U-571

Revealing mistake: At the end of the movie, when the aft torpedo blows up the ship, the pieces that fly into the air hit the water and there is no splash. Obviously computer generated.

Revealing mistake: When the German destroyer is hit by the torpedo at the end of the film it is seen to stop dead in the water upon the torpedo impact. In reality momentum would have carried the ship forward some distance after the explosion. A thousand or so tons of steel just does not stop on a dime unless it hits something like a mountainside.

Badbird

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Mistakes

Character mistake: At the beginning of the movie, the German sub gets surprised and severely damaged by a destroyer. The sonar man first notices the enemy destroyer approaching, but only a short time before the destroyer is already literally on top of the sub. German sonar at the time had the capacity to detect ships up to more than 7 miles away, so the sonar man really had to be asleep at his sonar station not to notice the destroyer approaching. (00:03:40)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: He was in the sound room, not running sonar...given they were attacking a convoy, they wouldn't be running soar as that could be picked up by other ships.

Steve Kozak

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Quotes

Lt. Commander Mike Dahlgren: Relax gentlemen. She's old... but she'll hold.

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Trivia

Trivia: Matthew McConaughey didn't like his character's background, so he asked that it be changed from the original, not being promoted because he was a drunk, to basically never making a decision that might cost someone their life.

David Robertson

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Questions

Question: At first we learn that Tyler is not getting his own submarine, but then a few scenes later and he's being fired from the navy. What happened?

Answer: Technically he's not getting fired, but Dahlgren did not recommend Tyler for his own command, and he won't get a promotion without Dahlgren's recommendation. Therefore, Tyler's only choices are to keep being an executive officer (which is possible but not what he wants, not to mention Tyler feels betrayed by Dahlgren and isn't sure he wants to continue working with him), or leave the navy entirely.

Aerinah

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