Cast Away

Cast Away (2000)

45 mistakes

(55 votes)

Visible crew/equipment: When Chuck is crawling on the floor of the plane to reach the watch, the compartment behind him where the raft was stored, you can see the stairs leading down into the set. (00:23:40)

Factual error: Since the can that breaks through the net is an AMJ on the right side of the plane, they must be in either a DC-10 or a MD-11, as those are the only 2 planes that are wide enough to fit AMJs on the right side. However, when Hanks is in the ocean looking back at the plane, it shows the tail as it is sinking into the water. It shows enough of the tail (which has suddenly lost all its paint, in particular the FedEx logo) to determine that there is no intake on it, which signifies that they were on an AirBus. (00:28:00)

Jason Sieberg

Factual error: As the plane hits the water, Hanks is pushed back into the cargo area. He travels through an empty passageway between rows of containers. Though this load configuration is possible, it is not used because it makes no sense. Furthermore, he finally stops against a container that reads AEE7480FX. This creates a couple more problems, as AEEs are not only no longer in use, but they were belly containers, with an angled side on the bottom that fits the contour of the bottom of the aircraft. There could not have been one of these on the topside of the aircraft. (00:26:05)

Jason Sieberg

Continuity mistake: It already shows us that the wings of the plane are submerged in the sea. When Hanks surfaces, he turns around to see an engine (attached to a wing) bearing down on him. Physically this would be impossible even if it didn't show the wings, as the aft part of the plane would have been too heavy to hold that much of itself above the water. (00:27:30)

Jason Sieberg

Cast Away mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Chuck is looking through the wallet of the dead pilot, you can see the corner of a dollar bill, then the shot breaks away, when he takes the photo out, the dollar's disappeared. (00:46:30)

Factual error: On Tom Hanks' doomed flight, there is no smoke curtain or solid bulkhead in place. This is a heavy, opaque curtain or solid wall that separates the the topside cargo area from the seating area, designed to keep smoke from a fire away from the crew. On DC10/MD11 aircraft, this is generally a solid bulkhead, and on Airbuses a curtain. This plane should have been grounded until one was installed.

Jason Sieberg

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Suggested correction: While some MD-11s at FedEx have a solid bulkhead, most do not and have this 9G net. I don't recall if they starting putting the smoke curtain in before or after they started flying the MD-11, but at one time FedEx only had the 9G net on their aircraft and no curtain.

Continuity mistake: When the plane crashes and Hanks swims to the surface, in the shot from under him, he is barefoot, but when he reaches the shore, he takes off his socks.

Factual error: When the FedEx packages wash up on the beach, all the contents are completely dry. Even the birthday card from the grandma is completely legible. FedEx does have waterproof packaging, I am sure, but those appear to be just regular boxes.

Cast Away mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Tom Hanks first drifts onto the island and is asleep his head is facing out to sea. In the next scene when he gets out of the raft his head is in line with the rest of the beach. (00:30:15)

Video

Factual error: When trying to contact Tahiti control, the pilot mentioned that their position is close to JENNA, which is an IFR waypoint. This waypoint can also be seen on the plane's navigation display. The problem is, JENNA is in Louisiana and nowhere close to the Pacific Ocean.

Factual error: In the crash scene, Tom Hanks floats to the back of the plane as it fills with water. This could not happen due to a smoke barrier that is installed on every FedEx DC-10 and is a solid barrier between the crew and freight.

Revealing mistake: When Chuck is lying on the raft, and sees the giant cargo ship that rescues him, there is a closer shot of him and the raft as he stretches his hand out in order to be noticed by the ship's crew. He's supposed to be out in the middle of the deep ocean, but the water below him is pale green and very shallow. You can even see the bottom (hard to notice but it is there). It's obviously the water tank they were filming that scene in.

Continuity mistake: Before the crash Hanks is shown relaxing with his shoes off and in his socks. Once the aircraft crashes and he is escaping the aircraft holding onto the raft he swims to the surface in his bare feet. (00:07:20)

Snag.1

Continuity mistake: After Chuck Nolan (Tom Hanks) injures his hand and throws the volleyball "Wilson", in the following scenes pay close attention to the box that the volleyball is in. One scene the box has a visible tear along the top rim of the box; then, before Tom Hanks opens the box to remove "Wilson" another box appears not torn.

Factual error: Chuck's plane supposedly went down in 1995. During the early parts of the film, you see several Fed Ex aircraft with only two engines (one on each wing) which are Airbuses. Fed Ex had only a handful of these class of aircraft around 1995 making it impossible to see so many of them on the ground in Memphis, or in the Soviet Union for that fact at that time.

Continuity mistake: On the island, immediately after the title indicating "4 Years Later" Tom spears a fish. The spear hits the fish hard and swiftly, and as the camera pulls away the spear is very close to vertical. For the spear to hit that hard and vertical it had to be thrown close to the fish and almost straight down. But as the camera continues to pull further away, you see Tom standing too far away to have thrown the spear in that way.

Continuity mistake: During the scene where he is first at the cave, look in the sky. First, there aren't any clouds then there are in the next scene. If you keep watching, the clouds vary from the different camera angles.

Continuity mistake: When Tom Hanks is on the plane he sets down the pocket watch in the lower right corner of the groove in the seat, after an instant angle change it is closer to the upper left corner of the groove, with no time for it to move. (00:20:25)

Revealing mistake: When Kelly is copying her dissertation, there is no paper being fed through the copier feeder or any printed pages going into the output tray. (00:12:40)

raywest

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Suggested correction: Watch carefully. When Kelly turns round, you can see, by her right hand, paper coming out of the copier and landing in a pile on top of each other.

Ssiscool

Have to disagree. Watched this clip on YouTube. There is paper on top of the copier and in the feeder. Even though the copier light is moving back and forth, the paper stays stationary.

raywest

Cast Away mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the Christmas meal, Chuck gets passed the candied yams. When he takes the yams, there is a spoon in the dish. When the shot changes to behind him, the spoon is not in his hand. (00:14:30)

Ssiscool

Chuck Noland: I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing.

More quotes from Cast Away

Trivia: Production was shut down for a year, to give Tom Hanks enough time to lose weight and grow out his "castaway" beard. During that time, director Robert Zemeckis used the same crew members to help film "What Lies Beneath."

Cubs Fan

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Question: At the end when the pick-up truck drives away, there is an angel on the back flap of it, similar to the angel in the garden of the house where Tom Hanks delivers the parcel. Are we to assume that the parcel belongs to the woman in the pick-up, and that this is significant in some way?

Answer: This is the same woman seen at the beginning of the film. It's a little complicated. The angel wings are a recurring plot device to show that the parcel Tom Hanks just delivered to the ranch belongs to the woman (who is an artist) in the truck, which also has the wings painted on the tailgate. There are also metal wing wind sculptures in her yard. The wings are her artist's "logo." As Hanks stands in the crossroads deciding where to go, his looking back in the direction that she just drove off implies he will go back to her house, probably to let her know that her package gave him hope while he was on the island that he could someday deliver it, and possibly to restart his life with her (she is pretty, after all). She was married to the guy in Russia who she was sending packages to, but he was cheating on her. If you notice the gateway over the entrance to her property where another package was delivered at the beginning of the movie, both her name and her husband's were on the overhead ironwork, as well as the angel wings. At the end, his name has since been removed, indicating she is now single.

raywest

Wow, you are extremely observant. Thank you, I was totally confused at the end.

You're welcome.

raywest

Also, the artist would have been on the island with him just like Kelly was in the watch.

Answer: The Angel wings are an important symbolic thread that run throughout the move. They appear in several scenes. They represent love/hope/salvation. We first see them in a seemingly unrelated scene at the pretty redhead artist's ranch when she is still married to the cheater dude. She sends him the wings on a package but the package is not important. Rather the Wings on the package are important. She intended the wings to go to her cheating husband but instead they went to Chuck. Chuck preserves the wings. He caresses the wings. Later we see that he has drawn dozens of the same wings on the inside of his cave wall. On the raft, he takes only Wilson and the Wings which he carefully wraps in leaves. When finally delivering them home, Chuck writes "this package saved my life" when he means hope/love/salvation have saved his life. The wings have make the exact same journey as Chuck. They have finally returned to the redhead and bought Chuck with them.

I agree with your assessment, though the wings also serve as a practical plot device. It helps the audience to recognize and track the package as it moves through the story and for Chuck to link it to the woman's truck at the end, which also had the wings painted on the tailgate.

raywest

Nailed it! My thoughts exactly I just needed confirmation that all of this was reasonable to assume. Thank you.

Answer: The package that Mrs. Peterson sends to her husband in Russia contains divorce papers. The winged package that Tom Hanks' character saves as an unfinished task represents his desire to eventually deliver. He opens all the other packages and finds a few useful items. And the package sent by Mrs. Peterson, he uses to motivate himself to make that delivery. He only took bare essentials on the raft when he leaves the island. This package is essential to him. For some reason, he does not deliver the package to the destination to which it was addressed, but instead takes it back to the original sender. It helps close the loop in a way that could not have been done if he just delivered to the original destination 5 years late.

But why would there need to be such a big box for divorce papers? On the island, he opens a document mailer.

More questions & answers from Cast Away

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