Continuity mistake: In the crowd at Little Saigon, the same extras can be seen appearing multiple times. A particularly obvious one when TC surprises Magnum and stretches his arm trying to stop him from walking away. Right in front of them, there's an old woman with a younger female in a black shirt with a diagonal stripe. Several seconds pass and those two are in the little crowd that witness Rick and Thomas fighting over the kid. (00:34:50)
Continuity mistake: Magnum shows the picture to the old lady in the street by holding it from the top corner in the first shot, the bottom in close-up. (00:33:50)
Other mistake: Magnum and his bride seek shelter under table during the bombardment; if it happened the way it is shown, with a model completely torn to pieces, and with flames in frame during the first table shot, they would surely not be able to stay there, nor would have taken refuge there to begin with - if the roof did not kill them already falling on them. (00:25:10)
Other mistake: The US delegation pops from behind some trees with military copters that are explicitly presented as deafeningly noisy; it's just silly and internally contradictory. Even if we forget how underplayed helicopter noise often is in Hollywood, here we go from zero to thunderous in a split second. (00:21:40)
Continuity mistake: When Gen. Hu is teasing Col. Ky about his need to justify his lack of results, the shadow cast on his chest changes heavily with the camera angle. (00:21:15)
Continuity mistake: When TC and Magnum have the conversation on the beach, extras are constantly recycled; obvious example is the girl with a bandanna and a red bikini, appearing behind both too. (00:17:30)
Continuity mistake: Rick checks out of the photo Magnum hands him. In the background, cards are scattered on the table. The next time we see the table a couple cuts later, the two of hearts changed position, now being on top of the scattered cards, and it is in yet another position during TC's close-up. (00:14:35)
Deliberate mistake: Magnum spots the fateful brunette on the yacht. During this scene, a couple times he sees her with the exact angle of the camera zoom when he just pulled away from it. (00:11:00)
Continuity mistake: After being negligent with his paying customer tossing the evidence in the ocean, Magnum is taking pictures of a ship. From behind, he's taking pics with both hands on the camera, from the front, he's handling it with just the right one. (00:10:25)
Continuity mistake: Asking for camera film was a bit much, so Magnum skedaddles with a cheeky grin before the lads chew him off. As he makes his exit, he is holding the bag in a different way, with the strap across instead of straight. (00:08:10)
Plot hole: Magnum and Rick manage to switch Yuri with Fillipovitch through sheer magic; they base their infiltration on a little boat barely big enough to contain the two of them, with no room for them to hide the uncooperative Russian, plus we see most of their movements including them climbing up. It's simply a 'shocking reveal', but it's not setup in any believable way.
Other mistake: The commanding officer to enter the control room passes in front of two signs which, even with different sizes, say the same thing - but the one on the wall mentions a "Wheeler airbase" (which actually exists), the one on the door a "Delber". (00:02:00)
Factual error: The whole episode begins with the premise that a Soviet pilot would fly his MIG aircraft all the way to Hawaii to defect to the US from the USSR; while the aircraft of this episode is fictional (MIG-30), it still is at unreasonable distance for a military jet fighter of its era.
Continuity mistake: The opening shot of the intro shows the takeoff two planes with a black nose and USAF written under the wings. When they are in flight later after the control room scene, stock footage is used, because now the planes have "MARINES" written above the wings, followed again by a close-up, this time of a white nosed airplane (or mock-up) with a recognizable number 23 that was absent before. (00:01:30)
Continuity mistake: During the credit sequence, at "Directed by", the pilot undoes the seatbelt. Under the suit, his left wrist reveals the presence of a watch, which is at the right wrist when he gets out of the plane. (00:05:15)
Continuity mistake: When Rick in disguise is in front of an athlete's bungalow and questioning the size of her extra 'chromosome', the fake Press pass on his chest is angled differently between shots. (00:29:00)
Continuity mistake: Higgins is stunning comrade Kalugin with all his blabbing; in the view from Magnum's POV, the two are sitting in an area under direct sunlight, contrary to the rest of the scene. (00:27:50)
Continuity mistake: Magnum is teasing Higgins about the "toys" and sits in front of the Austerlitz model. Higgins holds the statuette in different ways (by the base, or with a finger on top) depending on the camera angle. (00:22:35)
Factual error: The first attempt to extract Nina fails. The messy and grizzled KGB agent says then, in captions (hard subs); "Excuse, Mikhail Fillipovitch." Filipovic, maybe, surely not with the double L; you can also hear in the pronunciation there's no double. (00:15:00)
Continuity mistake: Yuri and Magnum are stalking the athletes from their observation spot. When Yuri says "Her English is very good", his right hand is by Magnum's side. Next shot and it's behind Magnum's other shoulder. (00:13:00)
