Factual error: The radar guided SAMs are consistently evaded/triggered by the pilots' flares, which in reality only work against heat seeking missiles. Radar guided missiles would be defended against using chaff, basically clouds of aluminium foil strips. It was mentioned in some interviews they didn't want use chaff as it wouldn't really be visible for the audience - hence why they only deploy flares.
Jon Sandys
2nd Jun 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
31st May 2022
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Trivia: "Darkstar" flies low over the ground and its wake tears the roof off a shack. The roof wasn't actually meant to come off, but it looked so good and fit the scene so well they used that take.
30th May 2022
The Blacklist (2013)
Helen Maghi (No. 172) - S9-E16
Factual error: Harold tells Raymond he'll repay the bail money, but given he's pleading guilty and fully intends to go along with required court appearances, etc, the bail money paid will be refunded - it's not like Raymond is out-of-pocket.
23rd May 2022
The Blacklist (2013)
Revealing mistake: Aram "hacks" an employee database via a company website - the code that's briefly visible on screen (slo-mo helps but isn't required) is just standard HTML that lays out a web page, not server commands.
20th May 2022
The Transporter (2002)
Plot hole: Inspector Tarconi visits Frank with suspicions, leaves, and only about 30 seconds later a rocket hits Frank's house with associated gunfire and more explosions. Tarconi can barely have made it to the end of the road, but somehow doesn't hear any of this going on.
17th May 2022
The Flash (2014)
Continuity mistake: When Iris is showing Frost's mother the obituary, in a shot facing the mother she's holding the folder open, then after she says "it feels cold", the shot changes to behind her and the folder is instantly shut.
16th May 2022
Goldfinger (1964)
Continuity mistake: Near the start when Bond and Moneypenny are talking about gold, she throws his hat at the hatstand. The top of the hat is facing left as it flies offscreen, but when the shot cuts to it landing it's turned itself around so it can catch properly on the hook. Plus it lands on the hook furthest from the door, but when Bond leaves he picks it up from a closer hook.
15th May 2022
Captain Marvel (2019)
Revealing mistake: After the Kree arrive on the ship, in a side shot one of them opens the lunchbox holding the tesseract. We see the blue light emanating from inside, but that only appears once the box is fully open - while it's opening, there's no light inside at all, despite the tesseract always glowing. A later shot shows the glow being visible around the edges of the lid even when the box is completely shut, and when Carol opens it later, the glow appears immediately.
15th May 2022
Captain Marvel (2019)
Other mistake: The fingerprint scanner in the room where Fury and Vers are detained is inconsistent. Fury tries it, and the scanning line moves quite fast before rejecting him with a red light. Vers tries it and there isn't a scanning line at all, it just flashes red. Then when using the fingerprint lifted from his ID, there's a much slower scanning line before it flashes green and unlocks.
14th May 2022
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Factual error: The rocket launches from Dr. Evil's base literally inside the main room with all his cronies in it. As it rises, the blast from the engines would have incinerated everyone left behind.
11th May 2022
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Stupidity: Despite landing on an alien planet which they have minimal information about, they just wander around with no protective equipment whatsoever. No face mask, no air filter, they're entirely unprepared for the prospect of anything bacterial/fungal which could do them harm. Even after people get sick others say "don't touch anything" without any concern that the cause might be airborne.
11th May 2022
General questions
What film is it where two people are fighting in a mostly black corridor over an automatic weapon, and it fires, making a semicircle of orange over their heads, illuminating the scene?
Answer: It isn't very much to go on but the first thing that comes to mind is the 2011 remake of "Fright Night." At the end Charlie and Jerry the vampire fight over a shotgun in the underground basement of a building. When it goes off, holes in the ceiling, bring in the sunlight.
29th Apr 2022
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Stupidity: They make a big deal about how they've got the bare minimum of Pym particles left as Hank has been snapped away, but it never occurs to them to use their supply to jump back to a very safe time when Hank was around with a vast supply of them. They could bring them to their time and then have no end of attempts to get the stones without being on such a knife-edge.
Suggested correction: The problem is that they need to steal particles, and if they fail doing that, everything fails. They never thought of doing it that way because of that. Only when they failed in the past did they have to risk that, with again the possibility of failing. They couldn't take the risk to have their only chance of reversing what Thanos did fail because they want to be leisurely about it, ironically. They could do it in one go, that was the best bet and lowest in risk.
11th Apr 2022
Jack Reacher (2012)
Trivia: A point in the score from this, by Joe Kraemer, inspired The Batman's signature motif by Michael Giacchino. After the phone call between Jack and Helen when he warns her potentially not to trust her father, he's driving across a bridge and the music is almost identical to the "bom...bombom...bom" theme from The Batman.
14th Mar 2022
Friends (1994)
Question: One episode has a very short scene with Rachel + Phoebe in Central Perk, just them, sitting near the door (not sofa). Rachel has a problem, Phoebe is solving, while Rachel eats cake. While chatting, but not mentioned at all, Phoebe tries to get Rachel's cake. End of scene, Phoebe succeeds and Rachel has gained advice but lost cake. Cake is not referred to at all in the dialogue or plot, making it pretty tricky to search for. Anyone know the episode?
Chosen answer: It sounds like you're describing a scene in S6 E3 "The One With Ross's Denial", with Phoebe and Ross when they're sitting at a table. Ross has a cookie and a coffee. Phoebe is telling Ross he's still in love with Rachel and Ross is denying it. While they talk, Phoebe grabs Ross' coffee at one point and Ross takes it right back. Then she does the same with his cookie and Ross again takes it back. At the very end of the conversation and scene, she grabs a magazine that Ross is also reading, and when he grabs the magazine back from her, she then grabs both the coffee and the muffin and starts eating the muffin.
19th Feb 2022
Fast Five (2011)
Other mistake: Hobbs asks to see all footage from "in and around Waterloo station." The technician is then asked to "bring up cameras 58 through 62." 5 cameras to cover the entirety of that area is laughable.
17th Feb 2022
The Witcher (2019)
Continuity mistake: The first season follows multiple separate points in time, which only becomes clear at the end of the season. All well and good, given that Geralt and Yennefer don't age like normal humans, so can look the same throughout. Jaskier, however, is a regular human, but doesn't age at all over the 25-ish years the season covers.
16th Feb 2022
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Other mistake: Hobbs asks to see all footage from "in and around Waterloo station." The technician is then asked to "bring up cameras 58 through 62." 5 cameras to cover the entirety of that area is laughable.
13th Feb 2022
Titans (2018)
Character mistake: One character says a concentration of 0.09 parts per million in the water is bad: "if it were salt it'd taste like you were drowning in the ocean." Rubbish. The concentration of salt in seawater is about 35,000 parts per million.
7th Feb 2022
Reacher (2022)
Trivia: The man Reacher passes in the diner at the end of the episode who says "excuse me" is the author of the Jack Reacher novels, Lee Child.
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Chosen answer: Found the answer elsewhere - I was thinking of The Matrix Revolutions, where Agent Smith in someone else's body is fighting with Neo over an arc weapon of some kind in a darkened spaceship.
Jon Sandys ★