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Many Eyes, Shallow Bugs, and Spider-Man

Danious writes Seems Spider-Man is clocking up 'bugs' at movie-mistakes.com faster than any previous movie (now 95 and counting). The reason, according to this Independent article, is not that it may have more mistakes than usual, but that 'huge numbers of people are going to see it - and that makes for lots of pairs of eyes checking every inch of the screen.' The top movie is currently 'The Matrix' with 147." A lot of the bugs simply aren't really errors, and I'm sure the comic book guys out there can debate them.

11 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. IMDB.com by rosewood · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had never heard of this site. I have always relyed on IMDB to tell me everything about a movie. Ive always found it interesting that normally, after a DVD comes out - more goofs are added. Also, some movies you can clearly tell the goof information came straight from the director's mouth in the commentary track :P.

  2. I went there yesterday... by artemis67 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Most of the "mistakes" that are being filed are NOT mistakes, just kids inventing mistakes. The owner of the site confesses that he hasn't seen the movie yet (he's in the UK), so he's not really in a position to make any judgement calls on these.

  3. Many on that site are bogus by Hitokage_Nishino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some people just don't pay attention or think they see something when they don't. For example, one mistake was listed under LOTR about seeing a car drive by in the scene with Frodo, Sam, and the scarecrow. Maybe I'm blind, but I didn't see any movement at all in the background. Another mistake filed several times was for Harry Potter about a player falling on sand appearing out of nowhere in the Quddich match. Maybe if they had payed attention when the camera showed the entire field they would notice the goals are mounted on sand pits.

    Movies do make mistakes, but it seems that the bug watchers also need watchers of their own.

  4. Real Life contains mistakes too! by TheMonkeyDepartment · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Who gives a shit about any of these film mistakes? I don't even expect that much perfection out of real life!

  5. Re:The biggest "mistake" by tolldog · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am suprised at the number of "non-industry" people that are complaining about the CG.

    I am in the industry.. specificly pure CG, not mixed with live action, so I am used to seeing smooth animation, perfect compositing and what not. I normally pick up on the technical problems with a movies CG.

    With Spider-Man ... my brain filtered it all out. I enjoyed the movie so much that I did not notice the technical problems. It has been a while since the last time I could say that. And that goes for co-workers of mine as well. Each of them with different backgrounds from CG studios. Not a complaint about the CG at all.

    Maybe its because we know how hard it is that we filter out the tough mistakes. But I think it was the pace and quality of the movie that kept us in and kept us from noticing the glitches.

    -Tim

    --
    -I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
  6. Don't these people have a life? by alen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's wrong with going to a movie and simply enjoy it? You either like it or not. Who cares if the CG work is not up to someone's standards or there is a costume error. I have better things to do with my time than watch a movie numerous times to look for all mistakes. Who cares if you didn't hear a footfall when spiderman landed. Do you also complain about all the noise spaceships make in scifi movies?

    1. Re:Don't these people have a life? by MasterKayne · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What's wrong with going to a movie and simply enjoy it?

      What is wrong with expecting a certain level of production quality?

      I never try to find mistakes the first time I see a movie, I'm trying to enjoy it. There are some movies, though, where the mistakes stand out enough to be distracting.

      Similar to software, I don't go looking for problems but sometimes problems find me.

      Quality of production may not be as important as quality of story, acting, and etc. but it is not totally unimportant.

      I have seen movies that had so may obvious mistakes that I left the theater with a vague feeling of being ripped of.

  7. Re:exactly why people hate nerd-types by Discoflamingo13 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You are exactly right- I have a short story from college to illustrate. There's a prof at my college that has a reputation for being "that guy you don't want at any of your presentations." One of my friends my first year was the first person ever to do two honors theses- one for mathematics, and one for physics. Friend told me flat out, right before his defense started, "If that bitch even tries to correct my grammar, you can beat him with this newspaper." Ten minutes into friend's honors project, prof had already pointed out two incorrect uses of it's/its, and three spelling mistakes (which were actually British/American usage differences). So the person sitting next to me (an older friend of mine) grabbed the newspaper out of my hands and smacked the prof on the back with it. The prof looked like he was going to cry. He walked out of the room immediately, and the rest of the presentation went off without a hitch.

    The next year, the annoying prof (who has a degree in Mathematics) gave a talk about the motion of a "hopping hoop" as this complicated system of parametric equations. About fifteen minutes into his presentation (which was scheduled for 45 minutes), the second reader for my friend's presentation called him out. "Isn't this just rotational mechanics? I mean, you only need one equation for the motion, and you capture all of the effects of friction and momentum in one equation. Who do you think you are - do you think you're going to do better than Newton." Within five minutes, three Math profs had also joined in on the tongue-lashing. He left the talk about twenty minutes before it was supposed to end.

    I never actually hit the prof - I was just a first-year, and I didn't want to ruin my relationship with the To this day, my not beating the shit out him with the newspaper remains the only thing I regret about my college experience. So I think there are two morals here: 1) If you can ever get away with beating an idiot with a newspaper, do it; otherwise, you may regret it for the rest of your life; and, 2) If you ever go to a presentation and try to turn it into a witchhunt (gramatical, mathematical, or otherwise), don't be surprised when they're lashing you to the stake and dousing you with gasoline. Or "love thy neighbor in his infinite capacity to mangle language". Or something.

  8. Re:The biggest "mistake" by Tantrum420 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Um, hate to be the frist to tell you, but it's a COMIC BOOK.

    Thank you. I'm getting sick of seeing people bitch about how unrealistic this was or how predictable that was. Come on... That's part of the fun of it. The movie is paying homage to the comic. Y'know, those cheesy pulp stories printed on cheap paper (at least back in the day). We read those things to escape reality, not complain about every little thing that "couldn't possibly happen". Of course it couldn't possibly happen. That's why they're Superheroes (and supervillans). Doesn't the phrase "Suspension of Disbelief" mean anything to you knitpickers? Sheesh.

    my $0.05 (keep the change)

    T

  9. Re:bugs by GreyyGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know this was meant as a joke, but it is correct in this case. Most of these continuity "errors" are storytelling. There are a couple about how Mary Jane and the tram falling are reflected in his goggles, but that is more of a visual storytelling trick then a mistake.

    It seems like most of the other half are people pointing out how many times they saw the movie to notice things like people that look like other Marvel heroes in the background or references to other Marvel people. I would say at least half of the "bugs" are more easter egg sort of things included in the film.

  10. What a waste of time. by NewtonEatPalm! · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm a nerd/filmmaker, and never having been to this website, I decided to give it a go. Man, what a mistake even loading it was. Most of what people have pegged as "mistakes" (to give themselves a strange feeling of accomplishment or to receive some sort of notoriety I'd wager) are actually techniques commonly used by myself and my colleagues to emphasise certain aspects of the story, de-emphasize others, and generally attempt to slyly shift the audiences focus around from story aspect to story aspect. If people are missing where there were people, we want you to concentrate only on the people we've left in the shot. If "shadows look wrong," usually we're trying to alter your perceptions.

    We aren't perfect by any means, but no production would ever get as far as a theatrical release with that number of "non-acknowledged/planned" errors in it. Try editing a film in a darkened room for 15 hours at a time for several weeks, watching each clip over and over and over and over ad nauseum and then tell me you didn't catch these so called "mistakes". I hate armchair quarterbacks, people in line at Fry's who pretend they know so much about their "1 Gigahertz hard drive," misinforming their buddy that they need a new "motherboard chip," and most of all, unqualified film critics who think they've discovered America every time they "uncover" one of our deliberate attempts to change their perceptions to our ends.

    Allow yourself to be immersed, suspend disbelief, and it can only be a win/win situation for us both.

    Good day.

    -NewtonEatPalm!