Goofs for
Alexander (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• Anachronisms: Ptolemy I is depicted recounting the story of Alexander in 283 B.C. The Lighthouse at Alexandria, seen in the background, was built during the reign of his son Ptolemy II, around 270 B.C.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the battle at Gaugeamela, the Persian army is wearing dark clothes. Their uniforms were yellow and light purple.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Alexander rides towards the elephant of the Indian King, his sword is obviously waggling as though made of rubber.
  
  

• Continuity: When speaking to his troops at the riverside in India, Alexander's sword switches from the left to his right side in one shot.
  
  
• Continuity: The scar on Old Ptolemy's forehead switches sides halfway through his first scene.
  
  
• Continuity: After being wounded in the battle against the Indian king, Alexander is carried on a shield. First, his sword lies on his chest, then under his shoulder.
  
  
• Continuity: When Alexander tries to ride the wild black horse, the ropes are crossed. In the next shot, they are in place.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the "Director's Cut," Ptolemy implies that Alexander and Hephaistion died of typhus, which is transmitted by lice. He refers to what Hephaistion drank, so the cause is more likely to be typhoid. Historians believe that typhoid killed Alexander because waters of Babylon were, and still are, notorious for it.
  
  
• Continuity: When Alexander is riding towards the warrior on the elephant, the arrows in his horse's shoulder blades disappear and reappear between cuts to Alexander and the elephant.
  
  
• Continuity: In the final battle, before Alexander would ride towards the elephant, he is seen holding a spear, even waving it and pointing with it to his men to move forward. One second later he is carrying a sword, with the spear nowhere to be seen.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the final scene, when Ptolemy is dictating to Cadmus, he mentions "the tenth of June". The Julian Calendar, the first one to contain that date, was established in 45 BC.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Horses are shod with modern nailed horseshoes. The most probable horseshoes at the time of Alexander should have been leather and plants "booties" of Asian origin. In the 1st century, Romans used leather and iron "hipposandals". Nailed iron horseshoes seem to have become adopted much later.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Alexander is reading a papyrus scroll, English words are clearly visible.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: Many scenes were re-ordered in the "Final Cut." For example, Alexander's childhood is seen in flashback, not at the beginning, in chronological order. However, the end credits are the same, so the list of actors "in order of appearance" is inaccurate.
  
  
• Factual errors: On the map of the known world, the Black Sea is correctly called "Pontos Euxeinos," but the Mediterranean is called "Mare Mediterraneum." On Roman maps, it was called "Mare Nostrum" (Our Sea) or "Mare Internum" (Inner Sea). In the fifth century BC, Herodotos called it the "Pontos Boreios" (Northern Sea).
  
  
• Anachronisms: The fruit bowl next to Ptolemy contains Fuji apples, which were not available in 283 B.C.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the movie, Alexander sustains a nearly-fatal chest wound during a forest battle against the Indians. The battle was actually in a walled city in what is now Multan, Pakistan.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The tattoo on Colin Farrell's right arm and shoulder appears in a few shots.
  
  
• Factual errors: Although Cassander is a main character, and leads the cavalry under Alexander, his actual role in history is much smaller. He is first recorded in the year that Alexander died, sent by his father to Babylon. This gave rise to the idea that he came with poison that eventually killed Alexander.
  
  
• Factual errors: Alexander asks Darius' daughter how she wishes to be treated, she replies, "like a princess," and he grants her wish. In reality, Alexander asked the question to the Indian king Porus. When Porus replied "like a king", he won Alexander's respect and became one of his allies.
  
  
• Factual errors: Cleitus died in Samarkand, not India.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Alexander and his friends are children, they all look to be the same age. However, Ptolemy and Nearchus were several years older than Alexander.
  
  
• Factual errors: Before Gaugamela, Parmenion argues with Alexander that cavalry has never been used to break an infantry line. Alexander retorts by mentioning Chaeronea, a battle fought during Phillip's reign. Both seem to forget Issus, where Alexander's handling of cavalry to win the battle became one of the most famous accomplishments in military history.
  
  
• Factual errors: Nearchus was not recorded as being at Gaugamela, yet he is present.
  
  
• Continuity: Phillip addresses his troops just before the jungle battle against the Indians. In a flipped shot, his right eye is missing, not his left.
  
  
• Factual errors: On road marches (as opposed to marching to contact, i.e., when the enemy is in sight or there is imminent contact), the 4 to 7 metre (13 to 21 feet) sarissa would have been broken down into its two components for ease of transport. In the movie, the sarissa is always shown at full length deployment.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In Gaugamela Battle, we can clearly hear that the Persian army leaders are talking Arabic. But this battle was before Arabs invasion to Persia so there weren't Arabic words in Persian.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: When Hermolaus commits suicide, he falls onto his sword. A shot later, the sword's point is sticking out of his back. However, the angle of the point and the hilt are impossible.
  
  

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