Goofs for
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

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• Errors in geography: Port Royal, Jamaica, is built on a low spit of sand south of Kingston Harbor, nowhere more than about ten feet above sea level. The movie set has it built atop hundred-foot basaltic cliffs.
  
  
• Factual errors: Elizabeth Swann's maid fills a bed warmer with red-hot coals and then places the warmer at the feet of Elizabeth, who is lying in bed. That's not the way bed warmers were used. They held warm, not red-hot, coals, and were placed in bed before one turned in and removed before the sleeper lay down. If used as shown in the movie, they would have barbecued one's feet.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Sparrow has no problems sliding down the rope using his handcuffs because the chain is long enough for him to be able to throw a loop of chain over the rope and grab it in his other hand. When he reaches the bottom, he lets go and the rope is released without his having to undo the cuffs or untie the rope (or even detach one of his hands as one viewer suggested).
  
  

• Continuity: When Barbossa is chasing the Interceptor, as he is shouting commands, in one shot his teeth are perfectly white, while in the rest of the movie they are decayed.
  
  
• Factual errors: The chest of cursed Aztec gold, which Cortez was said to have taken from Mexico, depicts four representations of the primary image of the Sun Gate from the Tiahuanaco civilization, outside La Paz, Bolivia.
  
  
• Continuity: Inside the treasure-filled cave, shafts of moonlight descend straight downward. However, the view outside shows the moon fairly low in the sky.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Jack's execution uses a trapdoor-style gallows. This was not invented until the 1800s.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At least twice during the movie, the left side of the ship is referred to as "port" (as in, "drop the port anchor"). "Larboard" was used until the 19th century when referring to the ship, and "port" was only for directions. "Hard a-port" or "turn to port" would have been used, but nothing referring to the port side of the ship until the 1800s.
  
  
• Continuity: When Elizabeth takes the medallion out of the secret hiding place, her fingernails are short. When Captain Jack saves her from being shot during the battle between both ships, her nails are long and manicured.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack is talking to the two guards on the dock, in the background you can see a man rowing a boat towards the ship by the cliffs. As the camera switches back and forth between the guards and Jack, you can see the progress of the rowboat. However, at one point the boat suddenly disappears, but wouldn't have had enough time to have rowed out of the camera's view.
  
  
• Continuity: During the fight between the pirates and Norrington's crew at the cave, one of the two guards from the dock had been killed just moments earlier is now alive again and fighting the pirates on the deck.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Shortly after having been rescued from the gallows, in one close-up Jack Sparrow can be seen wearing contact lenses (they were tinted lenses to stop him from squinting).
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack Sparrow first arrives, the sky is full of white clouds and light blue sky, implying that it is midday and the sun is high, however when we see the close-ups of Jack, the clouds have a deep yellow tint to them as if it is sunrise or sunset.
  
  
• Continuity: After Jack escapes from the Black Pearl's dungeon and grabs the rope (after the line "Thanks very much") his pony tail is above his bandana on the left side, not the right.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack escapes from the Brigg on the Black Pearl and stands on the side of the ship, the rope netting is on his left. Then when there is a close-up of him taking the rope from the swinging pirate, the rope netting is on his right-hand side, then switches back. This is because the geography of the boat did not quite work out and so the close-up shot was reversed later in editing.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Will draws his sword on the Interceptor and tells Jack that his father wasn't a pirate, the sword makes a metallic scraping noise, despite being tucked in his belt without a sheath of any kind.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Elizabeth discovers that the pirates are cursed, a pirate is seen sitting on the capstan playing a concertina. The concertina was not invented until 1829.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Jack had just escaped and is flying around in circles around the pole, the soldiers are told to shoot him. Many of them continue to shoot, without reloading.
  
  
• Continuity: When Elizabeth is trying to save Captain Jack Sparrow just before he puts the chain of the handcuffs around her neck, the medallion is alternately in/out of her dress between shots.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Will has a tattoo on his wrist which is visible in some shots. We are not told that Will is free of tattoos and the fact that *we* know it to be an "elvish" nine is of no consequence - it's just a pretty pattern.
  
  
• Continuity: In the opening shots of young Elizabeth singing at the front of the ship, the posts on either side of her have rope on them (wrapped around them). Moments later, the post to her right has no rope wrapped around it or hanging from it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Will And Jack commandeer the Interceptor, the ship is viewed from above, sailing on a beam reach (a point of sail in which the boat is at 90 degrees to the wind). When Jack knocks Will off the ship with the boom, he jibes the boat, causing the sail to shift positions suddenly. In order to do this from the previous position, he would have had to turn the ship almost completely around. This would have taken well over a minute. Jack did this in less that three seconds. The sail is also filled to the wrong side while it sweeps Will off the deck.
  
  
• Factual errors: HMS Dauntless and HMS Interceptor are shown flying the British Blue Ensign. Prior to 1864, the color of a Royal Navy vessel's ensign was determined by its posting. The color of the Caribbean squadron's ensign was red, as should have been the Dauntless' and Interceptor's (blue was the color of the south Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans).
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack is talking to Barbossa just before their final fight, he picks up a large gold idol and tosses it away. In the next shot, the idol has returned to its original position.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack meets his crew in Tortuga, the hand Annamaria is using to point at Jack changes from her right to her left, then back to right again as they discuss replacing her ship.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack and Barbossa are fighting, Barbossa plunges Jack's sword into Jack. When it goes in, it is below Jack's leather strap. When we see Jack as a skeleton, the sword is above the leather strap.
  
  
• Continuity: A shot opens with the full moon prominent in the frame. The moon is crossed by the sails of The Black Pearl at an angle that indicates that the moon is almost straight overhead. We pull back to show the ship gliding past, and when it has, we are looking at the horizon, where we see the full moon very close to setting.
  
  
• Continuity: After Jack has escaped from the gallows with Will, Commodore Norrington comes up to Will and puts his sword onto Will's right shoulder. When we see a close-up of Will, you can see that the blade has switched to his left shoulder.
  
  
• Continuity: When Will and Jack are fighting in the blacksmith's shop, right after Will pulls out the hot sword, the donkey starts the gears turning. In the next shot, the gears aren't turning. The shot after that, they are.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Governor opens the windows of Elizabeth's room and says "It's a beautiful day," in the view out the window is a hut that appears to have smoke coming out of it but it can be seen that it is a still picture and the smoke is not moving.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack first sails into Port Royal, there is a shot from behind Jack, looking toward the front of the boat, and there is land clearly visible across most of the field of vision. After Jack jumps down, you see him (from a side shot) begin walking toward the back of the boat. The next shot is again looking towards the boat's front from the stern (which cannot be disputed because Jack is completing the strides from the previous shot) and there is no land visible at all.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Jack tears the skirt of Elizabeth's dress off underwater, a loud ripping noise is heard, however it is not the same sound as would be heard if wet fabric was torn underwater.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the Pearl is chasing the Interceptor both ships go full wind. Therefore, flags on both ships are flown back as though the ships are propelled by something other than the wind. When a ship is driven by the wind, the flags will be flown in the direction of the wind which in full wind will be from stern to bow.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Captain Jack's boat is taking on water, When we first meet him, water splashes onto the camera's lens after he throws water out of the bucket he is using to bail (lower right corner).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Will Turner goes to help break out Jack Sparrow from the prison cell at the beginning of the film the bars of the cell are welded together with modern welds not invented until the 19th century.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the beginning of the scene when Will Turner is going to break Jack Sparrow out of the prison cell, when Jack is lying on the ground talking to Will, you can see a modern shoe print below Jack's right arm.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The British military expression for people to stay away from a place is "Out of Bounds" and not the American "Off Limits". These are British troops, they would not have said "Off Limits".
  
  
• Continuity: In the beginning of the movie when Elizabeth awakens from her dream and her father begins knocking on her door, the two maids come in. One is wearing a red dress, the other a print dress thats a beigeish color. There positions switch alternately. In the first shot, the one in the beige dress is holding the box and the red dressed one is opening the curtains; however, in the next shot, red dress is holding the box and beige dress is opening the curtains.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jack and Will board the Dauntless after walking under the water with the rowing boat over their heads, by the time they have climbed onto the deck and announced that they are taking over the ship their clothes are bone dry.
  
  
• Continuity: When Will Turner is bargaining for the lives of Elizabeth Swann and the crew of the Interceptor, Elizabeth's hair alternates being in and out of her face.
  
  
• Continuity: When Will challenges Jack in the their first encounter, Jack runs his sword along the left side of Will's blade in the wide shot, but in the close up from Will's side, Jack's blade is on the right side of Will's.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Norrington arrives on the HMS Dauntless to fight the cursed pirates, some of the naval personal are fighting no one because the CGI skeletons weren't put in.
  
  
• Continuity: In the governor's mansion, when Ragetti and Pintel are chasing after Elizabeth, Ragetti is carrying a lighted torch in his hand. When the ashes and coals are dropped on him, he is still holding the torch as he tries to brush the ashes off. In the next shot, as he and Pintel exit the room, he is no longer carrying it. When he appears at the banister and jumps off the landing to corner Elizabeth, the torch is back in his hand.
  
  
• Continuity: When he first shows up in the movie bringing the sword to Governor Swann, Will Turner is almost clean shaven (just a trace of a little mustache). His next scene, at the blacksmith shop - which in the movie happens at the same day, maybe an hour later - Will has a little goatee and almost full mustache.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Jack and Will are fighting at the Blacksmith's, right after the eunuch conversation, Will jumps/flips/rolls over the turn-style being pulled by the donkey. However, you can tell that this wasn't Will, it was a stunt double.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The HMS Interceptor is blow up when a pirate is seen lighting a trail of gunpowder that leads to pile of gunpowder kegs. The gunpowder that is used is obviously modern smokeless powder as evidenced by it's slow burn rate. Modern gunpowder wasn't invented until 1875 so only black powder would have been available. Black powder 'flashes' and would burn at a rate many times that which was shown.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At Commodore Norrington's promotion ceremony, the troops are given the command "right about face", which they proceed to execute. As the camera changes angles they have not completed the command, but you never hear the sound of their feet completing the last step of the maneuver.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Black Pearl is attacking Port Royal, Will Turner is fighting the pirates with his vest and shirt undone. When the pirate knocks him out at the end of the scene, and he hits the ground, his shirt and vest are almost completely buttoned again.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the first attack of the Black Pearl, the air-rams that catapults the stunt men (to make it look like blasts of explosives) are clearly visible in several shots.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Elizabeth is on the Black Pearl, she holds the medallion over the water in order to prove that the pirates actually wanted it. Though the pirates can walk underwater and suffer no ill effects, they still jumped when she pretended to drop it because of the instinct to prevent it from being lost. Breathing underwater is not a natural human state, and they likely still think mostly as humans. Furthermore, a tiny piece of gold adrift in the ocean in the middle of the night would not be easy to find, even for the undead.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The word "Scallywag" which is used to refer to a fellow pirate, is in fact only invented in the 19th century (during the American civil war as a name for white southerners who collaborated during the reconstruction).
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning of the movie, when Elizabeth first gets the medallion from Will, the back of it has a spiral design. Later, when the medallion is falling into the chest, both sides are the same.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: There are several points during the sword fight in the blacksmith shop where there is an obvious stunt double for Will, such as when he somersaults over the pole--the double has a much higher hairline than Orlando Bloom.
  
  
• Factual errors: When this movie takes place, Nassau Port was known as New Providence. Its name was changed later on.
  
  
• Anachronisms: "Bob's your uncle" the British catch phrase, meaning all will be well or all will be taken care of is thought to refer to Robert, Lord Salisbury, the prime ministers appointment of his nephew to the Secretary of Ireland and dates from the 1890s.
  
  
• Continuity: When Elizabeth's hand is cut and her blood is spilt on one of the Aztec Gold pieces; there is an obvious stain on the Aztec Gold piece. When Barbossa picks up the same piece and dangles it in front of Elizabeth, the blood stain is still there...in the next shot of the piece...there is no blood on it.
  
  
• Continuity: When Barbosa abandons Elizabeth and Capt. Jack on the island, Jack is wearing boots when he dives off the plank, but the boots disappear when he hits the water. The boots reappear when he grabs his sword and pistol and pushes off the bottom.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene near the end when Jack, Will, and Elizabeth are leaving the cave on Isla de Muerta, the chest of Aztec gold has the lid closed. Just before the credits roll and the monkey goes to take one of the gold pieces, the lid is partially open, allowing him to take the gold.
  
  
• Continuity: After she puts Jack's coat on him, Anamarie takes her hands off his shoulders twice.
  
  

• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): SPOILER: At the end of the film Jack is about to be executed. The court crier reads aloud the charges against Jack, and then concludes that he is to be "hung" by the neck until dead. Proper English dictates that he would be "hanged" by the neck until dead.
  
  

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