Spider-Man Movie Mistakes That Are Hard To Ignore

Everyone's favorite neighborhood Spider-Man has been a fixture on the big screen since Tobey Maguire made his debut as the classic Marvel character in director Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man. With a running total of seven solo live-action movies, one computer-animated film, and appearances in three Marvel Cinematic Universe films, Spider-Man has become much more than a household name. 

Of course, as with most superhero blockbusters, some big money was spent in the production of these films, but that doesn't mean they're perfect. In fact, when you look closely, it's sometimes impossible to ignore that the Spider-Man movies are sprinkled with some movie magic mishaps, poorly researched references, bad displays of science, and even some continuity catastrophes. Sometimes a favorite movie scene can be ruined after the discovery of a simple glaring mistake. Read ahead at your own risk — these are Spider-Man movie mistakes that are hard to ignore.

No matter how much money they might have at their disposal, filmmakers often have to get creative when setting up shots — and sometimes, this creativity can accidentally cause obvious visual mistakes for moviegoers to discover. When Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker first flexes his newfound powers in Spider-Man, he starts scaling a building; if you look closely, you'll notice that the front of his baggy shirt is sagging forward against the wall as if he is crawling sideways on a flat surface rather than climbing up. The scene was shot in three different cuts to create a climbing effect, but the wrinkles in his clothing convey the truth. Luckily, future moments of Spider-Man demonstrating his ability to scale buildings with ease are done in his skintight suit, leaving no room for his outfit to betray him... or the filmmakers.

During an encounter with the Green Goblin in Spider-Man, Peter Parker is faced with the choice of rescuing his beloved Mary Jane Watson or the Roosevelt Island tram full of screaming children. Being a true hero, Parker is able to thwart the Green Goblin's plan and rescue everyone involved. During the rescue, however, it's hard not to notice that the only adult inside the tram is calm and collected as they all begin to fall to their presumed death. It's possible that he was hoping to lead by example and that the screaming children would be encouraged to follow suit. Maybe the craft services table ran out of coffee that day. Or we can chalk it up to a case of bad acting by an extra, you can decide for yourself.

After witnessing Uncle Ben's tragic death, Peter leaps into action alongside the police to help catch the murdering car thief responsible for the dirty deed. The following scenes show Spider-Man swinging above the city as a police car speeds through the New York City traffic below. However, the inside of the police car shows a different depiction of the chase — the speedometer shows the car reaching the pathetic speed of 17mph. This is not quite the speed that one expects for a NYC car chase, and the blunder is enough to ruin the moment for alert fans invested in Peter's mission to avenge the death of his beloved uncle.

In Spider-Man 2, after Dr. Otto Octavius' animatronic arms leave a high body count inside the hospital, they continue their murderous journey out into the streets. The death toll increases as Dr. Octavius finally seems to take control of his wayward appendages. He picks up a taxi that nearly barrels into him in the middle of the street, and in a reflex-like response, he quickly drops it onto another taxi, whose occupant seems unbothered by this deadly crash. It's clear that a rigid dummy was used in this scene as moviegoers watch the victim's unrealistic response.

One sequence in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 shows Electro being held at Ravencroft Institute by Dr. Ashley Kafka. Throughout the entire scene, there is an obvious green glare on Dr. Kafka's glasses. Since there is nothing green in the background of this shot, upon close inspection it becomes clear that this reflection is from the green screen used to create Electro's charged-up appearance. This is a pretty glaring mistake for such an up close CGI encounter.

After ditching his classmates at the opera in Spider-Man: Far from Home, our young hero sets out to save the day during Prague's annual October Carnival of Lights festival. This timestamp conflicts with a subsequent scene, when Happy is seen rescuing Peter from a field of fully bloomed tulips in the Netherlands. Tulips only bloom during the spring, and though these scenes create appealing settings for the film, they're not practical when it boils down to creating a factual timeline of events.

Moviegoers learn during a flashback scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming that the villain named Vulture is none other than Adrian Toomes. During the flashback, we see Toomes and his crew in 2012 at Toomes Salvage Company shortly after losing their contract to Tony Stark for cleaning up the aftermath of the Battle of New York. Beer connoisseurs will notice the famous "stubby" Banquet beer bottle that was released by Coors in 2013 sitting innocently on a table. Since the scene is set in 2012, there's no way Toomes and his crew could have gotten their hands on the bottles before then.

You would think that a high school that takes the time to print and distribute posters for the national decathlon would take the time to proofread them. The poster appears twice in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and each time the date is different. The poster displayed in Parker's room clearly states that the event is in September, while the poster hanging on the wall right after the school cafeteria scene says it's in October. We will leave it to you to decide whether this is a classic display of shoddy fact-checking by the high school students or mistakes missed by the usually eagle-eyed professional production crew.

There have been a few questionable scenery choices throughout the Spider-Man franchise. Seasonal weather is a great visual tool used to show the passing of time; however, when not done accurately, it can cause some confusion. In Spider-Man during a hospital scene with Aunt May and Mary Jane, fully blooming trees can be seen in clear view outside the window. This is an unusual sight considering that this scene takes place after Parker's awkward Thanksgiving meal with Aunt May, Mary Jane, and the Osborns.

As Parker mourns the death of his first love in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the background changes from a sunny summer day to leaves falling, and finally to a snowy winter scene. When Spider-Man finally reappears on the NYC streets for his last fight with Rhino, a reporter remarks that he has been MIA for only five months — but five months after Gwen's death in the summer would put the movie's timeline in October, when autumn and winter weather should just be beginning.

Happy comes to Parker's rescue in Spider-Man: Far from Home after receiving his distress call from a fully blooming tulip field in the Netherlands. After leaving the jet hovering over the field for a full 15 minutes, the reunited pair make their exit and save Parker's classmates from their impending doom — leaving the tulips behind completely untouched and untattered. This is a scientifically impossible feat, even if they were flying in a jet with typical souped-up Stark technology.

When Dr. Curt Connors transforms into the Lizard in an Incredible Hulk-like fashion during a scene in The Amazing Spider-Man, it's hard to ignore one glaring detail: The doctor's normal human-sized lab coat grows at the same rate he does into a much larger exaggerated size. The coat quickly falls off the Lizard as he crawls out of the school toilet, but the costuming blunder immediately preceding it hasn't been forgotten by fans who noticed. Perhaps the producers or costume designers thought this reptile deserved to keep an air of modesty for this specific scene?

Dr. Octavius dramatically puts on his shaded lens during the fusion scene during Spider-Man 2. As a high-powered gleaming ball of light ignites, the lab full of bystanders have an up close view of the dangerous process. How is it that everyone else's eyesight seems to be unbothered by this radical display of energy? Is Dr. Octavius the only one with eyes weak enough to be affected by this light, or is he the only one smart enough to come prepared? This would have been the perfect moment to demonstrate smart lab practices by having everyone in the room wearing proper eye protection.

In a daring display of teamwork, a group of citizens decides to assist Spider-Man during the final moments of the tram rescue scene during Spider-Man. As the Green Goblin closes in on our hero, a gas can is hurled under the bridge at the perfect moment, knocking the Goblin off his course. The moment brings up the big issue of how a normal citizen could possibly throw this can with enough strength and accuracy to perfectly impact the Goblin while he and Spider-Man were completely sheltered by the bridge. It would have had to have been a super-powered curveball thrown blindly by one of the bystanders — apparently, miracles do exist on the silver screen.

As Peter Parker gently returns Dr. Osborn's corpse to his home near the end of Spider-Man, there is a mistake that is hard for fans to unsee. It appears that the Doctor's lifeless hand reanimates with enough movement to help Parker lower his body onto the sofa. This quick moment could be a trick of the eye, but it could also be brushed up to Maguire's lack of spider-strength — or even Dafoe's natural instinct to assist with the safe placement of his own body.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ends with the dramatic return of Spider-Man after months of mourning. During a glass-shattering scene, the Rhino is seen confronting a little boy dressed as Spider-Man out in the middle of the street moments before our hero's triumphant return. While the ground outside the shattered police car windows is coated with glass, the carseat on the inside is somehow free of any glass or debris. Basic physics would show the majority of the glass inside the car after the windows were struck by flying bullets and the impact of other vehicles.

While sitting with Peter, Harry Osborn is shown talking to Mary Jane on a cell phone shortly after Spider-Man takes on the Green Goblin for the first time in Spider-Man. Harry begins to slightly show his own green side as squirms with jealousy during MJ's recollection of Spider-Man's heroic behavior. Just as MJ begins to recognize Harry's jealousy, their conversation is cut short and the audience is left with the traditional sound effect of a landline dial tone — a noise no one hears at the end of a cell phone conversation.

The death scene of Spider-Man's beloved Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2  is so heart-shattering that some viewers might miss the continuity mistake involving the CGI clock pieces. As Gwen plummets down the clock tower and Spider-Man desperately flings his hand-shaped web after her, detailed clock gears and pieces surround them both. However, as the pair reach the ground, they're only surrounded by broken glass and leaves. Why spend time and money creating detailed clock pieces only to have them disappear so quickly? Perhaps the producers thought our focus should be on Spider-Man and his breaking heart and less on pieces of metal.

The opening scenes of Spider-Man: Homecoming are a compilation of Parker's video diary entries. The audience gets an inside scoop on Parker's antics with the Avengers and one scene in particular shows a glaring difference from what moviegoers remember happening in the Captain America: Civil War Berlin airfield battle. The vlog clip shows Parker recording himself with his phone as Ant-Man grows to an enormous size in the background. You can hear Parker say, "He's big now! I've gotta go, hang on!" The shot from Civil War shows a very surprised Spidey reacting with a more profane phrase — and no cell phone in sight.

Peter Parker has a run-in with the Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man at Midtown Science High School. During these scenes, Parker gets thrown through a wall into the science lab, a room full of desks with chairs. The Lizard knocks a stool that appears out of thin air next to Parker on the ground, only to have Parker boomerang it back at him with his webs. This stool not only wasn't in the original shot setup, but it is also very out of place considering the surrounding classroom setting.

During one action sequence in Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man swoops in to save the day in a heroic display as he saves Gwen Stacy from a treacherous fall caused by a construction crane. Before he makes his appearance on the scene, Stacy is seen making her modeling debut among a scenery of office furniture. As the crane smashes through the window, sending Stacy on her way outside the building, she is joined by what seems to be a never-ending supply of desks and chairs. A wide shot shows that all the furniture hit by the crane has already fallen out the window, but for a more dramatic effect the stream of furniture continues to fall throughout the rest of the scene.

True movie fans know that all scenes from a movie aren't filmed in sequence, but it's the filmmakers duty to make it appear as though each shot is happening in the moment — and the work it takes to maintain the illusion of continuity is often harder than one might think. During a scene in Spider-Man 3, bank bags full of money are being transferred using an armored truck. At the beginning of the scene the license plate displayed near the bottom of the truck clearly shows "13022." Throughout the rest of the same scene the plate reads "48321."

As Dr. Octopus is cornered by policemen in the streets of NYC after robbing a bank in Spider-Man 2, a police vehicle marked with "4619" appears in the background. Less than an hour earlier in the film, this same police vehicle is shown getting side-slammed during a car chase. It is very unlikely that the New York public safety budget was able to repair the damage so quickly. This mistake could have been easily avoided if the filmmakers had factored in an extra license plate swap into the budget.

Tobey Maguire was no stranger to costume changes in Spider-Man 3, but fans of the franchise haven't been able to help noticing some glaring errors in the continuity of the famous spider emblem placement throughout the film. When Spidey is fully suited up, he wears the large emblem front and center on his chest. However, when he's dressed as Peter Parker, a much smaller version of the emblem is seen peeking out near his neckline.  This could be done on purpose for a dramatic effect, but it's strange to see it multiple times with both his regular suit and the black symbiote outfit.