Goofs for
The Legend of Zorro (2005) More at IMDbPro »

• Anachronisms: The setting no later than the US Civil War but the train use modern couplers which were invented in 1873 and not in widespread use until 1900.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Armand's map of the 1850 United States shows all of the continental 48 states.
  
  
• Factual errors: The film is set in the three months prior to California statehood (September 9,1850); however Armand says the shipment of nitroglycerin is bound for the Confederate States of America which did not exist until February 1861.
  
  

• Continuity: Towards the end, during the marriage scene, Joaquin's hair style changes erratically.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the fight scene on the train near the end of the movie, the engineer is thrown forward, pushing the throttle in the cab of the locomotive forward. This has the effect of making the locomotive go faster, when in fact, the train should have stopped. Pulling the throttle back would have made the train go faster. Also, opening the throttle, as was the intent, will lower steam pressure - not rapidly raise it as shown. The only way to raise steam pressure is to add fuel to the fire. Using steam (as in going faster) lowers steam pressure.
  
  
• Continuity: Joaquin hides under the horse carriage to follow McGivens to where his men are unloading the explosives. In the next shot, Joaquin is not there, and when the carriage stops, he is there again.
  
  
• Continuity: In the end of the movie, when Zorro, Elena and Armand are fighting on the front part of the train, they have a structure ahead of them (the one they will grab to get off the train). However, when camera shows us the view straight forward of the train, the structure is not there. In the following angles it appears to be there again.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Voting was done in the open. Privacy booths in America weren't developed until the 1900s.
  
  
• Continuity: Zorro squeezes the priest's cross with his right hand; when the camera angle changes he holds it with his left hand.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Joquin is engaging in a fight with the priest in school, the book on the desk disappears even though no movement was made to knock it off the desk.
  
  
• Factual errors: Telegraph wires connected the east and west coasts in 1861. Even if a telegraph message were relayed to the hidden receiver, it would have only been able to print a coded message, similar to Morse code, onto the ticker tape.
  
  
• Factual errors: Homing pigeons return to the roost where they were born and raised. The birds Elena was using would have flown to their birth place, not the room in San Mateo.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Elena is looking at clothes in the market, they are on wire clothes hangers which weren't invented until 1903.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Zorro and McGivens are fighting on the bridge, McGivens punches Zorro and he drops the ballot box. It doesn't make a sound.
  
  
• Factual errors: On the train engine, as Zorro and Armand are fighting, Elena is holding on to the boiler with her bare hands. Her hands would have been burnt to a crisp!
  
  
• Factual errors: Lincoln is shown welcoming the California governor to the Union near the end of the movie. But in 1850, Lincoln was really traveling the 8th Judicial Circuit (covering over 400 miles in 14 counties in Illinois). 'Honest Abe' gained a reputation as an outstanding lawyer. December 21, his third son, William Wallace Lincoln (Willie) was born. But he certainly wasn't in California.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The "R" sound in the word "Zorro" is pronounced as a hard, rolled "R". When Elena pronounces it, she pronounces it with a soft "R". A woman raised in Spain, as her character is, would definitely not pronounce it this way.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Armand challenges Alejandro to play polo "as they do in Slovenia," which he calls "a country." There was no Slovenia before 1918. It did not become a country until 1991.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: The Pinkerton agents claim that since California has not obtained statehood, U.S. authorities don't have jurisdiction to get a search warrant. But California in early 1850 is a USA territory where federal agents have just as much jurisdiction as in states. Furthermore, "Pinkertons" were not employed by the federal government until 1861.
  
  
• Anachronisms: California's first railroad, the Sacramento Valley Railroad, didn't open until 1856, six years after the movie's setting.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In 1850, the desperado rides in shooting at voters with a "Henry" rifle, which hadn't been invented yet.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Elena reads the ticker-tape telegram, use is made of punctuation as well as the word "STOP". "STOP" was only used in place of punctuation as four-letter words were free; punctuation cost extra.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the end of the movie Frey Felipe performs the wedding in English. He should have said it in Latin.
  
  

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