The biggest and best continuity goofs in movies: 1. "Star Wars"

This is a big one, but from a B-movie, in "American Ninja 2: The Confrontation", early on, there's a scene where Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) and Curtis Jackson (Steve James) talk to "Wild Bill" about their assignment on this fictional island. At the end of the scene, Wild Bill sends them off, and from behind, you see Joe and Curtis walk out. Only, it's not Michael Dudikoff playing Joe in the scene, but his stand-in. I noticed this in the theater in 87. It's blatant, the guy even looks in the camera. It's an eternal mystery as to why that was a printed take for the finished film, without Dudikoff.

The scene can be seen in this humorous review on Youtube.

There are many in movies, what are some that spring to mind for you?

 

In the scene in Back to the Future where the Libians are chasing Marty in the DeLorean, zooming in reveals that it is in fact Eric Stolz in the vehicle, not Michael J. Fox.

 

Interesting, that's a good one. It would be very cool to see all the footage shot with Eric Stoltz. There's a lot of it. It will never happen, but it would be cool to see.

 

The Departed.

Opening scene with Jack Nicholson, the part where he says the, "you can become cops or criminals. today, what I'm saying to you is this. When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?"


At first the camera's behind him and you can see him walking with a cigarette in his mouth. Then when the camera cuts to the front of him, the cigarette's gone.


I don't know why, but that bugs me.

 

Here is a site that has pics of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly.

 

The Storm Trooper hitting his head on the door in ANH always gets me.

 

Equilibrium's plot twist is a continuity error, in and of itself.

 

There's a scene in The Two Towers where Pippin is tied up by the hands in the Orc encampment, the Rohirrim come in and bust everything up, and as a horse almost steps on him, his hands are out as his sides. In the next scene, he's tied up again.

 

You paid to see American Ninja 2: The Confrontation in the cinema?

 

In a movie called 3 O'clock high, which you may or may not have seen, there's a scene where the main character is running down a school hallway, and you can see the boom mic in picture for a few seconds.

 

i'm not very good remembering details. can you elaborate?

 

If you mean the gunswap, then it is not a continuity error. Preston took Brandts gun before they went to where the dogs were being held.

 

How much of Back to the Future was filmed with Eric Stoltz? I've never heard of this before.

 

I can't recall for sure, but in the DVD extras in the BTTF set, the producers/director did say they filmed several scenes with Stoltz, before realizing that it "wasn't working out" with him and decided to go with Fox instead (they even show still photos from the shoot with Stoltz). I think the entire midnight parking lot sequence was filmed with Stoltz first, then they redid most of those shots with Fox later.


One of the more well-know continuity/editing goofs is in It's A Wonderful Life. George Bailey is in his bank office, answering a telephone. He has a Christmas wreath looped on his arm (the arm holding the phone's base & switchhook), then the camera cuts away, then cuts back in and the wreath is gone. He couldn't have put the wreath down without putting down the phone and pulling it away from his ear. Then the camera cuts away, then cuts back in and the wreath is back. All the while George is still on his call.

Nobody's mentioned it yet, but a great website for finding movie editing mistakes is

www.moviemistakes.com

I'm certain is has all the mistakes we've listed in its catalog.

 

Reportedly a third of the movie was filmed with him in the role. The footage still exists according to the producers, but of course it's being saved for an eventual "Ultimate Grand Final We Promise It's the Last One" edition of the DVD.

 

They didn't show that, but made a point of showing the switch at the execution. Hence a continuity error.

 

Hell yeah! Well, actually, my dad did. I made him go see it. I grew up with those Golan/Globus action flicks of the 80's. I miss those days. They don't make them like they used to.

Here's my favorite Youtube clip on American Ninja, done to the Guess Who's "American Woman". Good stuff.

 

Shameless shelf-promotion:

Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly

 

The Star Wars prequels suffered some major continuity errors, due to George's choice of shooting several parts of each film a year after principal photography. Most notably with Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the reshoots stand out the most in "Attack of the Clones". That bell-shaped wig he had to wear, like in his introduction in the elevator with Anakin, is a disgrace. People tend to bring up the fake beard only, but that wig kills me just as much. That wig and fake beard seem to take up almost 50% of Obi-Wan's shots, which really hurt the quality of the film, IMO. In TPM, Ewan also had to sport this reddish wig during reshoots that did not match his hair well at all.

 

i get that the wig is annoying, but how is it a continuity error?

 

A nice one from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Chicago is apparently somewhere near Phoenix.

 

Because he has his real hair in one shot, and a wig in its place in the next. This is about filmmaking continuity errors, and that certainly is one.

 

oh well, missed that. i was to set on finding the wig utterly annoying

 

"Commando" has a few very blatant ones, within about a minute of each other. When Arny hoists Sully over the cliff, you can clearly see the cable that is holding Sully up. Then Arny pushes back over the Porshe that should be completely thrashed on its left side. They get in the car, turn it around to drive off, and, presto, brand new car. Not a scratch.

 

I love this kind of stuff in movies!! What a great thread!

I grew up watching bad, 1980's actioners with my dad on Saturday afternoons. Dudikoff was our hero . . . at least until American Ninja 3 came out without Dudikoff. What a rip. It was a little better when he came back for a team up in American Ninja 4, but it really was horrible when the two main characters finally talk to each other in the end after the final action sequences are over. You can tell that Bradley and Dudikoff were not even together for the final scene as their conversation is horribly edited together. But you know what? I loved it as a kid!