• goofs

    I really like using IMDB as a resource, but their “Goofs” pages really irritate me. For one thing, the viewer complaints are ridiculously nitpicky. Trivial stuff like “the level of liquid in a glass changes from shot to shot” — as if people, even at this late date, still don’t comprehend that different angles are shot at different times (hours, days, weeks, or maybe months apart). Or perhaps people actually think movies really are shot with twenty cameras, all at once, like a football game.
    But in many cases the complaints are just plain wrong. One that I was personally trying to correct was in regards to a final scene in Cast Away, where, after giving Tom Hanks an SUV Helen Hunt switches off a garage light. When the angle cuts to outside, there’s a light on above the garage door. Someone actually wrote that in as a goof, even though it’s obvious Hunt turned off the garage’s interior, overhead light. IMDB corrected this by saying that perhaps the outside light was motion-sensitive! (I’m pleased to see they have since removed that goof entirely.)
    My latest gripe is with their The Two Towers listings. Along with a wealth of trivial complaints comes this doozy (presently at the bottom of the page):

•   Continuity: The hole in Helm’s Deep’s wall is not present during the wide shot near the end of the battle when the Rangers come up over the hill with Gandalf.

If this were true, it would be an incredible lapse. But it is not true. It’s a load of crap, and the proof is below.



    Here’s a tip for all you would-be nitpickers. Instead being so eager to find fault with films that you actually make stuff up, your time would be better spent actually facing the screen and watching the movie.