Patzer

Colonel Calder has been bed-ridden in the hospital for a few days but when he finally wakes up and jumps out of bed, he is wearing a perfectly-pressed uniform.

As the fishermen row away from the sinking spacecraft, we have a clear view of the inside of their small boat. The two astronauts they've just rescued are nowhere to be seen.

Near the beginning when the spaceship starts to sink, the meteor hole starts to go under water. The next shot is from the inside and the hole is still above the waterline. The next shot is outside and the hole is almost covered with water.

When the elephant fights the alien monster, the elephant is now about 20 feet tall.

The during the net-dropping scene, the helicopter deploying the soldiers varies: sometimes the nose is plain, sometimes there is an ID number, and sometimes there is USAF insignia.

The spaceship crashes into the water no more than 100 yards from the fishermen. Yet their boats are in no way affected by any disturbance of the water. A vessel that large crashing into the water would have created a large wake that would have at the least rocked the boats heavily, if not capsized them.

(at around 10 mins) The US mission control bods are told that the rocket has come down off the coast of Sicily near the small fishing village of Gerra. They don't know exactly where that is so go to a large world map on the wall and one of them points to a location on it, saying, "There it is." As is obvious from the map size and can actually be seen shortly after, the map is of such a small scale that it shows only major cities so would in no way enable a small fishing village to be located.

It is stated that the craft was spotted by radar over Iceland at an altitude of 200, descending at 3,500 feet per minute. It was then tracked again later, still descending at 3,500 feet per minute, and they project the landing position. However, at that rate of descent, it would take 5 hours to fall 200 miles. During that time it would make over 3 orbits of the Earth, so it would not be possible to simply look at a map and point to a landing location.

William Hopper's character, an Air Force Colonel (note clouds and lightning bolts on hat brim) would be wearing a navy blue hat with his tan uniform, not an olive drab Army hat. Also, General's stars and Colonel's eagles would be silver, not gold. (Colorized 50th Anniversary version).

The spaceship lands nose down in deep ocean water, but according to the laws of physics, it should have been nose up, since the tail is much heavier in a spaceship rocket. It later sicks showing it is not actually stuck in anything, just floating, so it should have at least righted itself and ended with the nose up before sinking.

The overhead shot of the Pentagon has the caption, "The Pentagon, Washington D.C.", though the technical location of The Pentagon is in Arlington, Virginia. However, it's been insisted by many that the building is not just close physically, but is so linked to Washington's political and economic culture, that the employees think of themselves more as 'Washingtonian' than 'Virginian'.

The General says they are looking for a metal canister, and it does have metal bands around it as well as metal caps, but the canister itself is transparent- clearly plastic or glass.

During the fight between the Ymir and the elephant, there is a tight shot of three men hiding behind a pillar of the viaduct. When the two animals get close, the turn and flee, one of them falling backwards, and another tripping over him. In a wider shot scene a few seconds later we see the same pillar, the same men run up to it, hide and watch the fight as before then turn and run, as before, tripping over each other. It's then same shot used two times closer/farther perspectives.

When the Ymir is wandering near the Coliseum, its shadow is quite long. Therefore the sun would be low in the sky. Yet in the shots of the military vehicles approaching the area, the shadows are almost completely under them. In those shots the sun must have been nearly overhead - high in the sky.

When Calder and Uhl are watching the net being attached to the helicopter, WX3, is in front of them, and the camera is behind them. When the shot switches to show them from the front, they are looking forward, but WX3 is now visible behind them.

When all of the governmental types are getting out of the small boat upon arriving in town, there is a boy very clearly looking straight at the camera with a huge smile on his face on the dock among the boats.

Before the barn scene, Col. Calder examined the steel cage that the Ymir ripped open to escape. When he and the men run out of the barn, they shut the doors, and suddenly the monster that bent steel bars cannot get through the wooden doors.

In the opening sequence, after the rocket has crashed into the sea and the fisherman have climbed on board, whilst the rocket is upside down, everything inside it is inclined only at a slight angle.

In 1957 the exchange rate for Lira to Dollars is such that the 200 Lira the young boy asks for (to buy a cowboy hat) is only worth about 38 cents.

During the fight scene between the elephant and the Ymir, as the fleeing zoo goers run by the camera, one man can be clearly seen waving to the camera.

At the beginning the creature grows rapidly but we don't see it eat . There is no reason provided to explain how it increases in mass.

In the sequence where the large military helicopter is searching for the Ymir, there is an aerial shot taken from above the helicopter as it skims over the fields. The helicopter casts a big shadow as it flies, and if you look directly in back of that shadow you can see a smaller shadow trailing it, which is that of a smaller helicopter that is filming the scene.

In the barn scene when Col. Robert Calder is hitting Ymir with a shovel, they iron rod which he is actually striking can be seen behind Ymir.

A report comes in to the general's office identifying the crash location as a fishing village in Sicily. They go over to a wall map, examine it for a moment, then one of them points and says, "There it is!" However, the map covers the whole world and thus would not be detailed enough to show a small town. In the next shot we see a close-up of the map and, sure enough, there are no towns whatever shown in Sicily.

The spaceship lands nose-first into the water which is the top of the ship which means that the interior decks should be upside down. When the fishermen enters the ship the decks, stairs, seats, control panels, etc. were all right side up.

When the craft crashes into the ocean; it noses in and stops short; with momentum carrying the ship to nearly vertical. This is the kind of thing that would happen if the craft stuck it nose in the bottom. So where did the ship sink into; or why did stick the landing that way?

The scientists tell the news reporters that bullets have little effect on the creature because it has no heart or lungs, but a network of tubes, and yet when the creature is anesthetized, we see its chest rise and fall in a breathing fashion.

The General, fearing that the space ship has sunk, points to a body of water on the map and says that the lost astronauts are now "20,000 leagues under the sea." Of course, it's a coy reference to the recent sci-fi flick 20000 Meilen unter dem Meer (1954) (and Jules Verne's novel). However, a league is about 3 miles; no ship could sink 60,000 miles under the sea since the earth isn't that large. The Verne title refers to the amount of miles traveled under the sea, not how deep the craft was operating. So the General has made a geographical error while trying to make a hip quip.

After testing the release of the wire net from the helicopter, an enlisted man with one stripe on his uniform says to Col. Calder, "The hook's working fine, sir!", to which Calder replies, "That's good, sergeant!" One stripe is the insignia of a private, not a sergeant.

In the scene where he notices that the creature has grown in the cage, he puts on his coat, but his right arm goes in the left sleeve of his jacket.