Best movie factual errors of 2019

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The Irishman picture

Factual error: While handling the ignition coil cable to the distributor cap, Joe Pesci tells De Niro that the timing chain needs adjustment in his truck. A truck of that year with an inline Chevy motor would not have a timing chain at all, instead this truck would be equipped with a direct drive timing gear. Even if it had a timing chain, it would be behind the water pump and a cover. It would have been a several hour job to replace, not possible to adjust it.

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Anna picture

Factual error: The movie starts in 1985, jumps '5 years later' and then back to Sasha Luss, then '3 years earlier'. So, in her crusty apartment in an impoverished neighbourhood of 1987 Soviet Russia, Anna is filling a form on her notebook-style laptop, too modern for the era. It looks like a NEC UltraLite (considered the first notebook style laptop) which didn't even come out until 1989, let alone the likelihood of someone in the USSR having one.

Sammo

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1917 picture

Factual error: The strong current of the river the main character falls into carries him to a considerable waterfall. There is not, nor has there ever been, a river of that kind in the Ecoust front line area, let alone a waterfall. Anyone who has any insight into the geography of the region will tell you it is flat as can be. The largest body of water, the Yzer, gently meanders and flows into the Channel, even during really rainy times.

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Suggested correction: I do not believe that either Ecoust or Croisilles Wood is in Flanders. Both are behind the old German lines at the Somme. That said, there are no bodies of water in that area.

Ecoust and Croissilles are in department Pas-De-Calais in the French Flanders, together with the Belgian flanders they are called Flanders Fields. It is indeed a flat area.

lionhead

Also, the message in ink delivered is legible, despite having been submerged in water. And don't get me started about the attack from ridiculous trenches and not a barbed wire in sight.

It's not. Even French Flanders is further north. But, even though there are some high points in the area, like Vimy Ridge that rises to about 500 feet above the surrounding plains, the slopes are quite gentle. And, as you say, wouldn't allow for the kind of drop seen in the movie.

There is a watercourse that goes through Croisilles... But it's basically a ditch.

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Joker picture

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.

wizard_of_gore

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Captain Marvel picture

Factual error: Carol Danvers' name appears on her dog tags as "Carol Danvers," but US military dog tags list the surname first, then given name. E.g. "Danvers, Carol."

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood picture

Factual error: Twice in the movie a Jumbo Jet (a Boeing 747) from Pan Am appears. The movie is set in 1969, when that plane had its maiden journey, but it wasn't flown commercially until 1970.

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Ad Astra picture

Factual error: It is not possible that Pitt could have gone up to the ship when it was already blasting off. There was literally fire in the tunnel.

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Suggested correction: It was a bit confusing, but what I saw was a shower of sparks or hot particles and some fumes, and no fire in the tunnel until he was through the hatch. The makers may have been influenced by seeing vapour prior to a rocket launch, and then some rockets use a shower of electric sparks to ignite the engines. It was implausible, but no fire in the tunnel.

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Hobbs & Shaw picture

Factual error: The grenade booby trap in Hattie's flat gets triggered, with the pin coming out and lever comes off. Once that happens the fuse is set and there's no way to stop it exploding, but Shaw puts the pin back in and renders it inert again. (00:25:50)

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Dora and the Lost City of Gold picture

Factual error: Dora picks up the solid gold statue - by the size it would weigh in excess of 500 lbs. She then lifts it up and places it back on the mantle above her head. A grown man could not do that, let alone a child. (01:31:06)

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Midway picture

Factual error: During the battle at the Marshalls-Gilberts, the movie shows mountainous terrain. The real Marshalls and Gilberts are atolls with very little terrain.

Movie Medic

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The Coldest Game picture

Factual error: Throughout the movie, scenes of the chess tournament room show the American flag incorrectly vertically hung (stars on blue upper left is proper), while the Soviet flag is correctly vertically hung. No real American vs. Soviet tournament would make that mistake.

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Angel Has Fallen picture

Factual error: The gas used at the end of the movie to blow up the hospital was nitrogen, but nitrogen is not flammable.

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Suggested correction: The agent in the basement says someone is heating up the liquid nitrogen to an unstable level, but adds that they also have pure oxygen leaking down there, and one spark can cause "these tanks" to explode. We don't know if "these tanks" are the nitrogen or something else that may be explosive, like gas for the emergency generators, and it is the high oxygen levels that make the environment explosive, not the nitrogen, since almost anything burns in a pure oxygen environment.

jimba

Oxygen is not explosive. It wouldn't make the environment explosive unless it was combined with a flammable gas. No medical gasses are flammable. It also couldn't be the gas from the generators as the explosions were occuring on each level, not from one central source. Generators are virtually always diesel, which also is very unlikely to explode unless very specific criteria are met.

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Avengers: Endgame picture

Factual error: New Asgard is in Tonsberg, Norway, but was filmed in Scotland. The truck Hulk and Rocket use to get there has a UK licence plate (SW61 5PN), whereas Norwegian plates use two letters followed by 4 or 5 numbers. Plus the pizza boxes in Thor's house have a phone number in UK format (01632 960776) not Norwegian. In fact, the 01632 area code is specifically designated for fictional use in the UK. Norwegian telephone numbers use fewer digits. (00:48:50)

Jon Sandys

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Dark Phoenix picture

Factual error: In the car at the beginning of the movie, Jean uses her telekinetic powers to switch the radio from a station playing "By the time I get to Phoenix" by Glen Campbell to Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London." It's 1975, and Zevon recorded the song only in 1978 (although the song itself had already been written in 1975, other artists played it in live concerts in the Fall of that year). (00:01:30)

Sammo

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Knives Out picture

Factual error: Opening the blank envelope, Marta finds the fragment of the toxicology report. It is signed "Office of the chief medical examiner, Norfolk County, Massachusetts." But then it writes also the address of said office, which is in Marlborough. Marlborough is also the city when Marta resides, and where the lawyers' letters we see come from. But Marlborough is also a city in the Middlesex county, not Norfolk. (01:28:25)

Sammo

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Shazam! picture Video

Factual error: Shazam catches the bus with his hands, but it lands on his hands and face by the windshield. This puts the entire weight of the bus being supported by just the front windshield held by Shazam's hands, plus the momentum of it falling from the bridge hitting him. No way the glass could support all that and not break. Especially since it already cracked from just a guy falling on it.

Quantom X

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Terminator: Dark Fate picture

Factual error: When Grace is fighting the controls of the C-5 cargo aircraft there is a shot of part of the instrument panel. Among the items on the panel is a switch labeled "tail rotor quadrant." The C-5 does not have a tail rotor. Helicopters do. (01:35:00)

toroscan

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Ford v Ferrari picture

Factual error: During Lee Iacocca's slide presentation to Henry Ford II in 1963, there are two slides that reference James Bond. One shows him standing next to the Aston Martin DB5, which made its debut in "Goldfinger" in 1964, and another shows a still image from "Thunderball", which was released in 1965.

wizard_of_gore

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6 Underground picture

Factual error: While in Hong Kong, they show several shots of Singapore.

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The Highwaymen picture

Factual error: A plastic bucket is seen. Plastic buckets were invented in the 60s. (00:50:05)

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Suggested correction: There's no plastic bucket seen. If you're referring to the bucket cops are using at the crime, there's a shot of the bucket on its side and you can tell there's a metal bottom.

Bishop73

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