Home Alone
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Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes to the grocery, he buys Tide detergent. While walking home, the two bags break, but no Tide detergent falls out.

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Suggested correction: Maybe he returned it.

No chance, we see him buy it and then use it in a later scene.

Ssiscool

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes outside the first time and sees the cars in the garage, the light isn't on. When it shows the garage again in the next shot, the light is on. (00:20:25)

Bishop73

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Suggested correction: The light could be motion activated. Either Kevin's movement or passing vehicles could have turned it on, regardless of the time of day. I have motion detector lights in my carport and they constantly go on and off in the daytime if it's low-light and cars pass by fast enough. People walking their dogs can also activate it if they are close enough. They sometimes stay on until I have to manually turn the power off, then on again.

raywest

That would explain it only if the light came on when Kevin "activated" it. It stays off during the first scene, and he doesn't make any motion towards the garage when the camera is on him. Nor do we see any vehicles or people pass behind him.

Bishop73

How likely is it that this movie - taken in 1990 - had access to the developed technology that we have today, to make automatic lights turn on?

Infrared motion sensors were around in the 80s.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin is leaving the church after talking to the old man that lives next door to him, he runs home. Between leaving the church and getting home he is wearing one pair of trousers, when he gets home he is wearing a pair of jeans, then when he is setting up the traps for the bad guys he is back to the first pair.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Kevin prepares to ride his toboggan down the stairs, the front door changes position between shots from half open to completely open. (00:25:20)

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Joe Pesci places his hand on the red hot doorknob on the front door of Kevin's house, he places his hand on the doorknob sideways, but after he sticks his hand in the snow, he looks at his hand and the letter M that was burned into his hand is straight up and down, not sideways like it should be based on how he grabbed the doorknob.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin is shooting the BB gun at action figures he has lined up along the laundry chute, there is a baseball player figurine leaning against the side of the laundry chute. A few shots later, when Kevin begins shooting at the figurines, the baseball player figurine is no longer leaning against the laundry chute frame, instead standing unassisted.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin is putting washing in and taking clothes out of the dryer, he places a bottle of Tide detergent on top of the washing machine with the handle facing away from the camera. Upon taking the clothes out of the drier and closing the door, he turns to see the furnace scaring him by saying "Kevin." When the camera faces Kevin again, the bottle of detergent is turned so that the handle faces the camera, and the cap is no longer fastened correctly.

Continuity mistake: Kevin goes out to cut the top off a tree to use as a Christmas tree. The tree top he drags in is much smaller than the one he decorates.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Kevin sits down with a meal before the Wet Bandits arrive at the house consisting of macaroni and cheese on a plate. When Harry eventually makes it to the dining room, he is pelted with feathers. Look at the table to the left. A three part microwave meal still in its white plastic container now sits on the plate.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Marv comes to the back door while Kevin is washing dishes, Kevin turns on the Johnny & Snakes movie. Then he goes to get the pot and puts the pot by the back door. The whole time he has his sleeves rolled up, but when he opens a drawer to get firecrackers, his sleeves are rolled down. In the very next shot they're rolled up again. The shot changes too quickly for him to roll them back up.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Kevin is hanging up ornaments on the Christmas tree and he sees Harry peeping through the window by the reflection of the ornament, the reflection is not entirely accurate. It shows Kevin facing the camera with both the tree and window behind him. The reflection should have shown Kevin with just the window behind him and slightly to his right, based on his original position.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin is searching in Buzz' chest, some objects appear or change place after he throws the Playboy magazine away. (00:21:45)

Dr Wilson

Continuity mistake: When Kevin says, "I made my family disappear" and runs around the house, he runs to the foyer and spins in a circle. The window near the stairs is dark meaning it's dark outside. He run upstairs and the window in Kevin's parent's room is also dark. The lights are on too. He then goes to Buzz's room and the kitchen and it's light outside. No lights are on.

Continuity mistake: Right after Marv loses his shoes on the tar covered stairs he goes back outside to go in the window. When he's running in the snow you can see that he is wearing little pink booties so his feet don't get cold. When he is getting into the police car at the end, you see a short shot of his feet when he's almost in and you can clearly see he has black boots back on.

Continuity mistake: The plane for Paris leaves in the morning - around 10 am. Shortly after take-off (it is still morning in Chicago) it is dark outside the windows. Even though the flight path from Chicago to Paris goes a bit north, it would not get dark that fast.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: When Kevin plays the video when the guy comes to deliver the pizza, the guy on the video says "Hey. I'm gonna give you to the count of ten." When Kevin first saw the movie, the word "Hey" was never spoken. The line immediately before "I'm gonna give you to the count of ten" was "I'll tell you what I'm gonna give you, Snakes".

Continuity mistake: The Murphy's basement is shown to be dripping water from when Marv flooded the kitchen earlier but when the crooks are hit by the old man at the end of the film, the floor is dry even though the faucets are still running.

Continuity mistake: As Marv loses his last sock on the tarred stairs, his heel does not make contact with the tar. Later, when he picks up the crowbar to walk out, his whole foot is now covered in tar.

Continuity mistake: The amount of tar on Marv's feet changes from all over the bottom and sides, to just the bottom to almost none. Even though he walked through the snow, the tar would not just wash off.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes to the grocery, he buys Tide detergent. While walking home, the two bags break, but no Tide detergent falls out.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Maybe he returned it.

No chance, we see him buy it and then use it in a later scene.

Ssiscool

More mistakes in Home Alone

Megan McCallister: You're not at all worried that something might happen to Kevin?
Buzz McCallister: No, for three reasons: A, I'm not that lucky. Two, we use smoke detectors and D, we live on the most boring street in the whole United States of America, where nothing even remotely dangerous will ever happen. Period.

More quotes from Home Alone
Home Alone trivia picture

Trivia: When Kevin is in Buzz's bedroom, he finds in the box a picture of Buzz's girlfriend. This is actually a picture of the art director's son dressed up to look like a girl, because the director, Chris Columbus, thought it would be too harsh to make fun of a girl like that.

More trivia for Home Alone

Question: Why was Kevin's family so mean to him?

Answer: I think it was a way to make leaving him "home alone" more realistic and understandable as opposed to absurd. Being perceived as a brat/pest and annoying to be around, it is (somewhat) conceivable that none of the family members would be eager to have Kevin by their side. This "frees" all of them from noticing that Kevin isn't with them. Everyone would just assume that Kevin is somewhere among them and each be glad they didn't have to sit next to him on the way to the airport or during the long flight.

KeyZOid

In addition to this, the movie is partially about Kevin learning to have more respect for others. He appreciates his family more as he spends more time without them.

Answer: The ones who were mean just saw Kevin as a brat. However, it's not uncommon in situations of being in an overcrowded house to easily lose one's patience and temper and become frustrated with small, but irritating things; which seems to happen to his mother. Buzz just has that general big brother contempt for his kid brother, but obviously still loves him, along with everyone else in the family, at the end when he finds out Kevin is safe.

Bishop73

Nuts to that. They all could've tried a little harder, that's one lame excuse for treating someone like garbage and I come from a good sized bunch who've done the same to me. You also forget his uncle didn't care about him regardless of the situation.

Rob245

Like it or not the answer is perfectly valid. Families have different dynamics. Kevin is something of a brat (he calls his mother "dummy" and openly wishes he didn't have a family), as are his brothers and sisters, especially Buzz. I for one have TWO uncles in my family who behave just like the uncle in the movie. We don't invite them over, but we've had similar situations to what's depicted in the film.

Hey I've had three uncles, father's older brothers, he hated all three of them, cared only when they started dying. Yeah the dynamics and all, my mother has stated "You ruined this family" though this bunch didn't need my help in being messed up. My sympathies to you Mr Hoffman, your uncles Dustin and Philip Seymour must be/been terrible, just kidding only on the famous names there, no offense meant.

Rob245

It's just a movie! The characters are fictional and were given contrived, exaggerated, over-the-top personalities to fit the comedic plot. It's pointless to compare them to real-life family dynamics.

raywest

Exactly. It's done for entertainment.

Ssiscool

Also, it's a movie from a child's point of view. Kevin is supposed to be the "victim." As a 35-year-old, I have more sympathy for the adults and older kids. The movie is about Kevin learning to miss his family and be more considerate of others.

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