Rob Roy (1995)

◄ Rob Roy (1995)

Anachronisms

When Killearn leads McDonald into the pub, an overhead fluorescent lamp can be seen.
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In the dance/gathering midway through the movie, a member of the band is playing the bodhrán, a frame drum, with a stick called a tipper. For one thing, the bodhrán is a primarily Irish instrument, and there is little evidence to support its presence in 18th-century Scotland. In any case, the tipper style used in the movie is a complete anachronism, not having developed at all until the past hundred-odd years, and only used popularly in the last fifty. Any 18th-century Scottish bodhrán would have been playing by striking it with the hand.
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The Gaelic song "Aileen Duin", sung at the fireside gathering when Rob Roy and his "clan" are celebrating the business deal with Montrose, was composed after 1788. Rob Roy died in 1734.
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The bagpipes being played at the dance scene are too small to be highland pipes. They look more like Irish pipes, which are totally wrong for the period and the region depicted in the film.
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The Highland Cattle shown in the film are almost all brown. At the time, most of the Highland cattle would have been black.
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Character error

When Robert Roy MacGregor hides in the corpse of a Hebrides cow, Montrose's man leading the chase says, "What a stench! Let's get downwind." To get away from an odor, a person needs to place himself upwind, not downwind.
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Continuity

Burning objects on lake shore appear, disappear, change location, and change size.
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When Rob Roy jumps off the bridge, his hands are tied together, when he hits the water and jumps back up, they are untied, and when he comes back up again they are tied back together
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When Killearn takes from MacDonald the paper about the "new world," he crumples it into a ball. But when he later hands it to MacGregor, it's smooth and has clearly never been crumpled.
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When Mary goes to the edge of the water, just before the soldiers arrive, she ties her shawl into a knot around her shoulders. When she runs back to the house, her shawl is loose.
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When Archie is chasing MacDonald through the woods on horseback, MacDonald's hair is tied back in some shots.
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In the final scene where Rob returns home, the sky is cloudy and it looks like it will rain. When the long shot showing the family and their home against the Highlands is shown and the credits begin to roll, the sky is sunny with white clouds, yet all of this is supposed to happened within five or ten minutes at the most. The sky would not have had time to clear up.
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In the final sword fight, Archie's blade is bent and straight in different shots.
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Crew or equipment visible

When MacDonald is thrown from his horse by a rope across the path, you can see the harness and line that pulls him backwards just before he gets to the rope.
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Miscellaneous

In the closing credits, the character Eric Stoltz plays is listed as Alan McDonald. This is the Irish spelling - his name should read Alan MacDonald.
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When Rob and his men are seen returning the cattle, one of the cows accidentally hooks its right horn under Liam Neeson's left arm for a second or two. He pulls away quickly and slaps the cow on the rump, but he is fortunate that he was not injured. This seems to have been an accidental incident, unplanned, which made it into the final cut of the film.
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Incorrectly regarded as goofs

They did not use any of the three MacGregor tartans for Rob Roy's kilt, but "clan tartans" were not standardized until well after the time frame of this movie.
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Spoilers

The goofs below may give away important plot points.

Anachronisms

After Archie steals the money at the highland meeting, Rob Roy addresses the Highlanders; as he holds his hands up, he has a modern adhesive bandage on his right hand.
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Continuity

After Rob kills Archibald by slicing his shoulder there is no blood on his sword.
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Errors in geography

When the MacGregors are watching the redcoats burn Rob's home (again), he signals for them to withdraw by means of a distinctive bird-call: that of a whippoorwill. There are no whippoorwills in Scotland. The bird is native to North America.
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