Best adventure movie character mistakes of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

The Hunt for Red October picture

Character mistake: Characters refer to the Dallas and the Red October as "ships," but anyone stationed aboard a submarine would know to call it a "boat."

Cubs Fan

More The Hunt for Red October character mistakes
Flight of the Phoenix picture

Character mistake: It's all very heroic and manly but the effort put into dragging the Phoenix into its takeoff position once the engine is started is totally wasted. Townes and A.J. are both experienced pilots and Elliott is supposedly a genius aeronautical engineer - they must surely be aware that the engine power required to taxi an aircraft is trivial compared to that required to lift it into the air. Even taking into account the drag of the skids and wheels, if that engine cannot propel the aircraft at a few kilometers an hour on the ground it cannot propel it to take off speed, nor keep it up once airborne. They are not there to steer the aircraft - they are taking the strain of the whole weight of the air-frame, dragging it into place, and the energy input of eight exhausted, underfed people would add nothing to the contribution of a 2500 bhp aircraft engine in moving the Phoenix. They are not trying conserve fuel - they had enough fuel for an extended flight with both engines at full throttle, so they have easily enough to run one engine throttled back to reduce stress on the air-frame, which they say they are going to do.

More Flight of the Phoenix character mistakes
Stuart Little 2 picture

Character mistake: When Stuart calls home from the pay phone he's talking into the wrong end of the phone.

More Stuart Little 2 character mistakes
Wonder Woman 1984 picture

Character mistake: Barbara is in her office looking for the one item they need help to identify when Diana walks in. She says "OK, item number 23." She suddenly finds it saying "here it is" and reaches in the box to grab the Dreamstone. The ticket says item #24. (00:22:18 - 00:22:50)

More Wonder Woman 1984 character mistakes
Die Another Day picture

Character mistake: Near the beginning, when James Bond enters the North Korean complex, Zao is sent information to his mobile phone about James Bond being from the "MI6 Security Service." This is inaccurate information because MI6 is the Secret Intelligence Service and not the Security Service. It is MI5, which is the Security Service. (00:06:29)

More Die Another Day character mistakes
The Final Countdown picture

Character mistake: Following the barricade recovery of the Corsair, the Officer of the Deck instructs the helmsman to return to course "three five oh." No line officer would use the term "oh" in place of "zero", especially when giving course change instructions.

goofyfoot

More The Final Countdown character mistakes
Pokemon: the First Movie picture

Character mistake: One of the other trainers said he rode over on a Pidgeotto, but it was a Pidgeot. (00:40:07)

More Pokemon: the First Movie character mistakes
Avatar picture

Character mistake: In the beginning scene where the shuttle lands on Pandora, as Jake gets on his wheelchair preparing to alight from the shuttle, the man behind him unloading equipment has his exopack mask loose even though he is exposed to Pandora's atmosphere. (00:05:20)

More Avatar character mistakes
Sky High picture

Character mistake: In the scene where Steve and Josie prepare to leave to fight the giant robot at the beginning of the movie, Steve tells Will "Oh, Will, a reminder: a lot of the kids at Sky High will only have one super hero parent, not two." When he says "one super hero parent", he holds up two fingers. When he says "not two", he holds up only one finger.

omegaman1144

More Sky High character mistakes
Moana picture

Character mistake: When Maui and Moana set sail after defeating the Kakamora, Maui says they must head east. He turns the boat 90° as he says this. Throughout the next scene the setting sun is to the left of them (providing a beautiful backdrop to their fight), meaning that the boat must be heading north, not east.

More Moana character mistakes
The Lost World: Jurassic Park picture

Character mistake: When they're on the island and the INGen helicopters are flying in, Jeff Goldblum takes the binoculars and looks through the wrong end. (00:32:30)

More The Lost World: Jurassic Park character mistakes
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery picture

Character mistake: Austin is supposed to be the archetypal Swinging Sixties Londoner yet he refers to his car as a Shaguar, a pun on 'Jaguar', pronouncing it 'Shag-war'. A native of this green and pleasant land would pronounce it 'Shag-u-ar', three syllables, not two, based on our pronunciation of the car manufacturer's name: Jag-u-ar. He also refers to a truck - a 'lorry' - as a "law-ree." We call them "lurries."

More Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery character mistakes
Goldfinger picture

Character mistake: When Bond is being flown to Baltimore, Pussy calls her assistant Mai Lee twice on the plane: once in person, then telling the co-pilot to give her instructions. However, when they disembark, she calls her Mai Lai.

More Goldfinger character mistakes
Ad Astra picture

Character mistake: During the debrief meeting with the generals, Roy states the Lima Project was "some 29 years ago" and "the ship disappeared approximately 16 years into the mission." A few minutes later, Roy narrates "I was 16 when he left, 29 when he disappeared." This of course is only 13 years into the mission. (00:11:27 - 00:15:03)

More Ad Astra character mistakes
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith picture

Character mistake: During the opening space battle, Obi-Wan's ship falls under attack by buzz-droids, who proceed to cut into his fighter, disabling a number of systems and leading Anakin to try some decidedly dangerous moves to get rid of them. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan are acknowledged experts in the use of the Force and both have been shown to use the Force routinely, even for relatively mundane activities. It's also been firmly established that the Force works on droids and that the Force-user can still affect others through windows, viewscreens and so forth. Yet neither thinks to use the Force to deal with the buzz-droids. (00:05:10)

Tailkinker

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: There's no evidence this is a mistake. In fact, it's logically self-defeating. As you noted, both Anakin and Obi-Wan are trained Jedi Knights. If the option of knocking the droids off with the Force was indeed feasible, presumably they would have done it. There are any number of reasons why they didn't (they couldn't concentrate enough in the middle of a pitched naval battle to commit a Force attack, the droids could have been attached magnetically, etc.) but the bottom line is that if telekinesis was an option they would have done it.

More Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith character mistakes
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi picture

Character mistake: As they take Han away, watch Lando. Just before he tilts his mask down so we can see who he is, he whacks his head on the doorway. (00:16:20)

More Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi character mistakes
Star Trek: First Contact picture

Character mistake: When Picard is explaining the Enterprise to Lily he states that it has 24 decks. Yet earlier on, a crewman had reported to Worf that the Borg had taken over "decks 26 up to 11".

More Star Trek: First Contact character mistakes
Thunderball picture

Character mistake: When Angelo sets the Vulcan down in the sea, he blows the canopy and extends the landing gear. As the plane settles, he attempts to release his harness, then has his air line cut by Largo. He futilely beats on the harness release when all he had to do was pull the face curtain handles to trigger the ejection seat, which would not only blow him clear of the plane but would separate him from the seat itself. Having trained for two years for this specific mission, he would undoubtedly be familiar with ejection procedures.

More Thunderball character mistakes
Silent Running picture

Character mistake: While he may not have figured it out the moment he found the forest dying, certainly a botanist like Freeman Lowell would know plants need light to survive.

More Silent Running character mistakes
More Superman III character mistakes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.