The Top 20 Best Mistakes Of All Time

Thank heavens for friends like Edmund Silvestre (News Editor of the New York-based The Filipino Reporter). Edmund has just e-mailed to Funfare "The Top 20 Best Mistakes Of All Time" (in Hollywood films) and, as usual, I’m sharing goodies like this with my readers. Warns Edmund, "Don’t try drawing up the same list on Filipino movies because, with all the mistakes, you’ll run out of space." Don’t worry, Edmund, I won’t.

Here are the "Top 20":

1. Star Wars

When the storm troopers break into the control room, watch very carefully and you will be able to see a storm trooper nearly render himself unconscious by smacking his head off a door frame.

2. Commando

One of the most blatant mistakes ever committed to film. The yellow Porsche is totally wrecked on the left side, until Arnie drives it away, and it’s fine.

3. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

The criminologist describes the events of the movie as taking place "on a late November evening". In the very next scene, Brad and Janet are driving in Brad’s car, and Nixon’s resignation speech is playing on the radio. Nixon resigned in August of 1974.

4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

When Harry, Ron and Hermione rush to Hagrid after end-of-the-year exams, and Harry is saying something that ends with "why didn’t I see it before", Hermione is mouthing his lines.

5. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

One of the most blatant mistakes ever seen onscreen – in the scene where John and Catherine are in the hangar at the runway, the Cessna’s tail number is N3035C. When the plane is shown in the air, the number is N9373F. When they land, the tail number has changed back to N3035C.

6. Charlie’s Angels

When the angels are fighting the "creepy thin man," right before Drew Barrymore lifts Lucy Liu to spin her around and kick the thin man, to get Lucy’s attention, Drew hollers out "Lucy!" even though Lucy Liu’s character’s name is "Alex."

7. Spider-Man

In the scene where Mary Jane is being mugged by four men, Spider-Man throws two of the men into two windows behind Mary Jane. Then the camera goes back to Spider-Man beating up the other two guys. When the camera goes back to Mary Jane the two windows are intact.

8. Gladiator

After the battle with the Germans, the next morning after the tavern, he is walking in the army camp and he feeds a horse a piece of apple. If you look closely between Maximus and the horse, there is a crewman wearing a pair of blue jeans.

9. The Matrix

In the scene where Agent Smith is interrogating Neo, after Smith has sealed Neo’s mouth shut and he is backed into the corner, when the camera cuts back to Smith you can clearly see a reflection in his glasses of Neo still sitting down in the chair.

10. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

At the beginning of the scene near the end of the movie with Lucius Malfoy fuming at Dumbledore in his office, Malfoy’s hair is fanned back behind his shoulders. The lighting in the room illuminates the back of his neck, where you can see his real, short brown hair.

11. Black Hawk Down

Near the end of the movie when the convoy is heading back to the Pakistan Stadium, a Humvee stops briefly to allow a man to walk across the street with a child in his arms. When the shot changes and the Humvee begins driving again, a crew member or cameraman is seen inside the Humvee wearing a white shirt. All of the men who entered the Humvee were wearing fatigues.

12. Pearl Harbor

When Evelyn first enters Pearl Harbor, there is a tall building that clearly says, "Est. 1953." Obviously this is a little ahead of the times.

13. Austin Powers in Goldmember

Austin Powers left school in 1959. He would have been 18 then. This means that the family holiday in Belgium, when he was a baby, would have been in 1941. Continental Europe would have been an odd choice for a family holiday that year, what with World War II going on and everything. Note: Lots of people seem to think that in England school leaving age is 16. It can be, but most stay on until 18, especially at a smart private school like Austin’s.

14. American Pie

In the bedroom scene the girl is holding a clear cup full of beer. The camera goes off her and when it comes back she is holding a blue cup. The camera goes back off her, then on her, and the cup is clear again.

15. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Merry and Pippin were bound when taken by the Uruk-Hai, and the bonds weren’t cut until after they managed to escape during the fight. Yet, when the horse almost crashed down on Pippin, he had his arms spread out up near his face, not bound, even though they weren’t cut until later.

16. Titanic

The lake that Jack told Rose he went ice fishing on when she was threatening to jump is a man-made lake in Wisconsin near Chippewa Falls (where Jack grew up). The lake was only filled with water in 1917, five years after Titanic sank.

17. Chicago

When Roxie is about to fire Billy, there is a close-up of her telling him off, and you can see some loose blonde hairs falling out of her hairstyle. In the next close-up they are gone, and in the next one they’re back again.

18. X-Men 2

In the end, when the President is visited by the X-Men, he receives a blue binder, which is laid in front of him on the table. When they have left, you see a shot including the President’s desk, and you can see that the only thing he has on the table are some sheets of paper, stapled in the upper left corner, opened up. Then the shot changes to a close-up of the President, and then back again, and you see the blue binder in front of him, closed, and the papers have disappeared.

19. Raiders of the Lost Ark

While Indy and Marion are in the Well of the Souls, and they encounter the snakes, Indy falls to the ground only to get confronted by a cobra rearing its head and hissing. Look carefully and you’ll see the reflection of the snake on the safety glass between it and Indy. Briefly you can also see the torch’s reflection while he’s waving it around. (This has been corrected in the new DVD set. You can only see it if you have the original VHS. I think it’s visible in the "making of" on the DVD as well.)

20. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

In the scene where Sam and Frodo are in the field with the scarecrow, you can plainly see a car cruising past in the distance, from right to left. Further comment – there are two different shots which show the car moving from right to left. One starts at the top right distance, and in a shot a few seconds later the car has travelled down the road a bit and is more easily visible. Complicating matters is that the dust thrown up by the car looks similar to smoke from a chimney in the right distance, making some people think it is just the chimney. But chimneys don’t move, and the smoke from the chimney is separate from the moving vehicle. (It is deleted on the DVD, but you can still see an obvious bit of image fakery on the hill just left of the smoking chimney. One can see the hill, tree, and surrounding area move up and down and shimmer slightly where someone has done a cut and paste to cover up the auto. The "car inclusive" scene appears on the National Geographic documentary Beyond the Movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Also, watch the music documentary on the extended dvd – when it shows this scene the car is still in it. Bizarrely, in his commentary Peter Jackson said he never saw a car and doesn’t know what people are talking about, but the production/post-production team say in their commentary that despite not thinking anyone would be able to see it, they took it out anyway.)

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