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Even acclaimed directors like James Cameron and David Fincher aren't perfect. This video exposes 15 bizarre production goofs and continuity errors that slipped past the editing room and onto the big screen.
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00:00While most movie mistakes are of the boring, ordinary sort, basic continuity errors and the
00:05like, sometimes mistakes sneak into films that are so bizarre, so eyebrow-raising, that they
00:12leave audiences wondering how the hell they made it in there at all. That is absolutely the case
00:16with the following mistakes. This is WhatCulture and here are the derangest mistakes kept in movies.
00:22Crew member wipes the lens, the abyss. Even a filmmaker as famously exacting as James Cameron
00:29can't help but let a bizarre mistake or two slip through the cracks, as evidenced by this
00:33deeply weird gaffe in his aquatic masterpiece that is the abyss. During an intense sequence where Bud
00:40tries to convince Lindsay to put on a diving suit, for about a second it's possible to spot a crew
00:45member casually wiping the camera lens, or to be more precise, the underwater housing covering the
00:51camera lens. Now this is one of those things that's a bit tough to spot without knowing about it
00:55beforehand, because it happens during one of the most intense scenes in the movie, and can
00:59easily be dismissed by our brains as a piece of hanging debris. That's what my brain did anyway.
01:04And the film's cinematographer Mikael Salomon did comment on the mistake at a recent screening of
01:09The Abyss 2, similarly expressing his surprise that this take was used in the final cut.
01:15Look, movie fan to movie fan, we've all been there. Sat on the couch, doing the scroll of doom,
01:22desperately trying to find something to watch until you think of something you do want to watch,
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02:25The face-morphing Winklevoss twins. The social network. Even a director as absurdly meticulous as
02:32David Fincher can't get everything right 100% of the time, as evidenced by this peculiar oversight in
02:38his phenomenal drama The Social Network. One of the film's greatest triumphs is the visual effects
02:43coup of having Armie Hammer play both Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler. And because Hammer wasn't
02:49particularly well-known in 2010, many people simply assumed that there were actually twin actors that
02:54were hired for the gig. Instead, actor Josh Pence played Tyler's stand-in on set while Hammer played
02:59Cameron, and Hammer's face was later digitally mapped over the top of Pence's. It's a practically seamless
03:04effect, save for one single scene. When the twins approached Mark Zuckerberg to work on their
03:10website early on in the film, Josh Pence's face is actually visible at both the start and the end
03:15of the scene for about a second each. Pence looks similar enough to Hammer that it's not immediately
03:19obvious, but once you do notice it, you'll never not. Quite how these shots simply didn't render
03:24Hammer's face is anyone's guess, yet they incredibly managed to slip past even a strident perfectionist
03:29like Fincher, and Loomis fires seven shots. Halloween 2. John Carpenter's original Halloween
03:35memorably ends with Dr. Loomis unloading six gunshots into Michael Myers, in turn disabling
03:41Michael enough to save Laurie Strode, even if Myers ultimately gets away. For Halloween 2,
03:47that sequel opens with a recap of the original film, showing Loomis shooting Michael once again,
03:52albeit with a new shot showing Michael taking a perilous tumble over the balcony of the house.
03:57But there's one key mistake here. We hear Loomis fire seven shots, despite him only firing six
04:04shots in the original version of the scene. Beyond that, Loomis is firing a six-shooter,
04:09so it'd be literally impossible for him to shoot a seventh bullet without a time-consuming reloader.
04:14It's all the more baffling given that it's mentioned numerous times throughout Halloween 2
04:18that Loomis shot Michael six times, and yet the sound design team got sloppy with their recreation of
04:25one of the original film's most iconic moments. All they had to do was re-watch 10 seconds from
04:30the 1978 film to make sure they got this right, or even just listen to Loomis dialogue throughout
04:35this film. But that was clearly too much effort.
04:37The self-repairing Porsche. Commando.
04:40Though continuity errors are generally common in Hollywood, sometimes they're so egregiously
04:45obvious that you have to wonder if every department head was just asleep at the wheel.
04:48And so we present perhaps the worst continuity error to ever appear in a major movie, and that's
04:54thanks to 1985's Arnold Schwarzenegger starring action classic Commando. After John Matrix chases
05:00down the villainous weasel Sully, Sully's swanky yellow Porsche, or Porsche if you want to pronounce
05:05it like that, is left thoroughly scuffed up. Matrix then kills Sully, I lied, and hops into his car,
05:12where the full extent of the damage to the left side of the door is clearly visible.
05:15Hilariously though, in the very next shot as Matrix and Cindy drive off, this side of the
05:20car miraculously looks good as new. Obviously two different cars were used to shoot the sequence,
05:24but considering how glaring the difference between their condition is, it's truly flabbergasting
05:28that not a single crew member, nor even Schwarzenegger himself, pointed out the mistake.
05:32The Reverse Waterfall. Anaconda.
05:35Editing mistakes are among the most common in any film, and often it's just because a filmmaker
05:40favours a brilliantly acted moment enough to accept a minor continuity error.
05:44And then there's this physics-breaking screw-up from 1997's cult fave creature feature,
05:51Anaconda. In the third reel, as Terry helps treat a wounded Dr. Kale, we cut to an exterior
05:56shot of their boat sailing down the river past a waterfall. How lovely.
06:01But evidently the crew forgot to shoot the boat sailing this way, and so instead the footage
06:05had to be reversed in post. This simple editing trick would have probably worked had it not been
06:10for the waterfall in the shot, as the water can be seen flowing backwards up the waterfall,
06:16which of course makes no sense at all, unless it's a magic waterfall, which I don't think it is.
06:20Considering how CGI-heavy the film is, it's surprising that the waterfall wasn't just isolated
06:25and reversed again to flow forward, something any budding VFX artist could do in an hour on their
06:31home computer today. Maybe someone should, just to show they can. There's a project for any budding
06:35VFX artist out there. Go and do it. Thanks for checking out this strange mistake-filled list
06:39today, my friend. If you're enjoying yourself, then hit that subscribe button down below and you
06:43will enjoy yourself so much more with, you guessed it, more of these videos. It just makes sense,
06:49you know, do it. Green screen gone wrong. He's all that. If you didn't bother watching Netflix's
06:54gender-swapped remake of 90s teen comedy She's All That, not a single solitary soul could possibly
06:59blame you because it's terrible. And because he's all that can't simply settle for being a bad movie,
07:05it's also a technically incompetent one. Shortly after the film's release, viewers began to report
07:10on social media that it contained numerous head-scratching technical mistakes, suggesting
07:14the film employed far more use of green screen compositing than the naked eye would immediately
07:18believe. In an early scene, social media influencer Paget is singing at a party, and eagle-eyed viewers
07:25might notice that her raised hand, well, just vanishes. For whatever reason, it appears that
07:30the scene was actually shot in front of a green screen, and because the VFX team screwed up their
07:34masking layers, her hand just disappears into the air for a few moments. But that's not the only mistake
07:40though, because roughly 64 minutes into the film, if you keep an eye on the background as she and
07:44Cameron are talking, you'll see that this is comprised largely of school kids washing cars and is played
07:49in slow motion while the foreground unfolds at regular speed. It is weird. So yeah, enjoy that,
07:56because let's face it, that's the only thing that you can enjoy in this terrible film.
07:59The Camera Bump Punch Drunk Love
08:01Paul Thomas Anderson is another filmmaker who has an intense fixation on details. And yet,
08:08he not only let this technical mistake slip into his movie, he actually insisted upon repeating it.
08:13Let me explain. During the unforgettably awkward scene where protagonist Barry calls a phone sex
08:19line, there's a moment there where he's sat on a couch and the camera suddenly loses focus,
08:24before abruptly shaking to the side. Yeah, it's an odd moment that sticks out in the middle of the
08:29scene. And indeed, this was a genuine mistake during filming. The camera got too close to a table
08:34in front of the couch, knocking it and causing the camera to shift for a moment before the operator
08:39resumed their position. According to the film's own cinematographer, Robert Elswit, he expected
08:44Anderson to toss the take out. But PTA instead loved this objective technical flaw and even insisted
08:50that it be repeated on subsequent takes, with Elswit smacking the camera's matte box to give the same
08:56off-axis effect. It isn't clear whether the original take was used or not. But either way,
09:01it's a most bizarre mistake that was actually intentionally kept in the final cut by one of
09:06our finest directors. How odd.
09:08Omi Jalili's wardrobe malfunction, The Mummy
09:121999's The Mummy is a damn good time. An old-fashioned action-adventure film that's
09:16just scary enough to be fun, yet still fit for all the family to watch, except for that one scene
09:22with accidental male nudity. Midway through the movie, Warden Gad Hassan is killed when a flesh-eating
09:27scarab beetle eats its way through his body and eventually emerges out of his ear. Nasty. While Hassan
09:33is frequently squirming around as the scarab eats his way up his body, there's a momentary flash of
09:37actor Omi Jalili's penis which actually falls out of his loose-fitting baggy trousers. Quite how this
09:43is even possible and why he's not wearing underwear has never been ascertained, but needless to say,
09:48graphic nudity is the last thing that any movie studio wants to sneak into their big-budget family
09:52blockbuster no matter how brief. Anne Hathaway sneaks away Les Miserables
09:56It's just as well that Les Miserables's epilogue is so devastatingly captivating,
10:01enough that it might distract you from an otherwise hilarious blocking or editing mistake during one
10:06of the entire movie's most affecting moments. As Jean Valjean dies and the spirit of Fontaine
10:12sings her heart out behind him, pay close attention and you might notice that Anne Hathaway awkwardly
10:18ducks out of frame just as the shot cuts to a distraught Cosette. More to the point as Cosette
10:23laments Jean's death, we can even see Hathaway slinking away in the background, despite the fact
10:28that in the next shot we can see her side by side with Jean's spirit as they exit the room.
10:33Talk about a deeply bizarre way to undercut a hugely emotional moment, but presumably director Tom
10:38Hooper just thought that this was the best take of Amanda Seyfried's reaction, and likely hoped that
10:43audiences would be so fixated on her that they wouldn't really notice what's going on in the
10:47background. The internet being the internet though, that of course was not the case.
10:51Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did. Though she was not playing Gallagher.
10:54Ellie's Mismatched Reflection, That Awkward Moment
10:57Now don't feel bad if you don't remember that awkward moment, which arrived and evaporated
11:02from the cultural consciousness in a blip in early 2014. Its single most memorable moment in fact
11:07just might be this fascinatingly strange production gaffe. When Ellie and Jason are hanging out at a coffee
11:13shop, you might notice that her reflection in the nearby window doesn't actually
11:17match up with what she's doing in front of a camera. Clearly there was some sort of issue
11:21with the reflection during shooting, perhaps maybe a visible crew member, and so the VFX
11:25team simply composited in a reflection from another take assuming that nobody would notice.
11:30It's subtle enough that it hardly destroys the scene, but it's a unique kind of movie mistake
11:34that rarely occurs and so proves all the more intriguing as a result.
11:38Spelling errors in the credits Dr. Strangelove
11:41No director, dead or alive, is as reputed for their perfectionism as Stanley Kubrick,
11:48and so it is a bit hilarious that something as basic as a couple of spelling mistakes made it into
11:52his satirical classic Dr. Strangelove. In the opening credits, a disclaimer mentions that the
11:57characters and incidents depicted are fictitious with two C's rather than fictitious with two T's,
12:03and the screenplay credit mentions that it's based on Peter George's book Red Alert.
12:09Now this is perhaps because the lettering was hand-penned by title designer Pablo Ferro,
12:14and initially only intended as a placeholder during production, and yet Kubrick liked the
12:18handwritten look so much that it was used for the final film, with neither Ferro nor Kubrick noticing
12:24or caring about these incredibly basic spelling mistakes. Then again, it is easy to chuckle at such
12:30errors given the film's generally idiosyncratic tone, even if they do fly in the face of Kubrick's
12:35public image as the most obsessive, detail-fixated filmmaker who ever lived. So much for that then.
12:41A fly flew inside the camera. Kenny and Company.
12:45Movie mistakes don't get much stranger or more singular than this. In the 1976 dramedy Kenny and
12:50Company, there's a most bizarre happening during one of the film's very early scenes. At roughly the 11
12:55minute mark, keep your eye on the left-hand side of the screen, and for about a second you'll
13:00see a weird dark visual aberration gliding about the frame. According to the director,
13:04this was the result of a fly getting trapped in between the camera sensor and the camera lens
13:08during the shooting, causing it to fly across the frame for a moment before seemingly managing to
13:13free itself. While hardly a scene-ruining mistake, it's one of the odder and more unexpected issues
13:18that you'll ever find in a movie. Worst street sweeper ever. Quantum of Solace. I mean, just look at him.
13:25Just look at him. What is going on here? This is the weirdest mistake ever.
13:30The visible crew member, Borderlands. The recent Borderlands adaptation may be an abject mess,
13:37but even so it is still baffling that this easily avoidable slipshod mistake made it into the final
13:42cut of the movie. Even if you've only seen the trailer for the film, you'll likely remember the
13:46distinctive shot where Krieg opens a hatch from above, before the film's heroes all join him to
13:52stare down the hole. Except, if you look closely, a crew member can be seen helping actor Florian
13:58Muntianu pull the hatch open. While we can't see the crew member in detail, they do seem to be wearing
14:03a cap of some kind. And given that every actor in the scene appears in the frame about a second
14:08later,
14:09it is very clearly somebody who isn't supposed to be there. This gaffe was spotted before the
14:13movie's release, and yet Lionsgate just didn't bother fixing it for the final film. Even though painting
14:18out a crew member for a few frames is an incredibly small amount of work for a 120 million dollar
14:23movie. That was still too much work though, clearly. Hilariously, Borderlands creator Randy Pitchford
14:28claimed that the individual in question was actually fan favourite character Brick, who was
14:33ultimately cut from the film. But considering there's no information online about Brick ever being part of
14:37the script, he's almost certainly joking here, right? Yeah, we're gonna go with that.
14:42Cap's shield fixes itself. Avengers Endgame. With the production as complex and a scope as
14:48epic as Avengers Endgame, it's little surprise that some little mistakes made it into the final cut.
14:53But possibly the oddest of all of its major continuity errors involves Captain America.
14:58You'll surely remember that Cap's shield ends up being broken by Thanos during their one-on-one battle.
15:03But once the rest of the heroes emerge through the portals, Cap can briefly be spotted on the
15:08right-hand side of the frame with a fully intact shield. Now, to be completely fair to the Russos,
15:13it's a grand sweeping shot of the heroes on the battlefield and therefore it's not super easy to
15:17spot. But clearly a VFX artist at some point decided to render Cap's shield as fully formed.
15:23Given that there are other continuity mistakes in the colossal busy battle, it's perhaps not terribly
15:27surprising. Though given that Thanos wrecking Cap's shield is a major marquee moment of the third act,
15:32it's pretty strange that this could happen. Then again, considering the army of artists that
15:37probably worked on the film, it's possible that they were only ever shown the specific part of the
15:40battle that they were tasked with working on and didn't actually know anything else in continuity.
15:44The Dead Guy Lives, The Patriot
15:46Early on in Mel Gibson's war epic, The Patriot, we see Benjamin Martin and his younger sons kill
15:52a group of redcoats who plan to hang Benjamin's eldest son, Gabriel. At the end of the harrowing
15:58sequence as Benjamin's family soak in the brutality of the situation, we see Benjamin walk away from the
16:03scene. But if you look very closely here, as the wide shot fades out, one of the dead redcoats can
16:09hilariously be seen moving. Not dead at all then. Evidently, the extra playing the corpse moved a
16:15little too early before Gibson, also the director, called cut, and this movement just wasn't picked
16:20up during editing. However, the movie's extended cut actually replaces this shot with a totally
16:26different one, perhaps suggesting that Gibson was eventually made aware of the error and sought
16:30about removing it for his definitive version of the film. History buffs will point out that one
16:35redcoat did actually survive Martin's ambush in reality, though given that the actor's movement
16:40is only visible for like a second, and Gibson removed it from the extended cut, this was clearly
16:45not what the director was trying to convey here. The Vanishing Jacket fled. There are continuity errors
16:50in $300 million superhero films, and there are head-smackingly ridiculous continuity errors
16:56in modestly budgeted genre films. 1996's buddy action commie Fled, starring Laurence Fishburne and
17:02Stephen Baldwin, may have fallen off the face of the earth shortly after its release, but its new
17:07claim to fame lies in this howlingly bizarre mistake. Midway through the film, Baldwin's Luke Dodge is
17:12wearing a thick grey sweater and then puts on a flannel jacket over the top whilst having a conversation
17:17with Fishburne's Charles Piper. Except when we cut to a side-on shot of the pair talking, Dodge's flannel
17:22jacket has suddenly disappeared before reappearing a few shots later. It's an especially strange
17:27continuity error because the shooting setup is just so simple, and there's very little reason
17:32why Baldwin would remove the jacket and then put it back on again while filming a simple camera setup.
17:37How could such an egregious mistake get past script supervisors, the wardrobe department,
17:41the director, the actors, hell, even the catering crew would have picked up on this? It's highly likely
17:46that the shots of Baldwin without the jacket were actually pick-up shots filmed at a later date and
17:50just inserted into the film, and somebody, and by that I mean everybody, failed to correctly check
17:55continuity with the existing footage. It's still a bafflingly thoughtless mistake, if at least one
18:01which lends added comedy value to a film that most critics agree isn't nearly funny enough.