MovieChat Forums > White Squall (1996) Discussion > Did anybody notice this discrepancy?

Did anybody notice this discrepancy?

posted 17 years ago by NowhereMI
5 replies | jump to latest

I just watched the movie last night and I noticed something a little off about the movie. Just before the squall hit. The radio was playing and the crew were listening to the launch of the first American in space, Alan Shepard, onboard Freedom 7. Now, that happened on May 5, 1961. After I watched the movie I was interested in the actual defininition of a squall. Myself not being a sailor or anything. When I looked it up it meantioned the sinking of the Albatross. In the artical it said that it sunk on May 2, 1961, three days before it was protrayed in the movie. I'm just curious why this was done and if anyone else had caught this.

[–] shannonm75 17 years ago

Yeah that was a flaw. I remember I saw that and it had said Shepard was in space. And I remembered the ship sank on May 2 so yeah that is not right.

Spiders eat Internet trolls...

[–] schwitz121 16 years ago

It's not a flaw. The director purposely did it to portray the time in which this occured. Did you not notice the Cubans, the reference to the "Bay of Pigs" and the 60's music. It was just a way for Ridley Scott to portray to the audience the time era in which this occure.d

[–] melaniekiwi 16 years ago

I agree. It was to portray the time period and maybe artistically to show that try as man may, Nature is a force we ultimately have little control over even if we did send a man to the moon.

[–] Rob_P 16 years ago

Poor researchers... Many movies have anachronistic qualities when they are set in certain eras.

It would have been just as easy for the radio show to be speculating on Alan Shepard going into space and the associated interplay between going into space and the crew sailing the open sea.

[–] bh-25 15 years ago

At first, the Alan Shepard flight references had me thinking they'd rescue his capsule when it splashed down (and I would have preferred that - if it were a fictional story) since they were listening about Shepard's flight in the morning, but then supposedly saw him flying overhead that night..

umm, that first flight lasted 15 minutes