Goofs for
Pitch Black (2000) More at IMDbPro »

• Crew or equipment visible: In the darkened hallway immediately after the eclipse, the shadow of a camera is visible (at least in the wide-screen version) on the left third of the screen.
  
  
• Continuity: Shazza rips up the same tarp that Zeke already ripped up.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Fry is climbing out of the cave, the "solid" walls shake.
  
  

• Factual errors: During the ground crash sequence, objects within the ship should be thrown forward due to decelerating inertia, not pulled backwards as though the ship was accelerating.
  
  
• Continuity: When Ali runs into the closet, he is surrounded by a flock of the raptors. In the reverse shot, from inside the closet, there are no raptors around him at all.
  
  
• Continuity: When they are all in the room, drinking water, discussing what happened to the previous miners, the bruise on Riddick's head disappears between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: After Johns is killed by the creatures, Carolyn and three others start running back. Riddick meets up with them. All of them besides Riddick are holding makeshift torches. When Riddick starts talking to them, the torches are lit, but in the next shot, they are unlit.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Although the planet's surface is supposed to be completely dark - "pitch black", as it were - the landscape is actually almost always fairly brightly lit, and the characters habitually have visible, very distinctive shadows that clearly betray the strong lights they used in the filming. The less light the characters themselves are carrying, the more obvious this becomes.
  
  
• Factual errors: The cutting torch Fry looks for is an oxygen-acetylene torch. However, when they have to cut their way into the next compartment, Riddick is using a plasma cutting torch. An oxy-acetylene cutting torch would leave the edges of whatever it cut glowing red. When Riddick comes through the hole he just made, the edges aren't glowing.
  
  
• Continuity: After Zeke shoots the wounded passenger who was mistaken for Riddick, the blood splatters all over Shazza's face and chest. In the next shot, the blood is gone, including whatever trace of it would have been on her clothing.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious doubles in the scene where the crew boards Shazza's ride to escape from the eclipse, just as they ride through the skeleton barrier.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During a solar eclipse it is impossible to see the full shape of the eclipsing object - you can only see the sun's disc being obstructed. This is due to the fact that the back side cannot be darker than the dark sky around - which is still true when there is an atmosphere which diffuses the sunlight at the location of observation. However, during the eclipse scene, the obstructing planet is clearly visible from its back side. This would be entirely possible in a three-star system.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Durging Riddick's monologue in the beginning of the movie, right after he says "Smelled a woman", Shazza opens her eyes for a second while she's supposed to be in her cryo sleep.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Paris says that spirits "over 45 proof burn quite well". Spirits over 90 proof (45% alcohol by volume) are highly flammable. Lower proof spirits need to be warmed before their vapor can be ignited.
  
  
• Plot holes: Watching the onset of the eclipse should give an indication as to its duration. The relative position and movement of the stars and planets as depicted would indeed result in an eclipse whose length were hours at most, as Johns claimed. This is in spite of the fact that the planets are orbiting in the same direction, as Imam mentions. If this were not the case, the onset of the eclipse from the time the ringed planet first became visible on the horizon would have taken significantly longer, giving sufficient time for a return to the skiff.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Carolyn first addresses Imam, she quite obviously pronounces his name "ell-mom," as though the capital I in his title were a lower-case L.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene just before Johns is killed he loads the shotgun and uses it as a prop to stand up. The barrel is plugged with dirt when he gets up, in the next scene it is not plugged and he shoots one of the monsters attacking him.
  
  
• Factual errors: The planet responsible for the eclipse can be seen to have two rings. The larger ring seems to orbit the equator of the planet - or, at least, a great circle. The other ring is not orbiting a great circle, which is mechanically impossible.
  
  

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