Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: Steve Trevor approaches and stands before an oval, wall-mounted mirror, incredulously looking at himself and seeing a stranger's face in close-up. Steve finally smiles approvingly, turns to Diana Prince and says, "He's got it! Y'know, I like him!" The camera immediately cuts to two wide shots from behind Steve standing directly in front of the mirror (only a couple of feet away from it), but there is no reflection of Steve in the mirror at all. This error reveals that the "mirror" is actually a hole in the wall (a low-budget practical effect used in films of decades past for such mirror illusions). They probably filmed a lot more footage of Steve mugging in front of the "mirror" but edited it out, because this old-school effect is notoriously difficult to get exactly right. (00:49:50 - 00:50:20)

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: During the July 4th festivities at Madison Park, Professor Harold Hill prompts four school board members (the Buffalo Bills quartet) into performing the song "Sincere," allowing Hill to slip away into the crowd. As they complete the last verse, the singers stroll into a wide shot with a fireworks display in the background. However, the skybursts are oddly magnified and erratically shift positions against the background, revealing that the fireworks display is a large but clumsily-edited rear-screen projection.

Charles Austin Miller

Control - S1-E5

Revealing mistake: As Ed slowly backs away from the camera (from the foreground to the background), the towering Scrapper robot moves slowly forward (from the background to the foreground) to take Ed's place facing the camera. The lumbering robot is plainly casting a long shadow across this night-time shot towards the right side of the screen. But, as Ed and the giant robot pass one another, the CGI robot's shadow never falls across Ed at all. Throughout the shot, Ed remains uniformly illuminated, revealing that the digital-effects artist neglected to add the shadow passing over Ed. (00:38:55 - 00:39:19)

Charles Austin Miller

Whinfrey's Last Case - S2-E1

Revealing mistake: The opening scene was shot twice, complete with a rear-end automobile collision in the foreground for both takes. The initial collision destroyed the taillights of the first car and the headlights of the second car and ruptured the second car's radiator on impact, spilling its contents into the street. The production crew attempted to sweep away the debris with a broom before the scene was reshot. If you examine the roadway before the two cars appear in this scene, you will see a prominent splatter on the pavement that has been swept with a broom almost precisely where the cars impact again moments later.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: When John redeems his crucifix "ticket," the crucifix is heated to glowing red and used to brand John between his shoulderblades, signifying that the "ticket" has been redeemed. As the crucifix is removed from his bare back, the freshly scorched flesh is inexplicably glowing for a moment before it fades to black. (00:31:34)

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: At the end of "Hot Patootie," an enraged Frank-N-Furter snatches an ice axe from the deep-freezer and menaces the terrified Eddie. There is no blood seen in the freezer at this point. Frank swings his first blow and completely misses Eddie, who is scampering into the deep-freeze several feet ahead of Frank. There is no blood seen in the freezer at this point, either. Frank then pursues Eddie into the fog at the back of the deep-freezer and viciously murders him with the ice axe (a genuinely horrifying scene as Tim Curry plays it, but the murder occurs entirely off-camera). But then, as Frank emerges from the freezer moments later, we see a splattered and gory trail of fresh blood leading into the freezer, as though Frank had already mortally wounded the escaping Eddie even before the offscreen murder. This looks as though footage from an alternate and more graphically violent version of this scene was kept in the revised scene, causing the gory blood trail to appear out of nowhere. (00:45:15)

Charles Austin Miller

Jacob and Jesse - S1-E2

Revealing mistake: Air Force Colonel Owen Crawford and his two personal assistants are poring over classified intelligence files in the Colonel's office. When they start to review a slideshow of photographs, one assistant sets up a projector screen and turns off the office lights as the other assistant switches on the slide projector. Photographic images immediately appear on the screen in the background, but the first assistant is still standing directly in front of the slide projector in the foreground. Not only does he not eclipse the projected image on the screen, but no projected image appears on the assistant's body. Obviously, the images on the screen in the background are projected from another source far off-camera. (00:48:50)

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: The sea creature Gorgo is paraded through the streets of London on a flatbed tractor trailer, and an off-screen American newsman announces the monster's arrival at Battersea Park, where it will be exhibited at Dorkin's Circus. The announcer introduces the creature's owners as they step from their motorcade, saying, "And our own Mr. Dorkin, of Dorkin's Circus, in the checkered suit." Problem is, Mr. Dorkin is wearing a plain gray flannel suit. Closeup shots of Mr. Dorkin over the next 40 seconds reveal that the suit is not checkered, not plaid, not striped, not patterned in any way at all. It's simply a plain gray suit. Apparently, the announcer's pre-recorded lines were never modified after changes were made in costuming. (00:34:05 - 00:35:00)

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: In this very-low-budget but star-studded flick about UFO contactees and cattle mutilations, Jan Michael Vincent's semi-auto handgun runs out of ammo during a firefight after firing only 3 rounds (the slide locks open, indicating the magazine is empty). Without reloading or racking the slide, Vincent continues firing 5 more rounds; but we see again, in close-up, that the slide is locked open, indicating an empty magazine. (01:00:55)

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: When Donovan witnesses a fatal traffic accident on a rainy night, he suffers a mild heart attack and collapses in the street. Although he's lying on his back, unprotected from the downpour, surrounded by rain striking the pavement in both foreground and background, closeups show that no rain strikes his face, his felt hat, or his clothing. (00:12:20 - 00:12:50)

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: Near the beginning, when police Lieutenant Rowan is inquiring on the death of Ken Drake, there are only 4 men in the room, all facing one another in a wide shot. The camera cuts to a close-up of Dr. Bradford for a couple of seconds, and there is a distinct puff of cigarette smoke passing behind him, but none of the characters in this scene are smoking. Lieutenant Rowan does smoke later in the film (in fact, he's the only character who smokes), but he's not smoking in this early scene. Apparently, the close-up of Dr. Bradford was borrowed from omitted footage in which Lieutenant Rowan was smoking.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: Early in the film, when Commander Chris Draper is still wearing his space gear on the Martian surface, multiple helmet reflections reveal that at least two and as many as four powerful artificial light sources (in addition to the Sun) were used to illuminate the exterior scenes.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: When Roy and Chon are escaping from jail, Chon uses all his strength to bend one of the iron bars aside so that Roy can squeeze through. But, as Roy squeezes through, the iron bar behind him (which should be rigid) also visibly flexes, revealing that the bars are made of rubber or plastic tubing.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: At the end, when the monster grabs the sheriff and throws him across the front yard, the sheriff lands on his back and his right arm falls into a beartrap. The trap snaps and the sheriff screams in pain, but only one jaw of the prop beartrap actually snaps into vertical position (the opposing jaw remains flat and doesn't move). A real beartrap snaps both jaws together vertically. So, the sheriff's hand doesn't get snapped at all.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: When Dr. Floyd arrives at the Moon and goes to the Monolith site at Tycho Crater, the moon shuttle never casts a shadow on the lunar surface. This is especially noticeable in the first shot, wherein the shuttle is coming straight at the camera, the Sun is on the far right, and there is a giant lunar cliff on the far left. No shadow of any sort.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: When the castaways discover two women and a man washed up on the beach, they quickly determine that the women are still alive. The journalist, Gideon Spilitt, checks the pulse of the male and pronounces him dead; but the dead man's limp left hand very noticeably and unnaturally jerks twice just as Spilitt releases his wrist. The actor playing the dead man obviously had an anticipatory reflex action, but they chose to keep the shot in the film, anyway.

Charles Austin Miller

The Menagerie (2) - S1-E13

Revealing mistake: When the Talosians place Christopher Pike and Vina into the "picnic" illusion (in the countryside on Earth), Pike wanders around marveling at how real it all seems. Well, "real" except for the fact that Pike's body is casting 4 distinct shadows in 4 different directions on the ground, the result of studio set lighting.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: At the beginning of the film, even though the sky is cloudless and clear blue, the streets and highways are uniformly wet, as if a storm had just swept the area. Then, even though all of the vehicles on the highway are raising clouds of wet spray, none of the vehicle windshields are splattered with moisture, and none of the vehicles are using their windshield wipers. In fact, the only time we see a woman use her windshield wipers is when the guy throws a lit blunt onto the woman's windshield and it catches some dry leaves there on fire. So, in summation, dry leaves catch fire on the windshield of a car in spite of heavy road spray on a wet highway on a cloudless day. Multiple inconsistencies.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: After Rachel tumbles down the well, we see her heavy-duty Eveready Commander Flashlight, 12-volt battery and all, bobbing above the surface of the water like a cork. Which is ridiculous. A real 12-volt Commander Flashlight would sink like a rock, because it weighs about 4 pounds. However, the filmmakers needed to explain how Rachel could see at the bottom of a pitch-black well, so they used a lightweight, floating flashlight prop, supposedly providing a light source for the scene.

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: During the high-speed chase with the tractor trailer, Vince fires one grappling wire through the truck's passenger windscreen to pull the glass out. He fires a second grappling wire through the now-open windscreen and grapples the passenger seat, then attaches the grappling wire to his harness and leaps to the front of the truck. So, his only tether to the truck is the horizontal grappling wire attached inside the truck cab. But, when the truck driver slams on the brakes, Vince is catapulted around the truck's front-end to the side door, his full weight suspended from a visible, vertical line that is attached to something several feet above the truck cab. The taut line from above even crushes the truck's side-view mirror under Vince's weight. This is the stuntman's safety cable, attached to an overhead boom mounted out-of-frame on top of the truck rig.

Charles Austin Miller