Factual error: When looking at Anna's cell phone, you can see the logo for Telus, a Canadian communication company that only offers cell phone service in Canada.
Factual error: When Marlene goes to the greenhouse and is killed by the falling glass, this would never have happened. It is a federal law that all greenhouses, skylights, and entry-ways are to be made of safety glass. The glass would have to have been made of either a Tempered glass, which breaks in a thousand pieces, like a car window, or Laminated glass, which cracks but does not fall apart, like a car windshield. Neither one of these glasses would have killed her. Surely, law abiding citizens like Clare and her Husband would have followed the zoning laws that came along with building their greenhouse.
Factual error: At the beginning of the film, in Concepción, Chile; the accent spoken is from Central American people, not Chilean.
Factual error: At the end, during the master wide shot of Diana and Shandor (C19 characters) standing over the castle moat, there is a modern aeroplane's vapour trail high above their heads.
Factual error: When Claire pulls herself out of the bathtub, she falls right over the center of the tub. The bloody fingerprints would have been wiped away or completely smeared by her nightgown and bathrobe during the fall.
Factual error: Near the beginning, when the crew is chasing the great white shark and trying to avoid hitting the raft, Captain Nolan yells to the pilot "Hard to port." The pilot turns the wheel to the right, which is starboard.
Factual error: During the mess hall fight between the Sergeant and Horton, the Sergeant cuts the private's head with a cleaver and raises it "to show us". Horton's head is heard breathing and the breathing sounds react to the bug coming out of the head's mouth. I know the parasite bug makes the host's body quite resilient, but wouldn't the head still needs lungs to produce breathing sounds of that kind?
Factual error: The scientists are supposed to be at or near the North Pole. When Capt. Hendry takes off from Anchorage, Alaska the sky is dark (day-for-night) but when he arrives at the Polar base it is broad daylight. The dialogue says the date is Nov. 2 (presumably 1951). Later, when the "Martian" is accidentally released from his block of ice by an electric blanket, the sky is dark again. Later the sun is back up. At the North Pole the sun sets around Sept. 21 and stays down until March 21, when it comes back up. NOAA says polar twilight lingers through "early October" but by November the sky is black 24 hours a day and stays like that for most of the next six months. Also, when he arrives Capt. Hendry is told the explosion took place about 50 miles "due East." If you're at the North Pole there's no such direction as "due East". No matter which way you head, you're heading due South. And from the plane, Hendry refers to "that peak ahead" being due East. The Arctic ice cap is a thick sheet of ice floating in the ocean. That's why submarines can sail underneath it. There are no "peaks" near the North Pole. These guys were thinking of Alaska, not the North Pole.
Factual error: In the close up shot showing the record on the record player, the label correctly identifies the song that played as Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)" but the label also states it is a "Swing Classic," a classification only used when the record was later reissued. The label is inappropriate for a World War II time frame. (00:16:05)
Factual error: When D.J. is attacked by Dr. Weir, he is grabbed by the throat and is squeezed until his windpipe is broken, shown by the way he was breathing (or struggling to). When Weir seizes him again and throws him against a support beam, he screams in a way impossible for someone who just had his windpipe crushed.
Suggested correction: Dr. Weir doesn't crush DJ's throat at all. The noises he makes are simply choking noises because he is being picked up by his throat, there isn't even anything in the scene to imply his throat is being crushed, which in reality requires considerably more effort than most people believe.
Factual error: When the husband swims to the other side of the lake to get some stuff in the truck, he lights his cigarette on one side and when he arrives on the other side, it's still lit. How could he swim trough the lake without getting his smoke wet?
Factual error: After taking off from Bangor, the pilot pulls back on the flight control bringing the plane up to level flight. However, after taking off, a plane is "nose up" and would require pushing forward on the controls to bring the nose down to level. This is also evident by looking at the attitude indicator (circle with top half blue and bottom half brown). The white line indicates the horizon and you can watch the indicator show the plane's attitude coming from below horizon (nose down) to the horizon (level flight).
Factual error: All the soldiers that have rolled up sleeves have them rolled up Marine style (with the inside of the sleeve showing) despite being US Army.
Factual error: Near the end of the movie, Jacob takes a cab to go back to Brooklyn, supposedly from another part of New York. However, in the next shot, we see that at the beginning of the ride, they are already in Brooklyn (on Division Ave, for those who know Brooklyn).
Factual error: The corpse's head in the cafe changes position between shots. (00:34:00 - 00:35:00)
Factual error: Like so many other films that take place underwater, this one makes the mistake of having characters who can hear each other underwater despite not wearing earpieces and having their ears exposed to the water.
Factual error: Ruthie gets impaled on a jagged shard of glass from a modern shower door, but shower doors are made of safety glass (since 1977) - when they break they don't leave sharp knife-like shards, only tiny pieces.
Factual error: Semi-automatic guns don't just click empty, like they do in a lot of movies. The slide would lock back until you manually cock the gun. Yet in the corridor of light scene, this is exactly what happens: Alice's gun just clicks when it's empty.
Factual error: Troy has several chains attached to his body, of which two are attached to his Achilles tendons. This is the structure of the leg that allows you to stand and move, so as soon as he ripped them out, he would have fallen over and been unable to walk.
Factual error: The "Cable Junction" in the movie is a transformer junction station built on a rock pile however when you look at it there is no algae or barnacles anywhere on the rocks. This is impossible because algae and barnacles thrive on rocks in sea water.