~The Phantom Menace~
Mistakes taken from moviemistakes.com.
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During the podrace, Anakin is in front of Sebulba and has him on
his tail. One view looking towards Anakin you can see Sebulba's
pod in the background, but the driver's seat is empty.
Right before this scene, Sebulba's pod goes over a cliff, and hits
the ground at the bottom. We don't see Sebulba, because he's bent
down to do a really quick repair.
When Qui-Gon, Jar-Jar,and Padme are eating at Anakin's house, Shmi
pours water for Qui-Gon. But when she gets to Jar-Jar, she tips the
pitcher but no water comes out. Then she pours for Padme and Anakin
and it comes out.
On Tatooine, water is precious. It's farmed from the air and then
taken great care of. So it's clear and clean. From this angle, the
water is so clear, that we can't really see it. But look closer,
you can sorta see that area darker, like water is pouring.
Obi-Wan's braided hair keeps changing sides, and getting longer and
shorter, most noticeably in the scenes around the underwater city.
Padawan braids are nothing more than a symbol. They're prosthetic.
Which means they can be taken off and moved around at will.
When Amidala and some other guards use the ascension guns from
the palace windows seven of them go up, when they are running along
the corridor after coming off the window-ledge, there are about 13
or 14 of them. Then finally when they are surrounded by the droids,
there are about 10 or 11 of them and Captain Panaka is not there.
That window ledge was pretty full with seven of them. The others
came up after there was more room. And some probably stayed behind
to secure the area. Or maybe were shot or captured by droids. Or
went with Sabé.
In the chamber room near the end of the movie, after the Queen
throws the guns to everyone and goes to address the Viceroy, she
starts to walk away from her chair. While she is doing that, you
can distinctly see her lose her footing and slip on the floor. In
the next edit she repeats this movement without slipping.
Perhaps she moves first, slips (adds reality) the Neiamodians back
up, and she continues pursuit of them, this time not slipping.
After everyone leaves Tatooine after the short stay they land on
Coruscant in the middle of busy air traffic. Unfortunately, the
ship that they fly in (the Nubian), with its incredibly shiny and
mirror-like appearance does not reflect the bustling traffic above,
nor the people walking out of it. It only seems to reflect the
basic landscape.
The Naboo art is about standing still and admiring the beauty of
Nature and beauty, and learning... not moving and trying to take
over things... this nature is reflected in their metal. It refelcts
stationary objects only. Remember it dosent mean to reflect
beauty but to reflect the art of Naboo. That art is slowing
down and observing rather than running into things.
In Anakin's hovel, where everyone is introducing themselves,
Qui-Gon
says "I'm Qui-Gon Jinn," and you can see Padme mouth the words.
She was about to say soemthing..but decided not to but it slipped
her lips and it came out as mouthing
After the final battle scene when the Jedi council come down to
the Naboo city, as they are leaving the space craft there is a
figure in the background who is obviously supposed to be Mace
Windu, but is deffinately not Samuel L. Jackson. The man is
African-American, bald and dressed in Windu's clothes, but is not
him. Perhaps Mr. Jackson was unavailable that day.
It wasn't Mace. It was another Jedi. And the reason we don't see
him again is cause he played security guard on the ship taking
the Neiamodians back to Coruscant.
In the initial scene, when the Federation invade Naboo, you can
see two takes of Queen Amidala watching the window on her palace.
At the left of the screen you can see a black wire - maybe a light
connection?
It was an In-Galaxy wire. Probably for the lighting of the palace.
In the scene where Qui-Gon is talking to Jar Jar for the first
time, they are walking through the forest. A branch with leaves
comes up and Jar Jar dips his head to avoid it, but his eye and
part of his head go through the leaves.
It's an illusion. Like sticking a rolled up paper over one eye
and holding your hand to the paper.
On Naboo, when they are planning to take over the palace just
after the Queen asks R2 to project the map of the palace - watch
her lips, they aren't in sync with what she says.
It was a speach mess-up.
Near the beginning of the film, there's a few shots of the droid
army landing on Naboo, with one shot of one of those hover tanks
moving out of the landing ship towards the camera. In front of it
are three droids in a line who are also walking towards the camera.
Unfortunately, the tank is moving much faster and is bearing down
on the droids with no sign of stopping - unfortunately the shot
changes just before it runs them over.
It does stop. Off camera. It's SW. They can have super-brakes there.
When Qui-Gon and Watto are talking in the hangar before the
Podrace, Qui-Gon says "You don't think the boy can win?". You can
see Watto's waist strap disappear into him. This is the downside
to CG characters.
It bends and it just looks like it goes into him.
When Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are landing the Naboo ship on Tatooine
to repair it, watch the landing closely. The shadow of the ship
is already on the ground before the ship lands on it. Also the
ship tilts back and forth during the landing but the shadow never
changes or moves.
The shadow was from a mesa or a rock. Not the ship. Besides, on
Tatooine there's two suns. We don't have two suns, so we don't
know what shadows do there.
When Palpatine and Queen Amidala are conversing in his office
(when Palpatine refers to Valorum having 'very little real power')
his outfit switches from a green breasted cloak with a blue collar
area to a green breasted cloak and dark green collar. It switches
back after one shot.
His shirt was made of shimmersilk, a cloth that appears to change
color when the person wearing it moves.
The screen that Shmi Skywalker holds in the podrace changes shape
between shots.
The camera on the track breaks from a Podracer part, therefore a
new one is already there ready to replace it.
When Anakin is packing his backpack while speaking to C3PO, there
is a toy on his bed like a Naboo fighter. In the next shot, it
changes place and orientation.
It just looked like a Naboo fighter. And he moved it while
the camera wasn't on him. Not ever single moment is caught on
camera.
When Darth Maul is fighting with Qui-Gon, only one blade of his
lightsaber is on and on the other side, the is no hole. When he
fights with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in the palace, there is a hole
on both sides.
He has two lightsabers. One with one side only, the other with
two sides.
When Anakin, Qui-Gon, Jar-Jar and Padmé arrives at Anakin's
house, they are near each other. In the next shot, view from
inside the house, Anakin is separated from the others.
Again, he does it off camera.
When they enter Anakin's house, Jar-Jar's arm passes through
Padmé arm.
Another illusion.
When the queen is being escorted by some droids after she has
been captured, the shadows change completely. When we first see
everyone walking past, their shadows stretch ahead of them, but
when we see them walking towards Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, the shadows
are really elongated and at an angle.
It's another planet! Another galaxy! We don't know what shadows
and suns do there.
When the gungan submarine exits the water, you can see water
flowing on the force field. The shot later, the submarine is
completely dry.
It has an automatic drier-thingie installed.
Jar Jar knocks down a bunch of droids in Watto's shop, but when
they leave, you can see the feet of the now stacked up droids.
He cleans them up quickly. So he doesn't get in trouble.
During the pod-race, as the racers pass the start/finish line
between laps, we see a view of R2, C3PO and Anakin's friends. R2
turns his head to watch the pods go by and it raises up about an
inch and a half on one side, then seems to be stuck, the view
changes and R2's head is swivelling fine, then we get another
view of the wonky lid.
He's in a mode-thing.
When Darth Maul is harassing Obi-Wan as he dangles in the pit,
the first swing of Darth Maul's sabre is out of sync with the
resultant sparks (very evident in slo-mo).
Because of Maul's raging emotions and anger, he causes the Force
to make it seem out of sync.
When Qui-Gon dies, you see him fall down - his hands clearly hit
the ground and rest there after sliding off his body. In the
close-up shot, Qui-Gon's right hand does not and rests on his
stomach.
Qui-Gonn was not dead yet. He was still alive, although his life
was fading, he still had enough life to move his hands.
When the storm is approaching and Anakin offers them a safe haven,
as they set off you can see R2D2 in the background and there are
no tread tracks leading to him - he's obviously been carried there
and set down to wheel away.
The wind blew the sand and covered his tracks.
At the end, after Darth Maul has knocked Obi-Wan into the pit,
Obi-Wan is beginning to remember about Qui-Gon's lightsaber. The
scene shows Darth Maul with the lightsaber in his right hand.
When Obi-Wan leaps out of the pit and flies over Darth Maul, the
lightsaber switches to Maul's left hand.
He switches thinking Obi would come from the other side.
When Qui-Gon is cleaning Anakin's wound there's no blood on the
swab after he wipes the cut.
The cloth in the SW galaxy is resistant. That means every liquad
that is wiped disappers in it. (Including Padmes blood in ep.2
when she gets ripped by the Nexu.)
Immediately before Watto throws the chance cube, watch the shot
as he says "...Red, the mother.", there are no colours on the cube
for a second.
Wattos chance cude is rigged and he sets it to roll on Red. Which
is why it changes colorless for a seond. Qui-Gonn sensed this,
thus using the force to justify the roll and it naturlly lnaded
on blue. (No Dark Side trick here)
When the flags are first brought out onto the course, we see
C-3P0 carrying Anakin's flag (a blue cross) three back from the
front. Then in a closeup of him, he's suddenly between two
different flag carriers. Worse still, in a wide shot of the flag
carriers leaving the course before the race, he and the flag have
disappeared completely.
C-3PO changes course off camera and quickly
moves away from the track before the others.
After the race, Anakin's face is dirty. When his mother
kisses him, his face cleans itself between shots.
His mother cleaned his face real quick before she kissed him.
When Padme is cleaning R2-D2 and chatting to Jar-Jar, the film's
eversed in the final shot of Natalie Portman smiling. The easiest
way to notice it is that when we're looking at R2-D2, normally his
lens is to the right of a blue/red light, but in the final shot
the lens is now to the left of that light.
Just seems that way.
Where Natalie Portman and some of the security detail are fighting
in the Palace corridors, her shiny weapon makes a distinct noise
and the normal blasters makes a different sound. Later, she is
given a regular blaster to get up the outside of the Palace.
However, when she fires that gun to break the window they've
ascended to, it makes the same noise as her shiny blaster, not
the sound of a normal blaster.
This is her Palace and her normal guns as well as all her guns in
the palace were modified to aound the same to distinct the Queen
from normal sound guards .
When they quit the spaceship to go to Mos Espa, R2-D2 has a
metal bar retaining his rear legs. He doesn't have this in the
rest of the film.
he encloses it. He only needed it for the open Desret.
When Jar-Jar is helping repar Anakin's podracer, he loses his
tool in the motor. When he tries to take it, it is suddenly
stuck in the compressor, some centimeters ahead and over.
The wrench falls through to another part of the Pod.
Just before the announcer says, '...that's gotta hurt.' (about
midway through the pod race) and again at the end of the race,
watch carefully when the shot focuses on the audience cheering
and you'll see a giant skeleton head being lifted a bit by the
person next to it. (They may have used the same shot twice.)
There's no way this prop can be confused with an alien audience
member; I guess the extras were bored that day.
Some Spectater prolly held it up
During the race, Anakin's clothes don't move in some shots,
even though he's going at an extremely high speed.
His Pod has suppressor fields installed to diable wind to sffect
the driver as a distraction, thought it dosent always work, cheap
junk.
When Obi-Wan rushes through the Force Doors, after Qui-Gon's
death, to face Maul, watch and listen carefully. Obi swings his
lightsaber three times in rapid seccession, Maul blocks all
three attacks. The lightsabers appear to contact, there is even
the almost subliminal flash from the beams hitting each other,
but the sound crew only inserted two contact sound effects, and
those two sounds are slightly out of synch with the actual movements.
It goes so fast it seems af if it dosent make a sound.
When Anakin says his last words to his mother, she is closer to
the door than in the previous shot.
She moved.
During the race, the amount of dirt on Anakin's face change from
shot to shot.
Anakin cleans it as much as he can between shots.
When the queen is being escorted by some droids after she has
been captured, there is a shot of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon watching
the queen from a balcony. The shot shows the queen passing by
them. Qui-Gon then takes a few steps and is somehow very far ahead
of the queen and the droids. They didn't use the force run because
Jar Jar was right up with them.
They do use Force run and use it on Jar Jar too.
At the end scene where Obi Wan is fighting with Darth Maul, Maul
knocks Obi Wan back into the reactor pit using the force. When
they first show Maul's hand, it is is right hand that he takes
off the lighsaber and pushes Obi Wan back. When the camera angle
changes to show Obi Wan rolling backwards into the pit, Maul's
left hand is clearly shown raised.
He switches.
When C-3PO meets R2-D2 for the first time, Natalie Portman and
Jake Lloyd (Padmé and Anakin) can be seen in the background.
They are obviously not watching the action in the foreground, but
instead Mike Lynch, the robotics operator, moving 3PO about.
They are looking at something else in the room.
When Anakin attaches 3PO's right eye, one shot has the eye in
his left hand, then the angle changes and the eye is being applied
with the right hand.
He needed to put in the left eye and apply the right.
At the beginning of the film we see two viceroys speaking to
TC-14. After the point when Dofine says "I knew it! They're
here to force a settlement" if you look closely at TC-14's left
shoulder you can see the face of someone, maybe female.
Illusion.
When Anakin is sitting in his Naboo starfighter about to take
off, there is one shot of R2 with his projection nozzle on the
left side of the red light instead of the right.
He switches it.
The shadows change angles all over the movie. First the shadows
appear right beneath the characters, then in the next clip they
are cast with an angle. And the shadows that ships and
computer-animated animals cast are different from the "real"
characters.
A Different galaxies, who knows.
When the trio enter the underwater city, they learn that the
Naboo are located on the far side of the planet, so they need a
submarine to get there. But since Kenobi and Qui-Gon had just
landed from the droid control ship, that ship must be on the far
side of the planet too, which doesn't make much sense when trying
to invade a city. Later on, it's conveniently moved around to the
right side of the planet so it's directly in front of the
space-ship that Qui-Gon and Kenobi blast rescue the Queen with.
The Blockade is around the entire planet.
Got another mistake that's not listed?
Email to me at mwhiber@starwarsdotcom.com.