# worst continuity error ever **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 8, 2003, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404 "2003-06-08T04:45:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![80sHairMetalMaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/8/ed655f/32.png) [@80sHairMetalMaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/80sHairMetalMaven)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/41 "2003-06-08T18:22:49Z")
What ever happened to the baby sister on Family Matters? In early episodes, the Winslows have three children, Eddie (the oldest), Laura (middle) and then a younger daughter (Sarah???). But towards the middle of the end of the series, there’s only the two kids, Eddie and Laura. Whatever happened to daughter number 2? Flushed down a well? Zapped out of existence by an Urkel experiment gone awry?😕 IDBB ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/42 "2003-06-08T18:46:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Scrivener \* > **CIA agent Felix Leiter: eight appearances so far, played by seven different actors. And don’t even get me started about Leiter’s recovery from the shark feeding, which IRL would probably have lead to, at the very least, his retirement on disability.** This was handled better in Fleming’s books. IIRC, Felix did retire and became a private eye. ---
**Author:** ![finette6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@finette6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/finette6)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/43 "2003-06-08T18:56:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Frink \* > \*\ ***Owl** – > > A quick tip…when posting something like this, it’s best to assume that your audience isn’t as familiar with your examples as you are. You may be an expert on _Boy Meets World_ and _Touched by an Angel_, but assume that we aren’t. Can you kindly explain what you mean by “topanga on boy meets world” and “monica not being able to sing”. Thanks much… \*\* I have never watched Touched By an Angel, but the Topanga Thing always bugged the heck out of my little sister and I. It goes like this: In the early seasons, I dont know how many, because I watched them in syndication- Topanga was this awesome bizarre girl, with looong hair, “spacy” ideas, lots of brains and presumably hippie parents (hence the name). At that time, Corey and Shawn (Sean?) seemed to think she was a real weirdo, and treated her thusly. Sometime in Middle School (Eighth grade or so? I’m not sure on the precise chronology, I watched this stuff like 5 years ago) Corey and Topanga fell in love and went to dances together and kissed in the hall and such, Topanga personality intact. Then there came the terrible episode where Corey is obsessing (rightly, one might say) about the fact that he is ugly. Topanga is fed up with this and tells him to stop being so obnoxious. He says:“that’s easy for you to say, you always look perfect!” whereupon she snatches a pair of scissors and chops off a huge clump of hair, trying to prove that looks don’t matter. Instead, she freaks out, gets a new ‘layered’ hairstyle, starts wearing tons of makeup and basically becomes a shallow bitch, all in the space of an episode (can I refer to a character as a bitch? I’m new). This continues through high school. The point seems to be that no girl ‘really’ likes herself for who she is, and no girl can grow up without becoming image -obsessed. At least that is my reading of it. Related is her decision at graduation to forgo an ivy-league education in order to marry immediately. LAME! Also bizarre on that show is the tortured way that they kept advancing Mr Feeny through the grades. This does happen-I had the same teacher for 9th and 10th grade English, but from middle school to College in the span of a decade? come on As a pride-saving disclaimer, I really never followed the show religiously. A local channel had a generous run one summer, allowing me to see a huge chunk of the early episodes, and I cought the gist of the later ones through my younger sisters who were TGIF addicts, though intelligent nonetheless (My middle sister is a math major at Dartmouth, proof that while lame, the Topanga Transformation doesn’t seem to have been destructive to all viewers) ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/44 "2003-06-08T19:37:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jimmmy \* > \*\*In the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the Scarecrow are fighting with the Apple trees trees, look really quickly at the scene they cut to cut right after the Scarecrow says “I’ll show you how to get apples”. Dorothy’s is wearing black shoes, not her ruby slippers. \*\* Not the worst error I’ve ever seen, but watch Dorothy’s hair in the scene where she meets the Scarecrow. In some shots, her pigtails barely come to her shoulders; in others, they’re much longer. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/45 "2003-06-08T19:39:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bluethree \* > \*\*Not a continuity error, but since we’re all including them anyway…I just saw _the Lion in Winter_ for the first time and near the beginning, Henry II makes a reference to King Lear. The Shakespeare play King Lear was written a few hundred years later, so was the play based on a well-known story that Henry II would have known in 1183? I hope someone knows the answer to that. \*\* King Lear was an ancient legend that was recorded among other places in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘Historia Regum Brittaniae’, completed ca. 1135 with the financial help of two of Henry II’s many illegitimate uncles. (Henry was the oldest son of the only surviving legitimate child [Matilda, Countess of Angou/Queen of England/Holy Empress of the Romans, etc.] of Henry I, who acknowledged more than 20 bastards prior to his marriage.) Henry II could conceivably have read the legend. What bothered me in the play was the use of Christmas trees in the 12th century France; I can’t say they didn’t exist, but I certainly didn’t realize that they did. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/46 "2003-06-08T19:43:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bluethree \* > \*\*Not a continuity error, but since we’re all including them anyway…I just saw _the Lion in Winter_ for the first time and near the beginning, Henry II makes a reference to King Lear. The Shakespeare play King Lear was written a few hundred years later, so was the play based on a well-known story that Henry II would have known in 1183? I hope someone knows the answer to that. \*\* The tale of King Lear is much older than Shakespeare’s play. According to the footnotes in my Complete Works of Shakespeare, the story of Lear and his daughters is given by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his Authurian histories in the early 1100s. So, Henry would probably have been familiar with that version. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/47 "2003-06-08T20:28:25Z")
In earlier episodes of “the Odd Couple” TV series, when Felix got thrown out of his house, the introduction to the show stated that he went to the home of his “lifelong friend - Oscar Madison”. In an episode one or 2 years into the show, it depicts Felix and Oscar first meeting when they are on jury duty together. ---
**Author:** ![samarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@samarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samarm)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/48 "2003-06-08T20:40:16Z")
**Ocean’s Eleven SPOILER** There seemed to be a lot of plot holes in Ocean’s Eleven. In fact I still don’t fully understand how they got the fake cash into the vault! Good movie, but the confusing… ---
**Author:** ![23skidoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/f04885/32.png) [@23skidoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/23skidoo)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/49 "2003-06-08T21:03:15Z")
Two that spring to mind: On the pilot for The Cosby Show, Claire asks Cliff why they had four children, and he says “Because we did not want five!” Ummmm, Cliff? You DID have five kids. And the last Star Trek TNG movie. When they see what appears to be an exact replica of Data’s head, everybody is shocked. Which is weird, because during the show we all found out that Data had a “twin brother” that looked EXACTLY LIKE HIM. Nobody even wonders if that could be Data’s twin. ---
**Author:** ![Bedrosian\_Bixby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecae2f/32.png) [@Bedrosian\_Bixby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bedrosian_Bixby)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/50 "2003-06-08T21:35:53Z")
While complaining about continuity, in regards to the Highlander movies and tv series, is a lesson in futility, one thing bothered me about Highlander:End Game. In the series, there was an episode where a gypsy that Duncan was supposed to marry has a vision and tells Duncan he will never marry anyone. After remembering this, he asks his little french tart of a girlfriend to marry him. Before they can marry she is killed, following a strange abduction by a Watcher. Her death validates the prophecy given by the gypsy. Cut to Highlander:Endgame. Duncan and Conner are trying to kill an uber-baddie. Among the uber-baddie’s crew is Duncan’s old wife…who he discovered was immortal on their wedding day. Duncan killed his wife in order to spark the immortality. Now, everything else about the movie sort of fit, old characters from the series…a more detailed look at Connor’s history. How could they make such a glaring mistake? I’m not even one of those obsessive fans…I watch it if I catch it on tv. But, even I caught that one. P.S. I have completely wiped from my memory the dung heap that was Highlander 2…if that wasn’t a crap shoot I don’t know what is. ---
**Author:** ![GTPhD1996](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/97f17d/32.png) [@GTPhD1996](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GTPhD1996)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/51 "2003-06-08T22:33:39Z")
**Superman II** In the scene where the Lex Luthor brings General Zod and the gang to the Daily Planet, Lois is attending to Perry White’s injury from the bad guys entrance. Her hair style changes 3 times during the scene. GTPhD1996. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/52 "2003-06-08T22:55:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by I\_Dig\_Bad\_Boys \* > **What ever happened to the baby sister on Family Matters? In early episodes, the Winslows have three children, Eddie (the oldest), Laura (middle) and then a younger daughter (Sarah???). But towards the middle of the end of the series, there’s only the two kids, Eddie and Laura. Whatever happened to daughter number 2? Flushed down a well? Zapped out of existence by an Urkel experiment gone awry? 😕** Judy. And she’s in porn now. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by 23skidoo_ > **And the last Star Trek TNG movie. When they see what appears to be an exact replica of Data’s head, everybody is shocked. Which is weird, because during the show we all found out that Data had a “twin brother” that looked EXACTLY LIKE HIM. Nobody even wonders if that could be Data’s twin.** His twin would be Lore, who was deactivated and disassembled by Data himself in TNG’s sixth season. They knew it wasn’t Lore and were shocked to find out he was one of at least three identical androids. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/53 "2003-06-08T23:02:15Z")
I think their surprise was not that the android existed, but that they found it on a planet in the middle of nowhere. They knew about Thomas Riker, Will Riker’s twin, but if they found him out there in the desert, it would still kind of be a bit of a shock. ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/54 "2003-06-08T23:34:10Z")
The Girl in Gold Boots, a MST3Ked movie. Three people are eating at a diner, only the scene starts with only two. The third “teleports” in about 7 seconds after the scene started. Ed Wood. Sarah Jessica Parker runs out of Eddie’s party. Ed follows her. When they get outside, her hairstyle is totally different. An homage to Ed? Who knows? ---
**Author:** ![andygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@andygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andygirl)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/55 "2003-06-09T00:15:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by finette6 \* > \*\*(My middle sister is a math major at Dartmouth, proof that while lame, the Topanga Transformation doesn’t seem to have been destructive to all viewers) \*\* [hijack] I live right next to Dartmouth’s math building. I might know her. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/56 "2003-06-09T01:42:23Z")
When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought of _Wizard’s First Rule_, which is generally acknowledged to be the _Plan 9 from Outer Space_ of fantasy novels. There book must contain hundreds of continuity errors, amazing coincidences, and instances of characters acting like morons just because the plot demands that they do so. Most are relatively minor things, but there is one that stands out in my memory. For the first half of the book, the archvillain relentlessly tries to kill the two main heroes, though needless to say they always pull off a miraculous escape. Then, about halfway through, we learn that the archvillain’s evil plan requires that the two heroes both be captured alive. From that point on, all of his efforts are devoted to capturing them rather than killing them. And once one of the heroes does get captured, the archvillain then lets him go without any sort of explanation. ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/57 "2003-06-09T02:26:27Z")
In the 1983 remake of _Breathless_ (with Richard Gere and Valerie Kaprisky) the number of buttons that are buttoned on Kaprisky’s blouse goes up and down with (almost) every shot. I’m not proud. It wasn’t a good movie. Staring at Valerie Kaprisky’s chest was the only way I made it to the end… ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/58 "2003-06-09T02:41:06Z")
> [@](#): > > And the last Star Trek TNG movie. When they see what appears to be an exact replica of Data’s head, everybody is shocked. Which is weird, because during the show we all found out that Data had a “twin brother” that looked EXACTLY LIKE HIM. Nobody even wonders if that could be Data’s twin. That bothered me, too. Probably, the producers just didn’t want to complicate things. But still, the fact that nobody mentions Lore is pretty hard to swallow. ---
**Author:** ![HelloKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecccb3/32.png) [@HelloKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelloKitty)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/59 "2003-06-09T03:00:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diceman \* > \*\*That bothered me, too. Probably, the producers just didn’t want to complicate things. But still, the fact that nobody mentions Lore is pretty hard to swallow. \*\* It’s been awhile since I saw **Nemesis** , but I could swear that there was a throwaway line about how that third Data couldn’t be Lore, or at least a mention of Lore by someone…either Geordi or Data. Then again, maybe I’ve been watching too much STTNG on TNN and have it confused… ---
**Author:** ![SnugTheJoiner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@SnugTheJoiner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnugTheJoiner)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404/60 "2003-06-09T03:01:20Z")
BEN-HUR with Charlton Heston: Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish galley slave, rescues a Roman bigwig in a sea battle. In a very affecting scene, the Roman adopts Ben-Hur as his son and puts a ring on his finger: the symbol of his adoption and his new status as a Roman citizen. Much later in the movie: Ben-Hur, who has realized he cannot betray his identity as a Jew, meets Pontius Pilate, renounces his Roman citizenship, and asks Pilate to take the ring back to his adoptive father. Saddest scene in the movie, IMHO. A few scenes later: Ben-Hur searches for his mother and sister in the Valley of the Lepers. The ring, of which so much fuss has been made–hell, it had a scene of it own!–is back on his finger. WTF? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-continuity-error-ever/180404.md?page=4)