Best sci-fi movie factual errors of 2009

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

2012 picture

Factual error: In the poster shot and in the film, the wave from the Atlantic carrying the carrier JFK into a collision with the White House comes crashing in from the west because the south portico of the White House is seen. The Atlantic Ocean is east of Washington, so the wave should come from the other direction. And even a wave coming from the east could not have made the JFK (CV-67) crash into the White House because the carrier was retired in 2005 and is berthed in Philadelphia, which is northeast of Washington DC. (01:30:10 - 01:30:40)

More 2012 factual errors
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen picture

Factual error: In the original Transformers, Tyrese Gibson's character is credited as and wears the rank insignia of a USAF Technical Sergeant. In Revenge of the Fallen, set two years later, Gibson's character now wears the insignia of a USAF Chief Master Sergeant, three ranks higher than his rank in the first movie. The USAF would not jump someone three grades into the top 1% of the enlisted force no matter what his heroics or experience (that does not even happen to Medal of Honor awardees). Clearly the screenwriters recognized this as Captain Lennox is bumped only one grade to Major despite his actions in the first film and Gibson's character, as noted in another mistake, is credited as Master Sergeant Epps, a reasonable promotion. The costume department simply got the insignia wrong.

Guy

More Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen factual errors
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra picture

Factual error: In the underwater scene when Rex blows up the ice pack, ice appears to be denser than water in this situation. The ice sinks when it's blown up, and even if there were pieces of metal on top of the ice, it shouldn't. Some pieces the size of a five-story building have no metal and still sink. (01:43:00)

More G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra factual errors
Terminator Salvation picture

Factual error: In the scene in the 'cattle car' the shadow and light from outside the bars is moving across Kyle's face as he is talking. But unless the light source moves relative to the shadow source, a shadow will not move. But the light source was just outside daylight - and not direct sunlight - so the shadow inside would not have moved.

More Terminator Salvation factual errors
The Fourth Kind picture

Factual error: Abby has trees surrounding her house yet there aren't any in Nome Alaska.

More The Fourth Kind factual errors
Daybreakers picture

Factual error: In the beginning a calendar says 2019 April, you can see April 1 being Tuesday when actually April 1 2019 was a Monday. (00:01:10)

More Daybreakers factual errors
X-Men Origins: Wolverine picture

Factual error: When Wolverine is being chased after the explosion of the barn, there's a Humvee chasing the motorcycle. The movie is supposed to take place in the late 70's - the Humvee started production in 1984 and started service in the late 80's.

More X-Men Origins: Wolverine factual errors
Moon picture

Factual error: When Sam speaks with his daughter on the long range phone there is virtually no delay between some questions and answers. It takes over two seconds for radio waves just to travel from the Moon to the Earth and back in a straight line. The interval between question and answer physically can't be shorter than that and realistically should be around 3 seconds or even more, accounting for additional signal relays and time needed for a person to form a statement. Same for the communication between Gerty and the Lunar employees when Sam 2 got out of his infirmary bed.

More Moon factual errors
Monsters vs Aliens picture

Factual error: Gallaxhar scans the galaxy to find the missing quantonium. The scanner zooms in on earth, showing it to be very close to the center of the galaxy. Earth is actually nowhere near the center of the galaxy; it's located much closer to the outer edge.

BocaDavie

More Monsters vs Aliens factual errors
Race to Witch Mountain picture

Factual error: After the chase scene through the desert and arriving at the abandoned old house, the children hand the taxi driver all of the money they received from the ATM earlier in the movie. When the taxi driver examines the money, it is all hundred dollar bills. No ATM in Las Vegas, Nevada dispenses hundred dollar bills.

More Race to Witch Mountain factual errors
Star Trek picture

Factual error: USS Enterprise's onboard computer initially refuses to acknowledge Chekov's authorization code. The reason, it seems, is Chekov's Russian accent, which pronounces the letter "V" (pronounced labiodentally) like a British "W" (pronounced bilabially). Problem: Chekov pronounces his ensign authorization code in the NATO phonetic alphabet. ("Nine, Five, Victor, Victor, Two", which resolves to 95VV2) This alphabet is specifically designed to alleviate this exact same situation. The 26 code words in the NATO phonetic alphabet are assigned to the 26 letters of the English alphabet: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, and Zulu. The slightly mispronounced "Wictor" should not be a problem. (00:42:05)

FleetCommand

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

Suggested correction: You're applying today's standards to a fictional future. We've seen in every iteration of Star Trek that security includes both a passkey/password and voice authentication. The actual mistake here is that regardless of how Chekov speaks, the computer should recognize it as his voice because he always speaks that way.

I am afraid the computer's error message leaves no doubt that there was no voice matching at work this time; only pure speech-to-text.

FleetCommand

More Star Trek factual errors
Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus picture

Factual error: The "US Lead Destroyer" attacked by the megladon is the Iowa class battleship USS Missouri (BB63). (00:29:00 - 00:31:20)

More Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus factual errors
Dragonball Evolution picture

Factual error: Despite the film building to a climax during a total solar eclipse, which requires a New Moon, the film constantly shows a Full Moon, which never changes phase over the weeks the film takes place.

The Yeti

More Dragonball Evolution factual errors
The Time Traveler's Wife picture

Factual error: When Henry travels back to when his mother is still alive and is riding the el train with her, when he gets off the train downtown there are color coded signs on the platform. Specifically, a brown and purple sign indicating that those color trains stop on that side of the platform. This scene took place sometime in the 1970s since his mother was still alive, but el trains were not color coded until 1993.

More The Time Traveler's Wife factual errors
Precious picture

Factual error: The movie takes place in 1987, but during the museum visit the main character is watching video from the Tiananmen Square uprising, which didn't occur until 1989. (00:52:40)

datajunky

More Precious factual errors
Watchmen picture

Factual error: In the scenes on Mars, two spherical moons can be seen in the background. However, in reality, the moons of Mars (Phobos & Deimos) are not spherical. Also they are so small, that they would only appear as moving dots in the night sky, not spheres like Earth's moon.

More Watchmen factual errors
Land of the Lost picture

Factual error: When Dr. Marshall and team launch the tank of nitrogen into the mouth of the dinosaur, there's absolutely no reason why the tank would explode as it was swallowed whole and didn't experience any sort of impact that could have punctured, ruptured or broken the valve off the tank.

jerimiah

More Land of the Lost factual errors
Avatar picture

Factual error: During the hometree bombing, the "sky people" throw gas grenades at the N'avi. It's a cool tactic but because of the helicopter blades rotating right above them, the gas would just get blown away therefore making it a useless thing to use in the war.

bmhorton54

More Avatar factual errors
The Road picture

Factual error: If, as the film proposes, all plant life is dead, then human life would have soon followed it. Since plants filter carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then a lack of plants would allow for the increase of that CO2. And since the the unknown disaster appears to have been the result of a super volcano, the additional CO2 would be accompanied by the gases from the volcano making the atmosphere even more toxic.

More The Road factual errors
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li picture

Factual error: Chun-Li's father sets wine on fire. This is not possible because the alcohol content is not high enough.

More Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li factual errors

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.