Goofs
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Audio/visual unsynchronised (1) |
Character error (3) |
Continuity (14) |
Crew or equipment visible (5) |
Errors in geography (3) |
Factual errors (5) |
Incorrectly regarded as goofs (4) |
Plot holes (1) |
Revealing mistakes (2) |
Spoilers (4)
Audio/visual unsynchronised
During one of Willy's flashbacks as a child, he has braces which keep his lips from meeting, however his voice properly makes a "p" sound when he says words such as "pieces."
Character error
Mr. Salt could have easily jumped the gate if he had really wanted to save Veruca.
Mike Teavee says: "First off, there's a difference between waves and particles!". Actually there is not. All energy and matter express the so called wave-particle duality, where they can be regarded both as particles and as waves. Someone as science-oriented as Mike Teavee should be aware that this has been known since 1924. He most likely meant "There is a difference between energy and matter" which is much more relevant in this situation in that energy can easily be transmitted while matter cannot, which is what makes Willy Wonka's television camera so amazing.
When Augustus is drinking from the chocolate river, Wonka warns him that the chocolate must be untouched by human hands, but seems entirely unconcerned by the Oompa Loompas swimming in it.
Continuity
The "Golden Ticket" is placed on the back side (smooth side) of the chocolate bar before the wrapping, however, when opened, the Golden Ticket appears on the top side (the "printed side") of the bar.
In the nut sorting room, the tubes are filled with hazel nuts but when they come out of the tubes they are walnuts.
When the kids and their guardians are walking from the main gate to the front door, the shadow cast by the factory on the courtyard changes many times.
In the Nut Sorting Room, Veruca stands with her hands on the railing in front of her. There is a matched pair of shots over her shoulders where her hands are clearly visible. (The shots approximate to Willy Wonka's and Mr. Salt's points of view.) In the shot over Veruca's right shoulder, the gap at the side of the gate is clearly seen between her resting hands. In the reverse angle over her left shoulder the handrail is unbroken.
When Willy Wonka dips the pink ladle into the chocolate river, the chocolate is spilling over the edge of the ladle. But when he hands it to Charlie, the outside of the ladle is completely free of chocolate residue.
When they are showing the winners of the third and fourth golden ticket winners, there are four shots of Charlie watching the TV. In the first and third shot, Grandma Georgina's head is upward off the pillow. In the second and fourth shots, her head is resting on the pillow laying down.
While in the chocolate room, Mike is smashing a candy pumpkin. We see it break into three pieces before his dad comes over. However, when Mike is speaking to his dad, the pumpkin is in smithereens, and Mike is no longer standing in the pumpkin goo.
When Mr. Salt walks in front of Wonka to go down to fetch Veruca it would not be possible because as the gate swings open it would be in Mr. Salt's way. As Wonka unlocks the gate you can see Wonka's hand opening the gate slowly and in the next scene you can hear the gate still opening, so Wonka would still have his hand on the gate which totally blocks Mr. Salt's path.
When the Prince Pondicherry's chocolate palace liquefies, we can see the melted chocolate hit the princess on the face in a certain pattern and a small dab on the nose. The next time we see the princess the chocolate pattern has changed.
When Charlie receives the toothpaste cap from his father that is to become "the head for Willy Wonka", there is a shot of just his hand holding it up with the "hat" pointed upward. In the next shot, the toothpaste cap has turned completely upside down.
When the Oompa-Loompas roll Violet away, she constantly changes positions, going from rolling forward to rolling on her side, yet there is no sign that the Oompa-Loompas have turned her.
While the Japanese children are waiting to enter the Tokyo candy store, all of the text on the Wonka bars is written in traditional hiragana. However, when the children enter the store, some Wonka bars are seen with the logo now written in English. These bars still retain the flavor and Golden Ticket contest announcement written in hiragana, though.
The glass collapsible tube that picks up Augustus has five separated sections but before it picks up Augustus it has three sections together on the top and two on the bottom.
When Charlie is handing bits of his Wonka bar to his family members, it can be seen that he hands his father two separate segments of the chocolate bar, however in the next scene when his father goes to take a bite of the chocolate he's been given, the two segments are still attached to one another.
Crew or equipment visible
When Willy Wonka is having his shoes polished by Charlie, the crew is reflected in his black sunglasses.
As the sun comes up the morning after the flyers have been passed around the city, you can see an extra start to step out (then duck back in) of the doorway just beyond the flyered pole that is in the foreground.
After Willy Wonka walks into the glass elevator a second time, you can see the reflection of a crew member walking to the left.
When Mike Teavee is about to be transported through the air across to the television, the harness around his waist is visible just below his shirt as he is lifting up off the ground.
When Willy Wonka walks into the elevator after congratulating Charlie, he falls to the floor. In the reflection of the wobbling elevator door, you can see a crew member moving. The reflection is not of Charlie's grandpa.
Errors in geography
Augustus' home town of Düsseldorf is shown to have old-fashioned houses with wooden frames, like in a Bavarian, Austrian or Swiss town. Düsseldorf is in Nordrhein-Westfalen, where there is no such architecture. Even more so, Düsseldorf is shown to be near a huge mountain range, of which there are none even remotely to the Ruhrgebiet, which is a rather flat landscape.
The photo in the 'Russian Ticket a Fake' article shows a group of people beside St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. However, the article text states that the boy who has "found" the Golden Ticket lives in St. Petersburg.
When Veruca looks up at Willy Wonka and the Buckets in the flying glass elevator, she asks her father for a "flying glass elevator." Being from England, Veruca should have used the word "lift" rather than "elevator".
Factual errors
At the Tokyo candy store, several Wonka candy bars appear with Katakana print on the label. The title for the candy, "Nutty Crunch Surprise" is written out as "NATTI KURANCHI SA!RAIZU". The word "Surprise" is written out incorrectly as "SA!RAIZU" while it might be more properly written out as "SAPPARAIZU!".
When Augustus is trapped by a vacuum near the top of the pipe, the seals below him begin to blow out. A vacuum doesn't work that way, if he were blocking the pipe all the pressure would've been on the parts of the pipe between him and whatever was creating the vacuum.
When Mike Teavee pushes the "Television Room" button in the elevator, the elevator continues downward and then takes a sharp turn to the right. However, the actors lean toward the right (toward the direction the elevator moves), rather than moving to the left as one would as a reaction to the movement.
The cocoa bean pods in the jungle appear to be growing on twigs. In nature, they grow from thicker branches or trunks.
At the beginning of the movie when it's lights out, Charlie sees the factory through a big hole in the house roof. He could have easily gotten hypothermia from the cold wintry night with a hole that big.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs
Willy Wonka says he must keep his factory warm because the Oompa-Loompas hate the cold, but he later passes several of them on Fudge Mountain where it appears to be snowing and looks too cold. However, since fudge is produced using confectionery sugar (also commonly called powdered sugar) the snow is actually sugar, which is appropriate since soft snow ideal for skiing is called powder.
In the "flag room", many of the flags appear to be mirrored or upside-down, but that's because they are flying in the opposite direction of the staff than we are used to.
When the news vans are outside the golden ticket winners' homes, the truck outside of Mike Teavee in Colorado has the wrong call letters. They start with the letter "W". They should start with "K" for a TV station west of the Mississippi. Also, the live truck in front of Violet's home in Atlanta has call letters beginning with a "K" instead of "W". While this is most often true, there are a few cases of call letters starting with "K" in the eastern US. Examples: Philadelphia's CBS station, KYW and in Pittsburgh, KDKA. One example of a station west of the Mississippi River that starts with a W is CBS affiliate WCCO in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (The river winds through both Minneapolis and St. Paul; the station is west and south of the river.)
In the candy store where Charlie finds the Golden Ticket, a man offers to buy it from Charlie for $50, and then a woman offers Charlie $500. Some believe Charlie lives in England and the currency should be in pounds. However, the location was kept deliberately ambiguous by the producers, with some UK characteristics and some US characteristics. The bill Charlie uses to buy the candy has design elements of both US and British money.
Plot holes
Considering that Willy Wonka made unmeltable ice cream, why didn't he make Prince Pondicherry's chocolate palace unmeltable as well?
Revealing mistakes
The adult Willy Wonka has blue eyes and the young Willy Wonka has dark brown eyes.
When Willy Wonka is eating a caterpillar for the first time ever, his tongue is already green.
Spoilers
Continuity
When Willy goes back to see his father and the dentist examines Willy's teeth, the fingers holding the mirror completely change position between the shots from inside Willy's mouth to outside, both times. The size of the handle also changes between shots.
When Willy is having his teeth examined near the end of the film, the view from inside his mouth shows his lower teeth being examined, but the next shot, looking into his mouth shows his father just turning the mirror over, having just looked at his upper teeth.
Plot holes
At Dr. Wonka's house, Charlie picks up a picture of a boy, presumably Willy. However, from Willy's flashbacks, we know he wore a head brace while he was a child and ran away from home at an early age. The boy in the picture is clearly much older than the Willy in the flashbacks and he wears no head gear.
After Mike Teavee gets shrunk by the TV ray, Willy Wonka orders him and his father to the taffy puller room. Immediately afterward, Wonka has a very short conversation with Charlie and Grandpa Joe, they get into the elevator, and blast through the roof. They then fly down over the factory entrance, where Mike Teavee is already stretched and leaving the building, just two or three minutes after Wonka had given the taffy-pulling order.
