Goofs for
The Phantom of the Opera (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When Christine faints there is a candle behind her that is not lit, but before she fainted it was lit.
  
  
• Continuity: Christine takes off the wedding veil that the Phantom gave her and drops it. When the Phantom is leaving, the veil is back on the mannequin, and then is gone when Meg walks past.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During Christine's first visit to the Phantom's lair, the shadows of the camera and camera crane are visible on her and the Phantom as he crosses in front of her at one point.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: When Christine is visiting the cemetery, we see her pass the same set of tombstones (most notably a small stone with an iron fence and a much larger one shaped vaguely like a bed) from three or four different directions before she finally reaches her father's tomb.
  
  
• Continuity: When Meg steps out of the underground river and into the Phantom's lair, her brown pants are clearly soaked with water; a few moments later, when she finds the Phantom's mask in the bedchamber, her pants are perfectly dry.
  
  
• Continuity: Christine's hair is wild while running up the staris in "Why have you brought me here...” and then on the roof her hair is pulled back.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the chandelier scene, when the camera pans on the audience rushing out of the theater, several crew members are visible in street clothes in the top left corner.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During the beginning of the "Masquerade" scene the singers lips are not matched to the music.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: At the end of "Music of the Night" as the Phantom is laying Christine into her bed, his mouth and the audio are unsynchronized.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Phantom does not wear his mask, you can see that the right side of his face is disfigured, including his right eye. But when he's wearing his mask, the right eye can be seen anyway - and it's not disfigured.
  
  
• Continuity: The last letter that is read in the "Letters" scene does not match the letter that the Phantom is seen to be putting in the envelope. In addition, the text on the letter is obviously too short to match the words that are read by Firmin and spoken by the Phantom.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Raoul swims up to take his breath while trapped under the grate, the iron grid is show dropping into the water. However, the bubbles travel downwards, showing that the shot was reversed.
  
  
• Continuity: When Christine lights a candle for her father in the chapel after "Think of Me", she lights her match from another candle. However, when the shot switches to over her shoulder, the candle she lit is the only one burning.
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning practice, when the phantom drops the background on Carlotta, he drops a letter down. When it falls down, it is a pure white envelope with the red emblem. When Madam Giry picks it up, the lines on the envelope are outlined in black with the red emblem.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The rope that the Phantom cuts and causes the chandelier to crash is hanging limp when it is tied to the rail on the stage, which means that when it was cut it would only probably hang there. If it really was the rope keeping the chandelier suspended then it would be taut because of the weight.
  
  
• Continuity: When Christine is in the boat and being shown around the Phantom's lair for the first time, the lock of hair over her left shoulder changes from being very curly to wavy in between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: During the "Point of No Return" reprise, the Phantom places the veil on Christine's head. When the camera pans from her face to his, we can clearly see the back of her head, and there is no veil, but when the camera pans back to her it is there again.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Masquerade scene, when the phantom comes downstairs, he has not got the bag with the Don Juan Notes in his hand, but when he arrives at the bottom of the stairs, he throws the bag with the notes on the floor.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During "Prima Donna" Carlotta's lips do not match the words being sung.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When the Phantom takes Christine down to the catacombs for the first time, her hair and makeup slowly change from being simple and understated, to more sophisticated and womanly. The director has stated that this was deliberate and that the change in Christine's appearance during this scene was intended as a metaphor to representing her sexual awakening.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the semi-beginning of 'Music of the Night' the Phantom's mouth comes in too late for the words when he saying "Live as you've never lived before."
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the phantom takes Christine down to his lair and places the veil on her head, saying "an eternity of this before your eyes" his mouth does not match the words.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Raoul runs to Christine and says "Are you alright", we hear her say "Raoul we're not safe here" but her mouth does not move.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Phantom is on the rooftop after Christine and Raoul leave, you can clearly see the Phantom' footsteps in the snow. Notice how Christine's and Raoul's have disappeared, even though they were just there.
  
  
• Continuity: During the point of no return scene, when the phantom grasps Christine's wrists, the gold bracelet become unclasped. Yet when the camera view switches, the bracelet is secured and in place.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the beginning of the movie, we see that the "current" year is 1919. Just before the Masquerade party scene, it shows us the old Raoul staring out of the car window at a couple looking at jewelry. The window says Swarovski and shows the swan logo underneath. While Swarovski was indeed around in 1919, the original logo was an edelweiss flower. The company did not adopt the swan for their logo until 1988, nearly 70 years after the events of the movie.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the chandelier scene, the crowd is running and you can see the knee pads on the women when their dresses come up.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Phantom is on the rooftop after Christine and Raoul leave, You see the Phantom's cape blowing in the wind. If you look closely, you can actually see that there are two capes blowing in the wind, one under the other. This is due to the fact that the film editors added a digitally created cape to blow in the background, but for whatever reason, did not match its movements with the real cape the Phantom was wearing.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: During the Scene on the rooftop, the Phantom picks up the rose that Christine dropped and slowly tears the petals off in his hand. We see the petals falling as they are torn, but it is easy to see that after the stem of the rose falls, there are less then half of the petals that are on a rose on the ground around the stem.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: During "Music of the Night", when the Phantom is carrying the fainted Christine towards the bed, Christine's head accidentally hits the large tassel on a nearby curtain.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Christine is walking through the cemetery, you can't see her breath even though it is cold enough to be snowing.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During Christine's first performance, once the audience appears, if you slow the video down, you can clearly see that the actors in the very back left of the theater are legless mannequins with cloth thrown over the tops.
  
  
• Continuity: In the "Masquerade", Christine and Raoul are dancing and they have their masks in their hands. However, when the camera changes its angle, the masks disappear, and then again reappear.
  
  
• Continuity: Throughout the entire "Music of the Night" sequence the slit on Christine's nightgown changes from her right side to the center. This continues on up through "Stranger Than You Dreamt It."
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the mirror scene, you can clearly see Madame Giry in one of the mirrors waiting for her cue, just before the rope drops down from the ceiling.
  
  
• Continuity: When Christine and Raoul kiss on the rooftop, he picks her up and spins around. During this, her hand is on the back of his head, but when the camera goes in for a closer shot, her hand is around his neck.
  
  
• Continuity: When Meg goes to look for Christine after she sings 'Think of Me', she walks backstage and passes Monsieur Firmin and Monsieur Andre and stops at the hallway. Then when the camera switches over to the new managers, Meg walks past them again, even though she just went down a hallway.
  
  
• Continuity: During the "Point of No Return" scene, the Phantom is clean-shaven. In the following scene in the Phantom's lair, he clearly has a five o'clock shadow, even though the progression of the story is merely minutes.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene of "Don Juan" it shows a birds eye pan over of the audience in the ground level (orchestra seating). The people in the back few rows are not people but figurines of head and torso, they do not have legs.
  
  
• Continuity: While Meg is congratulating Christine after her "Think of Me" performance, she puts her hand on Christine's shoulder and then takes if off. When the camera cuts to face Meg, she is taking her hand off Christine's shoulder again.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: At some point during the "Music of the Night" scene, the shadow of a giant camera can be seen on the wall.
  
  
• Continuity: When Raoul is falling through the stairs to save Christine, the gate is under the water, but when he comes up to the surface, the gate is lowering from above.
  
  
• Continuity: In the final scenes when Christine sings "This haunted face holds no horror for me now..." she uncovers only one of the two mirrors standing next to each other, but by the time that the Phantom is smashing them, a second is uncovered for his smashing pleasure.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During the singing of "Don Juan", La Carlotta is heard singing an ending note but you see her smiling and pointing and shoving, not singing at all.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During Christine's first performance Think Of Me, the stars of Hannibal move from her right hand side to her left hand side. This is noticeable when Carlotta's spy who is now on Christine's right hand side is there to see how Christine performs.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the graveyard scene, as Christine is singing "Dreaming of you won't help me to do..." a snowflake falls on her lips and stays there for some time without melting.
  
  
• Continuity: Before Meg leads the crowd to the lair, her hair is curled at the bottom. When she gets there it is completely straight.
  
  
• Continuity: When Raoul is on his way down the stairs to the phantoms lair, he falls through a hole, down into a pit of water. Iron bars then lower from above, but since the character fell straight down into the water, it would be physically impossible for the bars to be there.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: At the beginning of the movie text appears to tell us that the main story takes place in Paris in 1870. However, it takes place at the 'Opera Populaire', not Garnier, meaning that although Garnier was built in 1875, it is an alternate universe idea.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The story takes place in 1870 yet no mention of the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 to 10 May 1871) is made. The War's effects on Paris which was under siege from 19 September 1870 to 28 January 1871 is not shown.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: While Christine and the Phantom are singing "Point of No Return" in "Don Juan", the Phantom has a well-groomed and neatly placed wig on his head. Right before Christine pulls the mask and wig off, revealing the Phantom's true face to the audience, you can see that the wig is different from the one he first had on and that it is not as tightly fitted.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of "Prima Donna", right before the opera starts, on La Carlotta's left shoulder there are 4 random shapes, but after the Phantom makes his dramatic entrance only 3 shapes are shown - and they are larger than the original 4.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When The Phantom brings Christine to the lair, she is wearing stockings. However once she faints and the scene shifts to the Joseph Bouqet scene and then back to the lair, they are mysteriously missing. One explanation for this, however, is that the phantom simply took the liberty of removing Christine's stockings while she was unconscious.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Mirror scene, Christine's eyes have no make-up on them. By the time she's in the Phantom's lair, she has make-up on them.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During "Notes", Firmin and Andre both spend a lot of time not matching their audio.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the first scene of the film at the auction, Old Raoul is referred to as the "Vicomte de Chagny", implying that he has not yet inherited the title of "Comte" from his father, which would be extremely unlikely given his advanced age. However, even if Raoul was still the Vicomte, Christine would have died as the Vicomtess de Chagny, but her gravestone describes her as the Countess. Either Raoul is the Comte and Christine was the Comtesse (Countess) or Raoul is the Vicomte and Christine was the Vicomtess - you cannot mix and max the titles.
  
  
• Continuity: After Christine faints and is placed in the bed, the Phantom strokes her chin and begins to take his hand away. In the next shot, he strokes her chin again.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the "Think of Me" scene, during certain side shots, a piece of gum can clearly be seen in Christine's mouth.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Throughout many songs in the movie, the actors' mouths are not matched up with the music.
  
  
• Continuity: Right before the Phantom's mask is removed during the opera scene, his hair is dark brown. The moment the mask is taken off and you see his face for the first time, he is suddenly blond.
  
  

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