War of the Worlds
War of the Worlds mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Ray and Ogilvy play tug-of-war with the gun, as the aliens rummage around the cellar, Ogilvy finally pulls it away from Ray. In the next close-up of Ogilvy and his gun, the boom mic dips down for a moment, but it's gone in Ogilvy's next close-up. (01:28:15)

Super Grover

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When they stop so the kids can go to the toilet, in a long shot of Ray trying to persuade Rachel not to go too far, we see him start to open the boot (trunk) of the car. When it cuts to a closeup he's not. (00:47:50)

Jon Sandys

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene when Ray is fleeing Mary Ann's destroyed home in the van. Right before he says "Robbie, get in." You can see a cameraman in the reflection of the van, right before it stops.

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Ray and Robbie are throwing the ball near the start, check the wall behind Robbie. In closer shots of him there's sunlight on the wall and the shadow of a nearby satellite dish is visible, but in wider shots the whole wall's in shadow. (00:09:00)

Jon Sandys

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Ray steals the van and speeds away there is a registration sticker at the corner of the windshield, on the driver's side. The sticker is gone when Ray starts shouting, "You saw! We're under attack!" when they're on the freeway. (00:30:10 - 00:32:15)

Super Grover

War of the Worlds trivia picture Video

Trivia: Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, stars of the 1953 version of this movie, make a small cameo in this movie as Mary Ann's parents. They are at the end when the whole family is reunited.

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Ray places the silver garbage can at the curb, he places it parallel to the other cans, but in the following shots they form a triangle. They also change position, such as the blue recycling can being directly in front of Tim's back car, yet when Robbie gets out the can is far enough away from the car to allow the back door to open freely. (00:05:00)

Super Grover

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Revealing mistake: While tossing a baseball with his son, Ray calls him a "dick." If you look at his hand at that point, one can notice that his hand is closed in a fist, and he is not holding the baseball he is prepared to throw. (00:10:10)

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Robbie gets out of Tim's car there are two of the crew's chalk marks on the sidewalk - one long blue line in front of Ray and an orange arrow near the trunk of the car. They are gone when Rachel leaves the car. (00:05:00)

Super Grover

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In Boston, Ray and Rachel discover dead red weed on a statue. If you look behind them, you can see a space between two buildings that is clear, only sky. In the next shot, when the crashed tripod is being shown, the spot where there was just sky now has the tripod legs. Compositors forgot to add the tripod in the previous shot. (01:41:55)

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Ray and Rachel crawl under the kitchen table during the lightning strikes, in the first shot Ray's entire body is behind the leg base, yet in the next shot his arms and upper body are in front of it. (00:16:15)

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In one of the earlier scenes where they are in the dad's house, just before Rachel tells Ray that Robbie took the car, Rachel is slouching on the couch with her left leg crossed over her right. In the next shot she is sitting up with her hands on her face, and now her right leg is crossed over her left. (00:12:25)

dizzle

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Mary Ann pulls the cord out of the iPod and holds it with the screen facing her palm, as she explains about Robbie's Algeria report. However, in the next shot the iPod is held in her hand the opposite way. (00:06:55)

Super Grover

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the tripod tosses the pickup truck, with Ray in it, it lands upside down and the windshield shatters. The size, shape, and characteristics of the hole and breakage greatly differ between shots. (01:36:25)

Super Grover

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the tripod is taken down, the lights are flickered out on it. But in a couple of scenes later, the lights are working again on the tripod, right before the alien crawls out of the hatch.

War of the Worlds mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the asphalt in front of the church starts to crack and move and Ray gets on the sidewalk, his legs are positioned in different ways in two different shots. (00:22:36)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: With the way Ray moves his feet (hopping/dancing quickly from one foot to the other), I don't see a discrepancy.

KeyZOid

If you look closely in the first shot he keeps one foot on the asphalt and the other one on the sidewalk, in the other shot he has both of them on the sidewalk, so the discrepancy is very evident.

Other mistake: When Ray pulls up to Mary Ann's home, the front exterior layout and dimensions of the house are evident, from its near center front door to the two car garage, in front of Ray's van. The side exterior wall contains two large garage doors, which are about 35-40 ft from the location of the front door, with no small basement windows at ground level; inside, beside the front door, the stairs that lead to the basement run parallel just under the stairs in the foyer. In the basement, the small windows on the far end of the furnace room they run into are only about 20 ft from the basement stairs. Not only are the small windows non-existent in the exterior shot, but it's entirely impossible for two small windows to be where they are, considering the exterior footage of the house. (00:34:30 - 00:40:20)

Super Grover

More mistakes in War of the Worlds

Ray: Can you think of a plan that doesn't involve your 10-year-old sister joining the army?

More quotes from War of the Worlds

Trivia: When a group of aliens are exploring in the cellar, one of them spins the wheel of an overturned bicycle, and all are startled when the bicycle falls, making for a moment of comic relief. There's more to it, though. The H.G.Wells book mentions that the aliens probably had no concept of the wheel, as not a single rotating part was found inside the captured tripods. So an upside-down bicycle must have puzzled them a great deal.

More trivia for War of the Worlds

Question: I'm still a bit confused on the tripods' actual height. I can't find it anywhere and I just wanted to make sure how tall the tripods are. Preferably in meters but any measurement is fine.

Answer: They're reported to be about 100 feet tall.

Which is about 30.5 meters.

lionhead

They definitely seemed a lot taller than 100ft in the movies though that's for sure. I would have guessed maybe a few hundred feet.

Answer: In this film, their height is about 150 feet.

Bishop73

More questions & answers from War of the Worlds

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