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Backwards (1989)

Goofs

Backwards

Red Dwarf

Edit

Continuity

In some scenes (usually outdoor ones), words appear with the letters themselves in mirror image, while in others (usually on signs or newspapers), while the words are spelled backwards, the letters themselves appear normally.
Although most of the shots of the outdoor scenes are mirrored (lettering on car numberplates and shops appears backwards), a couple of shots aren't: the shot of the white van Rimmer and Kryten ride in as it goes backwards down the street and the shots of the van that Lister and Cat get a lift in.

Miscellaneous

When Rimmer and Kryten are sitting at a table in the cafe the waitress pushes the plate across the table with her fingertips, without grasping it. This movement would be impossible as backwards it would appear like the plate was stuck to her fingers.
While Rimmer is testing Kryten in Starbug, he points to a picture which Kryten identifies as a "binary star." Rimmer then asks "what's that one?" while pointing to the same page and identifies it as "quite obviously a blue giant about to go supernova," but he is pointing to the same page Kryten already identified as a "binary star."
Although Rimmer is a hologram and usually passes through things, the ejector seat in Starbug is still able to push him up out of the ship.
Rimmer the hologram is able to sit in chairs in the cafe and the club without passing through them.
The episodes in Series 3 (as with all of the first 3 series) suffered from being not correctly rendered in the 4:3 aspect ratio, resulting in characters and objects on screen appearing narrower than they should be. In some "outdoor"/off-ship shots (such as in this episode, where they travel to a "backwards" Britain), this flaw is not apparent and the picture actually looks correct. Only viewers with advanced TV sets/equipment would be able to remedy this. This error has remained unfixed for both the original UK DVD release (2003) and also the "remastered" episodes available on streaming services.

Crew or equipment visible

Clearly visible bungee cord / Kirby wire as Rimmer is ejected from Starbug.

Plot holes

Rimmer and Kryten were told they were fired from their performing job because of a fight they were about to have. However they had already been performing before this, which would mean they were allowed to perform after being fired in the backwards world.
Although time is moving backwards the signs, etc would not be reversed. It should be like rewinding a DVD - only movement goes backwards.
The Red Dwarf crew are shown to be able to eat both forwards and backwards whilst in the backwards world, surely they should only be able to do it one way.
The crew go to a universe where time is running backwards. Inevitably, this means that there are many errors made with regard to the correct order of certain events, many of which are integral to the plot.

Character error

When Lister says to Rimmer "You already are one glorious hole" he distorts the word 'already'.

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