Factual error: In the scene on the asteroid, Steve Buscemi's character flicks away a fly, and you can see it buzzing around.
Continuity mistake: When the military come to get Harry from the rig, you see the shot going between the two. In three shots, Harry has a large speck of oil on his nose but on the fourth it has disappeared. (00:21:20)
Character mistake: When Sharp is teaching AJ to remote detonate the bomb, he says to "lift, press, hold" the trigger device. But the actions with the hands are actually "lift, hold, press." Even AJ repeats it wrong. (02:11:00)
Suggested correction: Lift (the cover), press (the button), hold (the button). That's the sequence.
The suggested correction sequence leaves out the trigger. The original mistake entry seems to be accurate. After watching again, Harry lifts the cover off the trigger, holds the trigger, and then presses the button. Lift, hold, press.
Other mistake: In the scene where the asteroids are hitting New York, there is an exterior shot of one of them hitting the South end of Grand Central Terminal. Another shot goes by and the film cuts to the main area inside the station, which is close to where the first asteroid hit. There is not one hint of damage, or any discernible reaction from the people inside from the first impact. (00:08:20)
Character mistake: In the President's speech he says that 'The Bible calls this day Armageddon'. That is not correct. In John's Revelation 16 verse 16 it says 'And he gathered them on the place which in Hebrew is called Harmageddon'. Even aside from spelling variations, Armageddon is a place, not a point in time.
Continuity mistake: When the astronaut Sharp comes to his senses and decides to disarm the bomb while it is counting down, the digital readout is just all wrong. Bruce Willis is talking to him and the time reads 40 seconds left. After a good 20 seconds of talking, he starts working on the bomb with a screwdriver and the time reads 35 seconds. Next time we see it, it reads 30 seconds, then when the cover that holds the timer is removed it looks like it reads 45 seconds.
Continuity mistake: When Stamper is banging on AJ's door, a fan and about six cans are on the shelf. In the next shot, the fan has fallen off, but there are only three cans on the shelf.
Revealing mistake: When the Independence crashes AJ goes over to the dead body of Oscar; when there is a spark in the background you can see Oscar blinking. (01:28:10)
Continuity mistake: When Harry and Chick are lying down and the spinning pillar goes over them, the pillar's direction of spin changes twice. Backward spin, then forward, then backward, then forward again.
Continuity mistake: When Harry is golfing off of the oil rig, the holes on the golf ball are spaced about a yard away. In the next shot, before he hits it, the holes are right together. It also goes from saying just "Srixon" to "3 Srixon," then the lettering gets angled, then he finally hits it.
Continuity mistake: The montages around the world show a boy listening to a transistor radio. In order to make it look truly Americana the boy has an old-fashioned earphone in one ear but continues to hold the transistor radio up to his ear as though the speaker were working in addition to the headphone. (01:03:40)
Factual error: In the beginning of the movie, where the astronaut is working on the satellite during an EVA, it shows the satellite far apart from the space shuttle. Also, the shuttle's bay doors were open and facing the open void of space. This is a factual error, because when NASA sends a crew to fix a satellite in space, they flip the shuttle so the bottom faces space and the windows face the Earth. The satellite is attached to the Canada Arm and the astronauts are able to service is with ease, and not having to fear shards of a giant asteroid or other space debris.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of landing shuttles on the asteroid, Col. Sharp, pilot of Freedom, was wearing a black short sleeve T-shirt. At the moment of landing on the ground, he's wearing a flying jacket even not leaving his seat yet. Did he have enough time to put on his jacket during such an emergent situation?
Continuity mistake: When they are drawing straws to see who stays on the asteroid, they show AJ pulling his straw. It's the same length as the other straws shown, but when it cuts back to AJ he all of a sudden has the short straw.
Continuity mistake: When Chick's son recognizes him on television, the camera shows a close up of his ex-wife with the phone in her right hand. However, the next shot shows her dropping the phone receiver from her left hand. (01:04:03)
Deliberate mistake: Before the two shuttles dock to the MIR station, Lev initiates a rotation to simulate gravity. The shuttles then dock with their side hatch pointing to the anchorage. As the gravity is pointing away from the centre of revolution and the station is revolving around its main corridor, the gravity would push the astronauts back in to the shuttle and not towards the floor of the gangways leading to the shuttle or towards the floor of the shuttle. Also, the artificial gravity would be reduced to almost nothing at the main corridor. But here the artificial gravity somehow points down in every part of the station, and appears to work equally well throughout the station. (01:09:40)
Continuity mistake: The front of the space shuttle explodes twice. After we see it explode the first time after it first gets bombarded with projectiles, in the very next shot, we see the front half of the plane with two crew members floating around inside at which point we hear: "Houston!". Then the front part of the shuttle blows up again.
Continuity mistake: When the drillers are getting checked out at NASA to see of they are o.k. to go into space, the fat white guy is wearing a robe that is covered with blue dots. The next time we see him, he is in a plain white robe.
Factual error: In the Paris meteor scene, the POV is from the walkway of Notre Dame cathedral, with a very famous gargoyle in the RH side of the frame. From that POV, the Eiffel tower is visible, but the L'Hôtel national des Invalides (Napoleon's Tomb, the gold-domed building in the foreground) is in the wrong location. To show both of those structures in those positions, Notre Dame would have be located about a mile southwest of its actual location.
Visible crew/equipment: During the scene when the crew is trying to disable the bomb, the camera pans in from a wider shot to a close up twice, once at the start of the scene and once towards the end. During the second pan, on the left side of the screen, the matte box or some other part of the camera can be seen.
