Goofs for
Dances with Wolves (1990) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The canteen tied to Cisco's saddle.
  
  
• Continuity: Pickled egg on the face of Dunbar's wagon driver.
  
  
• Continuity: The size of the jerky that Dunbar is offering to the wolf. Alternately, he may be holding it in a different way.
  
  

• Anachronisms: The flag that John Dunbar was flying when meeting with the Indians was of the wrong era.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: One of the wolves can be seen wearing a choke collar.
  
  
• Factual errors: The tribe members do not use proverbs or formulaic expressions, which characteristically function to preserve knowledge and tradition in an oral (pre-writing) culture.
  
  
• Anachronisms: An elder at the fireside can be seen wearing a modern day collar underneath his costume.
  
  
• Factual errors: Three birds flying over are identified as geese. They are, in fact, cranes.
  
  
• Anachronisms: A dove in an old fort is a Eurasian collared dove, nonexistent at that time in North America.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During the beginning of the great buffalo shooting you can clearly hear someone shout, "Here we go" while the camera is focused on Dunbar. (This audio track can be heard on the European (4 hour) version)
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Sioux and John Dunbar are going on the buffalo hunt and they come upon the slaughtered/skinned buffalo, a crew member can be seen lying down on the ground in the background behind the Sioux passing on horseback.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Outlines of the disks anchoring the prop arrows can be seen under Timmons' shirt when he is on his back after the attack.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Dunbar is shooting the 1860 Henry rifle, the cartridge indicator is seen in its rear-most position - indicating empty - and remains there throughout the entire action sequence.
  
  
• Continuity: The window in front of which Fambrough is standing, opens and closes a couple of times before and after he commits suicide.
  
  
• Continuity: Throughout the movie, Lt. Dunbar wears the yellow shoulder boards of a cavalry officer on his army jacket. In the scenes leading up to just before the Sioux war party leaves camp to attack the Pawnee, Lt. Dunbar has traded this jacket with Wind In His Hair for a breast plate. In the next sequence, the Sioux war party is leaving camp to attack the Pawnee and Wind In His Hair is seen wearing this jacket while on horseback, but the shoulder boards on it are now blue, the color worn by infantry officers.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Electric power lines are visible during the buffalo hunt.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After the Sioux rescue John Dunbar at the creek, one of the Sioux walks past the dead Spivey, splashing water in his face and Spivey blinks.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the Pawnee raid on the Sioux camp, a Pawnee can be seen wearing a Pattern 1883 cavalry greatcoat (distinguished by the yellow lining of the cape). Greatcoats in the 1860s had no yellow lining.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Dunbar and Timmons are leaving for Ft. Sedgewick you can see a second set of reins leading back underneath the wagon seat. There is also a curtain under the seat to conceal the real driver. In later scenes the curtain is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Dunbar first inspects the two buildings which are Ft. Sedgewick, his beard stubble is extremely short. As he goes from one building to the next, his beard is suddenly at about a 3-4 day growth.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When Kicking Bird takes Dunbar to the "Sacred Place" (which in the "The Making of 'Dances With Wolves'" is said to be the Black Hills) Mount Moran (The Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming) stands prominently on the right side of the panorama.
  
  
• Continuity: A noticeable dorsal stripe on Cisco the horse's back disappears and reappears throughout.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Dunbar hears a noise outside and runs to the door hitting his head on the door-frame, he falls down unconscious. When coming to, the blood has run down his face instead of across his forehead.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sgt Bauer is running away from the river fight, he is holding a Remington Model 1858 Revolver, but when he encounters Smiles A Lot on the bank of the river and tries to shoot him (the gun misfires), he is holding a Colt 1860 Army revolver
  
  
• Continuity: When Dunbar arrives back at the battlefield from the surgery, there is an apple which goes from half eaten to barely started.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The apple beside Dunbar at the battlefield, after his return from the surgery, is a variety that had not been developed at that time.
  
  
• Continuity: Having unloaded the wagon at the fort, Dunbar pauses for a moment and glances down. There is a rag or cloth at his foot which disappears a moment later.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Dunbar is dragging a dead deer out the pond at Ft. Sedgwick, there are tire tracks in the hillside in the background.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Ten Bears was a Comanche Chief not Sioux
  
  
• Anachronisms: In 1863, General Tide is shown wearing the three stars of a lieutenant general. There were no lieutenant generals in the United States Army at that time.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lt Dunbar first encounters Stands with a Fist grieving over her dead husband, the length of her hair varies from scene to scene.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The flag flying at Ft. Sedgwick is the flag with 50 stars rather than the flag used during the Civil War.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: A flock of Sandhill Cranes fly overhead, but the sound effect is that of Canadian Honkers.
  
  
• Continuity: After Dunbar and Stands With A Fist are married, they enter their teepee and close the door which is hinged on the right. A few "days" later, Kicking Bird calls for Dunbar to come out and ride with him. The door is now hinged on the left.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the final scenes the US military come upon the recently vacated camp. Many of the soldiers are wearing overcoats with rank stripes and yellow lining. This is set during the civil war (1861 - 1865) Overcoats had no colored lining and no rank stripes. The coats worn in the film did not appear until 1883.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The round tin kerosene can seen close-up for a few seconds as Dunbar prepares to burn off rubbish left at the abandoned outpost is clearly marked NPRY for Northern Pacific Railway - which laid its first track about five years after Dunbar is supposed to have arrived at the post (and that track was in a different state).
  
  
• Continuity: The stamped brass Cavalry insignia on Dunbar's working cap has a number 2 (for Second Cavalry) over the sabers in some scenes. The 2 appears and disappears throughout the film.
  
  
• Continuity: When the charging buffalo first turns and sees "Smiles a lot" it's left side has no arrows stuck in it. A moment later as it charges, there are several arrows sticking out of the animal.
  
  
• Continuity: When Dunbar hits his head on the door frame he gets a wound in the middle of his forehead (1.5 inches from his hairline). When he washes his wound it has moved upwards to 0.5 inches from his hairline.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the buffalo hunt you can see fence posts whizzing by.
  
  
• Factual errors: During the hunt scene, the Lakota are repeatedly shown immediately bringing down the stampeding buffalo with single arrow shots. Bowhunting does not work that way. In reality, the hunters would have to track the wounded animals, sometimes for miles, until they bled out.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After Dunbar discovers Stands With A Fist, wrists cut from a suicide attempt and far away from her tribe, he loads her onto his horse and takes her back to her encampment. Upon arrival, while confronted by her people who view him as an interloper, he unloads her from his horse. Wind In His Hairs strides forward to retrieve her, grabbing her by the hand and dragging her unconscious body away from Dunbar. The problem here is that in a quick shot of the dragging sequence, you can see Stands With A Fist grasping onto Wind In His Hair's hand while he pulls her along - something she would not be able to do considering her current state of unconsciousness due to blood loss.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the beginning of the movie, when the Union soldiers attack the Confederates, they are carrying an American flag. In point of fact, the very first time an American flag was carried in battle was the Spanish-American War. It was never carried in battle during any previous war, including the Revolutionary War or Cival War.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: In the scene where Major Fambrough commits suicide, on the interior shots he is shown standing next to a window on one corner of the building, but on the exterior shots the gun smoke is coming from a window on a different corner of the building.
  
  

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