Dark City

Dark City (1998)

7 corrected entries

(2 votes)

Corrected entry: When Schreber goes with the Strangers to Tune the poor family into the rich family, the Strangers are carrying clothing to dress the family in. If their Tuning is able to change the physical construction of inanimate objects such as buildings, why would they not simply Tune the couple's clothes to something more fitting? Obviously it's not for lack of control - they Tune the table much longer very quickly without knocking over any of the objects on it.

Phoenix

Correction: We know nothing of their procedures. We don't see them actually dress the people, so they likely used their powers to put the clothes on them. They may simply choose to interact with the world at times, as with the man they place in the barber's chair.

Corrected entry: The spirals that appear constantly in the movie are Fibonacci spirals, drawn in a ratio that accords to the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,etc). This sequence represents the basic organizational principles of life.

Phoenix

Correction: The poster must have just made this up, as it's completely wrong. The spirals in the film don't look anything like Fibonacci Spirals (which I can best describe as an array of wide, interlocking arcs). The poster may have been thinking of the Golden Spiral, which also appears in many places in nature, but the spirals in the film don't really look anything like that, either.

Corrected entry: At the beginning of the film, the water in Murdoch's bath is cloudy. When he puts the fish from the fishbowl (that he accidentally breaks) into the bath, the water is pure and clear. It's unlikely he would have changed the water and he isn't shown doing that.

Correction: He drops the fish into the toilet bowl. You can see the sides of the bowl as he is dropping it in.

Corrected entry: The City is perpetually set at night, because the Strangers are allergic to sunlight. Every time the clock strikes midnight in the film is when the Strangers "Tune" the City and change things, etc. After each Tuning, the clock (which is stopped at midnight) continues moving past twelve. There are two problems with this: one, there is no daytime in the six or so hours after midnight, which is to be expected for an average city, like this City is supposed to be (as opposed to some place like Alaska). The other problem is that very little - TOO little - time elapses between Tuning sessions, and surely somebody who didn't have their memory changed between Tunings would find it strange that it was suddenly midnight again (and I mean somebody other than John Murdock). This is a very big flaw in one of the most pivotal aspects of the plot.

redbaron2000

Correction: The strangers, who appear to have some reasonably powerful psychic abilities, have fixed things so that the people in the city don't notice the inconsistencies in their environment - no daylight, never leaving the city (and not even knowing how to) and so forth. Given their total control over the city, it's not unreasonable to assume that they could manage this. The only time anyone notices is when Murdock, who's outside the Strangers' control, points it out to them - the rest of the time, they either fail to notice at all, or they rationalise it away. Some sort of mental block is presumably involved - probably psychically reinforced during every tuning session while they're sleeping.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: Throughout the movie, the Strangers talk to each other. Yet near the end it is explained that they communicate telepathically, and have a collective consciousness. Then why do they need to talk to each other?

Correction: All throughout the movie it is made clear that the people are being studied to help the Strangers understand us so they can survive. I understood that their talking was just them trying to be like us, no different than taking our forms or dressing like us.

Corrected entry: When Murdoch is bitten by the childlike Stranger and is hanging out of the building, he leaps to the rising chimney. As he ascends on the chimney, the blood on his right hand disappears. (01:00:10)

Phoenix

Correction: The blood on his hand is visible throughout the shot. The only time you can't see it is when the shot is very far away, when you can't tell if it's there or not.

Corrected entry: At the end of the movie during the apocalyptic battle between John Murdoch and The Strangers, Dr. Schreber and all of The Strangers are being sucked into the city but when they cut to the shot of the city moments later Dr. Schreber is the only one visible and there are no Strangers.

Correction: He's the only one visible in the shot. The Strangers are simply not visible. This isn't unusual since the shot was focussing on his reaction to what was happening.

More mistakes in Dark City

Dr. Schreber: Listen to me, John. You have their power. You can make things happen by will alone. They call it "Tuning." That is how they make the buildings change. Just now you acted out of self-defense, a reflex. But I can teach you to control your power consciously. Let me help you, John. Together We can stop them, we can take the city back.

More quotes from Dark City

Trivia: In the scene where the two buildings are Tuned together to crush Murdoch, it was done without CGI. The director actually created two giant buildings on wheels and rolled them together. (00:59:10)

Phoenix

More trivia for Dark City

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.