Character mistake: The victim will wait for the antagonist to finish a speech or villain song, rather than attempt to kill them while their guard is down. It's only the hero unexpectantly bursting in that won't wait for them to be done.
Common movie and TV mistakes - page 3
This is a list of mistakes, things done wrong, etc. that happen so frequently onscreen we barely notice any more. 'Movie logic', stupid behaviours, and everything related.
Other mistake: Characters swapping clothes with others suddenly (strangers, police officers, females, etc) always get their size and the clothes fit perfectly.
Other mistake: Actors in their late 20's or early 30's playing high school students, or characters who are under the age of 18.
Other mistake: When women go to bed they never take off their make-up. Conversely, when they wake up in the morning, their make-up looks like it was just applied, and there are never any smears on pillow cases.
Factual error: People using computers and having what's shown on the monitor's screen projecting clear sharp mirrored images onto their faces. That's not how monitors work. For example in Jurassic Park, when the raptor breaks into the control room and is hopping around the computer workstations, sharp, distinct "GTAC" genetic coding is shown projected from a computer screen across the raptor's face. Another example is seen in the 1995 film Hackers, when sharp, distinct text and even graphics are shown projected from an early laptop onto the faces of Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller.
Deliberate mistake: The criminal tells his evil plans to a priest, who is then unable to prevent a crime because of the "seal of the confessional." Yes, priests may not tell another what is heard in confession, however the 'seal' protects only those who seek absolution for past sins. Confessionals are not boxes into which you can tell a priest your dastardly plans and they can't do anything about it. There is no seal on this misuse of the confessional. Examples include 'Priest' (1994).
Factual error: When characters are knocked out with syringes or cloths, they almost immediately go under when actually it would take a few minutes, not seconds. Not to mention the likelihood of getting the dosage wrong and killing them, not knocking them out.
Revealing mistake: So many times people drinking coffee and similar from cups, they're empty. These cups are being tilted so much if they had any liquid in them it would be spilled everywhere. Or else the sound of the empty cup being put down is that of an empty cup, or else the cups are defying the laws of gravity which should be applying to full containers.
Factual error: Actors playing police, soldiers or agents who keep their fingers on the triggers of their firearms. In real life, trigger discipline is an early and repeated part of firearms training. This is often most obvious on movie posters. This mistake has become less common as military veterans started to become advisers to movie makers and actors have sometimes undergone training before filming begins.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Except in the case of Secret Service Agents on the Presidential detail who are trained to keep their finger inside the trigger guard any time they draw their weapons.
Not a counter-correction, but has this been seen in fictional shows about the Secret Service? Eg In The Line of Fire or Olympus Down. It could be an interesting mistake or trivia, depending on the era and accuracy of the show.
Yes, it was a plot point in Line of Fire, but I have no idea if the finger inside the trigger guard policy was made up or true. Your suggestion that this is an interesting mistake is a good one. I doubt the Secret Service will be giving us any confirmation on how they train their agents.
Factual error: In many action movies someone will instantly kill a man by approaching them from behind, grabbing their cheek, and twisting their head to the side, breaking their neck. The move is even frequently used one-handed. The torque required to actually break a neck this way is enormous and would require much more leverage than simply standing behind someone and twisting their head. Neck cranks are certainly real but they are done in a more traditional "head-lock" style on a grounded opponent. Also, a broken neck is not always fatal, let alone instantly fatal. A broken neck is not even an assured knock-out, so it is absurd to use this move as an effective "stealth kill" in spy movies.
Deliberate mistake: Night vision goggles are often depicted as having glowing lenses and sometimes with interesting lights on them. This is designed to make the goggles look cool and technically advanced for the audience. In real life, external lights would stop the goggles from working, dazzle the wearer's team mates, and be visible to any enemy.
Audio problem: Guns making mechanical clicks every time they are moved, especially to show the hero is being threatened. Guns generally do have components that click e.g. the safety catch, but they have to be manipulated by the person carrying them, which is not what we see on screen.
Factual error: The hugely exaggerated amount of flame and damage produced by military weapons such as a hand grenade. They make a loud boom, a bit of a flash and a small stain of black smoke. No mammoth explosion, that's for sure.
Audio problem: Characters holding conversations on board aircraft in flight where they wouldn't normally be audible, such as military helicopters or cargo planes. In real life, those are loud places where people wear hearing protection and communicate with radios or built-in comms. (Not a mistake for luxury helicopters or airliner-sized cargo planes with soundproofing).
Factual error: Characters gain access to secure facilities using a single thing: a stolen ID card, fingerprint on sticky tape etc, but with no second factor to verify identity like a PIN code. This might be appropriate for something low key like the back room of a store but in thrilling shows the characters are usually trying to get into places like the CIA or high tech laboratories. In real life, higher level security access controls include at least two factors to reduce the risk of unauthorized entry. This is often a deliberate mistake by movie makers as it would slow the story down to describe multiple security measures and show how the characters gain everything needed for access. Exceptions are movies like Mission Impossible or Sneakers where this sort of complexity is part of the plot.
Other mistake: Drivers are able to look directly at front or back seat passengers for relatively long periods of time (i.e, take their eyes off the road) but don't crash or veer off the road.
Factual error: Often when bombs are shown falling, they're depicted with a distinct whistling sound. Two problems there. Bombs don't inherently whistle - some bombs in WW2 were specifically fitted with whistles for the psychological warfare element, but the vast majority are silent. Secondly, the standard noise heard from the ground, a high pitched whistle slowly getting lower, is wrong. The doppler effect, whereby a sound changes as it moves closer to someone hearing it, means the pitch heard would increase, not decrease, as a bomb falls towards you. The sound most often used in movies/TV shows of a whistling bomb is what the pilots dropping the bomb would hear, not the people it was falling towards.
Factual error: Military characters who deliver incorrect or inaccurate salutes to each other. Real military personnel know how to deliver a proper salute.
Other mistake: Despite having killed two dozen people, the hero will always be allowed to walk away at the end without any police officer so much as taking a statement.
Factual error: Impacts from firearms don't throw people back when they get shot.
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