Movie mistakes

What is wrong with the information in these sentences?

A llama is in a market in ancient Greece.
A farmer is driving a tractor in ancient Rome.
A man is looking at his digital watch in 1912.
A male mosquito is sucking someone’s blood.

Reading Help – Difficult words and phrases

 Underline words or groups of words you don't know.
 Read the sentences before and after and try to guess the meaning of the underlined
words from the content.
 Write new words and expressions in your vocabulary book.

Read about mistakes in famous films. Check your answers from Exercise 1.

Although they check films, many ‘goofs’ or silly mistakes get past the editors. Sometimes, they are
factual’, like an aeroplane on screen before it was invented; sometimes, they are ‘continuity’
mistakes, like an empty glass is suddenly full in the same s scene. Here are our top film goofs ...

Gladiator (2000) is set in ancient times. Fast forward your DVD to the
part when Russell Crowe is walking home - you can see a modern tractor’s
tracks in the field!

Titanic (1997) is about the famous ship that hit an

iceberg and sank in 1912. However you can see a passenger getting into a
lifeboat and he’s wearing a digital watch – not on the market until the 1970s.
Although Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings, paid incredible
attention to detail when he adapted the book for the cinema, you still come across mistakes. For
example, in The Two Towers (2002), although Gimli is a dwarf, he 20 sometimes appears as tall as
Aragorn’s shoulders!
Strange things happen in King Kong (2005). During the fight between the giant gorilla and the
dinosaurs, Ann Darrow is thrown into some water but when she gets out, her hair is dry! 25 And
when the character, Herb, goes to the island, he is unshaven. However, when he gets back to the
ship, his face is smooth - did he have a shave on Skull Island?
In Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), a scientist so finds a dead mosquito. This insect apparently
sucked the blood of a dinosaur millions of years ago, so the scientist
can find out the dinosaur’s DNA. There’s just one thing wrong - the
mosquito has got big antennae and so it is clearly a male. 35
However, only female mosquitoes suck blood!
Luckily for the producers, most of the audiences don’t know this fact.
Troy (2004) is set in ancient Greece. However, at the beginning of the film, there are some llamas
in the street, although these animals were unknown in Europe until sixteenth 45 century. Oops!

Find the underlined words and expressions in the text and match them with the meanings (1-7).
Use the advice in the Reading Help.
1. small, fantasy creature
2. thought very carefully about
3. available to buy
4. marks left by a vehicle
5. not shaved
6. went down under water
7. drank

The verbs in the Word Builder are in red in the text. Find them and guess their meaning.

Complete the sentences with verbs from the Word Builder in the
correct form.
We had to ………… some dates for our history homework.
You should never ………………. a car with a stranger.
While I was tidying my room, I ………………an old class photo.
The water is cold. I think I'll now ……………………...
We leave at ten o’clock and ……………………. about nine at night.
The violent scenes in the film didn’t …………………… the censors.

Complete the verbs with in, of, off or up.

1. Batman never takes ……………….. his mask in public.
2. Are you bored? Why don’t you take ………………. a hobby?
3. You can see the planes taking …………… from our house!
4. Gladiator takes place ………………. ancient Rome.
5. Are you taking part ………………… the school concert this year?
 6. We took care ……………….. our grandmother when she was ill.

Look at the Sentence Builder. Find more examples of the linking words in the text.

Rewrite the sentences using the words in brackets.

1. Orlando Bloom is good-looking. I don’t think he’s a good actor, (although)
………………………………………………………………………………
2. The special effects in Narnia were great. I didn’t like the characters much, (however)
………………………………………………………………………………….
3. Shrek is a children’s film. I really like it! (although)
…………………………………………………………………………………..
4. They nominated Johnny Depp for an Oscar. He didn’t win. (however)
…………………………………………………………………………………..