Errors in movies

[BRussell]

I'm doing a little project where I'm collecting short clips of errors in films. I'm using this list (http://www.moviemistakes.com/best.php) to try to get good ones.

I'm focusing on visual continuity errors, like when a window is smashed in one scene, and then it's back together in the next scene. But I've acquired some funny ones that aren't really continuity errors, like the storm trooper in Star Wars who bangs his head hard on the overhang when he walks into the room. :D

Anyone seen any of these, or any other good ones not listed? Know of any other good sources for lists of errors?

[thuh Freak]

i haven't seen it, but apparently plan 9 from outer space (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052077/) is just a movie of errors. not intentional either.

[Splinemodel]

There are, incidentally, a bunch in The Lord of the Ring trilogy.

The cars driving around in the background of "The Shire" we digitally removed for the DVD, so no luck there. But I'm pretty sure that the scene in the last one with the guy flopping around his spear, which is made of rubber, did make it to DVD.

[Wrong Robot]

There are tons in the LoTR movies, especially after when comparing the extended editions to the theatrical releases.


My favorite is in Star Wars: A New Hope While sitting around the breakfast table talking about droids, the academy, and farming, luke pours himself a glass of bluish white milkdrink. He's holding it in his left hand, arguing with uncle owen. He makes his point, and the camera cuts to owen, when it returns to luke, he's holding it in his right hand.

ooooooo :p

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Splinemodel
There are, incidentally, a bunch in The Lord of the Ring trilogy. Oh would you get off the Lord of the Rings, for chrissakes. ;)

[tmp]

Here's a whole site devoted to them:



http://www.nitpickers.com/

[Splinemodel]

Originally posted by BRussell
Oh would you get off the Lord of the Rings, for chrissakes. ;)

That first thread came from sitting through the DVDs my friend bought. So it's all still fresh in the memory, as good or bad as that may be. ;)

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Wrong Robot
My favorite is in Star Wars: A New Hope While sitting around the breakfast table talking about droids, the academy, and farming, luke pours himself a glass of bluish white milkdrink. He's holding it in his left hand, arguing with uncle owen. He makes his point, and the camera cuts to owen, when it returns to luke, he's holding it in his right hand.

ooooooo :p I just grabbed it after your suggestion. :D It actually even switches back and forth a couple times.

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by BRussell
I just grabbed it after your suggestion. :D It actually even switches back and forth a couple times.
i guess thats kinda cool, but stuff like that happens in almsot every movie. there are way cooler mistakes.

[giant]

Originally posted by thuh Freak
i haven't seen it, but apparently plan 9 from outer space (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052077/) is just a movie of errors. not intentional either.
Coincidentally, I just got it. I ordered it and couldn't remember why. Then I read an IMDB review (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052077/) and remembered:
Poor poor Plan 9: So bad people just watch it to laugh about how bad it is, yet this fundamental flaw pushes it above bad movies, and so it's stuck in between the bottom 100, and well, no where near the top 250...

Anyway, back to the movie. It is as bad as you've no doubt heard. The scene changes from night to day to night, the spaceship is a hubcap (you can see the string it hangs from catch on fire at one point), I could do a better job acting, etc. ad nauseum. But it takes a hell of a lot to be almost universally considered the worst movie of all time, and here is Plan 9's true strength. There are many horrible of movies, but most of them are so bad because they are too bad to be truly bad, and therefore sink into mediocrity. Plan 9, however, has no redeeming quality's, and so it stands out. Few will recognise a movie such as "The Medallion," but every movie-goer knows Plan 9.

As I said before, it takes a hell of a lot to be the worst. Because of this, Plan 9 is some of the most fun you'll EVER have watching a movie. Almost every scene is so bad I broke out laughing. Few other movies achieve that kind of humor, whether intentional or not. For that I give it a very intentional

[BRussell]

Originally posted by ipodandimac
there are way cooler mistakes. Let's hear 'em!

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by BRussell
Let's hear 'em!
jsut browse moviemistakes.com, as you mentioned in your first post. i mean i dont see a point in making a list here if there's already a massive list on the other site.

[giant]

What about Stepford Wives? At some points in the movie they are just normal women with microchips implanted in their brains while at other times they are straight-up robots.

[Ebby]

I saw a sci-fi movie a long time ago (wasn't that great) about a mine deep underwater or something. Anyways, someone went mad and drilled a hole in the wall, letting water under enormous pressure kill everyone. A security door closed and before it could close all the way, a jet of pressurized water bored a hole through a passer-by. The "detective" on the case said it was a case of "explosive decompression".

This sent my whole family into a hysterical laughing frenzy. And to think nobody working on that movie knew any better...

[pfflam]

I just saw the new version of Vanity Fair and I could swear that it had several very large mistakes . . . I mean major plot sized mistakes: for instance, perhaps I just wasn't watching closely, but twice there are characters introduced as if they have so far had a large sub-plot role but they actually had not even been in the film yet at all . . .

I think that its pretty clear that teh filmaker had intended to try and stick to the Thakery and have all of these other characters but when it came time toi make the movie the time constraints just demanded absurd hacking and slashing....

[Scott]

Hellboy had a large one that I'm not even sure how they did it. For the entire movie his right hand is a stone hand. Then for one short clip it's his left. I'm guessing they did some digital effect and flipped the scene. There's no way they shot the scene that way.

[hardeeharhar]

Originally posted by Scott
Hellboy had a large one that I'm not even sure how they did it. For the entire movie his right hand is a stone hand. Then for one short clip it's his left. I'm guessing they did some digital effect and flipped the scene. There's no way they shot the scene that way.


Flipping frames is a common mistake -- especially when the film is shot in, well, film...

[ipodandimac]

Originally posted by BRussell
Let's hear 'em!
despite my previous post, i'll add one to the list. in Dare Devil, why the hell would his mask cover his ears if his ears are his only means of navigation and his 'superpower?' not a great movie anyways...

[Ra]

In The Omega Man you can see a car driving in the background during the day time (he's supposed to be the only man left on the earth).

[hardeeharhar]

In Red Dawn, as the students are overlooking the highway into the town there is normal traffic moving along as if, you know, nothing was happening -- especially not a massive Soviet assault on US soil...

[jeffyboy]

In Spiderman 2 Doc Ock wants Peter (who he thinks is just a student) to contact Spidey for him.

So he whips A CAR through a diner window at Pete and Mary Jane to say hello!

Still love the movie, though.

J

[hardeeharhar]

Originally posted by jeffyboy
In Spiderman 2 Doc Ock wants Peter (who he thinks is just a student) to contact Spidey for him.

So he whips A CAR through a diner window at Pete and Mary Jane to say hello!

Still love the movie, though.

J

I guess we are all entitled to our opinions...

[crazychester]

In The French Lieutenant's Woman, in one of the 19th century scenes with the ocean in the background, you can see a guy cruise by on a windsurfer.

Not a mistake (well, maybe it is) but this guy (http://www.rense.com/general61/rio.htm) (clip included) reckons there's a UFO flying around in the background in a scene from Rio Grande.

[jeffyboy]

Not a "mistake" in the normal sense, but I remember a big discussion with my friends about the "haunted set" (http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/3menbaby.htm) of Three Men and a Baby.

We rented it just to check it out.

Of course, now it turns out it was just a cutout of Ted Danson accidently left in a couple shots.

J

[Giaguara]

nothing beats Dawn of the Dead ....

they escape on a boat to a tropical island.. from Milwaukee. And a lot of minor minor minor things like the PFK logo on the KFC drinks, teh russian chick having a white baby ... when her man is black and he does not even notice that... i want to buy that movie in dvd so i can try to see how many errors i can catch in it.

[Anders]

Originally posted by Giaguara
teh russian chick having a white baby ... when her man is black and he does not even notice that...

Thats not unlikely.

[MagicFingers]

I'm too lazy to check the links to these sites. but I remember in Commando when Arnold drops the little guy he said "He was gonna kill last but was lying" off the cliff then goes over and rights the little guys overturned, and smash up car that it was in nearly perfect condition as they drove away in it.

[midwinter]

Um. Oops. I said the same thing as the post above this one.

I'm surprised no one has pointed out the mistake of that Star Wars stormtrooper hitting his head as he comes through the door.

[hardeeharhar]

The Mighty Ducks has a scene where a puck shatters a window in a van, and in the next shot the window is perfectly fine...

[tmp]

There was a big one in "Die Hard 2". Bruce Willis is supposedly at Dulles airport in DC, he's shown using a payphone that's clearly marked Pacific Bell.

[applenut]

In Boys and Girls, Freddie Prienze Jr (whatever his name is) drives over the Golden Gate Bridge to berkeley from SF. One would drive over the Bay bridge to do that unless they wanted a 90 min detour

[Scott]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Flipping frames is a common mistake -- especially when the film is shot in, well, film...


So some time when editing someone flipped the film around? :???: It's surprising no one noticed it at all before the movie released.

Maybe Hellboy Directors Cut Extended DVD Collectors Edition will fix it.:D

[JimDreamworx]

Originally posted by Giaguara
Dawn of the Dead .... the PFK logo on the KFC drinks...
Really? Haven't seen the movie, but PFK are the initials of KFC in Canada via a translation in French (something like Poulet Kentucky Fried). I do know parts were filmed in Toronto, as some news guy from a local paper - The Toronto Sun - was bragging about his role as an extra.

[sparhawk]

imdb.com
-> goofs

[Frank777]

Most of what I've read so far are not really mistakes that a casual moviegoer would care about (what phone company's at the airport etc.)

I think he's looking for real mistakes in the movie's script, like in that movie with Julia Roberts and her abusive husband.

She fires seven bullets to kill him in the end, from a gun that only holds six bullets.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Frank777
I think he's looking for real mistakes in the movie's script, like in that movie with Julia Roberts and her abusive husband. I'm looking for obvious examples of what are called visual continuity errors - like one in Spiderman where there's a broken window in one scene and then a few seconds later the window is intact.

I'm looking for these for a little project I'm doing on what's called change blindness - when there is a visual change that we don't notice unless we're shown it specifically. The phenomenon is associated with the idea that people engage in top-down processing, rather than detail-oriented processing.

There are a bunch of good examples in the Demos section of this page (http://rlandman.sdf-eu.org/change_blindness.htm).

Here's an example I'll put inline. How long does it take you to figure out what's changing?

http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/Mudsplash/Nature_Supp_Inf/Movies/Parking%20flicker.GIF

[Scott]

My wife and I were just watching Wild Strawberries. In one “flash back” scene where they are eating brunch or something the “twins” are right next to one another jibber jabbering and then in a wide shot they are spaced apart.

[mattjohndrow]

Originally posted by BRussell
<image>


wow, that did take me awhile

[Scott]

Originally posted by BRussell
...

Here's an example I'll put inline. How long does it take you to figure out what's changing?

...

I can't see any difference.

[Republic]

The painted lines underneath the aircraft seem are never parallel, and are not the same in the two frames.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Scott
I can't see any difference. Look about 1 cm to the southwest of the middle point.

[crazychester]

Originally posted by Republic
The painted lines underneath the aircraft seem are never parallel, and are not the same in the two frames. :lol: Have another look. (Hint: Now you see them; now you don't.)

BRussell is this related to that thing where the brain fills in gaps in our vision. ie. Things we can't really see but the brain makes certain assumptions based on what can be seen and fools us into believing we're seeing when we're not. Oh hell, I'm not explaining this very well. "Persistence of vision" is that the term? I think from memory it's how some optical illusions work.

If you've got no idea what I'm talking about I'll look it up later.

Edit: To be clearer Mr Sprout, I'm referencing your change blindness post not the picture.

[DanMacMan]

In Napoleon Dinamite, when Pedro and Napoleon are doing sweet jumps with Pedro's Sledgehammer, if you look you'll see when Pedro does his jump there are three cynder blocks under the ramp, but when Napoleon tries to jump, there are only two.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by crazychester
:lol: Have another look. (Hint: Now you see them; now you don't.)

BRussell is this related to that thing where the brain fills in gaps in our vision. ie. Things we can't really see but the brain makes certain assumptions based on what can be seen and fools us into believing we're seeing when we're not. Oh hell, I'm not explaining this very well. "Persistence of vision" is that the term? I think from memory it's how some optical illusions work.

If you've got no idea what I'm talking about I'll look it up later.

Edit: To be clearer Mr Sprout, I'm referencing your change blindness post not the picture. Yeah, it's top-down processing. The best example of fill-in-the-blank is the two large blindspots that everyone has in their visual field due to the optic nerve blocking out part of the retina in each eye. We don't even notice the two holes that are there.

[Scott]

Originally posted by BRussell
Look about 1 cm to the southwest of the middle point.

That's funny. I totally missed it. I even subtracted frames in GraphicsConterter but it must have a bug because it only seems to show the first frame.

[addabox]

Originally posted by BRussell
I'm looking for obvious examples of what are called visual continuity errors - like one in Spiderman where there's a broken window in one scene and then a few seconds later the window is intact.

I'm looking for these for a little project I'm doing on what's called change blindness - when there is a visual change that we don't notice unless we're shown it specifically. The phenomenon is associated with the idea that people engage in top-down processing, rather than detail-oriented processing.

There are a bunch of good examples in the Demos section of this page (http://rlandman.sdf-eu.org/change_blindness.htm).

Here's an example I'll put inline. How long does it take you to figure out what's changing?

http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/Mudsplash/Nature_Supp_Inf/Movies/Parking%20flicker.GIF

I don't know if there is any way for you to access it from where you are, but out here in the Bay Area we have a thing called the Exploratorium that features sort of art and science and tech and coolness exhibits....

Anyway, they have a great example of what you are talking about-- it's a projected video of a street scene that blinks to black for 1/10 second every three seconds, which each refreshed image having some alteration. There is a button you can push to toggle between the last image and the one you are looking at, and it is quite amazing. You stand there staring at the blinking image, not seeing a single thing different, then push the button and say "how the fuck did I not see that the van turned into a car, or the awning disappeared, or the tree moved, etc?"