Goofs for
The Terminal (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• Crew or equipment visible: When the INS Agent escorts Viktor into the terminal for the first time, a crew member's hand holds the doors open. The hand is not visible in shots of the same door from the same angle later in the film.
  
  
• Continuity: In the bar after peace is declared in Krakhosia, Viktor is handed the emergency visa twice.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor and Amelia are at dinner in the airport, their wine glasses jump from full to half full and back again between shots.
  
  

• Continuity: When Viktor goes up the escalator, a man a few steps behind him never seems to arrive at the top, even though Viktor stops at the top long enough for us to see him get there.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor leaves down the escalator to go to New York, the assistants from the fast food outlet are running down next to him empty-handed. In the next shot, they are carrying bags of food.
  
  
• Factual errors: Brussels is spelled Bruxelles on the arrival/departure board. Although this is the correct French spelling, it is unlikely to be used at a U.S. airport.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor hails a cab to go into the city, the medallion number on the top of the cab does not match the number on the license plate.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor hails a cab to go back home after he leaves the Ramada, the taxi that pulls up doesn't have its light on, which means it has already been hired. In a close-up, it's a completely different taxi, with the light on.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: While Navorski is in the interrogation office with Dixon (scene where he tries to asses Navorski's "fears") a crew member is reflected in the glass.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Towards the end of the movie in the jazz scene, what the piano player plays and what the audio sounds like doesn't match up.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Victor, Frank and Joe are meeting about Victor's status, a crewmember wearing a set of headphones can be seen in the reflection of the window for about 20-40 seconds on two different occasions.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Cameraperson visible in reflection on door when Viktor is holding the stuffed fish.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Viktor walks into the United Airlines Red Carpet Club, he is stopped by a customer service agent who is wearing a United Airlines "crew" ID badge. Crew badges are only issued to Flight Officers and Flight Attendants. A ground crew member would have an ID badge issued by the JFK airport.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When the plane from Krakhozia taxies to the gate at what is supposed to be a New York airport, a large Aéroports de Montréal (Montreal Airports Authority) logotype is clearly visible on a jetway in the distance.
  
  
• Continuity: When Victor is translating the Russian's plea for medicine, the cops standing on guard in the background repeatedly change positions between shots.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Though supposedly an avowed Trekkie, when Officer Torres gives Enrique the Vulcan hand salute, she does so incorrectly, with her thumb pressed firmly against the side of her palm.
  
  
• Factual errors: Viktor says the jazz article is from a Hungarian magazine, but the words around the picture are written in Cyrillic letters.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor and Amelia meet in the second floor of Borders, Viktor is seen holding a book. When they head downstairs, the book disappears.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Amelia purchases a book from Borders, the cash register does not print a receipt for her. The receipt the cashier gives her is blank and was already there when she arrived at the register.
  
  
• Continuity: Near the end, after Ray Thurman (the chief officer) gives Victor his coat, Officer Torres crosses behind him to stand with Enrique. Then, after Victor turns around, she crosses to Enrique again.
  
  
• Continuity: In the dinner on the patio scene, the way in which the waiter holds the lighter changes. When he lights the first candle, the lighter is resting on his arm. When he lights the second candle however, his left arm is at his side and in the next shot the lighter is resting on that arm.
  
  
• Continuity: The cab Viktor takes from the airport and the cab he later takes from the hotel have different drivers, different numbers on top, but the same license plate: TX7943.
  
  
• Plot holes: When Amelia is stopped in immigration, Viktor waits for her by the gate. However, she must pass through the gate, which is in the international area where Viktor is allowed, to reach the immigration hall. Amelia should get off the aircraft and come through the gate.
  
  
• Factual errors: The flight-side areas in the international terminals of US airports do not have publicly-accessible doors straight out to the outside world.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor comes out of the hotel he has his large suitcase in is right hand. He calls the cab and opens the door with his now empty right hand and gets into the cab, apparently leaving his suitcase behind.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Viktor is building the fountain, he is seen soldering pipes together. The sound effect is of an electrical sound made while arc welding. This sound is not made while soldering.
  
  
• Continuity: The stamp that officer Torres puts on the form filled out by the Colombian couple says September 4, 2003. However later that same day, the stamp she puts on Navorski's form is dated January 17, 2004.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor, Frank and Joe are meeting in the office talking about Asylum for Viktor and establishing his fear, the position of the phone cord changes from being behind the phone to being over the middle of the desk several times in different shots with no one using the phone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Navorski leaves the airport and hails a taxi, he stops when he sees Amelia behind him. Behind Amelia, a boy with a gray hat and green jacket walks past her. The scene switches back to Navorski, then switches back to Amelia again, and you can see the boy with the gray hat walking up to pass her again.
  
  
• Continuity: Victor sees himself in the reflection of the Hogo Boss window. As he leaves the shop you can see the "nacked" dummy. But the shirt Victor is wearing afterwards is completely different from the one worn by the dummy.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Viktor is translating to Milodragovich, you see the shadow(s) of the camera and/or camera operator on his back when the shots are behind him and filming the front sides of Viktor, Frank, and the other officers.
  
  
• Continuity: When Frank shows Viktor what happened to his country, chips get all over Viktor. In the next scene, all of the chips disappear.
  
  
• Continuity: When Victor is translating and the distraught man drops to his knees, his hands are by his side. In the next shot his hands are begging.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor enters the cab at the end of the movie, the snow outside is falling extremely hard and practically cakes the car. However, when the cab pulls away and drives down the street, the snow stops and the car is as clean as ever.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor approaches Torres' desk, from her point of view, we can see his drivers license in front of his light green form in his hand. When the shot switches to Viktor's point of view, ie. the view from the other side, we still see the drivers license in front of the light green form.
  
  
• Continuity: In the end, when Viktor gets into the cab, he never closes the door. After the driver asks for his destination, the door is closed.
  
  
• Continuity: When Viktor finally leaves for New York, the chief security guard gives Viktor his coat. In the background, the security guard/desk girl walks over to her husband twice.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Dixon is watching Viktor almost leave, when Viktor realizes that the camera is following him, we see the various screens in Dixon's room showing different locations in the airport. Suddenly all the screens show Viktor announcing that he will wait.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Viktor first time has seen the news about the revolution and the channel changes, he repeatedly speaks out loud in Bulgarian to change the channel. The first sentence is alright but the second is gibberish.
  
  
• Continuity: When Navorski first spends the night in the Terminal the planes outside make a lot of noise and scare him. However, after that moment the room suddenly seems soundproof. This is clear, for example, in the moment when Amelia confronts him, right before he shows her the fountain.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Napoleon gave Josephine a gold medallion inscribed with the words "To Destiny" as a wedding present.
  
  
• Continuity: When Navorski first arrives in the International Lounge, the guard gives him a prepaid phone card and tells Navorski that there is $15 dollars on it. When Navorski enters the private lounge area you are able to see that the back of the card says $10. But when he is trying to get someone to help him use the card, it's back to being a $15 card.
  
  
• Continuity: Benny Golson's first song is "Killer Joe"; Viktor has to wait at least until the end of the song (and more likely, the end of the set), before getting Golson's autograph. But when he leaves the club, autograph in hand, "Killer Joe" is still audible in the background.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: While Viktor is learning English from the bilingual New York guide-book, he comes across a page featuring the TV show "Friends". He makes a point of repeating the English word "friends" and what is presumably its Krakhosian equivalent. The Cyrillic text isn't the Russian translation, but its phonetic equivalent ('Frenz'). However, in Russian, American TV and movie titles are commonly translated phonetically.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Viktor is waiting for the store manager to call him. Shops in the terminal are closing for the night. JFK's international terminals are open 24 hours a day.
  
  
• Factual errors: At Kennedy Airport, shortly after Officer Thurman escorts Viktor for the first time, the P.A. announces "Passengers of Air Canada flight 746 from Montreal must proceed to U.S. Immigration before claiming their luggage." Most large Canadian airports, including Montreal's Trudeau Airport, have U.S. border pre-clearance facilities. In other words, passengers flying from Montreal to New York would have cleared U.S. immigration in Montreal. Also, in real life, Air Canada flight 746 flies to La Guardia, not Kennedy.
  
  
• Continuity: One of the stamps that Officer Torres puts on Viktor's form says 17 January 2004. A few days later when Dixon and Thurman discusses the office pool on Viktor leaving, Thurman says he's got "January 3rd."
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Amelia Warren says the croissant was invented in Romania. It was actually invented in Budapest, Hungary, after the Austro-Hungarian army defeated the Turks. It's shaped like a crescent because the Turkish flag includes a crescent moon.
  
  
• Continuity: When Victor translates while holding the medicine bottles, he is holding a different number of bottles in each hand at different angles.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the beginning of the movie, some of the images of the "Krakhosian revolution" on the TVs in the terminal are from the 1989 Romanian Revolution. They include Romanian flags, and for a short time (in the VIP Red Carpet Lounge) an image from Brasov, a large Romanian city.
  
  
• Factual errors: Several Air Transat (blue tail) aircraft are visible during the tarmac scenes. In fact, Air Transat never served New York's Kennedy airport or any airport in New York for that matter.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: At the very end in the cab, he is talking to the driver and is siting in the middle seat, but when the camera shot changes he is siting on the left side, but in the middle again as the cab drives off.
  
  
• Errors in geography: SPOILER: When Viktor leaves the terminal near the end of the movie, a large image of the Manhattan skyline is reflected in the glass of the airport. JFK terminal is so far from Manhattan that the reflection of the skyline would be minuscule.
  
  

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