vislor, did you ever read The Nitpicker’s Guide for Next Generation Trekkers? I had a very dog-eared copy as a kid. 
Well, yeah, it’s known for being New York! That’s one thing, right?
There’s two from Braveheart that I never picked up on until it was pointed out to me.
In one of the early battle scenes it cuts back and forth between the charging Scots and the waiting British. Mel Gibson is in the middle of the shot whenever it cuts to the Scots. Every time they cut to the Scots, he’s carrying a different (or no) weapon.
This one I’m not sure if I would notice now, as its been a while since I’ve seen the movie, and I don’t remember which scene it’s in, but in one of the battle scenes, two extras fighting in the background stop fighting abruptly in mid-swing and just walk away. Apparently they thought they were off-camera at the time.
My favorite is in Serenity, the pilot episode of Firefly. Near the end of the episode, after the crew makes their escape from the planet, Wash (the pilot) sits back in his chair. The camera has a wide shot to include him and a couple other characters, but the shot is also wide enough to show that he’s not actually holding onto the flight stick, he’s just pantomiming it.
Nobody ever notices this, according to the commentary, and I certainly didn’t. Now every time I watch that episode I always focus in on his hands and snicker uncontrollably.
In Indiana Jones And The Raiders of the Lost Ark there’s a truck that gets knocked over on it’s side. It turns out they did that by using an explosive charge to drive a log through the bottom of the truck, which you can see if you look at the right moment. Now that I know that I always notice it.
In the Sten series of sci-fi novels, at one point it’s mentioned that “Mantis phototropic camouflage” is not and never will be commercially available. Elsewhere, the protagonist’s girlfriend shows up in a dress made from a commercialized version of the stuff. In the first book of the series, the Eternal Emperor mentions that he provides stability to “the galaxy”, while in later books the Empire is always referred to as multigalactic.
Speaking of Wash and the Firefly commentaries, Tudyk mentions in one of them that he had developed a certain way of interacting with the equipment that began by punching three buttons or throwing three switches or whatevering three whatevers on the overhead bank of controls, regardless of what the actual action he was supposed to be performing was. I haven’t watched the series again since learning that, but I fully intend to pay close attention next time.
And Nit Picker’s guide to DS9, X-Files and some others. I am sorry those aren’t done anymore. At least that I can find.
My wife always thought it meant I didn’t like the show because I nit picked it but it’s usually I see these things on the fifth, tenth or twentieth time I watch it, so of course I like it! I am using those to see more than I did before!
vislor
I totally forgot about this–also one of my absolute favorites. (And I, too, completely missed it until the first time I heard the commentary.)
It helps that, in the Special Edition, they added/enhanced a “clunk” sound effect when he runs into the door.
It just reinforces what Luke says when he and Han are in disguise, sneaking into the cell bay (and what the actors in the 'trooper costumers complained about):
“I can’t see a thing in this helmet.”
In the final episode of Star Trek:TNG. The anomaly is supposed to be getting larger in the past. So they wait a little while, go back to where it was supposed to have started and sure enough, there it is, getting larger, in the future. :smack:
I don’t know how I missed it the first time.
Not a “mistake” but I pointed out the Wilhelm scream to my (then 9 year old) son a while back and, since, we’ll be watching a movie and he’ll say “There’s that scream again.”
I feel a little bad – at least I had 30-odd years of movie watching before it stuck out to me.
A lot of little grammatical things in songs.
“Just look over your shoulders,” in “I’ll Be There.” Also in that song, “You know he’d better be good to you / 'cause if he doesn’t, I’ll be there.” (Should be “'cause if he ISN’T.”)
Also when singers would say, “til eternity” instead of “for eternity” like in “Be My Baby” or “Cupid.”
Wash’s “standard piloting maneuver” is to the flip the 3 switches above his head in sequence. It really is funny how often he does it.
Although not as funny as the invisible flight stick. I’ve never seen anyone notice it their first time seeing “Serenity,” but once it’s pointed out, you can’t help noticing it every time. Tudyk isn’t even doing a terribly good job holding his hand steady - and he even has LINES during that shot!
Those aren’t exactly what the OP has in mind, though, are they? They’re just continuity errors, which you’ll find in any long-form story - especially when the creator/ author clearly just didn’t plan that particular detail years in advance, as in the case of the phototropic camouflage.
It’s tough to have this sort of mistake in books, anyway. Maybe if the author accidentally mispells a character’s name over the course of a chapter or something and the editor misses it. I sure wouldn’t have noticed if “Sten” was mispelled “Setn” upon first reading.
How did an idiot become the director?
Man With The Golden Gun. I own this movie, so every time I watch it I’m always looking at the mirror here.
All from movies
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In the Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster talks to her FBI boss in a plane on its way to arrest Jamie Gumb in Chicago, and the FBI boss says they are ‘about 30 minutes away’. Then it cuts away to a shot of the plane, and it’s over a mountainous desert. I pointed this out to a friend of mine who was a huge SOTL fan, and now he goes crazy every time he sees it.
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Lots of continuity errors and whatnot in Braveheart, as discussed above. I had seen the one where the fighters sort of give up and walk away. But I hadn’t seen the blue jeans one! Where is it?
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In the pivotal scene in The Godfather, where Santino, Michael, Clemenza and Tessio are brainstorming how to get Solazzo in their father’s study, it cuts back and forth to Sonny and Michael. Watch the cigar box on the desk. It’s open and shut in various shots with continuity errors.
If you get the ‘Directors Cut’ version with Coppola’s commentary, he points out a bunch of other errors that I never saw the first time. Plus some goofy stuff, like the guy playing Luka Brazi screwing up his ‘…on her wedding day’ line, Brando not knowing what to do, and Coppola just kept the camera running and put it in the final cut.
- In the Bourne Identity, I always wondered why the military guys in the US Embassy ‘gave up’ on looking out the fire escape, when two padlocks had clearly been broken to gain access to the exit door. But what’s worse, it’s snowing outside, and Bourne’s footprints should have been visible on the outside platform. If you watch the movie, the platform is clear of snow when Bourne is outside fiddling around on it, and then full(er) with snow when the military dude comes out for one last look, decides Bourne isn’t there, and then shuts the door and goes back inside.
The weather also changes remarkably quickly in Moscow in the Bourne Supremacy.
I love those movies, but there are lots of other eye-rolling moments the more I watch them, and the more I think about them. Like how in the Bourne Ultimatum, he can see ‘Blackbriar’ via a spyglass from across the street, as the Director’s character sticks them in his safe. Plus, why did he call him from his office when he was all alone and safe, and continue the conversation beyond the greeting? Just to antagonize him? All Bourne did was draw the forces back to him and cause himself trouble. Seems out of character.
- I used to love the Shawshank Redemption, but the final escape sequence has become unwatchable for me. The timing of the whole thing is ridiculous.
First of all, Norton discovers DuFrane is missing before breakfast. Call it 7am at the latest. The first thing the warden would have done was check the safe, whereby he must have known exactly where Andy was going.
And yet, Andy has time to visit ‘over a dozen banks that morning’, where he is closing out accounts and filling out lots of paperwork. The banks probably didn’t open until 9am - at the earliest. How hard could it be to track him down, since he is on foot, and has to wind his way through bank after bank only a short distance away? That would have taken hours.
That’s all I can think of at the moment.
I hadn’t noticed this before, so I checked it out. There are actually two nuns, one young and one old. The young nun is seen in the scenes of Kirk’s reaction to finding Spock in the tank, and the old one is seen, from a different angle, in the scenes of Gillian’s reaction to Spock. No switcharoo.
What annoys me (now) is that when Andy breaks the pipe, sewage comes spewing out. But when he crawls through it, there’s barely any wastewater in it. What happened to the water pressure? Or better yet, what caused it to begin with?
The hole he used to escape from his cell was hidden behind a poster. How did he stick the poster to the wall from behind?
There’s a good one in Ocean’s Eleven (the George Clooney version). Danny and Linus break into the vault and convince Terry to take out (what he thinks is) half the money in several full black satchels. Later it turns out that there was no money in those bags, just flyers for hookers. How did they get all those flyers into the vault.
Not really a mistake but someone once pointed out to me how in TV and movies the character speaking on the telephone almost never says “Goodbye” when they hang up. Errr, now that I’ve noticed it, it drives me nuts
The blue jeans scene in Braveheart is when they kill the guy who killed Murran (Wallace’s wife) When they push him down he flips over and you can see the blue jeans.