Goofs
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Anachronisms (1) |
Continuity (5) |
Errors in geography (1) |
Factual errors (3) |
Incorrectly regarded as goofs (2) |
Plot holes (2) |
Revealing mistakes (2) |
Spoilers (7)
Anachronisms
Ben says "The first time I ever saw a box jellyfish, I was twelve. Our father took us to the Monterey Bay Aquarium." If we assume Ben is the same age as Will Smith he would have been twelve in 1980. Monterey Bay Aquarium didn't open until 1984.
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Continuity
Will Smith's hairline changes from scene to scene.
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When Ben drives Emily home from the hospital, the headrest on his seat is fully down. When she storms out of the car at her house, it's part-way up.
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When Tim is in the bathtub, the "Don't Touch The Jellyfish" sign is partially obscured by the shower curtain, but in the next shot the shower curtain has moved off the sign.
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When Emily faints while walking her dog, her head slams down face-first on the ground very hard and a loud sound is heard. But when she wakes in the hospital soon after, her face is not even bruised.
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Ben is running through the rain to the hospital, he arrives inside with his body soaking wet but his shirt is dry. When he walks out of the hospital, it still is pouring rain and his shirt becomes visibly soaked. When he arrives at his motel, he opens the door and he is soaked, but his shirt is completely dry.
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Errors in geography
The 911 operator gives the hotel address as 9212 West 3rd Street in Los Angeles. That address is in the middle of Beverly Hills not that far from Rodeo Drive. A seedy motel would hardly be situated there.
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Factual errors
The stack of cards next to the engraver/press are pre-embossed. Pre-embossed cards can not be printed on by any press; they would be mutilated.
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When Emily demonstrates the manually-fed treadle printing press with a blank sheet of paper from the pile, the printed piece is in full color. This press is single-color and can only print one color at a time.
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In her print shop, Emily prints a card on her letterpress to show Ben. Without inking her press, she produces a three-color piece in one pass. In reality, each color would require a separate pass, the press would need to be inked up before each pass, and cleaned after.
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Incorrectly regarded as goofs
Ben puts his car in "park", but it rolls a few feet before stopping. That is normal for a car with an automatic transmission; put into "park," it will roll a little to take up slack in the transmission.
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Jellyfish can live in captivity as long as the tank they are in is round. Round tanks keep the jellyfish from getting trapped in the edges (from which they can't escape without a water current). In the movie, the tank that Will Smith's character uses for the jellyfish is round, so there is no error.
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Plot holes
With Emily's heart condition she cannot do strenuous activities, including sometimes walking her dog, yet she is able to engage in sex with Ben.
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Because eyes are not connected to the blood stream, eye donors do not need to be matched as closely as other organ donors. Because of this, it is doubtful that Ezra would be waiting for eyes. Also, in general eye donation does not cure blindness. Eye donors give only corneas, whole eye transplantation is not common yet. People who are born blind or have blindness due to a problem with the inner eyes (which causes most blindness) cannot be cured by cornea donations. Cornea donation is sort of like replacing a windshield. It's a simple and non-dramatic process.
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Revealing mistakes
When Ezra answers Ben's call at work, in a close-up you can see the contact lenses used to make him appear blind.
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When Ben and Emily are driving in his car with the dog in the back, the back window is open and the dog puts his head out of the window, but its mouth does not move. If they were really driving, the dog's mouth would move because of the wind.
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Spoilers
Continuity
When Ben is in the bathtub with the jellyfish near the end of the movie, the amount of ice in the tub changes several times between different angles/shoots. Some times there are lots of ice, other times a bit of ice and other times no ice at all.Share this
Factual errors
Ezra appears to have received an eye transplant and not a corneal transplant. The cornea is a clear lens on top of the iris which is the colored part of the eye which is not transplantable.Share this
Factual errors
While being highly venomous, box jellyfish stings are treatable, especially in this case when Ben called 911 ahead of time and slowed his metabolism by lying in ice.Share this
Factual errors
Will Smith is incorrectly listed in the credits as Ben Thomas. He plays the character Tim Thomas who in the course of the movie impersonates his brother Ben Thomas. Michael Ealy is credited as Ben's brother, when he in fact plays Ben Thomas.Share this
Factual errors
Box jellyfish poison is a neurotoxin, and it is distributed to every part of the body, making Ben's organs unfit for transplant.Share this
Incorrectly regarded as goofs
After Ben donates a kidney to the hockey coach, he is out and about the following day. In reality, with modern minimally invasive kidney donor surgery, donors are up and walking the day of the surgery, and often discharged from the hospital after only 1 or 2 days.Share this
Incorrectly regarded as goofs
Ben can hardly walk the same day that the bone marrow transplant, yet he doesn't have a limp later that day. You can see a slight limp when he walks up the stairs to meet Emily. She says she had company the last few of days, so it could be more than one day since the donation.Share this
