Goofs for
Cloverfield (2008) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: During the subway tunnel scenes, Rob's shirt seems to clean itself. At first it is dirty and sweat stained, then it is relatively clean, and then it is dirty again.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The time stamp on the camera disappears after Jason gives his testimonial to the camera. Considering Hud had no idea how to use the camera, and the option for time stamping is often a button on the side, it is very easy to conceive that the button was pressed at some point during the video. However, it is most likely a creative decision by the Director, as the time stamp would be annoying to view the entire time of the film.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When they are on the slanted roof, their clothes seem to defy gravity.
  
  

• Plot holes: It would be impossible for any consumer camcorder to survive a 300 foot drop from the monster's mouth.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: From the time Hud first spots the monster in the helicopter to the time the helicopter crashes is less then a minute, yet the time changes from night to sunrise. However, the military man that told them of the helicopter told them that the last helicopters would be in the air by 6:00 am. The time from the crash to the time when the camera restarted recording is unknown, but it is possible that the sun began rising at that point. Even their visibility in the helicopter was getting much better and looked like the early dawn.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Rob, Lily and Hud are coming to get Beth, the floor they go into on the standing tower is marked "57". This is incorrect, since, in fact, Time Warner Center only has 55 stories.
  
  
• Factual errors: During the scene where the characters are on the train platform, Rob receives a cellphone call even though cellphones do not work at all in New York City subways, even on the station platforms.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Rob is on the phone to Beth, we can clearly see he is using a Nokia cellphone. However, when he hangs up, it makes the standard Motorola "end call" tone.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Rob runs over to the electronics store, Hud tells Marlena, "I'll go get her."
  
  
• Continuity: When everyone sees the explosion from the rooftop, the explosion (and bits of debris flying from it) appears very far away. But, by the time Hud has turned around, the flaming debris has already reached the rooftop.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Hud is running down the stairs to the subway, he turns around and sees a huge explosion just overhead. It causes him to fall down the rest of the stairs. As he falls, for a quick second, you can see the shadow of a cameraman lugging a huge over-the-shoulder camcorder, not the one-handed camcorder Hud is supposed to be using.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jason approaches Hud with the camcorder and when Hud turns up the volume on the TV in the electronics store, he has a watch on his left wrist. When the soldiers take away Rob, Lily, and Hud after Marlena dies, Hud's watchless hand comes up in the shot.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In the theatre, it is obvious that the footage is of very high audio-video quality, including multi-channel surround sound and ultra-high-resolution video at 24 frames per second, typical of movie productions, as opposed to 30-frame-per-second digitally compressed video with stereo sound that can be created with most consumer video. However, this is a necessary and deliberate change on the part of the crew, and not an error. Producing a movie with "authentic" quality based on the equipment Hud is carrying would have produced a very poor result when projected onto hundred-foot screens, and incompatibilities in frame rate between a 30-frame-per-second recording and the 24-frames-per-second provided by movie projectors would have created a movie which was unusable to most theaters.
  
  
• Continuity: The subway entrance consists of two flights of stairs: one straight down and one to the left. As the group runs down the stairs, Rob and Lily begin to run down the flight to the left, and Hud (while at the top of the first flight) turns around and a huge explosion knocks him down the rest of the stairs. However, he falls straight down to the bottom. He should have fallen to the end of the first flight.
  
  
• Continuity: When Rob, Lily and Hud climb the roof top of the Warner building Lily alternately wears shoes with heels or walks on socks only. When they enter Beth's apartment she wears socks and hasn't her shoes in her hands anymore. But when leaving back to the roof she suddenly is wearing her shoes again.
  
  
• Continuity: When Beth and Rob are sitting under the bridge at the end of the movie, Beth has her left arm up, touching her head. This should be impossible or at least excruciatingly painful as her left shoulder was pierced by a steel bar earlier in the film.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: It's clear that Rob didn't record for 7 hours. There are about 70 minutes of footage in the movie, so the battery would only have had to last that long. Most consumer digital cameras, even battery-hungry miniDV devices, boast a recording time of more than 2 hours on the supplied battery pack, and on the order of five hours on the manufacturer's high-endurance option.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Coming through the Narrows from Lower New York Bay (off Coney Island, where the monster was awoken) and onwards to Liberty Island (where the monster first makes its presence felt) there's no straight-line path that would subsequently put the monster in lower Manhattan. If it continued on a straight line from here it would wind up in Jersey City or Union city. However this assumes that the creature would continue in a straight line. Given that the monster is a disoriented, angry sea creature, and that it negotiated the Narrows to stay in the water until it came across Liberty Island, it's not unreasonable that it returned to the Upper New York Bay after attacking the statue instead of pushing onwards over land. If it continued inland up the Bay, it would inevitably run into Manhattan Island as we see in the movie.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the Statue of Liberty's head strikes the high rise, there is a large and fiery explosion. The statue itself is composed of iron and copper, and the head is hollow, yet the impact causes an explosion akin to that of artillery fire.
  
  
• Continuity: At the party, when Lilly begins to tell her testimony, the heart on her necklace is upside down hanging on the chain. Later in the testimony, the heart on the necklace hangs tilted off one of the bows.
  
  

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: The helicopter crashes towards the finale, yet the characters are able to walk away with only minor injuries. If the crash was a straight 400-foot drop, this would obviously be impossible, but the helicopter as attacked and damaged, and did not instantly fall from the sky like a rock. A trained pilot would be able to achieve a semi-controlled landing via auto-rotation even in the event of a complete engine failure.
  
  

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