Full of twists and turns and misleading moments, Fight Club is the psychological thriller to end all psychological thrillers. It stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton who (if you haven’t seen the film, go away and watch it before reading the next sentence) are the same person in a strange, imaginary friend sort of way.
Despite the incredible cinematography, fantastic writing, and incomparable acting, the film still has its fair share of continuity errors, and we’ve listed ten of them. Having said that, Fight Club has the innate ability to play all of this off as the unreliable nature of The Narrator, so be careful…
No Names?
The rules of Fight Club are common knowledge to any film fan: “Don’t talk about Fight Club” etc, etc. One of the main rules explained is that there are no names in Fight Club. This helps the members of the strangely violent group able to anonymously continue their brutal endeavors. However, Bob is referred to as Bob multiple times, including the time when he is laying on the table dead. You’d think that the time when he is quite literally dead would be the very worst time to start revealing his real name…
Bob’s Inability To Stay Dead
Despite being dead on the table, Bob doesn’t do a good job of convincing the audience that he is actually dead. First of all, we see him get shot in the previous scene, and then it looks a little like he is still breathing in the shot after.
On top of that, when The Narrator takes Bob’s mask off, it is very clear that his eyes are open. As he’s dead, this makes sense. The next scene shows that his eyes are closed, suggesting that he cannot be dead after all. Or this is a continuity error.
And Bob’s Poor Script Reading
One final problem with Bob is his inability to remember names. He has heard/knows the names of both Dianabol and Winstrol steroids as he has been surrounded by them pretty frequently. The fact that he mispronounces both (‘Diabonol’ and ‘Wisterol’) suggests that the actor playing Bob is just reciting his misread script, taking you out of the moment and reducing the believability of the character.
Disappearing Bench
Towards the end of the film, everything starts to come together and all viewers are sitting on the edge of their seat waiting to see what is about to be revealed. During one of the film’s more dramatic action sequences, we see The Narrator attempting to ram a bench through a door in order to get it open. When it doesn’t work, he has to shoot and kick the door until the glass breaks and he can get through. When he does end up getting through, however, the bench he was using mere moments ago seems to have disappeared into thin air.
The Articles
Look closely when Tyler is making his collage of newspaper clippings. Each headline is very clearly about the actions of Fight Club, with his aim being to gather all of the various responses to Project Mayhem from across the media.
If you look at the text beneath each heading, it is clear that the articles don’t actually relate to it at all, and are merely copied and pasted from other, unrelated news stories. Obviously, the filmmakers didn’t think it necessary to create props that kept the continuity of the film strong, as they didn’t expect viewers to be pausing and reading the tiny text of the articles.
The Falling Buildings
One particular error in continuity shows how the falling buildings at the end don’t quite match up to the way they are blown up. Firstly, the buildings fall way too fast for it to make any sense and the force of their explosion doesn’t seem to make the windows of other buildings shake in the way that it should. However, the scene also fails to match up with dialogue from an earlier scene. Tyler explains that he put bombs in the basement (as such, the buildings should only explode at the bottom and fall downwards), but the explosion is obviously coming from a variety of different floors.
Thermostat Changes
On occasion, filmmakers notice their own errors in continuity and rectify them. There is one notable scene during which The Narrator leaves his job and a thermostat in the background keeps switching color.
It doesn’t really make sense why it is doing this anyway, because you’ expect them to simply use the same set to avoid such incidents taking place. Either way, for the Bly-Ray rerelease of the film, the switch between blue and white is fixed, keeping the thermostat at a consistent white.
Differing Amounts Of Blood
Fight Club is inherently violent. It is quite literally in the same, so if you go into this film not expecting to see a few fights, then you’re going to feel sorely mislead. One particular fight shows Lou punching Tyler, drawing blood from his wounds straight away. From one angle, this blood is there straight after the first punch and just after/before the second. There is a different angle used in the scene as well, and when the camera uses that particular angle, the blood is gone. This suggests that they forgot to apply the blood makeup when filming this alternate shot.
Stunt Double
The concept of having a stunt double in a film is always a risky one. In short, you’re using a different person to pretend to be someone the audience has already seen. If the audience gets a glimpse of someone else’s face, they’re going to be taken out of the moment by knowing the hero isn’t really the one being hurled down the stairs.
And that is exactly what happens inFight Club. As Tyler throws The Narrator down the stairs, it is pretty clear than the continuity of what The Narrator’s face looks like is being ruined by the presence of a stunt double.
Moving Sweat
Obviously, sweat moves around the face. However, it can’t just jump around randomly. That is exactly what it does during the police interrogation scene, with The Narrator having beads of sweat wander around his collar with every change of camera angle. Obviously they filmed each shot out of sequence, giving it time to move.
