Goofs for
Watchmen (2009) More at IMDbPro »

• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Veidt drops the bullet he captured in his hand, it makes the distinctive sound of an empty shell casing hitting the floor and not the heavy clicking of an actual bullet being dropped.
  
  
• Continuity: The third and final inkblot shown to Rorschach by the psychiatrist is not the same after his flashback.
  
  
• Continuity: In the prison, as Silk Spectre and Night Owl are fighting the inmates down the cell block, Silk Spectre's boots go from high stiletto heels to flats.
  
  

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: If you look closely at all the framed newspaper articles, especially in the opening credits, the articles themselves are just series of repeating texts and paragraphs. However, this may be intentional, as it is a convention in comic books/graphic novels for "minor text" to appear as scribbles or repeating text.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The movie takes place in an alternate reality whose history diverged from ours in the 1930s. In some ways that reality is far more advanced than ours technologically. Because it is impossible to know what could and could not have been developed in the various time periods shown in the movie, most apparent anachronisms and factual errors regarding music, technology, politics, presidential term limits, biographies of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, design etc., are therefore redundant.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When the reporters are talking to Veidt in his office, they refer to him as being only the second hero to reveal his identity, after Hollis Mason. It is true that in the opening montage, a bomber is seen with Silk Spectre's alias "Sally Jupiter" emblazoned on its side. Her real last name was Juspeczyk. She assumed the name Sally Jupiter because she did not wish to be known as being Polish. No one would be able to just look her up in the phone book so she did not really reveal her true identity.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene in which Dr. Manhattan is dressing himself, as he turns his head at the end, his CGI neck can be seen going through the collar of his shirt.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene where Silk Spectre II tries on Nite Owl II's night vision goggles, and the Nite Owl goes to turn off the light, you see his face through the goggles, but his eyes are not dilating.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Doctor Manhattan describes a "circulatory system" appearing on the grounds of a government base. However what is depicted is clearly the nervous system, as it features a brain and spinal cord, but no heart or lungs. (This error is repeated from the novel.)
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: If you watch the shadows on Dr. Manhattan carefully, it appears that the blue light is coming from an off-camera source, not his body. When he turns his head, the side of his face that is in shadow will change. When he is sitting on the bed holding the bra, the shadow of the bra on his chest indicates this as well. (Note: while the actor was emitting blue light from his motion capture suit during production, the computer model of Doctor Manhattan must be lit independently by animators.)
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The particle accelerator is used to kill other characters, but why wouldn't they come back like Dr. Manhattan did? The other scientists had been killed by poison before being disintegrated. Dr. Manhattan was alive and conscious when he was disintegrated. His backstory also makes it explicit that he was taught how to recreate complex structures starting in his youth.
  
  
• Continuity: When Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II first arrive at the prison riot, the first one to run at them is an inmate with long hair. Silk Spectre II kicks him to the ground. As they fight their way down towards the guard, the same man is seen again and he is then swept off his feet and clotheslined to the ground by Nite Owl.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During the final battle in Adrian's Antarctic base, Laurie shoots Adrian with a pistol. It is hard to catch, but she takes this from a guard at Sing Sing during the breakout of Rorschach. Later it can be seen tucked away in her belt.
  
  
• Continuity: After the fight between Veidt, Rorschach and Nite Owl II, Rorschach helps up Nite Owl as Veidt starts heading up the stairs. Rorschach had his hands at his sides, then the angle changed to over Veidt's shoulder and Rorschach's hands were inside his coat's pockets.
  
  
• Continuity: In Dan Dreiberg's underground laboratory, Rorschach rather pointedly drags his finger through a thick coat of dust over a cover on his work bench to indicate its lack of use. Later when Laurie Juspeczyk pulls the dust cover off of the "Archimedes" ship, there is no cloud of dust.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: On Mars when Dr. Manhattan drops the photograph, it appears to fall at Earth-gravity speed. Gravity on Mars is 38% of that on Earth with with only .7% the atmosphere there is little wind resistance. In reality, a photo dropped on Mars may move at a similar speed.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Some of the floating credits are reflected in Neil Armstrong's helmet. The back of the letters (or the reverse side) is what is facing the helmet. The reflection of the reverse side (or, the reverse of the reverse side) would show the text properly oriented. Therefore, both the credits and the reflection should appear as readable; the reflection should not appear backwards.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene where Rorschach drops his journal through the letterbox of The New Frontiersman, a crew members shadow is clearly visible to the right of the screen as the Owlship arrives and clearly moves to drop Rorschach's Journal into the letterbox.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When the Comedian's coffin is being lowered into the grave Dr. Manhattan's glow is not reflected off of it. This is because Dr. Manhattan can control his skin pigment, as well as the glow he emits. One would not be glowing at a funeral, so Dr. Manhattan in turn is not.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In Antarctica, as Rorschach and Nite Owl II slide open the doors when entering the facility, there are conduits and pipes on the right side of the screen that should continue through the wall but do not go anywhere. The sliding door passes through the wall where the pipes/conduits should be going. Also, the large pipe has a match outside but the perspective is not correct to have it meed up with the pipe from inside.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: (At 04:05) During the opening fight, as the Comedian is thrown across the room, Director Zack Snyder can be seen huddling between the drawer and brick wall, lower, left-hand corner of the screen. (Snyder points this out during his "live" Blu-Ray commentary.)
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Rorschach searches the Comedian's apartment (after he is killed), after jumping from the window he searches the place with his flashlight. He shines his torch to his left (towards to kitchen), but the next shot shows the light shining over the picture of Sally Jupiter with the knife stuck in it (the opposite side of where he points his flashlight).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene where Rorschach is trapped in Edgar Jacobi's apartment, surrounded by SWAT teams, Jacobi's corpse blinks.
  
  
• Continuity: In the main titles, Nite Owl stands up and his head completely covers the "1940" on the sign behind him. In all subsequent shots of the photograph of "Minutemen 1940" the banner hangs unobstructed above his head.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Silk Spectre II is taken to Mars by Dr. Manhattan, she is exposed to the Martian atmosphere for a brief moment. It was obvious that she could not breathe, but she did not respond to the pressure which is maximum 1 kPa (approx. 0.01 atm).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the opening credits when the girl puts a flower in the barrel of the military police rifle, the stem disappears before they fire.
  
  
• Continuity: Moloch's copy of Allen Ginsberg's "HOWL" on his night table briefly changes orientation. Initially, you see the letters right side up; then upside-down (and closer to the bed); then back again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the camera zooms out from the crime scene at The Comedian's apartment, the Chrysler Center is visible in the reflection of the glass, but is not visible as the camera zooms out far enough to be able to see where it should be.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Comedian's casket is being carried to his grave, the casket appears to be too large to fit in the hole that has been dug.
  
  
• Continuity: (At 22:00) Early on in the scene where Adrian is addressing a group of reporters while Dan waits to speak to him, a blimp can be seen through the window behind Adrian approaching the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It moves towards them until very close to them, and then the view changes to one of Adrian through the lens of a camera. When it returns to the previous angle, the blimp is even further away from the twin towers than it had been at the start of the previous shot, and again the shot lingers until the blimp is very near to them.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: At Karnak in some close ups of Nite Owl's face, the reflection in his goggles shows actor Billy Crudup in his motion capture suit covered in blue dots, instead of a full rendering of Dr. Manhattan.
  
  
• Errors in geography: In the scenes on Mars, two moons of approximately the same size as ours can be seen in the sky. However, the larger moon, Phobos, is 1/4 the apparent size of our moon when viewed from Mars, the other moon, Deimos, is much smaller - 5% of our moon's apparent size. Neither moon is as spherical as depicted, nor clearly visible from the surface.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Dan meets Rorschach for the first time, his glasses are wet due to rain but not his face or hair.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene where Laurie and Dan talk inside a coffeehouse, you can see people outside through a circular window. A woman and other people appear and disappear suddenly.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The B-29 "Miss Jupiter" depicts 50 stars on the US flag. The alternate universe rules may excuse technological inaccuracies on the plane, but 15-years-premature statehood for Alaska and Hawaii is harder to swallow.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In this movie, the United States won the Vietnam War. However, one of Veidt's monitors is playing Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), a movie about avenging America's losses in Vietnam. In Veidt's world, Rambo must be regarded as an imaginative science fiction movie set in an alternate universe.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: While it seems a continuity mistake, we can hear the bald thug drop his rotary saw, and the other thug pick it up all in the shot where he grabs the bars.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The director's cut shows how people know that Doctor Manhattan has gone to Mars, and eliminates "continuity errors" regarding his and Laurie's poses there.
  
  
• Factual errors: While fighting SWAT at Moloch's door, Rorschach ignites a policeman with the flammable spray, which really can ignite only light, flammable fabrics, not fire-retardant tactical vests or even ordinary jeans. Rorschach also drags a book of safety matches on the floor to light them, yet these are only combusted and lit when struck on the special striking surface that contains chemicals such as red phosphorus.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): A newscast lists the arrested Walter Kovacs' age as 35. However, all other plot points, plus the actor's age (47), show that the character's age is 45, not 35.
  
  
• Continuity: During the McLaughlin group discussion John McLaughlin has his hands in his lap. After a camera angle change his hands are raised.
  
  

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: Veidt uses energy from Dr. Manhattan to destroy major cities across the world in order to end war. If he was able to do this, he might have been able to complete his original stated goal of creating renewable energy to end war. However it might not have been plausible in the time frame required.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: The American cities destroyed at the end are Now York and Los Angeles, notably NOT Washington D.C., the seat of government. However, Moscow and Paris ARE destroyed. New York was shown to have not been destroyed entirely, thus it is reasonable to believe that the other cities were not destroyed entirely either, and the Soviet premier did survive to make peace.
  
  

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