Question: When Venkman is on the phone with Egon, he says that he shot Dana/Zuul up with 300 cc of Thorazine. Since Thorazine is a powerful anti-psychotic drug, it's unlikely that Dana had some in her medicine cabinet. If she didn't already have some on hand, then where did Venkman get it? He said that he has a PhD in psychology, so is he able to prescribe medications for anyone?
lionhead
11th Feb 2010
Ghostbusters (1984)
14th Jun 2011
X-Men: First Class (2011)
Other mistake: Near the end of the film, Magneto finally kills Shaw by pushing a coin through his brain. The blood on the coin is already dry when it hits the ground, even though only seconds have passed, and since we're shown blood leaking from the entry wound later, we know that it wasn't dry to begin with.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Xavier has frozen Shaw in place with telepathy. Thus, the reason why the blood appears dry on the coin, is because it is still Shaw's essence, and is still technically frozen in place.
Telepathy doesn't physically freeze a body. He is forcing his mind to stand still.
19th Dec 2010
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Question: Why does Hugo Stiglitz kill the German officers in the first place? The film mentions his enlistment, but how is this related to his killings?
Answer: Based on his willingness to join the Basterds, we can assume he killed them because he didn't believe in what the Nazis were doing.
There is a cut of him being whipped during the bar scene. I think he was taking revenge for harsh and perhaps undeserved punishment.
No, the whipping is how it feels in his mind sitting next to that SS officer and having to pretend to like him and be a Nazi. He's ready to snap.
9th Sep 2016
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Question: When Harry first meets Dobby in his bedroom, in Chapter Two, he asks Dobby if the danger at Hogwarts has something to do with Voldemort. Dobby shakes his head no. But it is later revealed that Lucius Malfoy's plot did involve Voldemort after all. Why did Dobby lie to Harry?
Answer: Lucius Malfoy didn't know the diary was a horcrux and had part of Voldemort's soul in it. It was unintentional and nobody could know beforehand Voldemort was involved in all of it. Including Dobby.
Lucius most certainly knew that "Tom Riddle" was Voldemort. The entire plot centers on that Lucius was up to no good.
I didn't say he didn't know it was Voldemort's diary. I said he didn't know it was a horcrux. He just knew the diary was bad news and tried to pass it on to the Weasleys.
Answer: Dobby is not lying. But he is not able to reveal the name Voldemort, due to his bond to his master, and instead tries to give a - quite unintelligible - hint about who is behind the plot: "I've got just one question, Dobby, " said Harry, as Dobby pulled on Harry's sock with shaking hands. ' You told me all this had nothing to do with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, remember? well-" "it was a clue, sir." said Dobby, his eyes widening, as though this was obvious, "was giving you a clue. The Dark Lord, before he changed his name, could be freely named, you see?" (at the very end of book 2, about third to last page).
18th Jan 2021
Jurassic Park (1993)
Corrected entry: In order to open a park like that to the public (and obviously it's close to the opening date) Hammond would have to convince more people than just his investors. In reality, the park would have to pass a security review, and those auditors would definitely ask questions like "What happens in case of a catastrophic computer failure?" Something tells me the answer "All the fences turn off and you have to run across the compound to turn them back on manually" wouldn't sit too well with them.
Correction: We don't know that Hammond is not going to do that. Having to convince the investors is just the first step. Without financing, nothing else matters because the park will never open.
The park is all but finished. You convince investors at the beginning, inspectors at the end. Convincing investors after the fact is just not how it works. Thinking about what the security inspectors will ask at the end is equally bad practice, although I have seen it done that way, if not quite at that scale.
The whole manual reboot had to be done because Dennis Nedry locked them out of the system, so they had to do a hard reboot. Dennis Nedry's virus and meddling also shut the fences down intentionally. In practice the reboot would be done with more time on their hands and someone at the compound ready to reboot quickly enough that all fences go back online in time. In this situation however, they didn't have those luxuries. No system can be fully made failsafe from industrial sabotage or hacking.
8th Oct 2021
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Question: Is this true that line "I didn't know you could read" was improvised by Tom Felton, who forgot his original line?
Answer: Yes. It's a common occurrence in a lot of movies for actors to forget their original lines so they improvise something to help move the scene along and not break character. Tom did this because he forgot what his original line was.
Answer: Yes in the same way Daniel Radcliffe improvised his line about always being around when talking to Lucius at the end.
Actually, Jason Isaacs said that, and he and Daniel didn't forget their lines but did it intentionally.
4th Jan 2019
The Terminator (1984)
Question: How exactly do both the Terminator and Kyle find addresses? We are led to believe that is the reason for the phone books, but none of the addresses in the phone books match up to the addresses where either the first Sarah is killed, nor the apartment of our Sarah.
Answer: My two cents: The T-800 Terminator does indeed, rip out the page of a phonebook for the address, but remember, he was looking for any and all Sarah Connors, not a specific address. He did not know which Sarah would give birth to John Connor, so by process of elimination he began terminating any woman with the name Sarah Connor. He did plug the first Sarah Connor (a housewife), then went to kill the other Sarah Connors in the phone book.
I already gave that answer, but apparently that's not what the question is asking.
Answer: Gonna be totally honest... that might just be nothing more than a simple continuity error. They accidentally made a phonebook prop that didn't match up with the locations where they shot, and assumed most people wouldn't notice or care. (And to be even more honest, I never noticed it until I saw this question today.)
Answer: Both the T-800 and Kyle look up Sarah's address in the phonebook and it's Kyle who rips out a page. Neither uses a police computer; that's the T-1000 in Terminator 2.
But that doesn't answer the question (and it's already been mentioned) since the information in the phonebook appears wrong.
Answer: Kyle, as we are shown, uses a police computer to find the addresses. The T800 just uses the phonebook as you mentioned. He rips the page out and takes it with him.
Except 2 of the addresses in the phone book don't match. So how does the Terminator find them using the phonebook?
The Terminator is just blindly killing everyone in the phone book whose name is Sarah Connor (apparently a common name). Process of elimination. So, the day he arrives, unrelated women named Sarah Connor start dropping like flies, and the police believe it's the work of a serial killer. Our heroine Sarah Connor barely escapes this sweeping extermination by sheer luck and Kyle's intervention.
You just described the plot. Were you trying to answer the question? Because the question still stands. (As it is, it's either a mistake or plot hole in the film).
Perhaps I'm not getting the question. What is meant by "none of the addresses in the phone books match up"? Match up to what, the murder scene addresses? I wasn't aware that the murder scene addresses were prominently displayed.
Exactly. The addresses seen don't match. Specifically the first Sarah Connor's house number is "14239", but in the phonebook it is listed as "1823." And the real Sarah Connor lives in an apartment but the phonebook doesn't list an apartment number.
Perhaps though this all doesn't matter because phone books can quickly become outdated, the phone book he found could be over a year old. Someone moves but can still be listed in the phone book with their old address. He could have gone to the addresses but found someone else living there and then asked where the previous owner might be, and he was told (or he forced them). This might be how he found all the Sarah Connors.
Are any of the Sarah's listed as living at 1823? I've not got access to the film right now to check.
The first is listed as "1823." The second is "2816." The 3rd is "309." Although after reviewing the scene and thinking about it, for "309" (which is supposedly our Sarah J Connor), the full address isn't actually seen and the apartment number could have been listed.
Reese never uses a police computer; that's the T-1000 in Terminator 2. He rips out the page from the phonebook. The T800 also uses the phonebook but is never shown ripping out a page.
27th Sep 2021
Total Recall (1990)
Question: Why is there air in and around the reactor? Humans have extensively researched the reactor, so they obviously needed air to do it, but doesn't Cohaagen control all the air on Mars, and the reactor? So if he doesn't want anyone to turn the reactor on why not simply drain the air from the reactor so nobody could go there?
Answer: The entire chamber is full of the alien graphite that converts into a breathable atmosphere for the entire planet.
But it's not activated.
Answer: They are on a planet with very little atmosphere; therefore, there must be a supply of environmental suits readily available for exploration of the planet's surface and for going outside to repair problems with the outside of the dome. If there are a number of suits available, the absence of air around the reactor would not be a deterrent. People could simply "borrow" one of the many suits and walk on in regardless of the lack of air.
5th May 2015
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Trivia: The voice of Biff's grandmother was provided by Thomas F. Wilson.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: According to The IMDB website, Charles Fleischer who played Terry the Tow Truck Driver and the old man taking donations in 2015, provided the voice of Gertrude Tannen.
And other sites list Wilson as the voice of Gertrude. Neither men are credited for the role and I have yet to see any site list a source for the information.
Https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0281486/otherworks.
IMDB is not considered a good source. Plus, on that site the information is given as trivia without a source, any crackpot could have claimed that.
Well until you can show me a confirmed source stating it was anyone else, my correction stands.
But IMDB isn't a confirmed source. Here's a site that lists Wilson as the voice actor, so by your logic the trivia entry stands. https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Gertrude_Tannen.
On the audio commentary it is stated that the voice of Grandma Tannen is Fleischer. This is stated right after we hear "her" voice when the outside of her house is being shown.
16th Jan 2017
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Question: Two questions: something I have never understood about Marty traveling into the future to stop his kid from going to jail. In the first movie when Doc. puts his dog into the time machine and sends him 1 min into the future the car disappears for 1 min and arrives back with the dog in the car. Doc explains that as far as the dog is concerned the trip was instantaneous but to Marty and Doc the dog disappears for 1 min. The question is when Marty travels into the future shouldn't he have "disappeared" for 30 years and not had an older self. The second question is, why is it so important for them to travel 30 years into the future to stop his kid from getting arrested, couldn't he have just as easily told Marty "hey on this day and year, don't let your kid leave the house. You have 30 years to figure out a reason or break his leg."
Answer: In the film, that one event sets off a chain reaction that destroys Marty's family, so it's paramount that they stop it from ever happening. Too many things could go wrong just trying to prevent it. Since Marty Jr. looks like 1985 Marty, the plan is to have Marty Sr. Take his place, rather than try to get 2015 Marty Sr. To ground his son or something. Plus, Doc says it's important they don't know too much about their future, so that's why he can't just tell them what to do in 30 years because he could reveal too much. Of course, if you overthink it too much, you can make it all fall apart, or come up with different ways to accomplish the same thing.
Chosen answer: To answer the first question, it's because Marty ultimately returns to the past and therefore does live his normal life for the next 30 years. Had Einstein traveled back that one minute, he would be there as well. As to the second question, Doc needs to be sure Marty's son doesn't go and can't leave it to chance that Marty will take take care of it after 30 years.
28th Dec 2020
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Other mistake: Fireworks use heated metals to produce the various colors seen when they explode - Iron, Nickel, Cryolite, magnesium and copper filings. Flying a jet engine through exploding fireworks would cause serious damage to the engine.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Diana had conjured an invisibility shield around the jet that would likely protect it from the fireworks.
Agreed, the spell does obviously do more than just make the plane invisible. When looking at the invisibility of Themyscira, the spell obviously filters out the atmosphere and only can't keep out solid objects like planes and ships.
If the cloak of invisibility "filters out the atmosphere", how is the air needed to run the engines getting in?
It filters the atmosphere, not keep it away. So it keeps the atmosphere that comes in clean.
13th Sep 2021
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Question: When the video of the dead girl is played at her funeral it shows her mom adding something to her soup. What was she adding to the girl's soup?
Answer: She was adding some type of poisonous household substance over an extended period of time. It appears the mother suffered from Munchausen By Proxy syndrome, a psychological disorder where a parent knowingly makes and keeps their child (or some other relative) sick. The parent usually does not intend to kill the child, but they have become addicted to the attention and drama of interacting with doctors, other medical personnel and being at the hospital. In this case, the daughter died.
To add, she was feeding her daughter an industrial disinfectant and detergent called Nu-Pine (for wooden floors). She gave small doses which slowly poison the body, causing organ failure over time.
That is just an assumption. It's just as plausible that the mother intended to kill the girl, but was doing it slowly so as not to attract attention. That's how I've always interpreted it.
31st Aug 2021
Beetlejuice (1988)
4th Sep 2021
What If...? (2021)
What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger? - S1-E1
Other mistake: The premise of the first episode is flawed; "a single choice" should make the difference, the choice being identified as Ms. Carter not leaving the room to get in the observation booth. But in the normal timeline the booth is exactly where all the other characters were. In this reality everyone else is downstairs, with the German spy that inexplicably sets the bomb early. If anything, it's his bizarre, suicidal choice that matters.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: Except it was her decision to not leave the room that delayed the procedure and gave Heinz Kruger the chance to attack. And with her in the room, she is now given the chance to volunteer to take the serum.
How did her staying delay the procedure? Besides, in OTL the spy only triggered the bomb after he saw the procedure succeed, to know it works before stealing it.
Question: Why did Jack cut himself before throwing the coin to Will? I thought the curse only needed Will's blood?
Answer: The curse needs the blood of everybody who took a coin from the chest. All the other pirates have already contributed so, as the movie opens, the only blood needed is Will's, substituting for his father. During the finale of the movie, Jack takes a coin from the chest, adding himself to the curse, so his blood is now required as well as Will's.
But I didn't see any blood on the coins, and none of the pirates cut themselves, even before Will became part of the mix.
Yes, the other pirates did cut themselves before Will came into it, off-screen. The lack of blood on the coins can simply be explained as most of it dripping to the bottom of the chest, it being washed away by storms blown into the cave, or by the fact that they didn't drop that much blood on it in the first place.
When they had Elizabeth they believed she was Bill Turner's daughter, but they all thought the curse had failed, none of them had cut themselves so it makes zero sense.
They had been collecting back the coins for years. During that time they repaid their own blood. All they needed was the last coin and the blood of Bill Turner to break the spell.
Question: Why did one of the Nazgûl stab Frodo at weathertop?
Answer: Because they were trying to kill him and take the One Ring for Sauron.
Why didn't the nazgûl simply take ring from Frodo?
How was one of the nazgûl able to stab Frodo when he put the ring on at weathertop? Considering that people who put the ring on are usually invisible.
To mortal people, yes. But the Nazgûl can sense when someone is using it. Note how they immediately changed directions when Frodo put it on at the Prancing Pony.
12th Aug 2021
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Question: Doc seemed hell-bent on destroying the DeLorean. So why did he go to the future and get a hover conversion done on the train? Why didn't he just build the train, return to his own time and then destroy the train?
Answer: He didn't return to the Old West, both of them had a desire to go to the final frontier. Their favorite author is Jules Verne, who wrote "From Earth to the Moon."
Answer: Doc was happy living in the Old West but returned to the future to collect his dog, Einstein, and he didn't want Marty to worry about him. He probably also wanted to make sure that Marty had made it safely back to his own time, to properly say goodbye, and make sure the DeLorean was never used again. He never indicated he would destroy the train, only the DeLorean. The hover conversion on the train would have been done in the Old West, not in the future.
I doubt he was able to make the train hover in the old west, whilst he could easily go to the future with it and do it there, like he did with the DeLorean. He did say he has been to the future with it, so it's logical to assume that's where he upgraded it.
Doc never says he went further into the future with the train or did the hover conversion there. If he could build a time-traveling locomotive in the 1880s, then he could create a hovering one, as he had the knowledge. Marty asks if he's going back to the future, and Doc says no because he's already been there. That could be interpreted a number of ways. It's a sci-fi movie, and there is a lot of suspension of disbelief employed here.
While the movie isn't explicit about when or where the Time Train was built, other sources do indicate its hoverconversion was done in the future. While Doc could invent a machine that was capable of time travel (the mechanics of which aren't really discussed), he had to travel to the future to convert the DeLorean and couldn't even fix the DeLorean in the past.
What 'other sources' indicate Doc travelled to the future for the hover conversion? Any fan speculation is invalid. I also don't get the argument. While Doc was unable to fix the DeLorean when Marty was in the Old West, he could, and did, in later years, build the time-travel train in the past. He could not otherwise have gone anywhere into the future to do anything. Time-travelling without the hover ability would be extremely difficult as a locomotive would be noticeable and require taking off and landing on empty train tracks. Doc would have to hide the locomotive while converting it. He would also have to know before time-travelling that the railroad tracks he took off on still existed in the future, as he could possibly arrive smashing into what became an urban development. This should be considered as both a deliberate plot hole and a plot device using "suspension of disbelief" solely intended to give the series a spectacular finale.
The comics reveal that Doc Brown traveled to 2017 in a prototype time machine and purchased materials which he brought back with him to the 1890s to use on the Time Train.
30th Jul 2013
Minority Report (2002)
Question: There is a huge question for me. Is the vision of Leo Crow vs. Anderton the vision of what effectively happens (Leo Crow pushes the gun into the hand of Anderton who doesn't want to kill him) or the vision of the homicide WANTED by Anderton (that in the reality changes his idea)? My opinion is that the first answer is correct, because in the vision we see Crow that says to Anderton "Wait!" because he wants to be killed by him. So, if my opinion is correct, Anderton does NOT change the vision?
Chosen answer: Correct, Anderton does not change the vision. The movie is named after what you've just described: the minority report. Agatha always sees the true future, the other two precogs usually see the same as her but sometimes they only see a possible future instead. When Agatha's predictions conflict with theirs, her vision is termed a "minority report" and is disregarded. Anderton was never actually going to kill Crow, it was only ever merely a possibility.
I don't think there is ever a "true future", as in Agatha's own words to John - "You can still choose! You have a choice!" Even the final red ball, Lamar chose to go against the precogs' prevision, which was something that the 3 precogs agreed on. Therefore, a "true future" can be broken and does not exist.
Adding to that, the precog vision of Anderton killing Crow I totally different from what actually happened. In the vision Anderton says to Crow "Goodbye Crow" and shoots him from a distance, which he didn't do at the actual event. So the precog knowledge Anderton has definitely changed the future. He already decided not to kill Crow, but Crow died anyway.
I might disagree with the idea that Anderton was never going to kill Crow. He hacks into Agatha searching for his minority report, and even asks her straight out if he has one, which she tells him he does not. When he is in the hotel room, he confirms that he indeed intends to kill Crow, but Agatha begs him to choose otherwise. Which he eventually does, as does Lamar, proving that precrime is not a perfect system and leads to it being shut down.
5th Apr 2005
Alien (1979)
Corrected entry: When the face sucker jumps at Kane, he only jumps onto Kane's helmet. This is best seen when in slo-mo on the DVD. Having it jump through his helmet, as we are led to believe, would have resulted in some glass breaking and facial lacerations to Kane and injury to the face sucker alien. (00:34:20)
Correction: The face-hugger emits a quantity of acid and burns its way through the helmet visor. The visor is visibly affected - the sides of the hole appear melted, not broken.
Then wouldn't Kane's face be melted?
It secretes enough acid to just melt the helmet and not damage the host.
13th Jan 2004
Enemy of the State (1998)
Corrected entry: In the early scene where Will Smith is confronting the "Mafia Boss" with the video of him consorting with union representatives, the Boss is shown mugging for the camera. Obviously, he knows he is being taped. Immediately thereafter, he starts to threaten Smith, demanding to know who made the tape, as if it had been made surreptitiously.
Correction: He wanted to know how Smith got the tape and more importantly, who made the copy so he could make sure no more were produced.
That's not made clear in the film. Yes he later asks how he got it, but before and even after he keeps saying, "who made the tape?" And eventually he says, "I wanna know who made the tape, and I wanna know in a week." Which giving him a week is another valid question altogether, but unrelated. But this seems to be a mistake as it seems odd that Pintero wouldn't know who's responsible despite mugging for the camera. Without any other explanation or dialogue, this is a plot error.
He wants to know who gave this tape to Smith, who made a version of it that got in the hands of a lawyer. That's what he wants to know. He may or may not know who was actually filming, but he wants to know who it was that got it out of private hands and into the hands of Smith.
Pintero's question "Who made the tape?" refers to the copy that Dean has, not the original which, as already pointed out, he was well aware of.
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.
Answer: They're all three doctors in that field, so it's not unlikely at all that they could acquire the medication. The question then becomes: why did he have it on him at the time?
Phixius ★
Indeed, it's hilarious when you ask yourself that question, and the movie does not have any of the characters question that! Which would have been comedy gold. As the original poster said though; Venkman has a PhD in Psychology, so he can't prescribe the drug, and the other 2 are physicists, so no, I wouldn't say they are doctors in the field?
Sammo ★
A Psychologist could have studied medicine. If you have a medical licence you can prescribe medicine to a patient. This doesn't automatically make a Venkman a psychiatrist, but he is more likely more trained in the actual clinical practise. Doesn't make it less unethical though and if anyone finds out he would have his license revoked immediately.
lionhead