Goofs for
The Karate Kid (1984) More at IMDbPro »

• Revealing mistakes: When Mr. Miyagi and Daniel are attempting to catch a fly in their chopsticks, you can see that the fly is attached to a thin wire when it "flies" in between their two heads.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Daniel picks up Ali for their first date and his mother's station wagon won't start, they push start it and ask Ali to "pop the clutch", however you can hear the starter is used to start the engine.
  
  
• Continuity: When Daniel and his Mom first leave Newark you can clearly see a big dent on the tailgate of the station wagon as his friends chase the car. Later,when his mom picks up Ali at her house, the dent is gone as they push the car to get it started. A better view is visible when his mom picks them up at the "Golf n Stuff". This was several months later after they left Newark but his mom would have surely fixed the starter problem before the tailgate.
  
  

• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the part where Ali trips the members of the Cobra Kai at the Halloween dance, if you watch closely you can see the one Cobra Kai crack a smile as he falls for a brief second. Watch the one on the far right side of the screen as he falls on the other.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Daniel is being chased through a field by Johnny and the other boys (from the costume party), puffs of smoke being generated, from behind a tree on the right, to look like evening fog can clearly be seen.
  
  
• Continuity: Daniel's has cuts and scrapes (from getting beaten up the day before) during the "wax on, wax off" scene at Mr. Miyagi's house. His wounds disappear when he and Ali go to Golf 'N' Stuff and reappear the next day in time for the "sand the floor" scene at Mr. Miyagi's.
  
  
• Continuity: A glove appears on Johnny's hand between shots when Daniel is putting the water hose over Johnny's head in the bathroom during the school party.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the tournament, in a close shot of Johnny as he faces his first opponent, a scene marker is visible being held between the actors before the fight starts.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Johnny and his friends arrive at the beach on their dirt bikes and stop at the top of the hill you can see Dutch's helmet fall off the back of his bike and roll on the ground.
  
  
• Continuity: When Johnny first fights Daniel at the beach, Johnny pushes the radio against Daniel's chest with the speakers facing Daniel, but as Daniel falls the speakers are facing Johnny.
  
  
• Continuity: When Daniel is playing soccer at the beach, the sweat stains on the back of his shirt change significantly between shots.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Daniel and his mother are eating together across from the karate school you can hear her talking to him but her lips aren't moving.
  
  
• Continuity: When Mr Miagi is showing Daniel that he has been learning karate the whole time, he says, "Show me paint the house." He is holding Daniel's right hand, but in the next shot Daniel drops his left hand.
  
  
• Continuity: After the fight with the kids (as skeletons) Miyagi lifts Daniel over his left shoulder, in the next shot Daniel is over his right shoulder.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: The scene when Miyagi and Daniel leave to go to the Cobra Kai dojo, Miyagi walks out of his house towards the truck. As the camera follows him the boom mic is visible just behind the truck.
  
  
• Continuity: As Daniel gets out of his mom's car for his first date with Ali, his shoes are white. When we see him being introduced to Ali's parents, his shoes have changed to brown.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At the Country Club Dinner Dance, the band is playing the "Fascination Waltz", but the conductor's baton is clearly at a faster tempo.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Daniel uses the scissors kick take down in the tournament, he should have been given a warning, as most tournaments do not permit the use of take down during fights.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: During the Halloween Dance Bobby and Tommy both have their hair coming out of the caps of their skeleton costumes. Tommy can be seen at the right dancing with a bunny with his hair out of his costume. Bobby has his hair showing when he goes into the bathroom to find Johnny. Before Johnny runs out of the bathroom you and see that they are fixing their caps to show no hair coming out. When they run after Daniel and fall on the floor Tommy's hair is out of his costume again. After running and jumping a fence to catch up with Daniel their hair is back behind their costumes.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the scene where Johnny elbows Daniel’s knee during the championship match, you can clearly see Daniel point to which knee is supposed to be hurt.
  
  
• Continuity: During the last fight scene with Johnny and Daniel, Johnny's black head band falls off in one shot and the referee is seen picking it up and throwing it off the mat. Other shots after this still show Johnny wearing the head band, and some shots have him without it on.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Daniel catches the fly in the chopsticks, for the first few cuts, the fly is somewhere in the middle of the chopsticks and the chopsticks cross each other past the point where the fly is being held. In a later angle, the fly is held between the very tips of the chopsticks and the sticks do not cross each other over their entire length. He never drops or releases the fly and re-catches or picks it up, so the fly was clearly moved between takes.
  
  
• Continuity: In the Country Club dance scene, as Ali dances with her father, we see Johnny take a seat next to Ali's mother. In the same shot, Ali asks, "Hey Dad, what time is it?" The shot switches to the opposite viewpoint, and the father replies "Well, it's about, uh...9:40" just as Johnny and the mother dance into the shot from the right side of the frame. They could not have arrived there so quickly from where they were seated. (This occurs around 1 hour and 21 minutes into the film.)
  
  
• Continuity: When Miaygi and Daniel go to the Cobra Kai dojo the day after the Halloween dance, Johnny is seen with a black eye. However, when he fought Miaygi the night before, Miyagi blocked Johnny's punches, flipped him, and gave him a chop to the stomach, never hitting him in the eye.
  
  
• Plot holes: At the end of the movie, as Daniel is advancing through the tournament, the logo on the back of his robe appears on the card his name is on, even though they had no advanced knowledge of the logo.
  
  
• Errors in geography: In the beginning scene when Daniel and his mother are driving away down the street, they are said to be leaving Newark NJ. However that street is actually in Harrison NJ and is also a "one way" street going the opposite way. Harrison is a neighboring town.
  
  
• Continuity: In the tournament scene at the end where Daniel fights Tommy and Dutch, they both strike Daniel first, giving them one point each. Then Daniel gets a point back by hitting them both, then Daniel is declared the winner in both fights. He has to be awarded 3 points first before being declared the winner of both fights.
  
  

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