Continuity mistake: Right in the beginning, Wade hops out a window from his home and starts walking beside it to the edge to climb to the next level down. As he starts walking he passes by another window with a curtain. It then cuts to a closer angle and suddenly the window no longer has a curtain. Also a wire appears on the wall in front of him. And you can tell it is the same house, not a time jump, as the rust at the top of the window frame is exactly the same. (00:01:15)
Continuity mistake: When Wade opens up his hidden game room in a junk van, you get a clear view of the stuff inside it. It's a bit difficult to see, but on the left there is a white lamp next to the gray face sensor thing that he puts around his neck visible there. Once he turns the power on and leans that direction, it cuts to a close up of the face sensor by that white lamp and suddenly a hanging red lamp appears next to it. It was not just off in the previous shot, if you look closely it's just not there at all. As you should be able to see its red hanging structure and metal next to the other items. (00:02:40)
Continuity mistake: As Wade explains what Sixers are, he introduces the audience to the film's villain, Sorrento. Sorrento is walking up to a railing over looking the Sixers getting into their virtual cars and he leans up casually against it, resting mostly on his right arm with his elbow bent as he leans to one side with his left arm outstretched a bit. But then it cuts to a close up and suddenly he's leaning forward resting on both arms with them out stretched in front of him. (00:11:20)
Continuity mistake: Parsival meets up with Aech at the race, and as they greet each other with their handshake, you can see the American flag on the back of Aech's truck. The flag is gently waving in the breeze, and the pole is bent over a bit, leaning back. When the camera cuts to the next shot as Aech shows Parzival that she saved a spot for him, the flag pole is now perfectly straight and the flag is only barely moving. (00:11:30)
Continuity mistake: In the first race, there is a delay between the green light and the green fireworks that start the race. However after Parzival figures out the clue in Halliday's Journal and comes back to the race again, when the lights and fog horn start it happens differently. The fireworks and the green light with the long honk happen at the same time and the cars take off. (00:12:35 - 00:26:00)
Continuity mistake: Before the race starts, Aech is towards the front of the line up. Parzival had to head to the back so he could get coins for fuel. Art3mis pulls up right beside Parzival on her bike in the line up towards the back. As the race starts, there is a shot of Art3mis blasting through the lines on her bike and cutting way ahead of a lot of the cars and leaving Parzival in the dust as she takes off. But only a few seconds later as they reach a part of the road where there are trains coming, Art3mis is suddenly back behind Partzival again. (00:12:50 - 00:13:20)
Continuity mistake: During the race, a big rig pulls out in front of the racers. Art3mis on her bike is going right at it with an IOI car right next to her, close enough to her right that her bike's shadow falls onto the car. But it cuts to another angle from under the truck looking at Art3mis now coming at the camera, and the car to her right has vanished. Their are IOI cars to her right, but much further away. (00:14:00)
Continuity mistake: During the race, an 18 wheeler crashes in front of the racers that Art3mis slides under on her bike. One of the IOI drivers gets decapitated by this right after and then Parzival activates the hover mode on the DeLorean and turn sideways to get under the truck. As he turns sideways, he opens his passenger door to scoop up coins and you see it almost fully opened up in the shot from behind. But as he's sliding under the truck it cuts to a view from the other side and suddenly the door is only just now starting to open. (00:14:10)
Continuity mistake: During the race, a T-rex pops out and bites a chunk off the rollcage on Aech's truck and then get's distracted by an IOI car. Aech's truck levels out and is driving normally, but then it cuts to a different angle showing a close up of Parzival in his DeLorean and suddenly Aech's truck has its front wheels up in the air and is in the middle of bouncing around. Aech did not hit a bump at that moment, during the cut, Aech's truck was instantly up in the air. (00:14:50)
Continuity mistake: When King Kong leaps off the Empire State building to smash an IOI car, the positions of the planes circling the building change between shots, most notably the one closest to the race gets a higher altitude. (00:14:55)
Continuity mistake: The area in front of the race's finish line is different when seen in the first race than when seen the second time as Parzival figures out how to get to it. When the camera zooms in on the Finish Line Gate in the first race, there is a train track or something similar right in front of the gate running parallel to the gate and wall. But as Parzival is driving backwards towards it in the second race, this track is gone, and instead there is a small drive path with small railing along it leading perpendicularly right to the gate. (00:15:40 - 00:27:15)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the race, Parzival is accelerating towards the finish line as fast as he can but King Kong smashes down into the road in front of him. In the first person perspective of Parzival through the windshield of his car, he comes up almost right at King Kong with only 2-3 car lengths maximum between him and Kong. It then cuts to a view of Parzival's face as he reacts, and has time to react before switching camera angles again and now the car much much further away from Kong allowing him time to slam the brakes and skid to a stop from moving at high speeds. (00:15:45)
Continuity mistake: After Aech fixes up Art3mis' bike and then Wade returns home, he hops into his window setting his backpack down on his bed. The long flaps coming off the bottom of his shoulder straps are extended out long wise across the bed. But as the camera cuts showing him sliding in and turning around, the straps are lying across the bed along side the backpack hugging right next to it. (00:20:30)
Revealing mistake: Parzival heads back to the Halliday Journals to watch the scene of Halliday and Morrow parting ways again. There is glass between him and the scene and some camera angles show Parzival through the glass from inside with the scene reflected on the glass. However the reflection is wrong. Morrow is standing on the right with Halliday on the left, but when showing their reflection in the glass, their positions are not reversed. (00:23:45)
Audio problem: Parzival starts to walk away from the Office Party recording as Halliday says "Why can't we go backwards for once." Parzival stops and turns around, telling the Curator to stop and go back right as Halliday finishes saying "Really put the pedal to the metal you know?" The Curator then replays that same recording over again. However the timing is off - it is actually two different recordings of the actor saying these lines and not the same message replayed. He says it a full second faster the in the replay. (00:24:55 - 00:25:25)
Continuity mistake: At Halliday's Journals, Parzival starts to give up and walks down the hall until he hears Halliday mention going backwards and he stops. As he stops, he is standing almost exactly in the center of a circle of light on the floor, right in the middle. When it cuts to another angle before he starts to turn around, he is suddenly standing on the edge of the circle of light. (00:25:00)
Continuity mistake: Surrento is meeting with I-R0k to get the orb and I-R0k holds up the Steam Punk Pirate King's head. In the close up as he holds the head up, its somewhat above him and close. When the angle changes in the next shot, suddenly he's holding it almost level with his own head and further out. (00:31:55)
Continuity mistake: As the camera pans over to the box holding the Orb of Osuvox, there is a large yellow weapon with an ammo drum sitting to the right of the box. Under the stock of this weapon is a red piece of metal or glass. When Sorrento bends down to open the box and pull the orb out, this piece of metal or glass vanishes. (00:32:15)
Other mistake: After Wade gets the second clue, he's shown in his little hide away spot looking over a notebook he has wrote in with the words Clue #2, a large number 2 out next to that, and under it in quotes "A creator who hates his own creation" with a hand drawn box around creator. This sentence is highlighted and there is more under it. This is a hand written note on a spiral notebook that he just got after getting the second clue which had only now been revealed. So he sets the notebook in his lap and starts looking over the newspaper clippings and other papers on the wall about Halliday. As the camera pans over, you suddenly see the top of the same paper torn and pinned to the wall. The hand writing is exactly the same, the boxes and figures drawn exactly the same, and is only missing the orange highlights over it. The paper is wrinkled a bit and shows the holes from the spiral as it was torn out and pinned to the wall. But this is impossible as he still has the same paper in his hand, and he only just now got this clue. Somehow a duplicate is on the wall already. (00:34:20)
Character mistake: After Wade is going over the second clue in his mind and trying to figure out what part of Halliday's past is he trying to escape from, he looks over the wall of article clippings and notes he has hung up. When the camera stops on Karen Underwood's obituary, there is a hand written note beside it listing movies set in New York, with the sentence "Set in New York" underlined. This apparently him looking for clues in films set there for the race challenge that is in Manhattan. However, one of the films he has written on that list is Mad Max, which takes place in Australia, not New York. (00:35:00)
Answer: If it's widely known then they wouldn't do the race. They keep on trying and getting to the point with King Kong is all they know, somehow getting past him this time. Artemis, when she saw the jump, thought she could do it this time, but after Parzival saves her and tells her it can't be done she realises he is probably right and she wouldn't have made it.
lionhead