Goofs for
Elf (2003) More at IMDbPro »

• Revealing mistakes: When Jovie is first seen singing in the shower, her body stocking is visible.
  
  
• Continuity: When Emily is eating the breakfast that Buddy made her, an utensil switches between being in the bowl to on the table between shots.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Buddy chases Michael down the street from the school, a crew member in a yellow hat can be seen trying to duck back behind a doorway of a house on the street.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: When Buddy discovers Santa in Central Park, a tether holding the lead reindeer in place is plainly visible, running from his harness off the left-hand side of the screen.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Lights are visible in the office and mailroom scenes.
  
  
• Continuity: After Miles Finch attacks Buddy, he leaves the boardroom and slams the door. As he does so, a picture falls off the wall, but it is back in place in the next shot.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After the boardroom meeting when Miles knocked Buddy over onto the floor and the picture fell off the wall, in the next scene the picture is back up on the wall. Also, Buddy is sitting down in an opposite position from the last scene when he got knocked down on the ground.
  
  
• Continuity: During the boardroom meeting with Miles Finch, a chair repeatedly moves between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: The position of the blue book in the executive's hand behind Buddy when he first meets and sings for his father changes repeatedly between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When the nun puts Buddy in his crib she covers him up. The close-up shot of Buddy shows the blanket down around his kicking feet. In the next shot, the blanket is back up under his arms.
  
  
• Continuity: When the nun puts Buddy down he has a bottle, but when we next see him the bottle is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene in Central Park when Santa is trying to fix his sleigh, the trap door is open but when Michael comes to help Santa, Santa asks Michael to open the trap door for him.
  
  
• Continuity: In Central Park, while trying to fix Santa's sleigh, we see Buddy through the trap door. But in the long shot, as the sleigh rises off the ground a few feet, Buddy has disappeared. This happens several times in the scene.
  
  
• Continuity: When Walter and Buddy are in the "tickle fight" on the bed, there is a red piece of yarn or fluff that moves around Walter's shirt from shot to shot.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's concert in Central Park was in 1981, not 1985 as the news anchor says when talking about the "Central Park Rangers".
  
  
• Continuity: When Walter and Emily are talking in their room, and Walter is lying on the bed, his legs change position between shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Buddy is in the elf classroom, the platform on which Buddy's desk is sitting to aid in forced perspective is visible at the bottom of the screen.
  
  
• Continuity: When Buddy and Michael take cover behind the snow bank during the snowball fight, rips in Buddy's tights can be seen in his inner thigh area during one shot, but not in the others.
  
  
• Continuity: When Buddy is at the apartment having dinner with the family, the coke bottle is near Michael's right hand. When Buddy goes to drink the coke it is right next to him. He never asks for the coke to be passed.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Santa moves the sleigh while Buddy is putting on the turbine engine to get away from the Central Park Rangers, Buddy flails, making it obvious that he is lying down on a softer padding than the floor.
  
  
• Factual errors: The trucks on the skateboard that Santa gives Michael are facing the same way. It would be impossible to turn like that; a skateboard is put together with the trucks facing opposite each other.
  
  
• Continuity: When Emily is eating the spaghetti for breakfast, you can see the amount of sauce on the pasta changes between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: After Buddy goes on his (night-time) date with Jovie he goes back to the Board Room to tell his father, Walter, that he is "in love and I don't care who knows it" but there is sun shining in through the windows and Walter tells him to go back down to the mail room.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Michael first sees Buddy in Central Park, after Buddy has run away, Michael yells out "Mike" to Buddy instead of "Buddy".
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Jovie is singing in the shower, after Buddy joins in she stops singing but her voice can still be heard.
  
  

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