Corrected entry: Sherlock Holmes says that the toxin can be made only with some herbals found in the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Turkey was founded in 1923. The movie time line must be before 1894, because the Tower Bridge was opened in that year. Turkey at that time was called Anatolia, and was part of the Ottoman Empire. (01:58:10 - 01:58:55)
Tailkinker
2nd Aug 2010
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
30th Jan 2010
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Corrected entry: In scene of Piccadilly Circus, the statue of Eros is facing the wrong way. This statue was removed for protection during WWII and when returned was put the wrong way around therefore, in this scene the original position should be shown, with Eros' bow landing in Shaftsbury Avenue. (01:04:05)
Correction: Unfortunately, you've fallen for an urban myth that the statue originally pointed towards Shaftesbury Avenue, both to acknowledge the philanthropy of Lord Shaftesbury, to whom the monument is dedicated, and as a visual pun, that Anteros (that the statue depicts Eros is, alas, another myth) firing an arrow would "bury the shaft" in Shaftesbury Avenue. While this is a rather wonderful story, sadly, it's not true; early photographs, taken three years after the monument was erected, show the arrow pointing in the opposite direction, down Lower Regent's Street, appropriately towards Parliament, as Lord Shaftesbury was a prominent political figure.
4th Jan 2010
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Corrected entry: Near the beginning of the film Sherlock Holmes is in his home with Watson and mentions how the flies in a glass case "fly counter-clockwise". Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be English and therefore would have said 'anti-clockwise'.
Correction: The term "anti-clockwise" is indeed the preferred English term, however, as it was not coined until 1895, at least two years after the setting of the film, Holmes would have had no option but to use the older "counter-clockwise" term.
1st Jan 2010
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie, Lord Blackwood activates his chemical weapon remotely using "radio waves". Radio waves were discovered by Hertz as a natural phenomenon in 1888. Radio was not used for anything practical in the 1880's-early 1890's.
Correction: That's the point - this is new and revolutionary technology that even Holmes, with his great knowledge of such matters, finds intriguing. The existence of radio waves was first postulated by Maxwell in 1865, so it's not remotely unreasonable that, in the fictional reality depicted in the film, Blackwood and his people could have produced a working system nearly quarter of a century later.
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Correction: The present-day country of Turkey was only created in 1923, true. However, the name predates the modern country by many centuries; Turk, as a term for a specific ethnic group of people, goes back well over a millenium, with the Ottoman Empire being referred to informally throughout its existence as the Turkish Empire or, simply, Turkey. See, for example, this map, dated 1817, which clearly uses the term "Turkey" to refer to the area.
Tailkinker ★