Character mistake: When Marco is trying to raise his rifle to assassinate Senator Arthur, he held it upside down with his scope below and turned over in the same scene, He is an expert marksman.
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
1 character mistake
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Jon Voight, Liev Schreiber, Anthony Mackie, Jeffrey Wright, Pablo Schreiber, Dorian Missick
Revealing mistake: In the beginning, there is a scene where Sen. Shaw is watching Raymond make a speech on a TV screen. It was obviously put in in post-production because the aide immediately next to the screen is nodding and clapping in agreement at inappropiate times.
Eleanor Shaw: The assassin always dies, baby. It's necessary for the national healing.
Question: There were two flashbacks of how Raymond Shaw killed one of the soldiers. One scene it showed him suffocating him in the desert with a piece of plastic. In another scene it shows him choking him with his hands in some kind of observation room. Was the desert 'killing', a dream combining the truth with the brainwashing?
Answer: The plastic bag killing was part of the dream. Many things in the dreams are off. For example in the dream he sees himself handling the pistol while lying in a bed. When we see his actual memory, he is standing, and Shaw hands him the gun, which he immediately uses.
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Chosen answer: Perhaps the piece-of-plastic killing was a "test run" by the brainwashers to see if Raymond would actually react to their commands. You can see other soldiers lying down wearing "halos", hinting that this happened at a different time and place than the observation room choking.