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Movie Blunders
Think the movie biz is the peak of perfection? Think again. Like any
term paper that wasn't proofread by a literate friend, or a piece
of software that was released with hundreds of bugs (hmmm.... Microsoft
comes to mind), here are a few solid blunders that we have picked
up in movies over the years.
Perhaps they might not be as funny to you, but I have to say that
most of these have forced me to stop the movie, rewind and take
a look at it again. The second time usually either makes me shake
my head (at the Continuity engineer) or laugh my butt off. Here
are my favorites in no particular order.
- New! Movie:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Scene: The Airship / Plane Chase
Mistakes (2): When Indy and his father are on
the zeppelin, and the Nazi identifies his dad, Indy throws him
out the window and he lands on a pile of baggage that is to be
loaded onto the airship. This was clever for the stunt, but sloppy
because the airship leaves without any luggage.
Oh, and there is another one that will "no doubt" be fixed
when Steven gets his greasy mitts back on this one. When Indy
and his father are in the plane and Dad accidentally shoots
the tail of the plane, he totally shreds it, but on the next
shot (of a real plane flying) the tail is fixed. I just can't
wait to check back in on this one when it is re-released. Oh
yeah, and how are they going to shoot at them if the planes
are equipped with walkie talkies?
- Movie: Young Frankenstein
Scene: Playing Darts
Mistake: If you count the number of misthrown
darts (1 in wall, 2 break window, 1 hits cat, and 1 goes behind
him), you'll count 5 darts. But when the Commandant goes outside
to his car, there are 10 errant darts. No doubt, the scene is
still funny, but there are 3 darts in the front tire, 2 in the
spare tire, 4 in the rear tire, and 1 in the helmet of the chaffeur.
- Movie: Grosse Pointe Blank
Scene: The shootout at the UltiMart versus Benny
"The Jet"
Mistake: This is ridiculous, but I know why
they do stuff like this, so this one escapes from serious damage
to my enjoyment of the film, but there are 3 here in this scene:
- There is no way in hell that kid working at the UltiMart
wouldn't have gotten riddled with bullets, especially when
you see Benny leaving, the bullets fly at the door, and yet
that kid is unharmed.
- When Martin runs out of the store, there were 4 seconds
on the Microwave Timer, and it took at least 6 or 7 seconds
for him to run back in and drag the kid out, and 3 more for
them to be the distance that they are from the store when
the explosion happens.
- Apparently, C4 in the Microwave goes off when the bell rings.
Personally I thought it was really cool to use a Microwave
as a detonator, but the detonation happens from the metal
sparking, not the timer going off, so it was a little silly
to have it go off after the microwave shut off.
- Movie: Jerry MacGuire
Scene: The Big Date: When Jerry goes
to pick up Renee (sorry, her character name escapes me for the
moment.)
Mistake: I still can't figure this out, but
it appears that she is wearing two different dresses, or that
she is wearing the same dress, but it rides higher on some angles
than others within the same scene. I need to see this again to
confirm it, but it was so noticable that I stopped watching the
scene to figure it out. They must have filmed this scene in parts
(closeup shots of her reaction, etc) and different days.
- Movie: Wild Wild West
Scene: Right after Will and Kevin go for a dip in the red
mud and pretty much get covered.
Mistake: Suddenly there is a ton of mud missing and they
look much cleaner than they should have, especially since West
sneezed a bunch of mud all over Gordon. I know its nit-picky,
but they actually hire people to watch out for this kind of stuff.
In a big budget like this, you expect better.
- Movie: Galaxy Quest
Scene: Allen and Weaver have to go through "The Chompers"
and Weaver's character mouths the words "F--- that!", but the
voice says "Screw that!" instead.
Mistake: This is a post production voice over technique
that I am seeing a lot more of. It appears that the producers
might have wanted to maintain the PG-13 rating of the movie. So
the voiceover was done.
- Movie: Love Stinks
Scene: The Date Night scene, when Stuart's character notices
that the diamond earrings that supposedly got thrown in the ocean
were now on his estranged girlfriend's ears. She says "While you
weren't looking, I slipped them into my little pink bra." If you
look closely, her mouth doesn't form the word "bra" but something
entirely different. I won't tell you what it is, but you can do
the math, since she was wearing a white teddy in the referred
scene.
Mistake: For comedy sake, the overdubbed word would have
been more funny, but I think again they were attempting to keep
the censors off their backs, and used the overdub.
- Movie: Lethal Weapon
Scene: The touching scene where Mel is crying and staring
at the picture of his wife
Mistake: This is a Foley or sound sync mistake, but when
Mel's is holding his gun and crying, he hits himslef in the head
with the flat end of the gun. The sound is about 1/2 second too
late. This turned a relatively heavy scene into comedy.
- Movie: The Hitcher
Scene: C. Thomas Howell's car gets clipped by a bus
Mistake: In this very intense scene, his car gets the rear
end pretty much ripped off. The next shot of the car has the back
end in perfect shape. Not comedy, just bad editing.
- Movie: The Highlander
Scene: Deleted scene In Nazi Germany, McCleod saves Rachel
(as a little girl) from the evil Nazis
Mistake: Pretty good scene, which may have added to the
movie, but the scene is dark in one frame, and daylight in the
next and then dark again. Pretty funny. Somebody forgot what time
of day they wanted to shoot.
- Movie: Commando
Scene: Woodshed scene, Arnold jumps down from the inside
roof and shears a bad guy's scalp with a circular blade
Mistake: This is not technically a mistake, but it is funny
as hell when viewed in slow motion. Watch closely as the top of
the guy's head flips back those new caps on toothpaste. You really
have to see this one but it is truly high comedy.
- Movie: The Abyss: Regular Cut
Scene: Not really a scene, but did you ever wonder why
Ed Harris' arm was blue? As with many things in the released version,
this didn't make any sense.
Mistake: In the Director's cut, you see why his arm is
blue. He threw his wedding band in the toilet after a fight with
his wife, and then thought twice about it and retireved it.
I'm sure more will come in the future, I just have to think about
the movies that made me laugh again.
-Brian |