Think an errant coffee cup is bad? Here are 13 more surprising movie continuity nightmares

In homage to 'Game of Thrones' coffee cup gaffe, we round up further red-faced moments for directors

This image released by HBO shows from left, Sophie Turner, Kit Harington, Isaac Hempstead Wright, and Maisie Williams in a scene from "Game of Thrones," that aired Sunday, April 21, 2019. With the Game of Thrones' Jon Snow revealing his royal lineage to his potential rival Daenerys Targaryen, the beleaguered army at Winterfell is about to find out if two chief executives better than one. (Helen Sloan/HBO via AP)
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Last week's fourth episode of Game of Thrones became a talking point for more than the victory over the armies of the dead, the fate of Daenarys' dragons, or whether Jon Snow can be tempted to stake his claim for the Iron Throne.

Instead, what set Twitter alight was a humble disposable coffee cup, left on the table by a member of the cast or crew during the film's opening victory feast, looking somewhat out of place among all the drinking horns, tankards and slabs of charred meat that are more typical at these kind of events.

With the next episode due to air in the UAE on Monday night (11pm, OSN First) fans are sure to be keeping extra vigilant for further gaffes. So, as a hint of what to look out for, and in homage to the show's caffeine-fuelled gaffe, here are some of our favourite continuity errors from elsewhere in the movie and TV universe.

1. Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction is undoubtedly one of the best films of the 1990s, and thrust Quentin Tarantino into the Premiere League of Hollywood film makers. That's not to say it's flawless though. Think back to the scene in The Bonnie Situation chapter, where Vince and Julius face a hail of bullets at point-blank range and escape unscathed, leading Samuel L Jackson's Julius to inspect the bullet holes in the wall and impart his memorable monologue on divine intervention. The catch? The bullet holes were already there before the gunman came out of the bathroom.

2. The Usual Suspects

A duo of aeroplane-related gaffes crops up in Bryan Singer’s 1995 crime drama. When the gang pull the heist on the LAPD, a four-engined Boeing 747 is seen coming in to land at the airport next to them. Just a couple of shots later, when the same plane is shown having already landed, it has transformed into a twin-engined Boeing 767. Later in the film, Singer further demonstrates his blind spot for aviation-related error when a criminal arriving in New York from Argentina is collected from La Guardia Airport – all flights from South America land at JFK.

3. Terminator 2

More transport-themed gaffes for James Cameron in his classic sci-fi sequel Terminator 2, and this time both involve windscreens. In one scene, Robert Patrick's T-1000 is chasing John Connor and his guardian T-800 in a truck, which he drives off a bridge, causing the windscreen to pop out. The T-1000 is even shown punching out the remaining glass from the truck. But, seconds later he is shown driving a truck with a fully intact windscreen. Cameron repeats exactly the same error later in the film when the T-1000 punches his way through a helicopter windscreen to gain access. A second later, we see him flying a helicopter with a perfect windscreen. Later in the chase, the windscreen has broken once more.

4. Basic Instinct

Most viewers probably aren't watching Sharon Stone's hands in Basic Instinct's most famous scene, but they should be. When Stone's novelist Catherine Tramell enters the police interrogation room in the film's most-talked about scene, she makes quite a performance art piece out of lighting a cigarette. Seconds later, when she removes her jacket and fixes her hair, the cigarette has disappeared from her hand. Cut to a now jacketless Tramell, and the cigarette is back in place.

5. It’s a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life is undoubtedly a wholesome, feelgood Christmas movie, and few can be more Christmassy than James Stewart's George Bailey – he can conjure Christmas decorations from thin air. In one scene he walks into an office to take a call carrying a wreath, and throws it on a nearby desk to take the phone. In the very next shot, he's talking on the phone with the wreath still draped around his arm.

6. The Wizard of Oz

Watching The Wizard of Oz is a freakish enough experience at the best of times, but if you pay attention to Dorothy's signature pigtails it gets even creepier. Throughout the film, they flit from long, to shoulder length, to short at will. We're not talking about a gradual growth from short to long over the length of the film here. In Dorothy's opening encounter with Scarecrow, her hair is at least three different lengths in the course of a single conversation, a pattern that continues throughout the film.

7. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Han Solo's trademark waistcoat is as ingrained in the character's mythology as much as the Millennium Falcon or his Wookie buddy Chewbacca. Not at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, however. When Han says goodbye Chewie and Leia ahead of being (four-decade old spoiler alert) cryogenically frozen, he is bereft of his waistcoat. When he steps into the chamber and looks down, it's hard to say whether the look of horror on his face is due to his impending frosty trip to eternity, or his magically reappearing waistcoat. By the time he is actually frozen however, the waistcoat has thought better of it and headed off to warmer climes.

8. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

You can usually get away with tiny continuity errors in a movie. But when that movie is cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show and your hardcore audience goes to watch it every weekend, nothing slips past. When Meatloaf bursts onto the screen as Eddie revving his motorbike, he is wearing three rings – on his middle, wedding and little finger. When he proceeds to play the saxophone, however, the little finger ring is no more.

9. The Goonies 

At the end of the eighties kids' favourite, Data tells a reporter that the scariest part of his adventure was battling a giant octopus. The problem is, that scene ended up in the cutting room floors and never made it to theatres. Disney did reinsert it when they began showing the movie on the Disney Channel in the mid-1990s, but that’s after a full decade of one of the lead characters talking about a scene that didn’t even exist at the film’s close.

10. Gladiator

Ridley Scott single-handedly brought the sword and sandal genre back in vogue with 1999's Gladiator. It was thrilling, violent and moving, and apparently featured a gas-powered chariot during the epic Battle of Carthage scenes. Keep your eyes open for an overturned chariot, with an attached gas cylinder clearly visible. What did the Romans ever give us? Roads, aqueducts, propane-propelled transport…

11. Django Unchained

Keeping with the anachronism theme, the titular hero of Quentin Tarantino's revenge fantasy, which is set in 1858, wears a very nice pair of sunglasses for a large chunk of the film. Shades have admittedly been around since at least the 12th century, when they are thought to have been invented in China. But they weren't introduced in the U.S. until 1929, when Sam Foster first sold them from a Woolworth's on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Django Unchained by the Constraints of Historical Fact could perhaps be the sequel.

12. Ben Hur

In perhaps the most famous piece of anachronistic fashion in cinema history, Ben Hur's seminal chariot race scene features a fallen rider wearing a decidedly 20th Century-looking watch. The first wristwatch was made for Countess Koscowicz of Hungary, by Swiss watch manufacturer Patek Philippe in 1868, almost 2,000 years after the events of the film took place.

13. Avengers: Endgame

Moving right up to date with our final selection, and trying to keep relatively spoiler free in case you're one of the three people who haven't watched Endgame yet. As the final battle takes place, we see Ant Man and The Wasp head back to Scott Lang's van to try and use the quantum tunnel to their advantage. In the very next seen, we cut back to the main battle, where Ant Man in his giant form is among the heroes fighting Thanos' hordes. Note that as Endgame is very new, we haven't had chance to go and rewatch the film to check this claim, so we're relying on the observation skills of the online geek community for its veracity.

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