SPR: Did you catch these mistakes in the movie?

[Murph]

I ran into this site called www.movie-mistakes.com, which points out, strangely enough, movie mistakes.

Altough longish, I though you might find the SPR section interesting. I was shocked and the sheer number they caught. Some are funny, some are pretty cool, and some just make you think "what kind of loser has time to look frame by frame for these things?"

By the way, I'm a big fan of the movie. A great DVD purchase!

Martin

Saving Private Ryan (1998, Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore)

When they go to find Private Ryan there are 8 of them, when they go to a French town and the guy picks up the little girl and he gets killed there are 7, right? Wrong. A few scenes later they show all 8 of them marching on to the next town, only in a far away camera shot so it's hard to see.

In real life, commanding officers don't wear any marking which could easily advertise their rank and importance to snipers. In this movie, Tom Hanks has those bars on his helmet. [Tom Hanks specifically mentioned in an interview that officers would cover the insignia so as not to present a target to snipers, but for the movie they felt it lent a dramatic air to have the bars on his helmet.].

Toward the end of the movie Private Ryan tells the soldiers who came to save him that the last time he and his brothers were together was before they went off to boot camp. But in the pan shot of the interior of the farmhouse, you see a picture of all four brothers in their uniforms.

Matt Damon & Tom Hanks have a moving dialogue. In the scene Matt talks about the time his brother was trying to shag a girl in the barn. While the pained Tom Hanks sits in a chair we notice his hand which often shakes rests underneath the other. Then in a split second the left hand is on top of the other, then below...

After the taking of the beaches, and Tom Hanks returns for revised orders, the fleet in the background appears/disappears.

The older veteran Ryan seen in the opening and closing of the film is wearing a windbreaker with two pins on it. One pin is the insignia of the 101st Airborne (his unit). The other pin is the Presidential Unit Citation (blue bar with gold trim). This was awarded to the soldiers of the 101st after the Battle of Bastogne in December 1944, six months after Private Ryan was sent home. Many 101st vets wear this, but Ryan wouldn't have.

The make of plane that stops the tank at the end of the picture was in real-life not fitted with a bomb rack. Linked to that: when the tiger tank is destroyed by the P-51 mustang the mustang has no underwing rack for any external ordinance. The .50 cal guns that were on the plane would not have destroyed the tank in one explosion, it would have needed to have used a rocket. (That's based upon the time between the explosion and the plane flying overhead). But there were no racks for the rockets! [While P-51s were occasionally fitted with rocket tubes, that still doesn't account for the fact that none were visible] [The fact that Matt Damon identifies them as "tank-busters" implies that the P-51's at the end of the film are the Mustang IA version, which had four 20 mm cannons firing armour piercing and/or explosive shells. This would account for the explosion without rocket racks.] [Tops of tanks are very lightly armoured, and can easily be penetrated by armour piercing shells from the .50, setting off ammo inside and resulting in an explosion.]

In the ending battle, there's two Tiger tanks. First of all, they're not Tigers but mocked-up T-34s. Second, at D-day + 6 there wasn't a Tiger within a hundred miles of Normandy.

101st Airborne Div. landed on the left wing of Utah Beach (view from invasion fleet looking to France) and most of the division was linked with the 4th division after the first day. The 2nd Rangers, Tom Hanks' group, landed on Omaha Beach, which didn't link up with Utah Beach until about D-day+6. Why didn't they send a group from Utah Beach to find Ryan?

In the scene where all the 101st Airborne troops walk past as Rieben, Jackson, Melish and Miller are joking about the various dog tags you can see an isolated shot of a young Italian looking trooper (he kind of looks like a young Sal Mineo) walk past and stare dead at the group. A few minutes later as Hanks' character Capt Miller is yelling at the procession, he shows up again in the background as Hanks encounters the trooper whose hearing is impaired because of the grenade. You have to look quickly though, and the image is somewhat blurred.

At the start when a man has lost his right arm he looks around for it and picks up a left arm. Or is it a left arm and picks up a right?

They use Browning M1919 .30 cal machine guns. During WWII, all machine gun belts for the M1919 were made of canvas. But one shot of a M1919 firing from the tower in the end had a shot of metal links, not introduced till much later.

They consistently talk about MG-42 machine guns. Yet I never hear or see any, only MG-34s. (The MG-42 has a clearly distinguishable sound from the 34 due to the firing rate). A seasoned troop would immediately hear the difference. [The machine gun mounted on the tripod at the radar station is definitely an MG42 (distinct long cooling slot on the barrel).] [An addition: it is, however, on an MG 34 tripod].

The "sticky bombs": How did just the tracks of the tank come off, with all the wheels intact, when the bombs were placed on the wheels?

It is unlikely that an infantry soldier would give up his socks to make bombs when there are plenty of sandbags to use.

By the time in the second world war that Private Ryan portrays the German Air Force was mostly destroyed, Therefore most panzers were fitted with anti-aircraft guns on the commanders cupolas to provide some means of defence. These are clearly not present in the film.

In the Ryan farmhouse scene, the camera pans across the room. You see a telephone hanging on the wall. That type of phone did not appear until at least the 1950s.

On the shore it shows a full can of ammunition floating in and out on the tide. A full can would be as heavy as a rock and would not move.

Toward the end there's a terrified guy carrying belts of machine gun ammunition. The bullets have no primers.

Just before the two American soldiers slap their grease coated "sticky bombs" on the passing German Tiger tank, you can clearly see two identically shaped grease stains on the first two wheels. Presumably nobody remembered to wipe off the wheels of the tank after a rehearsal or previous take of the scene.

In the beginning,we see the invasion of Normandy, and Tom Hanks arrives at the beaches. But the strange thing is that the beaches weren't taken until invasion wave 3. There were 3 waves of invasion waves. The first wave were all but slaughtered...few of the men survived. But because there are NO dead bodies on the beaches when Tom Hanks and his men arrive we assume he is with the first wave. But Tom Hanks and his invasion wave take the beaches...

In the opening battle scene, Capt. Miller pauses beside a beach obstacle (during the first slow-motion sequence) he appears to be kneeling in several inches of water. When he pours the water from his helmet, his knees are visible on the sand and the waterline is well behind him. A moment later he's ordering his men to advance and he's again in several inches of water. Obviously waves come in and go out, and the tide was rising, so it could be correct, but the difference is enough that it appears to be an editing error.

Several close-up shots of the bullets used throughout the film show holes in the cases, so they are clearly blanks.

Lots of the history about the campaigns in WWII (such as writings by Stephen Ambrose and collections of oral histories from other veterans) indicates that the standard way to identify friendly troops in proximity when you couldn't directly see them was to yell "Flash", as a challenge, and "Thunder" was the correct password response. In Saving Private Ryan, this situation is enacted three separate times, with the terms reversed - "Thunder" is the challenge, and "Flash" is the response.

In the beginning of the film, the guy that Tom Hanks is dragging through the water dies. But then you can see him again various times throughout the film, for example when he asks Tom Hanks where the rallying point is.

In the scene where they attack the Tiger they throw at least 3 grenades down the hatch but you never see them explode.

When Tom Hanks arrives at the bottom of the hill, under the German machinegun, he has a radioman left to him. This radioman gets his face shot of. In a later scene, this radioman appears as a wounded soldier on the beach.

The majority of the extras in the movie were from the Irish Army and the F.C.A. (a military organisation). Direct from one of these extras: in the opening scenes where the soldiers are in the boats before docking France against German militia, the soldiers puke their guts out, and we all see this. What you don't know is that it was REAL vomit you see - it was caught on camera perfectly and it was kept...

In the room where the guy gets knifed after the fight, they'd previously shot someone on the stairwell, causing a pool of blood to flow round the door. Later, when we see the scared guy creeping up the stairs, there's no body.

Watch the characters' shadows during the conversation on the bridge when Pvt. Ryan refuses to return home. When Pvt. Ryan speaks, it is obviously close to noon. When Capt. Miller speaks, his shadow is much longer. When the others speak, it is close to sunset and their shadows are perpendicular to Pvt. Ryan's.

Before the final attack in the village, we can see a wall with an advertising for Byrrh, an aperitif drink made from a blend of wines. The ad reads: “Byrrh, l'ami de l'estomach”, which basically means: “Byrrh, stomach's friend”. In French, the correct spelling is “estomac”, not “estomach”. This is quite a big mistake since the ad and the building are three or four stories high.

In the final battle, they take away the .30 GPMG machine gun out of the breach in the wall because there was "no ammo left". So why in the scene after do you still see an ammo belt in the feeding slot (left side) as they remove it?

Look very close at the M1 Garand cartridge belts. The ten pockets where the 8 rd. clips go are flat. These guys are all going into combat with no ammo! You would at least think they would have put blocks of wood equal to the size of the clips in the belt pockets to make it look like they have ammo in their belts.

The so called Tiger tank is supposed to to be a late version but the front lights are a early one! I guess there were no early ones left at that time. And the Germans would probably not move tanks in to towns, they learned that in the Polish invasion.

It typically took several weeks for a soldier's death to be reported back to the U.S., yet S. Ryan's death was reported and orders issued by D-Day +3.

When the patrol is moving through the field of yellow/gold flowers, the BAR man clearly has no ammunition magazine in his weapon.

In the scene in the pentagon between several officers and General Marshal, when the camera pans over Marshall's left shoulder towards the officers, you can see that the colonel, who was missing his left arm in earlier scenes, has it again; it's missing again in the next shot.

The Tiger tanks in the end battle are not Tigers or T-34s they are self propelling guns - but towards the end of the war, the Germans were using them to bolster the numbers in Panzer divisions.

In the film it is said that Capt. Miller and his men belong to Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion Ranger and that they land in the Dog Green sector of Omaha Beach. I believe it was the 5th Battalion Rangers landed in that sector. Charlie company of the 2nd Battalion landed at Pointe du Hoc, a cliff between Omaha and Utah Beach.

When Caparzo is hit by the sniper he falls and drops his M1 right next to where he lands. Next time you see him the M1 is gone.

In the opening sequence Cpt Miller is wading through the sea with another man. You can see an odd looking square shaped object clearly through his wet uniform. It may come as no surprise but a second later he is shot dead centre of the pocket. The object was obviously a charge.

Near the end of the movie there is an hand to hand combat scene which results in the good guy being knifed in the chest while pleading for his life. You can clearly see that is is a fake cardboard box body with his head poking out.

Why Capt. Miller didn't use his sniper to shoot the 2 or 3 Germans defending the broken radar tower, instead of rushing it?

Jackson clearly fires more than 5 rounds from his 1903 springfield, a gun whose bullet capacity was only five rounds.

When they show the big battle at the beginning, the insignia of the troops is clearly that of a unit that was an all black unit, yet there isn't a black actor in sight.

When Barry Pepper (Jackson) has been given the dog tags to search through he looks for a place to sit. In this scene you see a black box with two yellow boxes at either side in the background. In the next scene the yellow box on the left has magically jumped up onto the black box in order for Barry to kick it off and sit on it.

Just before Tom Hanks is shot, some other soldier is shot. He falls on the ground but a second later you see him lift his bum up and roll in the water.

General Marshall is wearing branch insignia on his blouse lapel. Branch refers to, for example, infantry, armour, ordnance, etc. I think his was General Staff but I'd need to check exactly which branch he had on. But the point is, he shouldn't have had any. Generals don't wear branch insignia.

In the first town the group comes to (the one where Caparzo is killed) they meet up with the Airborne troops and the Airborne Sergeant. They then move through the town to find the Airborne Captain. Right after they start this move the Airborne Sgt. stops and drops to a knee before moving on. When he gets up and moves, the coiled up rope (that all the Airborne carry) falls out of the left side of his back-pack. No-one notices it and they all keep moving. A couple of seconds later they show him with Tom Hanks and the rope is back in his back-pack like it magically reappeared.

Tom Hanks should not have been able to fire his Thompson through the Tiger's driver's visor. There is a vision block of protective glass that the driver looks through.

In the final battle scene, when Barry Pepper's character Jackson is in the bell tower, you are shown a shot through his rifle scope and can see the crosshairs. When he shoots, the bullet squib from the ground is nowhere near where the crosshairs are.

Right after that, the bell tower is destroyed by a tank shot. When Pepper dies, you see a ball of fire effect which was obviously put in later. That's okay, but when they immediately cut to the wide shot of the tower, there is no flame, just smoke. If the tank was using high explosive loads, it would have made a huge fireball for all to see. If it was a regular round, there would be very little flash upon explosion.

The only other nationalities the Americans meet are German soldiers and French civvies. Surely the squad couldn't bog around France for so long and not see so much as a corpse of a British or French soldier, never mind a live one. It's not as if America was entirely responsible for liberating France, although it did play a vital part.

The MG 42 in the Normandy scene in the beginning of the film, is clearly mounted with a blank-round firing device. It is a large red thing you screw on the barrel of the gun.

During certain scenes in the movie, we see Jackson switching his Weaver M73B1 sniper scope on his M1903A4 sniper rifle with a Unertl sniper scope. The problem is that the Unertl scope was used exclusively by the U.S. Marines in the Pacific Theatre on their M1903A1 sniper rifle.

During the scene in the French village, where Ted Danson comes to the rescue of Miller's men, as both Americans and Germans are screaming at each other to lay down their weapons - if you look closely at Miller's Thompson machine gun, it has no clip.

A Hitler Youth dagger is found in the trench right after the first bunker is taken on the beach. The men in these bunkers were mostly old German soldiers (in their 40's), veterans of the Russian campaign and Ukrainian and White Russian conscripts. It's highly unlikely that a member of the Hitler Youth or an SS Division composed of them would have been manning the bunkers on that stretch of Normandy, which had not been expected to be an invasion target. These divisions were kept further inland, with the rest of the SS Panzer divisions.

In the very beginning of the movie, when the old man enters the cemetery, he is actually walking from the opposite side of the entrance, meaning in real life, he has already walked past the graves.

In one of the end scenes, a German goes to shoot an American, who is on his knees, at point blank range to his chest. The German is clearly pointing the rifle away from his chest by about a foot yet still hits him in the chest? I know safety is an issue but come on, it was way off the mark.

Jackson, the American sniper, shoots left-handed. The army in the 1940's trained all their soldiers, snipers included, to shoot right handed, regardless of their preference.

When the door of the landing craft opens in the beginning of the film, a soldier is immediately shot in the head. As he goes down his eyes close, open, close ... To notice it you have to look frame per frame. When he has his eyes open you see him check where he has to fall.

The men are sitting in the French village waiting for the Germans to arrive. They listen to a French record and a large pile of rubble can be seen in the background. The camera then cuts to a face shot of one of the soldiers, which gives a closer view of the rubble; and just above his shoulder can be seen a black shiny plastic rubbish bin lid - a product that surely wouldn't have been available in a small French village, let alone before say, 1970.

In the opening battle scene, Tom Hank's makes reference that all of the armour support for the invasion, the 741st and 743rd Tank Battalions, having foundered in the English Channel. While the 741st did lose 30 of the 32 tanks allocated to the 1st Infantry Division's part of Utah Beach, the 743rd successfully landed 32 tanks on the 29th Infantry Division's Omaha Beach, including the Dog Green section.

In the scene where Hanks's squad comes upon the injured 101st glider troops, he meets the pilot who flew the No. 1 glider, carrying Brigadier General Pratt (deputy Comdr., 101st Airborne) who was killed in the landing. In actuality the pilot flying this glider broke both of his legs in the landing.

There is this part in the opening battle scene where you see a German soldier's point of view when he is firing down at the Americans, If you look closely you can see the German soldier is clearly firing in another direction than where the bullets are hitting.

Near the end of the film when Captain Miller and Private Ryan are out of ammunition they begin lobbing what I think are mortars by hand. However if you look closely, Miller still has two fragmentary grenades still firmly attached to his belt.

Just before the scene were the tower on the beach was set alight, we see a soldier tossing a grenade to the Sargent which he throws at the back of the tower. If you look closely you will see the soldier throwing a second grenade at the tower, yet we only witness one explosion.

The filmmakers go all out to portray the gritty realism of the invasion and its aftermath. All of the soldiers are ragged and grungy. Except one: Private Ryan. Matt Damon has perfectly white teeth (such whiteness probably wasn't even possible in'44) and something of a hairdo as well. Did he have to take time out from fighting every once in awhile to say "Guys, excuse me, I have to go brush my teeth"?

In the final fight at the end of the movie, the character in Tom Hank's squad with the bolt action rifle is in the church steeple firing away at the Germans. However, that type of rifle can only hold a 5 shot clip. Yet the guy shoots nearly a dozen times without reloading.

In the opening scene where the old Pvt. Ryan is walking to see the grave of Capt. Miller the man behind him in the blue shirt has a camera around his neck and has his hands in his pocket, then in the next shot he is all of a sudden holding the camera and taking a picture of Ryan as he is walking.

The interpreter soldier dude, says "Germans couldn't tell my accent, the might only think I have a small Bavarian accent," or something like that. When he then speaks German he has such a clear, bad American accent that even the dumbest German could tell that he is a foreigner.

During the scene where the Sarge and the BAR guy are facing down, things are getting out of control with Sarge pulling a .45 on the BAR guy. In the background, from among the rest of the Ranger group, alternating scenes of Jackson, the sniper, show him with his pistol either raised or holstered.

In the scene where Capt. Miller meets the interpreter. The interpreter grabs his typewriter from the improvised shelf and his helmet falls to the ground. Moments later he's seen taking his helmet off the shelf. An obvious error.

At the beginning of the scene in which Mellick is killed at knifepoint, we see Mellick and airborne soldier in the room shooting at Germans. The ammo runs low and they hear footsteps coming up the steps. They shoot into the wall, we hear a thud and blood streams on the floor into the room from the hallway. Next, the Germans (including the who kills Mellick) storm the room, but our heroes get one first; this German falls dead outside the room blocking the door. Now cut to the end of the scene: Mellick is dead and the German is now walking down the stairs. There should be at least two dead bodies at the top of the stairs, but they're gone.

In the major battle scene, if you look closely when the men are being sick in the landing craft, there is an Irish ferry in the distance.

During the beach scene, Tom Hanks is kneeling at the rear of a Belgian fence talking about the beach being pre-sighted. There is a guy in front of the fence who gets shot like 3 or 4 times if you look the first scene he gets shot in the upper leg area, then when hanks moves out from behind the obstacle the bullet wound is magically disappeared.

[Michael Dorosh]

There are a few sites that list SPR's "flubs". Half of the mistakes on those sites aren't even mistakes. This list seems a little bit better, but there are a lot of "so whats".

My biggest pet peeve is those who whine and cry about Miller using the term "air force". While the USAF wasn't named as such until post WW II, "air force" was a perfectly normal phrase used in casual conversation. The Luftwaffe is often referred to as "German Air Force" or GAF in period documents, the RAF, RAAF and RCAF were all internationally recognized, and even the US Army Air Corps called its overseas formations "Air Forces" ie 8th Air Force, 9th Air Force, etc.

This belongs in the General Forum, by the way.

[ 04-27-2001: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[medlinke]

<<It typically took several weeks for a soldier's death to be reported back to the U.S., yet S. Ryan's death was reported and orders issued by D-Day +3.>>

I've seen this before...In any case, the basis for the story is taken from a short clip from "Band of Brothers" by Ambrose. In that, it's maybe D+1 or D+2.

About the Ammo Can...That's not special effects. The can sways like that. I don't care how heavy something is an entire ocean can make it sway in the right conditions. And why would SKG rig up an ammo can to float and sway?

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The only other nationalities the Americans meet are German soldiers and French civvies. Surely the squad couldn't bog around France for so long and not see so much as a corpse of a British or French soldier, never mind a live one. It's not as if America was entirely responsible for liberating France, although it did play a vital part.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is truly ridiculous. Does anyone know when the first Free French troops landed in Normandy? Even is they landed on D-Day, Miller and company operated solely in US territory, miles away from the British.

[gunnergoz]

Care to specify what patch belonged to an "all black unit?"

All I recall is seeing patches of the 29th Infantry Division, which was most assuredly not a black outfit.

BTW this was a FILM, not a time trip. I was amazed that Hollywood got anything near half right. All in all, I thought it was a fitting tribute and the generation of Americans watching it mostly wouldn't know a Garand from a cheeze-wiz anyhow. If viewing it gave them something to think about between their sittings with Jerry Springer and WWF, then it was worth it.

[KMHPaladin]

Good lord, could you people watch a movie and just enjoy it for what it is? Unless you dig the soldiers out of their graves, bring them back to life and put a rifle in their hands, and tell them to go at it again on a French beach (on film, of course) you're not going to perfectly recreate D-Day. In fact, I'm sure someone would somehow find a problem with that. I totally agree with Michael, most of those are "so whats." Oh no, you can see a blank adapter? Holy crap, you're right, next movie I want to see them firing real bullets to avoid any such problem!

And btw, not all of those problems are mistakes - as you said, the military adviser to the producers stated that no officer in his right mind would have his insignia emblazoned on his helmet, but he was overruled. Cut the people a break, for god's sake, they made a war film that was about as realistic as humanly possible, and they did it without adulterating it with crap like the Pearl Harbor flick coming out soon.

[Gyrene]

That might qualify as one of the top 10 longest posts in this forum. Yeesh.

Did you mention the sharpshooter's 20-odd shot 1903 Springfield rifle?

Too much to read.

Gyrene

[Madmatt]

Cool list, but it doesnt belong here.

Madmatt