# Factual errors that Roger Ebert has made **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 10, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885 "2005-07-10T21:11:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/61 "2005-07-13T17:08:21Z")
According to a poster on **Opal** ’s board, Ebert’s accussed the _Fantastic Four_ flick of ripping off _The Incredibles_ so far as the characters powers go. ---
**Author:** ![cbawlmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cbawlmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbawlmer)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/62 "2005-07-13T17:16:07Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > So it seems Ebert has engaged in some reviewer revisionism. For shame. Why for shame? More than likely, that error was corrected soon after the review was originally published. I doubt Ebert would deny changing it if asked about it, and would likely say that the reviews posted on his website are meant simply to be his reviews, not a historical document of exactly what the _Chicago Sun-Times_ printed on a certain date. In fact, if you read the most recent Movie Answer Man column about the tripods in _War of the Worlds_, he mentions changing a single word in the online version of his review. I don’t see a problem with that. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/63 "2005-07-13T17:30:09Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19941014/REVIEWS/410140301/1023](http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19941014/REVIEWS/410140301/1023) > > Wrong. > > Hero hands Dana the croissant and exposes her breast. He butters the croissant, then her breast. He sprinkles cinammon on the croissant, then her breast. She eats the croissant while he licks her breast. His mouth never comes into contact with the croissant. > > Some will say that this is a minor detail. I say a scene involving Dana Delaney’s breast really sticks in your memory. I must now see this movie, no matter how bad it is. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/64 "2005-07-13T18:10:49Z")
Eberts comments on the _Fantastic Four_ can be found about 3 minutes into the review [here.](http://tvplex.go.com/buenavista/ebertandroeper/today.html) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/65 "2005-07-13T18:32:14Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > According to a poster on **Opal** ’s board, Ebert’s accussed the _Fantastic Four_ flick of ripping off _The Incredibles_ so far as the characters powers go. That proves he’s ignorant, but it actually proves he DID watch the movie. ---
**Author:** ![cbawlmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cbawlmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbawlmer)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/66 "2005-07-13T18:41:26Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That proves he’s ignorant, but it actually proves he DID watch the movie. What did he actually say? I’m not able to listen to clip on the web right now? Did he compare it to _The Incredibles_, which would be perfectly fair, or did he actually say _Fantasic 4_ was ripping it off? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/67 "2005-07-13T18:55:58Z")
> [@cbawlmer](#): > > What did he actually say? I’m not able to listen to clip on the web right now? Did he compare it to _The Incredibles_, which would be perfectly fair, or did he actually say _Fantasic 4_ was ripping it off? Ebert is saying that the whole cast of characters seems like a set of “second-tier” characters all of whom we’ve seen before. Then he goes through the characters one-by-one: The Thing is kind of like the Hulk, the Invisible Woman is kind of like Storm, and “Mr. Fantastic is kind of like the Incredibles.” He never says that _The Fantastic Four_ ripped off _The Incredibles_. He’s just saying that _this movie_ presents us with characters that remind us of characters in movies we’ve already seen. He doesn’t claim that the stretchy guy was an original idea in _The Incredibles_ that was copied by this movie. Incidentally, my boss’s son did some of the computerised animation for _The Fantastic Four_ and he told her that the studio went into a panic after _The Incredibles_ came out because some of the plot points were too similar and they didn’t want it to seem like they had ripped off _The Incredibles_ and so they had to rejigger _The Fantastic Four_ to make it different. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/68 "2005-07-13T18:59:16Z")
I’ve noticed Ebert making tons of factual errors, but only one springs to mind: _The Red Violin_ “The violin passes from the rich to the poor, from Italy to Poland to England to China to Canada.” It passed from Italy to a monastery somewhere to Austria to England to China to Canada. Not sure where the monastery was but since the monks spoke German in the old days and French in modern times, and it has some physical proximity to both Italy and Austria, I suspect it’s somewhere in the Swiss Alps. It’s decidedly not in Poland. I think Mr. Ebert isn’t quite sure what country Vienna is in. Small point, but glaring to me. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/69 "2005-07-13T19:04:53Z")
Correction: Later in the review he says: “Flash-forward. The violin is in the possession of gypsies (I am not revealing the details of the transfers). It is played by many hands and travels from Poland to England, where in the 19th century, it is heard by a rich virtuoso named Frederick Pope.” I’m still not sure where he got Poland from. The violin went from Switzerland(?) to England via Gypsies, but in a series of dialogless shots of mountains and seas. If Ebert can identify any of these as Polish, he’s better at geography than me. There is certainly no mention of that country in the movie. And in a movie about music, he forgets to mention Vienna? An entire 5th of the story takes place there! ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/70 "2005-07-13T19:10:37Z")
> [@The Hook](#): > > Ok, I realize this is Russian, but I recently heard him pronounce Potemkin for the first time. I’ve never heard anyone say Potemkin in the past and I always assumed you stressed the “Po” as in Pokemon. Ebert stresses the “tem”. Can anyone tell me what the correct pronounciation is? roughly: put-YOM-kin. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/71 "2005-07-13T20:14:58Z")
I stopped reading Ebert way way back in the 1970s, partly because of his predictable taste but partly because of factual errors. I don’t recall any specifically, and I don’t dislike him enough to go searching through his reviews (which might be corrected anyway.) He would constantly say things like, “This performance reminds me of John Wayne in GONE WITH THE WIND…” to try to prove that he had a vast knowledge of old films, which (at that time) he was sorely lacking. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/72 "2005-07-13T21:03:26Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > …the review for [The Italian Job](http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030530/REVIEWS/305300302/1023) > > …the [original version of the review](http://web.archive.org/web/20030604092930/suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-italian30f.html) This is the example I mentioned in the other thread, and which **Cat Fight** refers to above. There are two important components to this that support the central argument: There’s no possible way Ebert could have made this mistake if he’d actually been watching the movie while the plot points were playing out, and (this is the critical bit) _he bases an aspect of his critical response on his misunderstanding._ I was discussing this last night with some Dopers at Seattle Trivia Night. There is a distinction to be made between factual errors that don’t impact the critical reaction, and those that do. It doesn’t make any difference at all if Ebert transposes the character names of Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in _Armageddon._ (Not saying he did. Just an example.) However, it _does_ make a difference if he went out to the snack bar and missed the scene where Shanghai gets wrecked, and then complains in his review that because we see New York and Paris destroyed, the film has a Western bias, disregarding the impact of the crisis on the rest of the world. (Again. Not saying he did. Just illustrating the point.) His _Italian Job_ mistake, I think, falls into the second category. He makes the movie out to be more illogical and silly than it actually is, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the basis for the initial heist. The movie is silly, yes, but it’s not _that_ silly, and his misrepresentation of the story does the film a disservice, particularly coming from a high-profile critic who’s supposed to know better. Jonathan Rosenbaum, for example, would never be that sloppy. Of course, Rosenbaum doesn’t typically bother to write up Hollywood fluff like _The Italian Job_, so perhaps it’s understandable that Ebert’s attention would be frequently elsewhere during such fare. But the point is, it is, regularly, elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885/73 "2005-07-13T21:26:46Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > The movie is silly, yes, but it’s not _that_ silly, and his misrepresentation of the story does the film a disservice, particularly coming from a high-profile critic who’s supposed to know better. Jonathan Rosenbaum, for example, would never be that sloppy. Of course, Rosenbaum doesn’t typically bother to write up Hollywood fluff like _The Italian Job_, so perhaps it’s understandable that Ebert’s attention would be frequently elsewhere during such fare. But the point is, it is, regularly, elsewhere. That’s exactly the problem I had in the thread I started about his review of **Ronin** , which I linked to on Page 1. Another example is **Along Came A Spider** , which I saw a couple of nights ago then read his review. While I agree that it wasn’t all that great of a movie, he rips it to pieces b/c of what he perceived to be plotholes, but I think it was more like he didn’t get it. Here’s an example from his review: > [@](#): > > But, man, are you gonna be talking when you come out of this movie! Saying things like “but why . . .” and “if she . . .” and “wouldn’t he . . .” and “how come . . .” as you try to trace your way back through the twisted logic of the plot. Here’s a sample question. Dr. Cross mentions a $12 million ransom and later explains that the person he was talking to should have known it was $10 million but never said anything. And I’m thinking, should that person have even known about the ransom at all? Well, maybe, if . . . but I dunno. He totally missed the point. Dr. Cross deliberately gave that character the wrong amount b/c he already suspected him of not being behind the ransom. You know this b/c he acts all suspicious after the drop, thinking that asking for money wasn’t this guy’s profile, then when he confronts the character he says “I see you got your sense of humor back…” - in other words, the guy he spoke to on a scrambled phone while delivering the ransom didn’t joke around with him like this character did. So giving him the wrong amount was simply to confirm whether or not he would react and say “no, it was ten million!” To use that as an example of why there are plotholes is stupid - it wasn’t a plothole, it was something he didn’t pick up on. Another example: > [@](#): > > The correct Lindbergh page, which he finds immediately out of 103,000 possibilities, has been put up by the kidnapper (or come to think of it, has it?) There aren’t 103,000 possibilities - Cross was looking at a video of the classroom taken the day of the kidnapping, not at an Internet page at all. And the whole “Come to think of it, has it?” line again shows that he completely missed the point. Of course it has - the profile of this guy was that he wanted to be as famous as Lindbergh - he wanted Cross to find the video link to his apartment so he could figure out the passage in the book that he gave to Cross earlier over the phone. That’s kinda why he removed a picture of Charles Lindbergh from the wall, and left the words “Charles Lindbergh” on the chalkboard, Roger. IOW, Ebert was totally confused about a plot point b/c he missed it, then passed it off in his review as “bad plotting.” Sloppy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-errors-that-roger-ebert-has-made/311885.md?page=3)