be black, if they stop burning the books, the smoke would have been white, which isn't the case in the movie.
Just looked at a boatload of videos of burning books, including one in a fireplace, and the smoke was indeed white.
Factual error: As Ben is clinging to the staircase while it is falling apart, there is a close-up of a nail being pulled out of the wood. This nail is round-headed, rather than square as it would have been over 200 years ago. It's also shiny instead of rusty, which indicates that it's galvanized. Galvanization as an industrial, metal-preservation process was not patented until 1837, and was not used in building materials until well into the late-1800s. Since the film states the staircase was made by "the Founding Fathers, " and there was no galvanization of iron nails in any industrialized nation in 1780s-1830's, this is a huge anachronism.
Continuity mistake: When Malfoy and his friends bother Ron and Hermione, Harry shows up and messes with the three boys. He grabs hold of Malfoy's feet, lifts them in the air and pulls him across the snow. In the first close-up of the soles of Malfoy's boots, not a speck of snow is on them, though he was just walking in it. Then in the next close-up, his feet still in the air, the soles are now covered in snow. (01:02:45)
Continuity mistake: When Fairy Godmother is throwing the books behind her, the book "Snow White" lands on the other books. "Snow White" noticeably changes position between two shots. (00:41:15)
Continuity mistake: When Hellboy is walking at one point, holding his gun up in his left, gloved hand (just after one of the agents has said "This place is like swiss cheese"), watch the frame. It switches suddenly so his right hand (the stone one) is his left, and he's holding the gun in his "right." (00:59:40)
Factual error: When they're first entering the whaling camp, a penguin startles Miller. That penguin was a black-footed penguin, which is a bird native to much warmer climates. If that little guy had actually been in Antarctica, he would have died within minutes. (00:20:40)
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.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Mindy is showing Spongebob and Patrick "Planktopolis," it shows a large fully-built statue of Plankton. A few seconds later the right side of the head is shown missing and still being worked on.
Visible crew/equipment: While in the pot field, just as the growers are about to shoot them with the laser sights, you can see a crewmember crawling by in the background. (00:44:50)
Continuity mistake: In the Moscow car chase, Bourne's car is hit from the driver's side by a patrol car. The driver's side window breaks. In the next few shots, you do not see any broken glass on Bourne. In the very next shot the car is not damaged on the driver's side. (01:25:25)
Continuity mistake: When the four friends are walking to the Vatican, they have their backpacks on. In the next shot they reach the Vatican, but their backpacks are missing. (01:11:35)
Continuity mistake: There is a scene in which a ghost shoots harpoons through the back door of the Mystery Machine. In the next shot, the harpoons are gone, and when the van gets back into the city you see a shot of the back and there is no damage whatsoever. (01:03:20)
Factual error: After the scene where they fall over the waterfall, and go through what they have left of the equipment. Bill, the Latino doctor, holds up the CD-reader from a desktop computer and says that the hard drive is broken, which would be OK if he actually had the hard drive present. (00:34:35)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where the Baudelaires and Aunt Josephine are looking in the photo album, Violet turns a page. You can see the photo Aunt Josephine does not want the orphans to see, but when Violet turns to the next page, the same photo is there. (00:49:10)
Factual error: I normally wouldn't bother with this sort of nitpicking, but this film specifically claims to be historically researched - and it's full of historical blunders. For a start, the film is set as the Empire withdraws its last troops from Britain - which was in 407 AD. Now Artorius Castus was a real Roman officer who really did command Sarmatian foederati at Hadrian's Wall, but he died around 200 AD. Cerdic was a real Saxon warlord who did go raiding the Britons with his son Cynric, but he did this in the early 500s. Pelagius really was tried for heresy, but he was acquitted and died of old age; the trial was a decade after this setting, and in the fifth century you couldn't be executed for heresy anyway. Also in the fifth century the Pope had no authority over Imperial troops. I could go on and on but that will do for now.
Continuity mistake: Towards the end of the movie, in the scene where Anna is taking the werewolf cure to Van Helsing and the vampire bride stops her on the large fallen pillar, she falls so she is in a sitting position with the cure in her left hand. She then switches it to her right. Then in the close-up shot, the cure is still in her left hand and she switches it again. (01:49:50)
Continuity mistake: When Lucius is putting aftershave on in front of the mirror, he hears the robot outside and runs to the window, leaving the bottle of aftershave on the desk with the lid off. He returns to open the drawer, and the lid is back on. (01:29:00)
Continuity mistake: As the priest descends down the rope ladder into the church for the first time he is handed a lantern by his friend. In the next shot the camera is looking down and you can see that the friend is holding the lantern. Then the next person goes down the same rope ladder and the friend is not holding the lantern, where did the lantern go?
Revealing mistake: When Thunderbird 3 lands in London, the jets do not burn the grass they land on.
Suggested correction: The Chinese government, for whatever reason, may have denied there was any crash at all if it suited their purposes, and the oil company that owned the plane would have little recourse. The Chinese have done this before. For the purpose of the plot, the survivors decided that they had to save themselves rather than wait for rescue and that was completely plausible.
Suggested correction: It's now 2021, and we still can't find Malaysian Airlines MH370. So this suggestion of planes always being found is laughable.
stiiggy
MH370 crashed into the ocean, and in fact some wreckage has been found. The Chinese military does not have the south Indian Ocean under satellite surveillance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, unlike the Gobi desert where a crashed plane would be spotted within hours of it going missing.