Goofs

Ox is seen firing an M14 when he orders fellow marines to attempt to remove the soldier entrapped in the razor wire but after the concealed machine gun emplacement mows down the soldiers that followed the order, the camera comes back to him and he attempts to return suppressing fire with a Thompson submachine gun.

At the end of the film, a back-shot of Ben Yahzee's little boy shows a dog-tag chain around his collar, before Ben ever places the dog-tags around his neck.

When Enders is describing to Yahzee how he threw the first medal he received into the ocean, his raised hand alternates between right and left between shots.

When private Yahzee is pretending to be a Japanese soldier to get to the radio, he has the gun in the sergeant's back in the close-up, but in the long shot it is pointed up and to his left.

Most of the movie's characters are at least 10 to 15 years older than real front-line Marines of WWII.

Throughout the battle of Saipan, no commissioned officer is seen. The highest ranking character is the "Gunny" (gunnery sergeant). A captain or major would be leading the type of advance shown.

The battleship firing in support of the troops on Saipan is identified as the USS Colorado. The Colorado's main battery was eight guns in four two-gun turrets. All of the scenes of a battleship show the three-gun turrets of an Iowa class battleship.

Early in the film, Enders is shown wearing a helmet with a netting cover, exactly like those worn by Japanese soldiers in WWII. It is not believable that any Marine would wear an enemy helmet cover in a close combat situation.

When Joe throws the Mk 2 grenade to simultaneously kill both Whitehorse and his Japanese captors in the village just after Ox gets killed, the fuse time seems suspiciously long considering the Mk 2 only had a fuse of approximately 3-5 seconds.

Just before the convoy is hit by the friendly artillery, the ground charge used to simulate the first shell impact can be seen as the truck drives past it.

In the final combat, just after the Japanese uncover their guns, one of them take a shot but the recoil is a good half second too late.

In the opening sequence, a man reacts to being shot by another man before the gun goes off.

After the combat scene where Charlie is killed Ben looks at his body. Right when Charlie is shown you can see him swallow.

In the scenes where Whitehorse is playing his flute, his fingerings do not match the music.

There is a 50-star US flag (instead of 48) at the Navajo enlistment ceremony.

The start of the Camp Pendleton sequence opens with a closeup of a 50-star U.S. flag which is incorrect for 1943, the year of the action. The closeup dissolves to an establishing shot of the camp's parade square where a correct, 48-star flag is visible on the mast. The U.S. would not require a 50-star flag until 1959.

In the Training scene where the code talkers are doing a transcription from an audio recording, the machine playing the audio can be seen briefly. The first Wire Recorder was not manufactured by Webster-Chicago until 1948. The machine used in Windtalkers is the "Webcor Model 181 Wire Recorder" which was not manufactured by Webster-Chicago until 1953. The movie is set in the early 1940s.

When Nicholas Cage and Adam Beach meet in the film baby carrots are served as part of their meal. The process of creating "baby carrots" did not begin until 1980 as a way of bringing to market carrots that were too curvy or knobbly. The carrots would have been cut into "coins" or smaller bite sized pieces.

When Sergeant Enders sits down with his food during the first time he meets the Navajo radio operators, for a brief moment a modern radar site on a mountain top comes into view.

Just before Pete Anderson joins Private Whitehorse in their flute/harmonica-duo, Whitehorse plays solo. However, the flute plays on, just for a second while he is clearly taking in air, and thus, obviously, cannot play.

Enders is receiving his mission briefing in the Admiral's office, you can see a blue-taped "X" on the floor indicating where the Admiral is supposed to stand at the scene.

When the marines first land on Saipan there is a huge battle going on. Nicholas Cage stops to reload his Thompson and has a brief flashback to what happened to him on the Solomon islands. He then finishes reloading and runs up to a Japanese soldier who is on fire. To the right of the screen as he is running, a man in all black is visible wearing goggles - obviously there for fire safety.

When Enders is pretending to be taken prisoner by Yahzee and he goes to move behind Yahzee after being hit, the shadow of a cameraman can be seen on the floor moving with the shot.

After the marines have stormed the Japanese trench during the first battle scene on Saipan, the have to deal with the pillbox machine gun by using the flamethrower. During the initial blast from the flamethrower, there are several members of the film and safety crew visible as well as two modern day Jeeps in the top left hand section of the screen.

The shadow of the camera crane is visible at the beginning of the Marine friendly-fire sequence when Enders' squad is getting out of the truck.

While Saipan does have a number of relatively large ridges and high points, they are not as prominent on the landscape as those on Kualoa Ranch, the island standing in for Saipan in the film.

The village of Tanapag, Saipan is very close to the sea, well in visual range. Yet, the sea is not visible during the scenes set in Tanapag.

The Saipan landings did not start in a large valley as in the film.

When Ben Yahzee is leaving his family he shares a firm handshake with an elder. In Navajo culture personal contact is very limited. The handshake would have been a brief, light touch if given at all.