Continuity mistake: In the first race, there is a delay between the green light and the green fireworks that start the race. However after Parzival figures out the clue in Halliday's Journal and comes back to the race again, when the lights and fog horn start it happens differently. The fireworks and the green light with the long honk happen at the same time and the cars take off. (00:12:35 - 00:26:00)
Plot hole: In all scenes where special or heavy items are used against the sixers, they are 'zeroed' in waves or circles. This can be seen by their stations turning red in clusters. This makes no sense as the stations have fixed positions, meaning that the sixers would have identical positions in the Oasis and have no freedom or own will to move relative to each other.
Plot hole: When Wade and Art3mis are in the dance club he uses Zimecki's cube to turn back time 60 seconds. But the time from when IOI crashes through the roof until Wade uses the cube is 75 seconds. So IOI still would have been there for 15 seconds. Not to mention the fact that it just automatically seems to know that it wants the user and Artemis to also be immune to this silly time reverse effect.
Plot hole: During the final battle, we see all the other players charging over the hill and running into battle. We later see that these are just players standing on the streets wearing VR visors. But unlike our hero who is dangling on wires (and used a treadmill earlier on)...nobody on the streets is using any such thing. Which means when they are charging or running, they would all be crashing into walls or any obstacles that get in their way. Certainly nothing like the film.
Suggested correction: How much you have to move in the real world depends on how much and what kind of haptic gear you're wearing. If you have a boot suit and an omnidirectional treadmill, for example, you do all your own walking, running, and jumping, because you have the space to do it and the haptics to respond to your movements. People with minimal gear-like those we see on the streets-might have only a visor and gloves, say, and they have to do all their "running", "fighting" etc. with signals from their hands. It's like if you don't have a joystick, you have to use the arrows on the keyboard.
I disagree with this. At one point during the big fight you see a group of players as Spartans running along the street, with visors on. They definitely would have run into a wall or other person at some point. I'm sure they were not the only ones. I'm sure it's possible to use something for movement control besides actual physical movements but that scene shows not everybody is using it and there should be a lot of accidents with people running into things and each other. At the start of the movie you see a mom climb upon her couch to imitate climbing up a rock in the game, physically imitating the movement. The lack of showing this disability for players on the streets might not be so big as to be a plot hole, but definitely a factual error.
Here's a clip of the Spartans https://youtu.be/D_eZxSYRhco?t=1m36s that shows they are definitely moving in exactly the same way in the Oasis as they are in real life, so even though yes it would make perfect sense for there to be different control schemes depending on the level of technology a person has, the film appears to show that it's a one-to-one translation of movement regardless of practicality or safety.
I don't think it's an issue. Note that several times in the movie people are also shown to be playing the game while just sitting down at a table. Case in point, the guy that dies on Planet Doom and then immediately jumps up from his work desk and tries to run to the window to jump out. He was sitting down but still playing in the PVP on planet doom. Same is true for right as Wade is telling that when you die all your money and everything you work for is gone. The scene shows Sho stabbing a person's avatar on Planet Doom that then shows the person who was playing that character falling out of a chair he was sitting in. With another person sitting across from him also in a chair.
I think in the end we can all agree its a mistake in the movie but not as big as a plot hole. Some people running, some people sitting down whilst playing, could be a matter of taste, but the Spartans running across the street with a visor on is definitely not logical.
The players have the ability to see the real world because the glasses of most people are transparent, Art3mis even looks at Sorrento approaching in IOI, which Wade even asks why she is looking in that direction if there is nothing there, so the players would not hit the wall when running.
Other mistake: When Helen turns right to "head to the stacks" everyone in the back of the van falls to the right. Centrifugal force would push them to the left. (01:56:06)
Character mistake: After Wade is going over the second clue in his mind and trying to figure out what part of Halliday's past is he trying to escape from, he looks over the wall of article clippings and notes he has hung up. When the camera stops on Karen Underwood's obituary, there is a hand written note beside it listing movies set in New York, with the sentence "Set in New York" underlined. This apparently him looking for clues in films set there for the race challenge that is in Manhattan. However, one of the films he has written on that list is Mad Max, which takes place in Australia, not New York. (00:35:00)
Factual error: The third key Easter egg was actually a color-changing flashing pixel in the Atari Adventure game. You had to grab the purple bridge (they looked like outward facing brackets) and go into a box in the lower left corner of the blue maze and move along the bottom left corner. In the movie, it was picked up in the invisible maze. The wall you walk through then flashes along with the pixel, and you may move through it as shown in the movie to see the author's name.
Continuity mistake: Right in the beginning, Wade hops out a window from his home and starts walking beside it to the edge to climb to the next level down. As he starts walking he passes by another window with a curtain. It then cuts to a closer angle and suddenly the window no longer has a curtain. Also a wire appears on the wall in front of him. And you can tell it is the same house, not a time jump, as the rust at the top of the window frame is exactly the same. (00:01:15)
Character mistake: When Wade is trying to figure out the second clue in his van, he scans his bulletin board that has Karen Underwood Morrow's Obituary. The dates show 1975 - 2034 which would make her 59 (or 58) at the time of her death, but the article to the left of the obituary states that she was fifty six years old at the time of her death.
Continuity mistake: At the start of the movie, they mention that Planet Doom is in Sector 12, but they later mention Planet Doom is in Sector 14.
Visible crew/equipment: A cameraman can be seen in the side mirror when the van stops to pick up Artemis.
Continuity mistake: As the camera pans over to the box holding the Orb of Osuvox, there is a large yellow weapon with an ammo drum sitting to the right of the box. Under the stock of this weapon is a red piece of metal or glass. When Sorrento bends down to open the box and pull the orb out, this piece of metal or glass vanishes. (00:32:15)
Continuity mistake: The area in front of the race's finish line is different when seen in the first race than when seen the second time as Parzival figures out how to get to it. When the camera zooms in on the Finish Line Gate in the first race, there is a train track or something similar right in front of the gate running parallel to the gate and wall. But as Parzival is driving backwards towards it in the second race, this track is gone, and instead there is a small drive path with small railing along it leading perpendicularly right to the gate. (00:15:40 - 00:27:15)
Audio problem: Parzival starts to walk away from the Office Party recording as Halliday says "Why can't we go backwards for once." Parzival stops and turns around, telling the Curator to stop and go back right as Halliday finishes saying "Really put the pedal to the metal you know?" The Curator then replays that same recording over again. However the timing is off - it is actually two different recordings of the actor saying these lines and not the same message replayed. He says it a full second faster the in the replay. (00:24:55 - 00:25:25)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the race, Parzival is accelerating towards the finish line as fast as he can but King Kong smashes down into the road in front of him. In the first person perspective of Parzival through the windshield of his car, he comes up almost right at King Kong with only 2-3 car lengths maximum between him and Kong. It then cuts to a view of Parzival's face as he reacts, and has time to react before switching camera angles again and now the car much much further away from Kong allowing him time to slam the brakes and skid to a stop from moving at high speeds. (00:15:45)
Continuity mistake: When King Kong leaps off the Empire State building to smash an IOI car, the positions of the planes circling the building change between shots, most notably the one closest to the race gets a higher altitude. (00:14:55)
Continuity mistake: Towards the end of the movie, Halliday shows him the self-destruct button. When the van gets hit, he slams into the wall, almost pressing it. Before the van is hit there are controllers hanging on some wooden hanger right under the button, but when he trips and his hand is on top of the button, the wooden hanger, and the controllers magically disappear. (01:59:35)
Continuity mistake: After using the Cataclyst to wipe out everyone, Sorrento exits his gaming rig, falling to his knees and removes the groin section, handing it to the guy as they walk through the door. Next shot we see Sorrento with the piece back in place. In fact, he runs his hands over it as he walks past.
Continuity mistake: During the battle on Planet Doom, Art3mis jumps into the DeLorean to tell Parzival that they're "playing Adventure." She jumps in through the windshield. When the shot changes, the hole in the windshield is now larger.
Continuity mistake: When Parzival, Sho, and Art3mis are in cover before getting to the 3rd challenge, Arty is in trouble and Z shoots her to kill her avatar in game. After he shoots, she drops the controllers, the next shot is of her head with Sorrento coming towards her. On the vest there are 2 blank spots where the controllers are stored; just as Sorrento gets to her, the other guy comes over and gets her up to get back to respawn, and all of a sudden the controllers are in their holder. (01:45:00)
Suggested correction: From a military point of view it makes perfect sense. AOE weapons would be most likely to hit members of the same squads, companies or battalions. It would make sense for squad mates in the oasis to stick together in stations as well. I just watched that scene. As long as the Sixers are trained soldiers or players it makes perfect sense.