The Time Machine

Continuity mistake: At the very beginning of the movie, the clock on the wall strikes three o'clock. In the next scene, when Philby reminds Alexander of his date with Emma, he tells Alexander that it's close to five.

Continuity mistake: The operation of the Time Machine has no continuity. In the beginning of the film, both when he goes backward and forward in time, Alexander has to activate the machine and it sort of warms up: The glass blades spin and open outward, the cones of light open up in sequence, and the light bubble slowly envelopes the machine. But when he is escaping the destruction of New York and when he fights with the Morlock, both times he just throws the lever forward and the machine speeds off with no preliminary activity.

Continuity mistake: When Alex uses his first time machine to travel into the past, one can only assume he follows the same procedure that is shown when he travels into the future for the first time; it is simply not shown the first time to inspire awe and suspense. That said, when Alex is finished traveling to the future for the first time, both smaller spinning discs do not fold outwards as they were before it's use. Before he uses it to travel to the future though, you see the shot of the machine's light being wrapped around the machine as the discs gain speed. If the discs did not fold out when done traveling into the past, then they would not have done so after he traveled into the past. He obviously did not set them back either, because he can use the machine again without doing so.

Continuity mistake: When Alexander drops and grabs the necklace, his hand sticks out of the time machine. His nails grow. In many scenes after that his nails return to normal.

Continuity mistake: After the final fight is over, most of the blood on Alexander's face, and especially the blood in his mouth, disappears.

Continuity mistake: After the scene where he gets hit in the head and he travels into the future 800000 years, he has that gross stuff and blood on his mouth. In the next shot you only see the blood.

Maureen Mintzer

Other mistake: With how fast Alexander is traveling through time, when the pendant falls out of the time machine, he shouldn't be able to see it fall or hear it hitting the ground.

More mistakes in The Time Machine

Uber-Morlock: You built your time machine because of Emma's death. If she had lived, it would never have existed. So how could you use your machine to go back to save her?

More quotes from The Time Machine

Trivia: Lovers of the 1960 version of the movie will know that Alan Young, who made a brief appearance as the flower store owner in this film, portrayed both David Filby and his son James in the original.

More trivia for The Time Machine

Question: What happened to Alex's journals and equations when he left on his trip?

Answer: When Alexander is travelling through time, he sees everything in his lab being removed very quickly, so the equations on his board were most likely erased and his journals were probably thrown away.

More questions & answers from The Time Machine

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.