Cast Away
Cast Away mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Tom Hanks cuts his hand and loses his temper, he picks up the volleyball with a bloody hand and throws it. When he picks it up, you can see that his fingers are spread. When you see the handprint that he makes "Wilson" with, you can see that the fingerprints are together and parallel.

Cast Away mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After becoming stranded, Chuck discovers the first package to wash ashore. While he is walking towards it, you can clearly see some of the stretch of beach behind him (as well as some in front of him) This shot is somewhat of a tight one. When the camera "seamlessly" cuts back to a shot of him bending over to pick up the package, you can clearly see that the beach is now covered with dozens of jagged rocks. The rocks would have been seen in the shot before this. But in this case, the shoreline was cleared of them in the first shot. (The beach is not cleared of the rocks; they are underwater. Still a good continuity error submission, but caused by filming the shot at high tide and low tide - it is the same section of beach) (00:32:35)

Cast Away mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Tom Hanks opens the FedEx packages he finds the ice skates. When he decides to cut a bandage for his cut leg he uses the skates to cut the material to wrap his leg. If you look at the skate while he cuts the material there is no shoe tie on it but when he drops the skate to get the shoe tie it is back on it. (01:01:35)

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)

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)

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 ★

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Mistakes

Factual error: Shortly after the crash, when Chuck is in the raft, one of the engines continues to run even though it is half submerged in water. The engine would not have exploded like it did, rather, it would have just stopped running as soon as it became disconnected from its fuel source and flooded with water.

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Suggested correction: The aircraft seems like a Airbus A300 or 310 but it is really a MD-11 or DC-10 because you can clearly see that the front body with wing with engine attached sink leaving the tail section. So the tail has a fuel tank and the third engine. The engine normally compresses air then burns it by feeding in fuel and igniting it. But can't compress air because the turbines are in the water. The fuel would in this case would "flood" the engine then the igniter ignites it and explodes.

Fumes explode, raw fuel burns. Igniter will not ignite raw fuel nor would there be anyway to propagate the explosion that took place.

Even if the engine was flooded, and full of water, and the air couldn't, it still wouldn't explode. MD-11 engines run on a fuel that cannot be ignited.

Wrong, the tail section has fuel LINES not a fuel tank.

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Quotes

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

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Trivia

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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Questions

Question: Does anyone know what's officially in the mystery package and why Chuck never opens it, or is it just a 'McGuffin' like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction?

Answer: No one knows what was in the package. I think Chuck doesn't open it in order to keep his sanity. The package is his only link to his life before being stranded, working for FedEx and making sure packages get delivered. He was determined to make sure it got delivered just as he was determined to survive and get back to civilization. Success in one meant success in the other. While Zemeckis has joked there was a waterproof satellite phone in it, the real answer from the script is, no joke, salsa verde. Its a care package with a note imploring Bettina's (the artist) husband (naked cowboy) to come back and spice up their life like the salsa.

Answer: The package he got had divorce papers in them. He signed them and then placed them back in the package for return to her.

Here's my spin. Bettina's husband travels and is on assignment in Moscow. He's cheating on her, she knows it, files for divorce, and sends the papers through FedEx to him in Moscow. He signs them and returns in the same box. They end up on Chuck's flight, which crashes. He recovers them but decides not to open them. They re-file for divorce. Chuck returns the box, gazes down the road, and decides to go back and tell his story to her. They laugh about the old papers and live happily ever after.

Answer: In the third draft of the movie there's a scene where Chuck opens the package and finds salsa and a note from the woman in the beginning asking her husband to come home. It's also revealed that she doesn't mind that he never got the package. Pretty unsatisfactory, probably why it was cut and left a mystery.

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