Goofs for
Vertical Limit (2000)

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• Revealing mistakes: The helicopter lands in landing skid-sized ruts in the snow when picking up Wick.
  
  
• Continuity: When Peter goes to convince Wick to lead the rescue attempt, Peter's helicopter lands in the snow. Before it touches down, you can see the prints left by the chopper's skids in previous takes.
  
  
• Factual errors: The range of the two-way radios the climbers were using was greatly exaggerated by the film. The small UHF stub antennas on the radios would not have a very great range, certainly not enough to be heard from within a cave to a base camp (presumably) several kilometers away, and particularly not without line of sight.
  
  

• Crew or equipment visible: Reflected in sunglasses during various shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the radio conversation between Peter Garrett and his sister Annie, their voices can be heard clearly with no static interference on the opposite ends of the radio. Also, they never release the talk button on their radios; the type of radios they are using do not allow this type of conversation.
  
  
• Continuity: The boiling nitroglycerin in the shed, on the floor, around the boot.
  
  
• Continuity: In the helicopter, when Peter is going to the base camp, the headset the pilot is wearing keeps shifting position. In one shot, it is behind his right ear, the next shot it covers his ear, and the third shot it is back behind his ear again.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In all of the scenes with the trapped climbers, not once is their breath visible. Cold weather does not always make breath visible, particularly on film.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Monique is near the avalanche, she's already down on a ledge under the cliff edge and is no longer hanging by her ice ax. Thus, she isn't dislodged by the avalanche.
  
  
• Continuity: While in the cave discussing water shortage, water is seen dripping in the background.
  
  
• Continuity: One exploding cylinder of nitro results in a fireblast of hundreds of meters up a cliff (scene where Monique is hanging), but when an _entire crate_explodes (later at the army depot), only the unreinforced storage building is completely gone, and the surroundings are lightly damaged.
  
  
• Continuity: When the two climbers sharing a bottle of water are decimated by the explosion from nitroglycerin in front of them, they are blown to the left and off screen, instead of back.
  
  
• Continuity: In the helicopter, when Peter is going to the base camp, he and the helicopter pilot shift position during the scene. In the first shot Peter is on the right, in the second he is on the left side.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the father plunges to death, you can see his hand hanging still for about 3 seconds just before he comes down.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the opening scene you can hear the echo of the actors' voices as in a recording studio while they are talking to each other hanging from a cliff.
  
  
• Factual errors: Although they are supposed to be over 7000m, they still have breath for insignificant conversations about religion and other topics.
  
  
• Continuity: Peter walks into a tent where Monique tells him where to find Skip. The stubble he has when talking to Monique is totally gone when he finds Skip, immediately afterward.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the opening, Annie (the third person) was belaying Peter (the second) up the pitch he was climbing. In a three person rope team, the leader would belay the second person up, not the third. Because Annie was belaying Peter, Peter was essentially on lead and should have been placing protection on his way up. In addition, since his father already led that pitch, the gear that he placed should have still been in the crack.
  
  
• Factual errors: A climbing rope landing across the abdomen of the father with the force of two people on it would have severely injured him.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Wick and Peter are climbing up a rock wall, Wick checks his watch, which he's wearing directly around his wrist. To avoid having to reveal any unnecessary skin and get frostbite, experienced climbers wear their watches on the outside of the jacket's sleeve.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Wick's dead wife was wearing her wedding ring on a string around her neck. When Wick finds her, he simply pulls the ring off the string; presumably, the string had deteriorated with time.
  
  
• Factual errors: Before getting on the helicopter to base camp, Peter closes his tent. The helicopter then flies over it. Inside the tent, we see the wind from the rotor blades make magazine pages flip violently. Not a very good tent if the wind goes right through it.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Annie pulls up Tom McLaren's shirt to look at his injuries, his chest's movements aren't synchronized with the sound of his breaths.
  
  
• Factual errors: Nitroglycerin is generally clear in color. Exposure to sunlight would not cause it to "boil" as shown.
  
  
• Factual errors: Everything shown about belaying and climbing techniques, high altitude mountaineering, helicopter usage, high altitude medicine (exception: dex), high altitude mountaineering clothes and the shape of K2 is wrong.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Montgomery Wick massages his toeless foot he gets up and in doing so you can see his real toes.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When a Pakistani character is shown praying, the way he was praying was incorrect. He completed some steps in the wrong sequence and too quickly.
  
  

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