Forrest Gump (1994)

◄ Forrest Gump (1994)

Anachronisms

During the 1972 New Year's Eve celebration, Forrest drinks a Dr. Pepper with a logo that wasn't devised until the mid-1980s.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The letter from Apple Computer is dated 23 September 1975 (a Tuesday), when Apple wasn't a public company open for investment. Apple Computer was not incorporated until 3 January 1977, and didn't become publicly traded until its initial public offering (IPO) on 12 December 1980.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In 1974, one of Forrest's shrimping attempts yields, among other pieces of garbage, a Mello Yello can. Mello Yello was introduced in 1979, and the can bears the revised logo introduced circa 1989.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

During the 4th of July 1976 celebration scene at Forest's house with Jenny, the fireworks show on the television shows the Statue of Liberty after it was restored. The Statue was restored in 1986.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest is playing ping-pong before being discharged, the gymnasium where he's playing shows the 3-point line on the basketball court. The 3-point line was first used 29 November 1980 in a college basketball game at Reid Gym in Cullowhee, North Carolina.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The Stroh's neon beer sign shown outside the Times Square bar in the early 70's, is a blue, block lettered logo. This logo did not appear until the mid-late 80's. They used a red-script logo up until that time.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In a sequence set around 1970, someone is shown reading a copy of USA Today. The newspaper wasn't created until 1982.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The film suggests that Forrest Gump inspired the happy face logo in the late 1970s. Although there is dispute as to when and who originated the smiley face (sometime in the mid 1960s) it was being commonly used in the early 1970s by brothers Murray and Bernard Spain, who used the image in a campaign to sell novelty items such as pin back buttons. The smiley face had already passed its peak of popularity by the late 1970s when the film suggests it was first created.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest and Bubba get off the helicopter upon arriving in Vietnam, they stare at a big pile of beer cans that someone is stacking up nearby. The tops of the beer cans are clearly visible with pull tabs, a feature that was not available on any cans during the Viet Nam era.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The letter from Apple Computer, dated 1975, uses the 'Apple Garamond' font below the logo. Apple did not use this font before the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Until then, the logo featured the Motter Tektura font. The Garamond font itself was only designed in 1977.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

During the scene when they are patrolling along the road in Vietnam, several of the soldiers are seen carrying poncho liners made out of woodland camouflage pattern material. This specific pattern did not appear on U.S. uniforms and equipment until the mid-1980s.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In the scene where Forrest and his mother are Christmas shopping in 1956, they see Elvis Presley's controversial appearance The Buick-Berle Show: Episode #8.10). The episode aired in June, and would not be rerun in December.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In the New Year's Eve scene at Times Square, Forrest is drinking a Dr. Pepper, which wasn't distributed in New York at that time.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest begins his three-year run, as he passes the barbershop in town, the TV announcer says President Jimmy Carter suffered from heat exhaustion. That happened on September 15, 1979. However, Forrest begins his trip presumably on July 5, 1976, when Carter isn't President yet.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Using George Wallace symbolic blocking of the doorway to the University of Alabama (11 June 1963) as a time reference, we know that Forrest is named to the college football All-America team in 1963 where he later meets John F Kennedy. However, the Associated Press announced their All-America team on 6 Dec 1963 - two weeks after JFK was assassinated. Forrest Gump should never have met JFK.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Forrest would have been 12-14 years old in 1956 (when he and his mom were watching Elvis on TV) and not 5 or 6 as depicted in the film.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Audio/visual unsynchronised

Forrest belches after drinking all those Dr. Pepper bottles, but we don't see his mouth move.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest and Jenny watch the fireworks, the sound from the fireworks bursting comes exactly on the same time as they appear. There should be a delay as the sound travels over some distance.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

As Forrest's mother comes into the room with young Forrest and Elvis Presley, you can see Elvis playing the guitar. Elvis plays one or two more notes after the song stops.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Character error

On seeing Gump on the shrimp boat, Lt. Dan says, "they gave you the Congressional Medal of Honor?" The medal is frequently, albeit incorrectly, called the Congressional Medal of Honor, stemming from its award by the Department of Defense "in the name of Congress." It is correctly the "Medal of Honor".
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest is in the hospital with a butt injury, he is given back all the letters he wrote to Jenny. On the first envelope, the zip code of her address is 39902. On the second envelope, the zip code is 96602. The third and remaining zip codes are again 39902.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Prior to the Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House, a newsman announces that four service members, one from each service, are being awarded the Medal. When Forrest bends over to show President Lyndon Johnson his wound, there are four members from each of the services with the Medal around their necks, meaning that Forrest makes five.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Through out the film Lt. Dan refers to Forrest as Private Gump, despite him achieving the rank of Sergeant at the time of his discharge (signified by the patch on his sleeve).
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

At the beginning of the movie when Forrest states that "life is like a box of chocolates ... you never know what you're gonna get", he is holding the box's lid's inside facing the camera, and (as with many boxes of chocolates) there is a diagram that shows which kind of chocolate is in each place in the box.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Continuity

The feather is visible on Forrest's shoe and floating in the air at the same time, when the camera is approximately ten feet above Forrest's head.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Forrest's hands on the swing ropes when listening to his mother entertain the school inspector.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The girl behind Forrest and Jenny on the school bus disappears and reappears between shots.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

During the Protest Rally at the Washington Monument, the tree leaves are not consistent. Behind Forrest on the podium, the trees in the background have no leaves as if it were late autumn or winter. The trees surrounding the reflection pool in front of Forrest are all Green as if it were summer, and in a later scene as Forrest watches Jenny board the bus back to Berkeley, the leaves on all the trees are different colors as if it were the heart of autumn.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest sits down to watch TV with his son, the iron behind Jenny changes from being down and sitting up between shots.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Forrest leaves the mower with grass in front of it when he goes to meet Jenny. When they cut back to him, the mower is sitting next to the cut grass, not in the middle of it.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest first gets on the school bus, the shots from inside the bus show the driver's hand on the door lever, while shots from the outside show it on the gear shift lever.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Bubba's lower lip when he and Forrest are on their way to Vietnam in the helicopter.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Paul 'Bear' Bryant stands up twice to watch Forrest.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Forrest can't run with his braces; he can barely walk. When he and Jenny run to their favorite tree, he is running normally. Yet when the bullies from school chase him on their bikes, he is back to his old gait. It is only after the braces are lost that he runs normally.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The ramp outside the stage door at The Dick Cavett Show as seen over Forrest's shoulder is clear of snow, yet moments later it covered with snow as Lt. Dan slides down it.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest stops running, there are no shadows in the overhead shots (overcast weather) but a clear shadow from his cap in the close-up of his face.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest is giving his speech about the war in front of the reflecting pool and he runs down to meet Jenny, he walks by the same guy twice.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When little Forrest and Jenny are on the bus, the bus seems to be traveling at different speeds, depending on the shot...
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In the scene where Forrest sees Lt. Dan on the dock and jumps from his shrimping boat to meet him, the boat is moving right in the point of view of Lt. Dan. However, when the boat crashes, it had been moving left, impossible in such a short amount of time without a person steering it.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Lt. Dan meets Forrest after Forrest becomes a shrimp boat captain, Lt. Dan smokes a cigar. The ash on the end of the cigar changes between shots; it's longer when the camera is facing Forrest than when the camera is facing Lt. Dan.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In the New Year's Eve sequence, Dick Clark is on the TV in the bar, wearing a brown jacket. When the scene switches to Jenny on that same New Year's Eve, Dick is wearing a blue jacket on her TV.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest runs Tex out of the Vietnam forest, he is holding onto to a leg in one shot, his arm in the next shot, and then his leg again in the last shot.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Forrest is standing in Jenny's foyer upon entry to her apartment. While they are talking it's possible to see in the background there is an ironing board with the iron laying flat, as if it had been knocked over. While screen shot quickly focuses on the son watching television then quickly back to Forrest and Jenny, the iron has been stood up correctly. Forrest and Jenny had not moved.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

At the Black Panther office in DC, after Jenny's boyfriend smacks her and Forrest attacks him, the two of them slide off of a table onto the floor fighting. When they cut away, then back to the fight, the now-collapsed table is under them.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In the scene where Forrest sees Lt. Dan on the dock and jumps from his shrimping boat, he pushes off on his left foot. In the reverse shot, from the front, he's pushing off with his right foot.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The tempo in the first song, when he is running, "running on empty," speeds up and slows down. You can tell they edited the clips together. The scenes or the music must have been sped up or slowed down.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest is running across the country, the length of his hair should be progressively longer in each new shot. In one sequence, his hair is clearly long enough to be bouncing off his shoulders. However in the sequence just before the news report of him having been running for two years, his hair is noticeably shorter and thinner than it was seconds before.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When the number 4 bus arrives for the first woman that Forrest talked to on the bench, the bus takes off right when she exits the frame, clearly not giving her enough time to board it. Since only a small portion of the end of the bus is shown, the bus would have had to wait a couple more seconds for the woman to walk to the front of the bus and then board it.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Lt. Dan calls in the air strike, there are 2 soldiers to his right, then there is an explosion and sudden fireball (supposedly killing the 2 soldiers). After the explosion, the next scene shows an M-16 being fired from that position (the person firing it is not seen).
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest and Jenny visit her old house in Greenbow, Alabama she breaks a window with a rock. In the next scene when Forrest is comforting her on the ground that window is not broken.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

On the boat, Lt. Dan says he never thanked Forrest for saving his life. Immediately after that he swivels round on the deck and jumps into the water. At that point, the water is flat calm, but when the camera cuts immediately to Lt. Dan doing a backstroke away from the boat, the water is quite choppy.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

While Gump is playing ping pong, a man comes up asking for a PFC Gump (E-3) to notify him he has been awarded the Medal of Honor. In the following scene when he is in DC to be awarded his medal, he is wearing the rank of sergeant (E-5). While it's possible he was promoted between the two scenes, he certainly wouldn't have been promoted two ranks, and at most would have been an E-4 (Specialist or corporal).
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest and Jenny are "walking" along past a candlelit vigil in front of the White House, it is noticeable that they pass the same five or six people several times (as well as a couple of the guards at the gate).
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Errors in geography

The woman on the bench in Savannah tells Forrest to go a few blocks ahead to Henry St. though it is actually behind them.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Several times during the movie, road signs for US 17 are visible. US 17 does not run through Alabama. It does run thru the SC coast where the movie was filmed.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Through most of the Vietnam scenes we see groves of palm trees that are not found in Asia. In the foreground shots we see the Sabal palmetto (a.k.a. the Cabbage Palm). Sabal is a genus of New World palms, exclusively. This distinctive palm thrives in its native range where the Vietnam parts of the film were actually shot - in South Carolina, which also bears this palm on their state flag. Background matte paintings or computer graphics may fill in related scenes accurately, but the Sabal palms we see betrays the movie's depicted location of Vietnam.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Factual errors

The moon is shown as waxing, almost full, and is lit from the top right; an impossible situation at night.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The original tropical jackets in Vietnam era had a much smaller collar length, more like a shirt collar measuring no more than 3.5 inch, while the jackets appeared in the movie were sewn with a much longer collar.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

During the integration of the University of Alabama, the soldiers escorting the black students are depicted as paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. This was actually performed by the Alabama National Guard, after they put under direct federal control by President Kennedy.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Sgt. Forrest Gump receives his LOD (Letter of Discharge), he is only wearing five ribbons - Purple Heart, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, and the Republic of Vietnam Medal, but is missing the ribbon device for the Medal of Honor for which he was awarded by President Lyndon Johnson.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs

When Forrest sits on the bench by the square and the bus passes him, the traffic is going in the wrong direction. In Savannah, traffic goes counter-clockwise round city squares. (The flow was reversed for the movie in order to have the bus doors open into the square.)
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Car tire tracks are visible in the segment remembering Nathan Bedford Forrest's Civil War ties with the KKK. However, this footage is taken from D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and the CG team chose to leave the goof in.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Forrest and Bubba clearly state to Lt. Dan upon meeting him for the first time that they are from Alabama, but, shortly afterward, Lt. Dan says, "So you boys are from Arkansas, huh?" (Given how he acts for most of the movie, it's possible Lt. Dan probably wasn't paying any attention.)
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

The Army Recruiter's top two ribbons on his uniform - Army Commendation Medal and Purple Heart - are out of order. However, it is illegal under US law to impersonate a member of the military. Therefore, there is always some error in military uniforms depicted in movies.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Revealing mistakes

In the montage of Forrest's and Lt. Dan's first successful shrimp catch after the hurricane where they are emptying their full shrimp nets onto the deck of the boat, the shrimp nets are full of headless shrimp. Shrimp caught in nets are complete animals, and they are processed on the boat after they are dumped, at which time their heads are removed. Shrimp boats do not catch pre-processed shrimp from the waters of the gulf.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Forrest is playing ping pong, the computerized ball starts moving very quickly. If you follow it closely, you can see that it bounces off his elbow at one point instead of the paddle (right before the ball bounces and then seems to hit the camera).
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When the bullies first throw rocks at Forrest, the second one clearly hits him below his eye, but he starts to bleed up on the top of his forehead.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

When Lt. Dan falls off the wheelchair, he gets up with the help of his (invisible) legs.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In the scene where Forrest and Jenny are reunited in the reflecting pool in Washington, the Washington Monument is clearly visible in the background, with a reflection in the pool. As the camera pans back for the wide shot at the end of the scene, the reflection is still visible in the pool, but the monument has disappeared completely in the background.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

There's a scene where the Chinese flag appears backwards. Apparently the video frames were reversed in editing.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

In a scene where Jenny and a friend of hers are playing guitars for money on Hollywood Boulevard, the inscription on the floor "Jean Harlow" disappears right after someone walks over it, revealing that it's computer-generated.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Spoilers

The goofs below may give away important plot points.

Character error

When Jenny dies, Forrest says it was on a Saturday morning. When we see her headstone, the date of death is March 22, 1982. However, March 22, 1982 was a Monday, not a Saturday.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink:

Revealing mistakes

When Forrest visits his mom when she's sick and the doctor walks out of the room after talking to Forrest, you can see where his wig ends on the back of his head.
Share this

Facebook | Twitter | Permalink: