The Biggest Continuity Errors You Never Noticed In Huge Movies

The Wizard of Oz is one of the earliest examples of Technicolor in film, and also showcases one of the first continuity errors. When she first meets the Scarecrow, Dorothy has long pigtails that cover her chest, yet throughout their initial encounter, her pigtail length fluctuates, and her hair only comes to her shoulders at some points. Thank God the Scarecrow lacks a brain at this point, or else he'd see right through this misstep.

During a particularly tense moment in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the corrupted T-X shuts itself down, allowing Sarah and John Connor to escape in a plane. While grounded in the hanger, the code on the plane reads as N3035C; by the time they get airborne, it changes to N3973F. How can the machines expect to rise if they can't get their codes in order?

It's A Wonderful Life never lets you forget you're watching a holiday movie, to the point that characters can produce Christmas regalia at the drop of a hat. Protagonist George Bailey enters an office with a wreath on his arm, and tosses it onto a desk to take a phone call. A few cuts later, and the wreath sits back on Bailey's arm. This is one of the film's less grandiose Christmas miracles. 

Though it's not known as a paragon of filmmaking, the original American Pie makes a pretty noticeable party foul in terms of continuity. At one point, Stifler takes a girl to the bedroom and offers her a beer in a clear plastic cup. As they flirt with each other, the girl lifts her cup just enough to reveal that it has inexplicably turned blue. By the next shot, it's back to the clear cup, but the mood is already ruined for more people than just Stifler.

If you intend to place someone in suspended animation, with their image imprinted forever, you need to keep the outfit consistent. As Han Solo says his goodbyes to Chewbacca and Leia in The Empire Strikes Back, he is without his trademark vest. Before being frozen in carbonite, Solo fearfully looks down, seemingly worried about both his impending fate and the fact that his vest seemingly appears out of nowhere. It stays for a few frames before deciding it does not want to join Solo in suspended animation. Its exclusion probably made Solo's carbonite freezing a lot chillier. 

Subtle mistakes often escape scrutiny in a film, unless the film happens to be a ubiquitous cult classic. When Meat Loaf makes his bombastic but brief appearance as Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the number of rings on his hands fluctuates. His pinkie ring appears when he revs his motorcycle, yet disappears when he plays his saxophone or dances with Columbia. In a film where everything feels a bit bizarre, this inconspicuous costume change still throws people for a loop, especially if they're watching it every Saturday night.