The Butterfly Effect

Continuity mistake: As the teacher and mom walk by the desk, one of the pink papers is not fully impaled on the spike, but a moment later it is. (00:03:45)

Kristal

Continuity mistake: When older, armless Evan is sitting in his wheelchair reading the journal entry that says, "Today Mommy is taking me to play with Kayleigh and Tommy." the writing appears to be on the bottom of the journal page. Yet when he goes back to that time, the writing is at the top of the page just as it was in the original scene earlier in the movie. (00:05:30 - 01:44:35)

Continuity mistake: Young Evan puts the cigarette on the fuse of the blockbuster, and as Lenny walks away the butt is shorter than when Lenny stands up near the mailbox, after tying his shoe lace. (00:12:25)

Super Grover

The Butterfly Effect mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Evan gets his first nosebleed, during the hypnosis session, the blood on his face changes quite a bit as shots change while the doctor is trying to wake him up. One shot shows two streams of blood, another shows only one, and yet another shows hardly any blood at all. (00:18:00)

Continuity mistake: When Evan and his mom go to the psychic for a reading, the position of the money in the glass bowl differs depending on camera angle. (Director's cut) (00:40:30)

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: When Evan and his mom came out from the psychic, she confessed to Evan that she had two stillbirths before Evan. But during the last scene, when baby Evan was trying to kill himself, we hear a different dialogue saying that his mom had three stillbirths before getting him. (00:42:26 - 01:52:09)

The Butterfly Effect mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After Evan beats Tommy to death on the college campus, it shows him kneeling over the body, and there is no blood on his collar. The shot changes to Kayleigh screaming, then back to Evan, in the same position, but now with blood splatter on his collar. He had already finished assaulting Tommy, so there shouldn't have been anymore blood spray. (01:09:25)

Macalou

Continuity mistake: When Ashton Kutcher convinces his jail bunkmate that he is personally in touch with Jesus, by using his journal to cause stigmata to appear on his hands, a stigmata mark can be seen in his right palm before he changes the past (just as he mumbles "tell me if you see anything weird"). (01:17:05)

Continuity mistake: When Evan tries to get his journals back from the bullies in the jail, the object that the guy on the bed is reading alternates from a closed copy of Hustler, to a journal and back several times. (01:18:35 - 01:19:20)

SexyIrishLeprechaun

Continuity mistake: As Evan eats the burger at the Hilltop Cafe, the bit of burger left in his hand after his last bite differs in the next shot as he puts it down. (01:27:25)

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: When Evan shows up at Kayleigh's apartment, in the close-up she covers the plate with the newspaper. In the next shot from the doorway the newspaper, bottled water, etc., are positioned very differently. (01:29:35)

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: When armless Evan goes back, the journal, cereal bowl and OJ are visible in a close-up and in the next shot young Evan rushes away from the table. The position of the journal is quite different in the two shots. (01:44:45)

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: In the final shot of the hypnosis scene we see Evan from above. The blood on his shirt that was visible in the last shot has vanished.

Continuity mistake: After little Kayleigh picks up the blockbuster, older Evan is now at Sunnyvale Institution. The blankets are not tucked under the mattress, then they are tucked when he gets out of bed, and in the shot from under the bed, as he searches for his journals, the blankets hang down to the floor, yet in the next shot they are not.

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: At Sunnyvale, when Evan bursts into Dr. Redfield's office the Doctor stands up and in the wide shot Dr. Redfield starts to put his books down on the desk, but the way he holds the books differs in the next close-up.

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: When Evan wakes up in a mental ward, after he killed Kaylee, the camera zooms around him in bed, which is in the middle of the room. When he gets up to get his journals, the bed is on the left side of the room against the wall.

Continuity mistake: Now a resident at Sunnyvale, when Evan looks under his bed for his journals, in the shot from under the mattress the blood stains that appear on his white tee differ from the stain in the shots before and after.

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: In the scene right after Evan visits Lenny for the first time after 7 years, he is lying on his dorm bed, flipping through his old notebooks. The scene starts out with him biting the nails on his right hand, but in the next shot when the notebook starts shaking, both hands are visibly holding the notebook.

Continuity mistake: When Evan goes back in time to when they are putting the blockbuster in the mail box, his cigarette falls out of his mouth and onto his shirt. He gets burnt, as is shown when he returns to modern times, but all the rest of the scenes with them in the forest just after it happens, there is no burn mark on his shirt.

Poombaea

Continuity mistake: When Evan and his mom go to the psychic for a reading, the position of the money in the glass bowl differs depending on camera angle. (Director's cut) (00:40:30)

Super Grover

More mistakes in The Butterfly Effect

Kayleigh: Hurry up, I want a quickie before school!

More quotes from The Butterfly Effect

Trivia: An alternate ending to the film on the DVD Director's cut has Evan going back to when he was in the womb and killing himself by squeezing the umbilical cord to save his friends from events he may cause.

Nick N.

More trivia for The Butterfly Effect

Question: I am confused about the second-to-last time travel of Evan where he ends up in the hospital/institution because he killed Kayleigh with the blockbuster. Since Kayleigh died after Evan began journaling (I remember Evan writing about being excited to meet Kayleigh's real dad), what happened to the journals that the doctor says Evan never had them? He must've had a journal with something written in it.

Answer: Yes Evan did write that single entry but this time he was at a disadvantage because in this new reality the younger him had already started the blame game of blaming himself and showing symptoms of being in trauma due to which he was institutionalized that same day the incident in the basement happened. Now about that single entry that he wrote before going to meet Kayleigh's dad, it is shown that in this particular reality as he did not maintain a proper journal after that, it got lost and everybody thought he never even started writing it before the basement incident happened leading to everyone believing there is no journal. This explanation is supported by an incident in the movie where the teenage Evan is making a journal at his attic right after his blackout with the blockbuster and Larry being admitted where he finds a box with his grandfather's death certificate and some weird photos in that attic. Later when he is institutionalized and asks for the journals from the doctor the doctor also tells him how his father kept asking for a photo album, suggesting his father also ended up in that institution by jumping realities and ending up in one where his photo got lost and he couldn't reach them anymore (the same photos Evan had found earlier in that attic). So his father got stuck in that institution and he didn't even have a of his birth like Evan did. Unlike his father, Evan got the video of his birth where he was able to stop himself from being born just like his two earlier brothers who reached the same conclusion and were shown in the movie as still births.

rupal

Answer: My assumption is that Evan didn't have black outs after that incident. In the first "future" he said "seven years with no blackouts." So in that alternate future, he must have stopped having blackouts much earlier (at 7 years old) and stopped the journals earlier too.

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