Deliberate mistake: When Margo is in the Superstition exhibit, she thinks she hears/sees something and runs for her life. She gets into the women's bathroom and tries catching her breath before the mirror. Hearing a noise outside of the bathroom, she goes into a stall, locks the door, and stands up on the toilet so her feet don't touch the floor. It was just a little old maid washing her hands outside the stall, and the strange sound Margo heard was the maid using her inhaler. However, how is this little old lady - with asthma, we can assume - supposed to have gotten all the way from deep inside the exhibit to the women's room within seconds, pushing a big heavy cart? Why would she even be in such a hurry? We can assume, however, that perhaps this was a deliberate mistake to show that, after all, maybe Margo wasn't just freaking out over nothing...that perhaps something was in the exhibit with her.
![The Relic](/images/titles/2000-2999/2522_sm.jpg)
The Relic (1997)
1 deliberate mistake - chronological order
Directed by: Peter Hyams
Starring: Tom Sizemore, Penelope Ann Miller, Linda Hunt, James Whitmore
Plot hole: What happened to the two boys who stayed in the museum past closing, after the homeless guy seemed to attack (or at least be seen to be stalking) them? The next time we see them, it's the next morning, and they're fine. So where did they go? Who helped them? What happened to the homeless guy? The boys couldn't have just hidden, as the homeless guy has been in the museum for ages, and these two boys just got there that day. The homeless guy would have known all the nooks and crannies and every little hiding spot available; he would have caught them.
Trivia: Producers Gale Anne Hurd and Sam Mercer wanted to film the movie at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. However, the museum's administration was afraid that the film would not only cast the museum in an unflattering light, but it would also scare kids away from the museum. They were given permission by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago to film there, because they loved the movie's premise.
Question: Why was the relic being shipped to the Field Museum in Chicago via boat? What would be the point of sending the relic to the United States and then placing it on a boat and shipping it to Chicago by way of the Illinois River? In the book, the museum is instead located in New York, so it makes sense for the shipment to arrive by boat from South America, but there would be no possible way to get to Chicago straight from South America by boat, so the relic had to have been on land at one point. Placing it on a boat just seems like a contrived way to have the monster kill the crew members and create a mystery for the police as to how it happened.
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Chosen answer: Cost of shipping would be much cheaper. However, the Mississippi River System is connected to the Illinois Waterway, which continues to the Great Lakes Waterway. This means Chicago is connected to the Gulf of Mexico (which is accessible to South America). There would be no need to ever be on the road.
Bishop73