…if they’re either paying close attention, or see the movie a few times too many. This is inspired by the “Movie flaws that no one should notice” thread in this forum, in which the OP wants flaws that you would only spot if you had expertise in the subject.
How about glaring mistakes that anyone could notice, given enough attention to detail? Here’s mine, and it’s from Raiders of the Lost Ark:
Indy and Sallah take the headpiece of the Staff of Ra to the old man in Cairo, in order to have him read the inscriptions to them. After the old man reads them the stern warning not to disturb the Ark, Indy prompts him to find how long the staff needs to be.
(approximate quotes)
Old Man: Here, it says six kadam.
**Indy: ** That’s about 72 inches. (Note that a kadam is apparently just a foot.)
**Old Man: ** But! (flips over the headpiece) Take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew god whose Ark this is. Indy: Wait, Sallah, did you say Belloch’s headpiece only had markings on one side? Sallah: Yes, the headpiece was the same, except for around the edges, which was rougher, and had markings only on one side. Indy: Belloch’s staff is too long… Indy and Sallah: They’re digging in the wrong place!
(Sallah starts to sing Gilbert & Sullivan)
And after all this deduction, apparently indicating a five foot staff, we see Indy in the map room with…a staff that’s at least a foot taller than Harrison Ford himself. :smack:
In The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood are “on a mission from God” to get the tax money to save the Catholic orphanage where they grew up.
The problem is that the Catholic Church doesn’t pay taxes, and that includes lands and properties they own, so the orphanage wouldn’t be subject to taxation in the first place.
Which shoots a huge plot hole in a movie that was basically an excuse for musical numbers and car chases anyway.
I really tend to belabour this, but in the final battle scene in Return of the King, Aragorn and Co. are on horses when they talk to the Mouth of Sauron. When they charge, no horses.
Baseball mavens who watch this classic Gary Cooper movie know the liberties the studio took with the facts.
When the young Lou Gehrig dickers with the other kids over baseball cards, they call Grover Alexander a “has-been” and Babe Ruth a “rookie.” Ruth started in the AL in 1915, the year Old Pete, most of his career still ahead of him, won 31 games to help the Phillies win their first pennant. (He also won the opening game of the World Series against the Red Sox.)
In the game in which Ruth promised the kid in the hospital that he would hit a home run, and Gerhig promised to hit two home runs, well, this is represented as the 1926 World Series against the Cardinals. In fact the only such real game was in the 1932 Series against the Cubs–the third game, in which both Ruth and Gehrig hit two home runs. Ruth’s second was his so-called “Called shot” homer," and his last Series hit. Sam Goldwyn, however, tampered with the record because he decided it would make the story more interesting. (To a cretin who never heard of real baseball games, I suppose.)
FWIW, Gehrig did not apopear in a WS until 1926. The movie hints that he played in 1923 against the Giants; I don’t even think the Yanks had signed him yet.
I don’t know if non-baseball trivia mavens would spot Rocketeer’s goofs, but The Natural had at least one baseball error (ha!) that I thought was pretty outrageous for even the most casual fan.
It’s the scene where Robert Redford’s New York team is playing at Wrigley Field in Chicago against the Cubs. He comes up to the plate late in the game and the announcer makes a big deal about what a great game he is having - he had a hit in the bottom of the first, the bottom of the third, and the bottom of the fifth innings already! (or something like that). Problem is, of course, that the visiting team always bats in the top of the inning. Sheesh!
But here’s the thing: have you noticed that, although he’s the one with “no brain”, the Scarecrow is always the one who comes up with the plans?
I remember spotting two big ones in the theater when I first saw Jurassic Park: first, there was the phone call to the guy on the dock, where the “video phone” picture on the computer screen was clearly a prerecorded QuickTime movie, because there was a moving slider at the bottom of the window showing the movie’s progress. And shortly after that, there was the sign in the lab on the dinosaur embryos that misspelled “stegosaurus” as “stegasaurus”.
IIRC, the wizard says something similar to * “I can’t make you smart, but I can give you a degree.”* I always thought it was a deliberate comment on the educational system, that giving someone a degree does not always mean they are particularly bright.
I’m going to agree with Skammer on this. The Wizard was a humbug, after all. (On the other hand, in Oz, it might have been a correct definition.) All he did was remove the Scarecrow’s fear of being thought stupid. With a double helping of placebo.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but in the film Loser w/ Jason Biggs & Mena Suvari, the two go on a date and instead of seeing money to see a Broadway show, they go to Cabaret and sneak in during intermission with the patrons who had been outside. Only, the number they are then shown watching in the theatre is “Wilkommen”… :dubious:
