Best sci-fi movie mistakes of all time

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Dune picture

Other mistake: There is a scene in which Piter DeVries is talking about the Landsraad (one of the governmental organizations in Dune). Twice he mispronounces the name, saying "Lansdraad" instead.

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Star Trek V: The Final Frontier picture

Other mistake: Spock lifts his crew mates with the rocket boots. He passes deck numbers 35 through 78 from bottom to top. First off, deck numbers go from top to bottom. The bridge is on deck 1. Second, the Enterprise of that class only had 23 decks.

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The Core picture

Plot hole: How do they maintain communication between the ship at the centre of the earth and the surface? There's no wire, and radio waves can only travel any distance without obstacles, and the earth's crust would be a pretty hefty obstacle...

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Planet of the Apes picture

Plot hole: The "video history" of the crashed USAF ship makes it very clear that the planet is uninhabited when they "landed". I can understand how a race of apes develops - they had a bunch of them on board. I can understand how a race of humans develops - they are descendants of the original crew. What I don't understand is...where the heck did all the horses come from?

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Suggested correction: Humans refer to parts of their own planet as uninhabited even though they are crawling with animals - vast areas of the Arctic are "uninhabited" even though polar bears and seals are found there. Were we to find a planet with nothing but primitive horses on it, we would label it as uninhabited. Apes and humans came from the crashed spaceship, horses were always there.

Which still makes no sense whatsoever.

Charles Austin Miller

I agree with you Charles. Horses are native to Earth but, the Oberon lands on a planet light years from Earth so it's a big plot hole how horses from one planet could end up on another when the planet was not only uninhabited but, the Oberon was believed to be lost.

Again, the Oberon was a massive space station, genetically experimenting with many earthly lifeforms, including horses, apparently. The time/space-rift was very near Earth (Mark Wahlberg made the journey in about 25 seconds at the end of the film. Not years but seconds). The implication is that the Oberon passed through the rift, and much of the crew survived to continue their genetic research on what later became the Ape Planet. So, the Oberon initially arrived on a barren planet and introduced all of the biological and botanical species, including apes, horses, and everything else.

Charles Austin Miller

Suggested correction: According to the backstory, the space station Oberon was dedicated to genetic modification sciences. They were actually experimenting with animal genes in the safety of space (which kind of makes sense). Given that the Oberon was a truly gigantic space station, it's not too much of a speculation that they were experimenting on many different types of animals (not just apes). When the Oberon crashed on Ashlar, half its crew was killed, but half survived with a number of ship's systems still functional, and they continued their genetic research, possibly producing a number of Earthly species on the otherwise uninhabited planet.

Charles Austin Miller

I think this should've been posted as a question, rather than a plot hole.

Charles Austin Miller

That's just a wild guess. There hasn't been a single mention of horses on board the Oberon. Even if there were, why only horses?

lionhead

Wild guess? The Oberon was experimenting in genetic modification, which implies a broad range of research...and not just on great apes. The Oberon was gigantic enough to be an Ark.

Charles Austin Miller

So where are all the other animals?

lionhead

Exactly. Where are the birds, lions, lizards, etc?

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Resident Evil: Afterlife picture

Continuity mistake: Right after Bennett takes off in the plane, Claire throws a gun to Alice. Between the slow-motion shots, the gun switches position in mid-air before Alice catches it. In the shot of Claire throwing it, the barrel is facing to the right, meaning that it should be facing to the left in the shot of Alice catching it. But it still faces the right when she does. (00:58:30)

THGhost

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World War Z picture

Factual error: An An-12, the aircraft the main character uses to fly all over the world, has a maximum range of about 3,500 miles. Hardly enough to fly from the US to South Korea or from South Korea to Israel. The An-12 also miraculously transforms into a C-130 in a couple of filler scenes. And why is this ex-Soviet aircraft marked in USAF markings, assigned to McGuire AFB?

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Suggested correction: Can't speak to the second half of your paragraph (should really post as 3 separate mistakes) but as for the first, a range of 3500 miles, aircraft such as the kc-135 exist and aerial refueling is fairly common place. Considering it's a mission supported by the acting UN Secretary General to stop a world crisis, resources could have been diverted for refueling.

The initial launch from the carrier is a C-130 which can do this (if empty, minimal fuel, has the full length of the flight deck and the carrier is steaming full ahead into the wind). It then morphs into an AN-12 and back to a Hercules. They make the point that this small fleet is what is known to remain of allied forces so not sure where any tanker support will come from. Many movies have ridiculous range issues with aircraft anyway.

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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure picture

Other mistake: Beethoven didn't seem fussed nor resentful of Napoleon being part of the group. Historically he temporarily admired him and wrote the Third Symphony inspired by Napoleon's ideals of Europe's new hope of enlightenment but later despised him after he crowned himself Emperor of France in 1804 and furiously scribbled out his name off the title page of his Third Symphony and named it Eroica which he originally titled it as "Bonaparte Symphony" due to his former admiration of Napoleon.

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Ad Astra picture

Factual error: It is not possible that Pitt could have gone up to the ship when it was already blasting off. There was literally fire in the tunnel.

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Suggested correction: It was a bit confusing, but what I saw was a shower of sparks or hot particles and some fumes, and no fire in the tunnel until he was through the hatch. The makers may have been influenced by seeing vapour prior to a rocket launch, and then some rockets use a shower of electric sparks to ignite the engines. It was implausible, but no fire in the tunnel.

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Time Bandits picture

Factual error: When the Titanic sinks all six dwarves and Kevin end up in the sea clutching a lifebelt. The water in which the Titanic sank was freezing - that is how most of the casualties died, by freezing, not drowning. In water like that you'd be lucky to stay conscious for more than a few minutes. Despite this none of them show the slightest effect of the cold. Maybe the dwarves have some 'magical' ability to withstand lethal cold, but Kevin doesn't even react to being plunged into freezing cold water. He'd be screaming in pain, but he doesn't even show the slightest sign of discomfort.

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The Faculty picture

Continuity mistake: Mr. Furlong pushes Zeke into the fishing tank and it breaks, soaking him from head to toe with water. Moments later they are walking out and he is dry.

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Hot Tub Time Machine picture

Continuity mistake: When Lou and Nick are playing pool in the bar, Lou goes to break the rack and misses. When Nick goes to break them, the balls are racked in a different pattern. (00:50:10)

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Alien: Covenant picture

Continuity mistake: Daniels' face gets splattered with blood, in a following shot there's slightly less blood, then when she uses the radio to call back the others, her face on the screen shows no blood at all. In the other shots after it's there again.

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Men in Black 3 picture Men in Black 3 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: As the hand creature busts the shackles off Boris' legs in Lunar Max, you can see the bottoms of his pants over his metal prison boots. There are only a few folds and wrinkles over his left foot, and the pants over right foot are hardly wrinkled at all, or affected as the creature climbs up his right leg. But only a couple of seconds later, we see another shot of Boris' feet as the creature breaks off the metal sleeve of his arm, and suddenly his pants legs are very wrinkled. Boris was standing perfectly still the entire time. Boris' legs are also suddenly closer together. (00:03:35)

Quantom X

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Plan 9 From Outer Space picture

Revealing mistake: When Bela Lugosi walks off screen, it's obviously a freeze frame. The swaying tree stops moving and even though he was hit by a car, his shadow is still visible. (00:07:55)

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Next picture

Continuity mistake: When Nick is sitting on the bed talking to Jessica, her position changes from lying on her side to lying on her back, as the camera angle changes.

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind picture

Other mistake: One visual that has always bothered me that I could not find in your list were the scenes when the mother ship first appears. It's enormous scale appears to dwarf Devil's Tower and the whole surrounding area actually, but when it moves over to the "landing strip" area and begins to rotate 180° (right-side up?), it suddenly seems to shrink to a much smaller size and mass during the slow revolution. On its originally-seen scale above/behind the tower, one would think that either the great ship's outer prongs would have been torn off, or more likely the impromptu landing site and most of Devil's Tower would have been destroyed as the huge craft rotated itself. The visual scales just do not stay consistent throughout the film's climactic final act.

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Back to the Future picture Back to the Future mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Marty chases after Biff on the borrowed 'skateboard', Marty is wearing a dark grey belt and a red/blue print shirt under his red/beige jacket. However, when Marty is hanging on to the front of Biff's car as they turn a corner (and in another shot), Marty (stunt double) is wearing a light brown belt and solid tan shirt. (01:07:00)

Super Grover

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Thor: Ragnarok picture

Continuity mistake: When Karl Urban is defending the Asgardians, the dust covers on his rifles vary between being open and closed several times. M16 dust covers are sprung loaded - they open on the first shot and have to be manually closed afterwards.

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