Corrected entry: This is 1889, as they've established most people ride horses or walk. Most of the characters have never even seen a car before. Yet, somehow, Tom Sawyer can suddenly handle one like an expert.
Tailkinker
28th Oct 2003
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
28th Oct 2003
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Corrected entry: The term 'car' is an abbreviation of 'horseless carriage', the old name for a car which would certainly have been in use unabbreviated at the time of the film. When the team first see Nemo's ground vehicle, Nemo calls it 'an automobile'; it seems that none of the team have seen one before, so Nemo's statement would be their only reference for what this vehicle is called. But later, Sawyer and Quartermain both refer to it as a 'car' even though it has never been called this, nor even called a 'horseless carriage'.
Correction: Given that most of the team aren't familiar with such vehicles, it doesn't seem remotely unreasonable that they might have discussed it off-camera, maybe en route to Venice. The term 'car' could have come up in those conversations - Sawyer, who's already familiar with such vehicles, might well know them by that name.
20th Nov 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Corrected entry: In the scene at the end of the extended edition where Legolas and Gimli are comparing their battle scores, Legolas is wearing a long sword in a sheath hanging from his belt. At no other time in the movie does Legolas have a sword, even after he dons armour for the Battle of Helm's Deep. He has his bow, and his two knives which he occasionally whips out of the sheath on his back.
Correction: Legolas can be seen using this longsword throughout the "riding forth" sequence. His usual blades are far too short to be of any use while on horseback, so he must have borrowed the longsword (it's a Rohan sword, from the look of it) for the final charge.
19th Dec 2002
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Corrected entry: For being one of Starfleet's best and brightest, Captain Picard forgets a key tactical advantage when his ship is compromised by a Reman boarding party. When he first encountered Shinzon, Picard had trouble seeing him because the lights were severely dimmed. Shinzon points out that this is for the benefit of the Remans, who aren't comfortable (perhaps even blinded) in bright light. Yet it never occurs to Picard to brighten up the lights when the Remans board.
Correction: Just because the Remans find bright lights uncomfortable, it doesn't mean that they're unable to function in bright areas. Bringing up the lights would make it easier for the Reman attack force to spot the defenders - this problem would outweigh any possible tactical advantage from raising the light levels.
26th Aug 2003
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Corrected entry: Picard has been captain of the Enterprise for 15 years. His clone is much older than 15 and yet never had his accelarated aging process activated. Thus Picard must have been cloned long before becoming captain of the Enterprise ... how did the Romulans know who Picard was, much less that he would become important enough to warrant a covert operation to clone him?
Correction: Picard was one of the youngest officers ever to captain a starship (the Stargazer), a post which he reached at the age of 28, before most of the other members of the Enterprise crew were even born. As such, he'd undoubtedly be considered a man to watch, one likely to rise to the higher echelons of Starfleet - hence the Romulan plot to clone him.
26th May 2003
X-Men 2 (2003)
Corrected entry: Pyro says that the mutant gene is carried by males, yet Iceman's brother is not a mutant. This is impossible. If the mutant gene is carried by the father, then the gene must be on the Y chromosome. Refresher: Males; XY Females; XX. This means that the father must be a mutant as well unless something triggers the mutation in the fetus. Which also means if a child ends up being male, it will always get the father's Y chromosome, and the brother to Iceman must be a mutant also.
Correction: Every human being has an X gene, and males have a unique Y gene, so the mutant gene might as well be the father's X gene. Thus explaining the existance of female mutants. Maybe the females carry the gene, but what could be called an "inactive version" of it, reproduction-wise. There's also the much simpler explanation that Pyro was lying to wind up Bobby's father, who's already pretty uncomfortable with the idea that his son's a mutant.
23rd Oct 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Corrected entry: Just before Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli meet Gandalf in the forest, Aragorn draws his sword and you see the symbol of the white tree on his sleeve. He is supposed to reject the fact that he could become king till the third movie.
Correction: Those are Boromir's bracers (or whatever the term is), which Aragorn took after Boromir's death to honour his fallen comrade. Consciously or unconsciously, he's beginning to accept the role that destiny has laid out for him.
Corrected entry: You will have to stay past the credits to see this one: When Will throws the last two medallions into the chest, he leaves it open. The lid is on the floor, next to chest. When Jack the Monkey arrives at the same chest, the lid is covering it partially.
20th Sep 2003
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Corrected entry: In the Scene where the League goes to recruit Dorian, there is a gun battle. During this, Dorian is riddled with bullets and kills the man who shot him, who, while falling over, rips Dorians shirt off (to reveal the bullet wounds dissapearing). However, when Dorian turns back around, his clothing is back to normal. Although I knew of the curse, I don't think that the invincibility would apply to clothes as well.
Correction: There appears to be something of a gap between Dorian having the clothing torn off and his next appearance - he can suddenly be seen descending the stairs. Presumably the League took a small break after the battle to allow their host to go upstairs and don undamaged clothing.
22nd Sep 2003
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Corrected entry: The "automobile" was already invented in 1885. Yet the league didn't even know what they saw when they saw the automobile of captain Nemo, while it was the year 1899.
Correction: While the automobile was invented in 1885, they were hardly a common thing to see around the place. Quatermain's been in Africa for years and neither Harker or Skinner seem like the type to get around much, so it seems reasonable that they wouldn't be aware of this sort of thing. It's worth noting that Sawyer, who, in his role as government agent, presumably gets around a fair bit, does seem familiar with them, to judge from his driving display later on.
10th Oct 2003
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Corrected entry: Sawyer said that he was a government agent from America, if M wasn't really working for the British government then why would the American government even know about the League to begin with?
Correction: From the fact that he's effectively stalking the League at the beginning of the film, he's not there at the invitation of the British Government. It seems likely that the US government have gotten wind of the League's formation through intelligence means, and have sent Sawyer to investigate. Once he linked up with the League, he accepted the lie, as they all did, that the group was assembled by the British government.
15th Jul 2003
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Corrected entry: When Quatermain shoots the last of the assassins at a great distance when they came to kill him he walks down the stairs to where the assassin fell and in just a few steps there are 2 men dropping the assassin at his feet. There was no way possible they could have gotten the assassin that quickly to Quatermain's location.
Correction: Quatermain waited on the veranda with Reed while the assassin was retrieved, then came down to meet them as they arrived back.
3rd Dec 2002
Die Another Day (2002)
Corrected entry: When Bond is at the Ice Palace the car is invisible when he's sneaking around, but when he opens the door you can plainly see the wing mirror through the car window, if the car is invisible you wouldn't be able to see any of the car's exterior. (01:13:40)
Correction: As the wing mirror is rather handy while driving, Q would undoubtedly have made sure that the adaptive camouflage was designed in such a way that the wing mirrors could still be used while invisible - probably something cunning involving the glass in the windows.
24th Nov 2002
Die Another Day (2002)
Corrected entry: Why do the U.S. give up after sending one rocket against the Icarus satellite? Why don't they just send 50 or 100 rockets up at the same time, all coming from different directions? There would be no way the Icarus satellite could shoot them all down. That would have stopped the bad guy's master plan much sooner. (01:43:10)
Correction: Due to concerns about possible violations of space weaponry treaties, the anti-satellite missile programme was shut down in the late eighties. While the US would presumably have a few still lying around - and use one here - there were only a few ever constructed. It seems unlikely that they'd have more than a couple available to them, and Icarus would easily be able to deal with that.
27th Nov 2002
Die Another Day (2002)
Corrected entry: During the Iceland scenes, Bond cuts a hole in the surface of the ice and then swims through the water. As the surface is frozen, the water itself would have been close to freezing. How does Bond manage to swim in it with no protection against the cold? He doesn't even display any discomfort at swimming with his eyes open. (01:20:00)
Correction: It is quite possible to swim in water that's close to freezing - there are groups in Russia and probably many other cold countries who do this for fun, wearing only normal swimwear. Bond is not in the water for long enough for any problems to set in.
16th Oct 2003
Angel (1999)
Corrected entry: Nina asks if Angel can cure her of lycanthropy, and he says no. But why can't he? In the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Oz found a way to prevent the transformation through meditation. That information should be available to the characters on this show as well.
Correction: Oz gains a measure of control through meditation, but as the events of that Buffy episode show, he was still prone to "wolfing-out" under certain circumstances. This hardly qualifies as a cure, so Angel was quite correct to tell Nina that he couldn't cure her.
15th Oct 2003
The Princess Bride (1987)
Corrected entry: When Vizzini accepts the battle of wits with Westley, Westley states that the poison he has is "called iocane powder. It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadlier poisons known to man." How is that when Humperdinck finds the empty poison packet later on, he identifies it by sniffing it? Pretty clever for an odorless poison . . .
Correction: His precise words are "Iocane. I'd bet my life on it". From the wording, he doesn't actually know for certain, but he's pretty sure. From the evidence of a dead body with no wounds and a vial of odorless powder, Humperdinck is making an assessment that is, in this case, correct.
Also, it's a good joke that shows Humperdinck to be a smarter villain than Vizzini (who literally bet his life on it and lost).
Correction: He identified the powder not from an odor, but from the complete lack thereof.
17th Dec 2002
Die Another Day (2002)
Corrected entry: After Graves and Bond's fencing battle they shake with their right hands. By tradition all fencers shake with their left. Something going back hundreds of years about never releasing your weapon. (00:56:35)
Correction: Both Bond and Graves have a certain disdain for tradition and each seems to recognise that in the other. Using the wrong hand is an acknowledgement of that.
29th Mar 2003
Cube (1997)
Corrected entry: About 33 minutes in Worth and Quentin have argument and Worth ends up screaming out "There is no way out of here". This leads to the revelation that he designed the shell around the cubes. Then when Leaven questions him he tells them about the door. Which means there is a way out that he knows of. So why did he scream that there wasn't?
Correction: While he knows that there is physically a way out, he also knows that the entire cube is essentially rigged to kill them, either directly or through their own actions. He simply doesn't believe that they have the remotest chance of getting to the exit, hence his statement.
14th Oct 2003
Cube (1997)
Corrected entry: When Leaven finds out that there are 26x26x26 rooms, it's because at a certain point she thinks there's a fault in the numbers. She says "it's impossible to have a number higher than 26". Now how can that be true when throughout the rest of the movie they struggle with big numbers?
Correction: Leaven is deriving the room numbers from the larger numbers that are inscribed in the cubes. It's the room number that cannot be more than 26 (other than the 'bridge' room), not the actual numbers that they're finding.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Correction: While none of the other members of the League are likely to have encountered cars (Harker and Skinner seem to be quite reclusive, Quatermain's been in Africa for years), it seems highly likely that Sawyer, as a well-travelled government agent, would be familiar with such vehicles and would know how to drive them.
Tailkinker ★