Corrected entry: Why the heck would a military force that can cross the galaxy rely on infantry soldiers with projectile weapons? Even in the 21st century, we have tanks that could have mopped up all of those bugs, not to mention a myriad of unmanned weapons that could keep grunts out of harm's way. (01:01:20)
Corrected entry: In the scene when the asteroid hits Buenos Aires, the news shows footage of people in burning debris who are helped up. This can't be Buenos Aires, because an asteroid that's big enough to destroy a city would blow everything away in a ring of several kilometers. After the explosion all air in an ever bigger ring would be sucked to the center of the explosion, causing a vacuum and thereby killing all the people. There should be no survivors and fires. (00:52:40)
Correction: Maybe the footage was of the outskirts of the city, where the damage may have been less severe, and there may have been some survivors. Buenos Aires is a very large city.
Corrected entry: When the bugs are attacking the outpost on Planet P, Diz is occupied for the majority of the fight with the task of calling in support. When the rescue ship is on route, she is one of the last to join in the firefight, but reports being totally out of ammo after depleting her first clip. Even Johnny has a spare to give her which negates the possibility of more time passing than is seen, either she only brought a single clip or totally forgot about those around her belt. (01:32:35)
Correction: If she knew she was going to be on the radio and away from the fight, she may have given most of her ammo to other soldiers, who would need it more.
Corrected entry: Again, when the bugs attack the planet P outpost, the troopers are unable to hold off the seemingly relentless wave of bugs. Such to the point that the bugs are able to make their way to the outpost's upper level by climbing over one another, you see troopers frantically trying to repel them with standard machine fire, yet everyone seems to have forgotten about the underbarrel shotgun or similar projectile launcher that has already proven greater stopping power and in such close quarters surely it could have bought them some more time. (01:06:40 - 01:31:20)
Correction: They could have very well have used them, that is why the corpses are building up; but we are seeing the tail end of the fight, when the soldiers would have exhausted all the more powerful weapons.
Corrected entry: During the scene when Carmen and Xander are on their "third watch" the "gravity field" is strong enough to move all the coffee but not the cup? (00:46:10)
Correction: The coffee moves before the cup because the coffee is a less dense liquid, over the more dense solid cup. It's the same principle the moon has to cause Earth's tides.
Corrected entry: As it would take many years for an object to travel, even at the speed of light, to the other side of the galaxy and given that the Federation Fleet use warp drive to get to Klendethu, how were the Bugs able to shoot an asteroid out of their orbit to bomb Earth presumably a short time after?
Correction: There are no indication on when the asteroids were launched toward Earth: it might be years before and unrelated to the attack on Big K. And for all we know, both asteroids seen in the movie could be propaganda stunts: the first one destroying Buenos Aires being a simple rogue asteroid, giving the Federation an excuse to declare war on the Arachnids. The second one might be a video make up targetted to the population as a morale boast.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the infantry are mopping up after fleet has blasted the planet the troopers form a large ring around a group of bugs and concentrate all their fire on the centre. Would of thought this would result in quite a few troopers shooting each other?
Correction: I think I've read somewhere that the Troopers are equipped with weapons and body armors fitted with electronic devices to prevent friendly fire. Take the live-ammo training scene where one of the trainee gets yelled at by another one because he got in his line of sight, causing his weapon to beep or something. A few seconds later, the same trainee is shot in the head AFTER Rico removed his helmet to fix it. Of course, the later scene where Ratshack snipes a soldier snatched by a flying bug (and later when Rico finishes off the crippled Ratshack) would probably indicate the function can be disabled.
Corrected entry: When Carmen and Xander man the emergency evasive system to take the Roger Young out of the bug asteroid's path, why did they have to count down from five before punching the system button? If they had just punched it straight away, the ship would have cleared the asteroid safely without getting its communications tower blown off.
Correction: Carmen was using that time to point the ship downward. Only at the slower speed did she have time to maneuver; if they had punched it early, she would not have been able to dive in time. Xander was guiding her as the experienced member of the team by estimating the time they had left.
Corrected entry: Rico uses a grenade to kill the tanker bug at one stage, seemingly part of his normal equipment. But at the final battle when hundreds of bugs are massed at the walls of the compound, making a perfect target, no-one thinks to use one.
Correction: They probably ran out of grenades.
Corrected entry: Just before the bug asteroid hits the Roger Young, Carmen and the other pilot are rapidly examining their instruments to determine where the gravity field is coming from. Yet, moments later, we see that the asteroid is coming from straight ahead of the ship and is fully visible through the front windows of the bridge. Couldn't one of the pilots have seen it coming?
Correction: Surely both the cruiser and the asteroid are travelling at immense speeds, seeing as they are moving across huge interplanetary distances. This means that the asteroid would be upon them in no time at all without them observing it quickly enough.
Corrected entry: In the scene where they find a body with its brains removed, the original lieutenant sticks the fingers of his robotic hand into the hole in the head and says: They sucked his brains out. Obviously the giant Brain Bug did this, but the only way in that room was through a door probably only 6.5 feet tall and a short hallway of the same size. The brain bug was 15 to 20 feet tall. How did it get in there? Did they take the live person outside, suck out his brain, drag him back inside and sit him in his chair? I don't think so.
Correction: There was a hole burrowed into the room which you see and they even mentioned "That must be how they got in..." and which they bombed to close the hole up later on.
Corrected entry: It is very interesting that at the beginning of the movie, in the battle of Klendathu, it takes upwards of 15 soldiers to bring down a "bug" after about ten seconds of continuous firepower. At the end of the movie, however, the three that rescue Carmen from the brain bug, and Carmen herself, are able to massacre what looks like about 60 bugs, just by themselves, in about 30 seconds. Did intelligence invent weapons that were 30 times better in a really short period of time?
Correction: It is demonstrated in the movie by the intelligence dept. that the warrior bugs can take lots of damage before dying but if they're hit in the right place they just die outright, considering the grunts' experience to date I'm sure they picked up on this trick.
Corrected entry: Someone else pointed out that it seems unlikely an interstellar military force would use infantry troops with projectile weapons to fight the bugs. Well, I have perhaps a larger problem with the "reality" of the film. When it becomes clear that the bugs are a threat to humanity, the Mobile Infantry is sent in to fight them. These forces are promptly slaughtered. In a later scene we see some kind of aircraft flying over the surface of the planet, dropping bombs, and THEN the Mobile Infantry goes into the bombed area. Um, haven't we been using airpower to bombard an area, THEN sending in infantry to claim it, since World War II? Isn't that like basic war-making?
Correction: You can only drop some bombs from aircrafts if you aren't kept busy with artillery-fire. The first time the MI engaged they didn't have this option, because of the heavy fire coming from the planets surface. It was already hard enough to land some boats. Also, the military wasn't really aware of the trouble they're getting in. The humans thought they will fight some mindless enemy with no strategic capability. After being proven wrong they changed their approach very quickly.
Corrected entry: In the shower scene, Diz comes in, takes off her T-shirt and starts showering. Do you leave your pants on to shower ?
Correction: She enters the room wearing a shirt and underwear. There is plenty of time between then and the shot where she takes off her shirt for her to have removed her underwear.
Corrected entry: The movie starts in Buenos Aires, Argentina - a Spanish-speaking country. Why are all the billboards, signs, etc. in English rather than Spanish?
Correction: I'll find it very possible that in the future English will be officially the global language. (Now it's just unofficial.) That's surely the case also in this movie. Even those TV-spots and newsflashes in English are most likely seen all over the world, not just in USA or something. There also doesn't seem to be any boundaries anymore for people not to move where ever they like, some Americans to Buenos Aires and so forth. So to my money the globalization has been finally accomplished here.
Corrected entry: Not a mistake, but I love how the three main characters, Rico, Carmen, and Carl (Doogie Howser) all become high ranking officers after just one year in the military. Especially Carl - Colonel after just one year. I like that army. Carmen - Captain of a major starship, and Rico - Lieutenant.
Correction: While Carl is a bit of a stretch, it is shown several times throughout the movie that the Mobile Infantry and the Fleet have taken tremendous casualties. Thus, Rico and Carmen could have ended up in command positions much earlier than they would have otherwise mainly because no one else is left.
Corrected entry: In the film, Buenos Aires suffers a meteor strike, and Rico's parents die. But the house were they live is near mountains. And the nearest mountains are as far as 1700 km from Buenos Aires...(the pampas are VERY plain). So, or they are alive and well, or the meteor hit The Andes. And not Buenos Aires...
Correction: Depending upon the size of the impactor, debris from the ejecta blanket rather than the impact itself could have spread as far as the Andes and killed Rico's parents.
Corrected entry: At the start of the film when there's an advert for the Mobile Infantry, we see that there are clips in background of parts in the film that haven't even happened yet, featuring Rico, Ace and Dizz, these things didn't happen until after the attack on Klendathu, this bit is meant to be set just before the attack, well actually when the forces are preparing to attack, this makes no sense...the advert seems to see into the future.
Correction: After the ad in the beginning of the film there is type across the screen that says "one year earlier", so the ad isn't looking into the future, it is in the future.
Corrected entry: When the troops are throwing knives at the targets, one says, "why are we doing this when we can just pull a trigger?" The drill sergeant tells him to put his hand on a target and proceeds to throw a knife into his hand, he then quotes "when your hand is disabled you can't pull a trigger" Did he overlook the fact that when your hand is disabled you can't throw a knife either?
Correction: What he actually says is "The enemy can't push a button if you have disabled his hand", he's suggesting a way of stopping the enemy without a gun, not a way of fighting disabled.
Corrected entry: In the cavern scene at the end, Carmen is rescued by Rico and his homies. When they come in, she is holding Xander's knife, but when she runs back to join them, she is holding an assault rifle.
Correction: It's the assault rifle that Xander lost right before the 'brainsucking'-sequence. While the bugs are paralyzed by the threat of Rico's grenade I think it very likely that Carmen would grab the rifle lying just two or three steps in front of her instead of fighting on with a knife. In fact you can even see her stand up after picking up the rifle (immediately after Rico's 'explosion gesture'.
Correction: First, the bugs were extremely underestimated and thought of as completely stupid creatures. Second, later in the film the bugs do get cleared by air support while the infantry "mops up." But possibly the most influential reason is money. It could just simply cost much less to produce the weapons and armor used by the soldiers than to spend fortunes on research and development of newer products, especially if there was never a problem with the weaponry until the conflict with the bugs (and you cannot forget the millions, if not billions of soldiers ready to risk their lives for the mobile infantry). At the end of the film research on new weapons has occurred and has been released for the soldiers to use.