Factual error: In the very beginning of the film the Audi A5 is chased by the Landrover. At a point the Audi makes a right hand handbrake turn, which is impossible since the Audi has an electronic handbrake, not a manual one. (00:02:35)
Factual error: In the car scene just before the MI6 explosion, invalid IPv4 addresses (with digits larger than 255) are displayed on the laptop screen. [This gets debated, with comparisons made to 555 phone numbers. 555 may not be a real area code, but there's nothing technically preventing it being one. IP addresses, however, just can't have numbers larger than 255 - it's like a phone number having a % symbol in it.]
Continuity mistake: When Bond is drinking Macallan in M's apartment he set the bottle down with the label facing away from us. Next shot has the bottle facing towards us. Final shot and the bottle is back in its original position, with the label away from us again. (00:24:55)
Continuity mistake: As Bond chases Patrice over the rooftops of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul at the start of the film, in the close ups of Daniel Craig his tie can be seen noticeably flapping over his shoulder (as you would expect). But in the long shots with the stuntman it doesn't move about at all, presumably having been fixed in place for safety. (00:04:40)
Factual error: In Turkey the first two numbers of a vehicle licence plate belong to a city. Number 34, for example, is for Istanbul. The motorcycle chase in the beginning of the movie takes part in Istanbul (both the Land Rover and the Audi have "34" plates). However, once they come to the bridge where Bond jumps to the train, all the vehicles on the bridge (except the Land Rover) have plates starting with "01", which is the licence plate number for the city of Adana, where those scenes were shot. (00:06:10)
Deliberate mistake: The VW beetles on the train are parked side-by-side. Cars are never loaded like this - they would be end-to-end to stop them overhanging the wagon and hitting passing objects. They're only positioned like that to facilitate driving the digger over them later. (00:07:40)
Continuity mistake: When Bond drives his motorbike into the bridge, the scene changes to Bond landing on the train, the bike magically landing on its wheels upright, then when the scene changes again, the bike has disappeared, yet the bike should be seen rolling out of control. (00:06:25)
Continuity mistake: When Bond confronts the assassin and lets him fall to his death from the building in Shanghai, he then looks over to the opposite window where Severine is standing in the smashed window hole, her hair blowing in the breeze. When it cuts to the closeup of her leaving you can see the light reflected in the window glass that has magically reappeared. (00:48:00)
Continuity mistake: When Silva gets out of the helicopter at Skyfall, the sky is approaching dark (7 o'clock to 8 o'clock sky). After throwing the grenades in the house and Silva says "Everyone listen to me! Don't you dare touch her, she's mine!" about 50 seconds later, it is suddenly pitch black (11 o'clock to midnight sky). (01:55:25 - 01:56:15)
Continuity mistake: When Bond has begun searching the train for the villain, a blonde passenger's face is clearly shown on the right hand side of the screen. About a minute later, the same extra is waiting to board the same train at the next station. (01:34:10 - 01:35:27)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where the assassin is about to go up in the elevator the 3rd button down on the right has been pressed and is lit. As the elevator closes the button is no longer lit. (00:43:10)
Continuity mistake: When Silva and Bond jump onto the sides of the escalators, there is a sign at the top. Whilst they are sliding down the escalator, the sign at the top is no longer there. (01:31:45)
Factual error: Bond and Silva travel from Temple station on the District/Circle line, which is a sub-surface line that has square tunnels (dug out from above and then covered over) and uses large trains with an almost square cross-section. However, the train they board is of the type used on the deep-level lines (eg. Northern and Jubilee lines), smaller and almost cylindrical in shape, and is seen to fit snugly into the cylindrical tube tunnel as the train leaves the station. They therefore can't be travelling on the District/Circle line, and must be on a deep-level line instead. The disused Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross are often used for filming, and photographs available online show one such platform recently dressed as Temple station. (01:28:40)
Continuity mistake: Just after Bond has lost track of Silva in the London Underground station, the scene cuts to M's parliament meeting. At this time, the time on M's watch reads 3:00. Yet when Bond catches up with Silva in the basement of the London Underground station, the time on Bond's watch reads 4:55. Far too long to have passed given the events seen and distances travelled. (01:32:45 - 01:33:45)
Factual error: When Bond drives M away in the Jaguar XJ, police cars can be seen driving towards them when he speeds around the corner. The Volvo police car in front has two yellow dots on the top of the windscreen which mean armed response, but on the roof there is a circle, which means traffic/incident response. The aerial roof marking symbol should have been a five-edged star for armed response. Metropolitan police don't even use Volvos for armed response. They use BMW 5 series and X5s. (01:38:30)
Continuity mistake: When Silva places the glass of whiskey on the girl's head, the liquid is full to the brim in some shots, or a finger below in others. (01:15:15)
Factual error: When there is a BBC News Report for the BBC News at 10 (clock bottom right) the wrong news studio is used rather than the correct one. They also used the wrong opening standing position. The studio shown is for the BBC News at 6pm, and the position used is only used for the intro after the half way segment, not the lead headline. (01:04:20)
Continuity mistake: When Bond runs out of the London Underground Station, he is covered in dust. The dust is still there when he runs into the Houses of Parliament and still there when he drives off with M. Yet the dust has disappeared when Bond and M find the Aston Martin. There was no time to clean up the dust since he was driving. (01:36:05 - 01:39:35)
Continuity mistake: In Istanbul, Bond goes to the mosque. When he approaches the mosque, the exterior shot is of the Sultan Ahmed mosque or "Blue Mosque" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque). When Bond is inside, the interior is actually of the much older, nearby "Hagia Sophia" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia). (00:04:35)
Factual error: When Patrice is going up the elevator in Shanghai, there is a shot of him taking the suppressor off his pistol. But once it's off you can see that the pistol barrel isn't threaded, which means that it couldn't take a suppressor in the first place.
Answer: Silva's objective was not just to kill M - if it was, he could have blown up her office with her in it when he hacked into MI6 the first time. He wanted to humiliate and terrify her by showing he could get to her again and again, whatever measures were put in place to protect her.
Sierra1 ★