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Spider-Man 2 Has Over 30 Mistakes
Jon Sandys writes "Spider-Man 2 may have won over the critics, but the hard-nosed bastards at moviemistakes.com are listing 31 mistakes already - and no, not nitpicky stuff that's different from the comics. A scar swaps sides on Peter Parker's face and dummies are visible in hurled cars, not to mention the numerous errors involving tritium which I'm sure Slashdot readers will enjoy refuting. Read the complete listing on the Spider-Man 2 page." Also, people bitten by spiders don't generally become ultra-powerful.
What was it he said?
"There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others."
Less Talk, More Beer.
A harsh opinion? Perhaps. But sometimes it is the only way I can explain this middle school "neener neener neener" stuff. I would like to see these people work on a major motion picture and see how they feel afterwards.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Alot of the errors they mentioned are typical for Friday the 13th films, where blood and guts reign and only the hardcore fans devote time to find the bloopers. One would expect better from a major action film.
Some of these are pretty thin:
... leave it to the screenwriters.
"Plot hole: Harry tells Doc Ock that in order to find Spider-Man he must find Peter first. Doc Ock finds Peter with Mary Jane in the cafe and throws a car through the window straight at them. Any normal man would've been killed instantly, and Doc Ock doesn't know that Peter is Spider-Man. Given that Peter is his only lead on Spider-Man, it makes no sense that Doc Ock would effectively try to kill him."
I can just see some pimply faced teenager sitting in his mom's basement thinking.... "It'd only make sense that he'd act this way. if i were Doc ock, thats what I'd do. Then re-enacting the whole thing with his spiderman action figures to prove himself right." Give it a rest. It's a fictional movie about fictional characters that's incredibly entertaining. Make your lists about the gaffer screwing up, but when it comes to how a character that's got some metalic arms fused to his back would respond after throwing a car through a window at a cafe
I'm sure these were the same people who objected to the ents in LOTR as trees seldom pick up roots and walk, or pointed out the time travel anomalies in Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban (sp?) with respect to special relativity.
It's called suspending disbelief, and some people, it would appear, are incapable of doing it.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World" 1 John 4:14
Another point could be that they really aren't terribly concerned. Most people won't notice these mistakes the first time through, some not even ever, so it really isn't worth the time or effort (equally $) to fix them.
As well, who is going to avoid watching a movie just because they know a scar switches sides in one scene? Probably no one, so if it isn't going to affect ticket sales, why bother changing it?
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
You act as though you think the people on that site do nothing but critique and criticise the movies they see. Is it so hard to believe that some people can watch a movie, enjoy it, and then at a later date enjoy poking fun at the obvious mistakes the movie makers let slip? You act as if these people NOT having orgasms in their seats over every movie ever made is the worst thing to ever happen. As you said: "It's a movie, for christ's sake!"
You mean genetically altered spider. Radiation was cool/hip in the 50's and 60's when the comics were written, and passe when SP1 came out. In the movie, genetics was the new hotness mutation.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
In real life, tritium's a gas. It's not a metal at anything anywhere close to room temperature and one atmosphere.
Which brings me to my point. Would you be more satisfied if the substance had just been referred to as bolognium, or less satisfied? In other words, are you giving them points for putting the ideas "tritium" and "fusion" in proximity to one another, or taking off points for getting the amount of tritium wrong?
I write in my journal
I get the impression that both Spider-Man movies take place in the near (but not immediate) future. For instance, in the first one, they're celebrating a "World Unity Day" (some kind of PC World's Fair) and the military is testing advanced exosuits. (Not to mention that weird neutron grenade that the Goblin uses to disintegrate the Oscorp board.) In the second one, Jameson's son is an astronaut who has already been to the moon. Little background details like that make it easier to assume, for the purposes of the story, that somebody (maybe even Octavius) has perfected a more efficient means of harvesting tritium.
Actually the technicality here is that they never mentioned how pure the tritium was.
In this case they only needed 0.001% pure tritium, so the size of the ball was entirely plausable.
-Adam
If you pay attention to the angle of the car, it wasn't aimed at him - it was going to fly over his head. The car was going to hit Mary Jane, which makes Peter lunge at her to save her and causing Peter to be put into harms way.
Yes, I just saw the movie one hour ago, and I enjoyed it regardless of the mistakes.
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
i liked the movie, but i did not like the demonization of fusion in spider man ii
in a world of smog and wars fought over oil prices (pro-iraq war people: read why iraq invaded kuwait, anti-iraq war people: read why us invaded iraq) we do not need an ultra-pop movie demonizing one of the few technologies which could save us from the petroleum age
in spider man ii, fusion can go "chernobyl", this is a fallacy
if something goes wrong with a fusion reaction, it just fizzles out, it can NEVER start a chain reaction
in spiderman ii, fusion is the megalomaniacal goal of the evil mastermind, and his obsession threatens to blow up half of manhattan... but much like that old '90s film "chain reaction", with keanu reeves, you can't blow up half of wisconsin or manhattan with a fusion reaction, noways, nohow, never
so we don't need hollywood spreading flat out wrong and fearmongering ideas about a promising technology
there is no runaway chain reaction component to fusion, please get it right hollywood... or do you like the global warming, choking on diesel exhaust, war-for-oil world we live in?
ps: fusion reactions are not super-magnets either: in the movie, anything metal got sucked towards them
pps: it WAS funny and harmless how the fusion reaction is portrayed as a miniature sun in the movie, complete with coronal mass ejections threatening doc ock's control of the reaction...
perhaps that is vaguely educational too, fusion's connection with the sun shown as a visual parable, to portray it that way
but hollywood, PLEASE: fusion is not fission, do not let forth the hounds of ignorance and fearmongering onto a promising technology, please!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One thing is bugging me about your comment....
Did you ever read the comic books? Really. You're wondering how robotic arms could attach to someone's spine, but you're OK with the fact that there's a guy that can shoot webs out of his wrists?
I think some people actually go out of their way to NOT enjoy a movie at times. Just sit back, relax, and ignore the stupid shit. It's a fantasy movie, for chrissakes.
And point two: These systems will be at least as armoured as the AI's are, as well as being set up so that a burn-out will result in a non-functional system, rather than a short bypassing the system.
I don't read AC A human right
An important concept that comes into play from the bean counters is "time value of money"... that is, the investors in the film want their millions back ASAP because even if the film gives them more money back, that has to be compared to how much their capital would have made had it been invested in something else or just sitting in a bank.
In short, giving up that director's fee had to equate to the interest the investor's money would have made over the six-month delay, or the bean counters woulda vetoed it.
Sounds like mostly nitpicking to me; unless it really disrupts the flow of the movie or is so obvious that is distracting, it is irrelevant.
What?
People like movies for different reasons. While to you, all of this nitpicking is annoying, I think that for some people it is part of the fun. In any case, I had fun watching the movie tonight just straight up for the themes it addressed, and the story, but I am not annoyed that people do this nit picking. To each his own, you know?
Articles posted to Slashdot this month already have over 30 mistakes! Critics claims that some articles posted on the popular technology news site are even duplicates of articles already posted. And those that aren't duplicates, one reader claims, are often riddled with typos.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
I don't read AC A human right
It's called suspending disbelief, and some people, it would appear, are incapable of doing it.
I'll happily suspend belief for the ground rules of the universe. Neither Middle Earth or Harry Potter's world work on plain old science. But those worlds, and more so the world of Spider-Man, share something in common with our world. Completely abstract media isn't popular. The only way we can understand what's going on in the movie is if we have some contact with the real world; there may be elves and humans, but you can kill them all with swords or arrows. There may be radioactive spiders giving people superhuman powers, but water should still boil if you toss superheated stuff into it.
The fact that most people don't know what tritium is doesn't make them "dumb shits." And the fact that you and I do doesn't make us smart.
And you need to relax a little, and remember that it's not a personal affront to you.
I write in my journal
In real life, tritium's a gas. It's not a metal at anything anywhere close to room temperature and one atmosphere.
Gee, I must have missed the pressure gauge on the side of the container.
Personally, I like the idea of trying to stabilize a fusion reaction by just poking it back every time it starts to go unstable...
Just to be fair, the physics of Doc Oc's arms seems to have been fairly well thought out. Whenever he's lifting something heavy with two arms, he's always got the other two providing him a reasonable base. This is fairly unusual--I often see "strong" characters in movies lifting things in a physically impossible manner. They also, in this movie and the previous one, manage to make Spidey's swinging look quite plausible, which is quite an accomplishment (although making that much web is another matter, as has been pointed out before)
If a company has enough money to develop super-goblin equipment plus spheres that can turn people into skeletons that fall into dust, then of course they can afford tritium!
Fishnet stockings? That would put a whole different spin on why Mr. Parker was a social outcast.
I'm so sick of reading these nitpicker lists where 98% of the so-called errors are trivial continuity errors. Real issues are fun to read and discuss, but I don't really give a crap that George Castanza didn't have the ketchup in his hand when they cut to Jerry, but Jerry's witty rejoinder makes him squirt ketchup across the table when he jump cuts back. Big deal. On the other hand, real plot holes or complete inconsistencies can be fun to talk about. For instance when Michael Moore claims Bush let the Saudis out of the U.S. when all the planes were grounded, pointing out the fact that it was actually Richard Clarke (the _terrorism_ guy) and the flight ban had been lifted, so nothing wrong was done is useful and instructive. That's an error worth pointing out. Unfortunately, these lists are usually just exercises in people's powers of observing insignificant minutia, and the fact that directors often flip the film (or even run it backwards like they did in helicopter shot in The Two Towers) seems to provide the majority of the issues.
Here's one for free: In "This Island Earth" Dr. Meacham and his lady friend duck under the water to escape the explosion of the car driven by Russell Johnson's character. The next scene shows them stepping onto land and they are clearly dry. Woo hoo! I'm a GENIUS!
The reward for such powers of perceptiveness were skillfully and cleverly satirized by the infamous Marvel No-Prize, until the dolt readers became incensed that they never got anything and Marvel actually had to start sending something out.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Since the first movie I've been wondering why the webs come of out his wrists.
n ot-his-ass' problem, it is not perfect, either.
:-)
In a more general sense, why would a spider's bite transfer it's attributes to the bitee? I mean, a spider bites to either kill food, or kill a threat (or at least drive it off). How would passing on 'spider powers' help either of those goals??
Once you get past that hurdle, you have to deal with the 'web' issue. The Comic book Spiderman had Peter Parker be a genius who created WebShooters he strapped onto his wrist. While this solves the 'Why-the-hell-would-web-shoot-out-his-wrists-and-
You see, someone actually calculated how much webbing SpiderMan must go thru when he swings around. If I recall correctly, he would use something like 1/7 of his own body mass of webbing to swing 10 or so miles. (Google for it if you care about the details). That's a lot of webbing canisters to be slapping on your wrists.
Of course, with the movie, that issue remains- where does his body get the material and energy to make the web? Is he scarfing down huge plates of food 8, 9, 10 times a day? Eating buckets of sugar? But the movie scenario (his body makes the webbing) at least helps one problem- the lack of 'Spider-ness' to the comic book's SpiderMan.
I mean, what do you think of when you think "spider"? Crawling on walls? Nope- any fly, ant or roach can do that.
Having a 'sixth sense'? Nope- ever try to swat a fly with just your hand? See how it takes off before you can hit it? Almost like it has 'spider sense'.
How about great strength? Again, no- most insects can lift many times their body weight- it's a function of being so small to begin with. Square/cube law, etc.
Face it- when you think 'spider', you think spider web. And a spider/man character that doesn't have the ability to shoot webs is NOT a SpiderMan. A BugMan, maybe. But not SpiderMan.
SO, in short, I forgive them the 'why-his-wrists' issue, because they actually gave SpiderMan the attribute that only Spiders have.
Radiation was cool/hip in the 50's and 60's when the comics were written, and passe when SP1 came out.
When SP2 comes out, automatic firewalls will be the the new hotness mutation.
Seriously though, in the days of Shelley's "Frankenstein", electricity was the "new hotness mutation". The effects are the same, but we change the causes to take advantage of the latest buzzwords. I'm sure when they remake "Spiderman" in 3D Holovid in 2050, the spider will have been altered with tachyons or (insert your favorite Star Trek-like technobable that becomes reality here).
(p.s. IANAP... tachyons are still considered only theoretical, right?)
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Does anyone else think that the 'booom booom' doc ock is coming sound seems like it was stolen from the T Rex in Jurrasic park and doesn't fit Doc Ock at all?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
There may be radioactive spiders giving people superhuman powers, but water should still boil if you toss superheated stuff into it.
I always assumed that the mentality for movies was "this is the same word as you... except..."
And then you filled in the blank, with the one or two "impossible" or "unbelievable" premises required for the movie. Anything that the movie does not attempt to explain, or that I can't understand on my own, I have to assume functions the same way as it does in real life.
I can only answer from my experience: having a friend who's a director, having been on the sets of two, big Hollywood movies and having had a girlfriend who was an editor;
No. Sometimes small mistakes have to be left in because there isn't enough coverage an a particular shot to find another angle which is usable, but most mistakes are just that: mistakes. A movie like Spiderman is an immense undertaking. At a minimum you're talking several years of effort, over a thousand people employed in various roles, coordinating several units shooting simultaneously and cutting down millions of feet of film into a two hour final project. In an undertaking that large, mistakes are inevitable.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
eV are electronvolts. The amount of energy requires to move one electron across one volt potential difference.
Eigenvalues are properties of a matrix. A matrix will have a few vectors that they multiply against and create a new vector that is just a multiple of the original vector. The factors are the eigenvalues, the vectors the eigenvectors.
You can solve them with the following equation:
det ( (matrix) - lamba * identity ) = 0
Where lamba will solve for the eigenvalues. From there you can use
(matrix)(r) = lamba * (r)
Where r is an arbitrary vector, (x,y,z)
" You said "NEVER". You said "fusion reaction". You didn't mention anything about size constraints."
Supernova are produced by gravitational collapse in stars, not the fusion reactions fizzling out, dumbass. If you want to be nitpicky to support your daft point, then the lack of fusion causes stars to nova, but I can't believe you're trying to defend the point seriously.
"Atomic bombs do a good job of blowing up large areas, by the way. The fact that they are a fusion reaction"
Triggered by a fission reaction that causes an unbottled fusion reaction to take place. Curiously the function of bombs is to explode. This can be safely predicted in the future by looking for the word 'bomb'.
Indeed, some of the 'faults' are absurdly pedantic.
In my opinion an interesting movie mistake is one that almost everyone sees the first time they watch the movie.
Godzilla is the best example.
The speed of Godzilla is inversely proportional to the importance of the character. At the beginning of the film she can catch a helicopter because it contains an extra. At the end of the film she is unable to catch a reversing taxi because it contains key actors.
Not to mention the wildly varying size of the monster throughout the film.
Simple, and no, as others repond, it's not ben dumbed down:
In the comics, Peter Parker isn't a high school student, he's a University level graduate student.
It's beleiveable that someone that works in a research facility available in a university could build the devices, given time, and some of the insight they'd have learned from being in Parker's condition.
It's NOT beleiveable to have a high school student do all that.
~Mad_Ian
~Donald / Just RTFM
I would like to see these people work on a major motion picture and see how they feel afterwards.
BAH! I'd have them work on a very short documentary or even a simple 30 minute short.
working on a major motion picture with a obscene amount of money set aside for it does NOT show you the work needed to go into a movle.
try carrying a 30 pound tripod 3 miles in a rainstorm treying to capture maybe 5-10 minutes of footage of a waterfall that will be destroyed because of a development project a few miles upstream.
or how about spending a 48 hour weekend as a DP trying to get the last few shots for a indie short you started shooting at 5:00am saturday and it's now 8PM sunday, you are trying to beat the sunlight to a last shooting location that you do NOT have authorization to shoot at and you have not slept yet.... Oh and those 3 volunteers you had helping at 5:00 am saturday are nowhere to be found, so you are the DP, the sound recordist and person riggin all lighting or bounce reflectors as well as setting up the scene so when the director and actors show up about 20 minutes behind you the shot can get in the can and you out of there before being arrested.
THEN tell me how they feel afterwards.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
> In order to get the release delayed, Cameron gave up his entire director's fee.
> Luckily, he still got a percentage of the box office and ended up just fine.
Shame they didn't notice the smoke coming out of all 4 funnels. When I first saw it I though there was a fire in the engine room.
Hey, I liked that show as a kid.
;-)
Actually, as a kid I thought it was great stuff too. It wasn't until I managed to watch some episodes later in life that I realized just how painful the show was to watch. The fact that they had a "science" segment at the end of the show only added insult to injury.
Amazing how childhood memories alter things to make them "good", eh?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
did anyone else notice that when that fusion reaction (see: star) was dropped into the river that a. there was no steam and b. the river was still there after having a star inserted into it.
Well, there was no sound in space on Firefly...and it got canned.
(Yeah, it's OT, but not VERY OT)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Yes, however when you have lots and LOTS of money, you hire a team of people before and after the shoot that do "consistency" editing and checking.
Good movies that seem to have everything covered have a team of people dedicated to ensuring that between shots costumes, hair, make-up, injuries, sets etc. are all continuous for the audience.
SoapBox Mode On:
This is one of the drawbacks of shooting things out of order. Another drawback is that because so much emphasis is placed on the "shot" that the "acting" goes out the window. Directors spend very little time (I am speaking on average here) with the "talent" and leave most actors to their own devices. Without clear direction, only the strongest actors can pull off a great performance, and to me, that makes or breaks a film. Even a crappy story can be made better with great acting. Writing is also out the window these days, but I digress...
Consistency errors are inexcusible. This is why I watch plays more than movies. Movies, like software in many ways, are rushed to market to capitalize on money and sacrifice quality. This is my opinion.
That said, I've seen a lot of crap plays as well. However, I would rather see a questionable play where actors are with me, in the room, baring their hearts to the audience, than a movie with all the budget in the world and little concern for the actors on screen or the audience in the seats.
If you watch most press tours about a movie, most of the statements are plattitudes about the cast and a focus on how they "pulled it off" just in time. This sort of thing is OK for indie films and small-house theatre, but big-budget productions have no excuse for this.
Critics let them get away with it. Maybe not the internet based critics, but people published in magazines and newspapers give you plot summary, some acting notes, and little else. It's like a book report for 3rd grade. This is true in theatre too. My suggestion to anyone going to theatre is to learn about the production, if the story interests you, go! The critic most likely saw it on opening night and the show has evolved since then.
With movies you get what you pay for - check your brain at the door and go.
With theatre, bring your brain, turn off your cell phone, and unwrap your hard candy before curtain. Be prepared to be transformed.
With both, you don't always get what you pay for... big ticket prices for theatre do no automatically mean you should give them a Standing Ovation. Movies are generally the same price, but if you compare production budgets, I think the same holds true.
Sure, I'm biased... I've acted for many years, am married to an up-and-coming actor/actress (depending on the role), and many friends are actors on both stage and screen. I value the contribution of a well-made movie, but seldom see one. I think that plays build a community because each audience is together for one moment in history that can't be repeated. The drama is both on stage and in the story, and that story is shared with an audience every night.
Support your local theatre and put the humanity back in humans.
SoapBox Mode Off
TTFN
ever try to swat a fly with just your hand? See how it takes off before you can hit it?
Because the wind of your hand coming down creats lift in the fly's wings. It couldn't be hit if it wanted to (suicidal flies...)
That's why fly-swatters have the grid-pattern, so they don't make as much wind.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
I agree, there are errors in plays - the text and the staging - all the time. That's why actors and directors have "text work" where they examine the script in detail and find problems. That's why dramaturgs exist. It's ultimately up to a director to fix them. Actors can't possibly cover everything up, but they are a part of the solution.
What I'm saying is that if you have $20 to $150 million dollars, you might be able to pay a couple people to watch for consistency. Sort of like QA for software. Or is that a bad analogy!
However, it is an interesting dichotomy that you construct when you accuse a community that tries to support an activity as elitist.
The problem today is that people are becoming more disconnected. They guy you cut off on the freeway because you're late to Starbucks, the guy with the lame bumper stickers that make you angry are all easier to pick on when you don't have to interact with them. Movies, the Internet, and technology like iPods all help us disconnect from one another and make perpetuating self-centered behavior easy and regret-free.
I think that our worship of commerce has caused theatre to become "elite" by driving up the price. This is sad. I see better theatre for $10 to $25 than most any movie I can think of (indie or not). I also find that expensive theatre doesn't equal quality.
As for acting and writing... well, we've rewarded bad writing with patronizing reality TV. Great acting is possible, but it has to have direction. Like you said, 95% of movies and other media are crap. The problem is that a lot more crap gets to the box office and a large number of remarkable theatre and books goes unnoticed by the public.
It all comes to attention for detail. Film is in love with the technology... special effects, cameras, lighting, sound effects etc. They don't tell the story.
My point is that they can afford to, and they piss away the opportunity and produce more crap because we're all so cowed into accepting substandard production.
Thanks for the debate though!
TTFN
The list of "mistakes" at that website are 90% utterly stupid, and the ones that aren't are mistakes like "in one scene a rip in spiderman's costume is spanned by 1 thread, and by 2 in another". For nearly every "mistake/error" listed a reasonable explanation can be made.
For example, there were 2 or 3 that made bones about chairs being out of place after a scene change. Come on, people! There are other people in the world besides Peter Parker, Octavius, MJ, and Aunt May. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe there's an underpaid custodial worker moving chairs around?
That's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back, thanks to all the idiots who submitted "bloopers" so they could see their own names on the web.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard