The Movie Mistakes blog

Hooper wears rimless eyeglasses, with the arms either attached at the upper corners of the lenses or at the sides of the lenses. If this didn't happen between shots within the same scenes, it could be presumed that Hooper has two different pairs of glasses and switches between the two, but they do indeed change between shots, such as when Mrs. Kintner slaps Brody, or even later, on the Orca.

Quint embeds his machete into the wood at the side of the boat, but in the following wideshot the machete is gone. Then as Orca starts to move, when Hooper says, "He's chasing us, I don't believe it," the machete is back. But when the shark leaps onto the boat the machete is gone again, and then as the shark devours Quint the machete is back for him to grab, so he can valiantly stab the shark.

When the fishermen start out on the hunt, Ben Gardner appears in a close-up leaning on the windshield at forward deck, while talking to his boatmate about how stupid some of the others are. In the next wide shot of the boats, Ben's green boat is towards the left of the screen, and the large reflector screen and camera, that are mounted to the bow of his boat, are visible in front of the forward window where Ben was seen in the previous shot.

When Hooper gets his gear from below, after the explosion in the engine room, he runs to the deck passing Quint using the fire extinguisher. The camera pans from Brody, who stands on the bridge deck, to Hooper right below him. So where exactly is the tall iron ladder that leads up to the bridge deck in this shot? It should be behind Hooper, in front of the window, but it's gone. Don't fret, it's back in the following shots.

At the scene just after the fake shark scare, the real shark shows up at the pond area of the beach. As the lifeguard in a small boat reacts to everyone's panic, the shark tips over the boat then appears underneath him to tear his leg off. We watch as it sinks slowly to the bottom. You can plainly see that the lifeguard is barefoot in the boat. The severed leg has a tennis shoe on.

Orca's ID number normally reads MS 15 LF on both her port and starboard side at the bow. However, after Quint shouts, "Hooper, you idiot. Ain't you watchin it?" Orca's ID number reads M 15 L at starboard side and 15 LF at port.

While Quint is in the shark's mouth, the comfy white cushion is visible under his back, protruding from the shark's mouth.

On the death certificate for Chrissie, the shark's first victim, the date of death is July 1st. But later, on the reward paper posted by the boy's mother, it says that the date of Alex's death was June 29th. Alex died after Chrissie, not before. Also, the form refers to the coroner as the "corner," and Jun 29th 1974 was a Saturday, not Sunday.

The number of barrels on the deck of the Orca changes from shot to shot, during the final scenes at sea.

Just as Quint finishes scraping his nails on the chalkboard, the camera begins to move in closer when he takes the first bite of the cracker. On the right side of the screen under Harry's chin, Roy Scheider is ducking down while staring at the camera, as it pans toward Robert Shaw, and Roy then lifts his left hand up, cueing Robert's line.

During Quint's attack, as the shark's biting down on his legs, Quint's bare hand is grabbing the shark's snout. Subsequent shots show Quint wearing gloves as he's devoured.

When Quint goes below deck to get the machete, with the intent to cut the barrel lines, the machete he takes is shiny and clean, with no rust or pit marks at all. Yet, when Quint holds it over his head and then embeds it into the side of the boat, the entire blade is rusty and full of pit marks.

When Brody is throwing chum in water and Quint is in the chair they show him wearing no socks and old tennis shoes. After Brody falls and then sets a new chum marker Quint has brown socks on and loafer type shoes.

Quint slams the machete into the wood beside the side cleat, and rigging lines. However, when the shark joins them aboard the boat and Quint is sliding towards its mouth, the machete's position changes - it is farther down towards the stern, note the black anti-slip mats.

When Brody waits to board the ferry he says, "Charlie, take me over to those kids, will ya," and there's a painted board with 'Amity' attached to the ferry base. However, when they reach the other ferry landing the board with 'Amity' is gone, in sloshing water (even more visible in a deleted scene). It's the same side of the ferry, note the ferry Captain is stationed at the permanent helm at only one side. The short haul Chappy Ferry On Time scow was the stand-in for the fictitious Amity ferry.

There's one bit where we see the shark slamming into a boat and gliding along the side with its mouth open. Not only does the shark's latex mouth bend beneath the snout, narrowing from pressure, but within the mouth you can clearly see yellow hydraulic tanks to open the mouth.

When Brody drives across the deck and then onto the ferry, as he does you can see the large shadow of crewmembers and a camera set up, standing on a high ledge above, cast on Brody's Amity Police van.

When Fin stops near the school bus, the bus number changes from "278146" to "278245" during the rescue of the kids.

While the shark is atop the car roof, when Fin tries bashing it with the baseball bat, Fin's watch vanishes in all of the overhead shots.

During the bridge rescue, Baz is wearing his multi-studded leather watch on his left wrist and a bunch of bracelets on his right, but in all of the closeups of his arms the bracelets vanish, the watch band changes, and his tattoos are gone.

At Fin's house, at the bottom of the stairs there's a table and a ceramic lamp at the corner of the walls, and when Collin shouts for Fin's help he's standing at that corner and the lamp has been knocked over under the water, but after Collin's demise the lamp is upright and back in place.

When Fin's in the water with the surfer girl, many of his closeups are flipped - note the Tilos logo on the neck of his wetsuit changes between Fin's left, the correct way, and his right which is backwards.

When Lady Liberty's head rolls down the street behind Ellen, Mora, and Polly, it's a very distinctive street and there's a large white storefront sign 'Aleva' over a green awning that they all pass. Then after they drive off in the truck they're driving down that same street, even from the same direction, with that enormous head still after them. Additionally, that building with the 'Aleva' storefront and its awning has simply vanished the second time around.

When April's lying on the gurney, just as she's wheeled through the doorway it cuts to the closeup as the nurse turns to block Fin from entering the ER, and behind the nurse we see the gurney still being turned and wheeled into the room, but April has vanished.

After Claudia leaves the ride without her cell phone it cuts to Fin driving his car into dense fog, and in the exterior shots the Toyota's front grille emblem as well as the license plate inexplicably vanish, and then reappear.

When Gabby and Fin are hanging off the building in Las Vegas, you can see that Gabby isn't holding on to anything in some close-up shots.