“Upon its release back in 2010, the Steve Carell-led Despicable Me spawned a well-loved franchise thanks to its unique humor, bizarrely (yet loveable) characters, and heart-warming storyline.
That isn’t to say it’s the perfect franchise. Across the three main feature films and the Minions spin-off films, there are a number of errors in continuity between scenes and films. Here are ten!
Gru’s Runaway Safety Bar
One of the biggest delights about the first Despicable Me film is seeing Gru transform from a wannabe evil genius into a kind-hearted and committed father of three. One of the first tastes he gets of being a father comes when he ends up emotionlessly zooming around on a rollercoaster.
When he first gets on, there is a safety bar stopping him and the kids from…. y’know…. death. By the time Gru gets off, his cart no longer has its safety bar. Pretty impressive that he managed to stay in his seat.
Disappearing Freeze Ray
Gru loves his freeze ray. It’s pretty much his weapon of choice throughout the series, perhaps because it’s so dextrous. It doesn’t need to freeze and entire person every time; you can just freeze someone’s head if it takes your fancy. How modern.
At the start of the second film, however, Gru really lets his powerful weapon slip his mind. He drops the freeze ray while talking to Lucy, and when she picks him up, it seems to have disappeared entirely.
Back In Time?
This continuity error actually shows a nice bit of commitment to detail from the animation team. When Gru is first showing the girls the house and explaining his rules about living with him, the stove in the background moves from 12:10 to 12:11.
A nice detail that wasn’t exactly necessary, but added to the realism of the scene. Unfortunately, when the shot changed back, the time-reversed itself back to 12:10 again, suggesting their eye for detail lost its keenness at some point.
Teleporting Pastry
At first, Gru is loving his time as a criminal mastermind. It’s quite a low-level move in comparison to the more moon-based events later in the film, but we see him steal coffee and a pastry early on in the movie.
When he gets out of his car to talk to his neighbor, he isn’t holding either and then walks directly to the house without going to the car. Despite this, the coffee is right there on the table in his living room during the next scene.
Crushed Tourists?
The opening scene of Despicable Me shows the Egyptian Pyramid falling down. It’s a massive inflatable sheet, not a real pyramid, but still.
When we first see it in all of its upright glory, there are a few tourists standing in front of it, but when it begins to fall, these tourists are nowhere to be seen. Either they can run incredibly fast to avoid certain death, or the animators forgot to keep them in for the wide shot.
Lucy’s Cake Repellent
In the cake shop during Despicable Me 2, Lucy, for some strange reason, starks smashing up loads of cupcakes. It’s a weird thing to do, yes, but the much weirder part is her total repellence of cake residue.
You’d think that she’d be pretty much covered in bits of cake, but her hands remain as clean as a whistle. Even when she starts smearing cake all over Gru’s face, her hands are bone dry.
Broken Door?
In Despicable Me 2, an early scene shows the Minion opening the door to Gru’s house inwards. Later on, Agnes comes to put an umbrella over Gru’s head when he is sitting on the porch, and the door swings outwards.
Complaints like this (that really don’t make any difference to anything) are reminiscent of that brilliant Simpsons joke: “Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder”.
The Left-Handed Keytar
Bratt is right-handed, just like 90% of the population. His keytar (which is sort of like a guitar, but with keyboard keys instead of strings and frets) is right-handed. Gru is left-handed.
It’s quite impressive that the animation team manage to keep this left-handedness consistent throughout all three films, but in order to do so, they had to change the layout of this keytar. When Gru steals it at the end of the film, it has suddenly become a left-handed instrument, therefore allowing Gru to play it.
Creepy Eyes
The weird one-eyed bartender we’re introduced to when Agnes runs off to find a unicorn is a pretty creepy guy before you even mention the eye. This continuity error adds a whole new level to his unsettling aura. It’s his right eye, which is clearly missing, so you’d think that when he turns to the left, we wouldn’t see an eye there.
Well, you’d be wrong. For some reason, this missing eye mysteriously appears when he turns his head and disappears once more as soon as he faces forward again. No one reacts to this creepy moment, so we can only assume it was an error in animation.
Where Are The Lookalikes?
Minions might not have had the same charming humor and critical acclaim of the previous entries into the Despicable Me franchise, but it still had some great visual jokes and allowed these odd, pill-shaped yellow guys to get a backstory.
At the start of the film, we see three people sitting in the front row of the arena watching Scarlet Overkill, who are dressed to look just like her. Despite these three arguably being the centerpiece of the crowd, they seem to have disappeared when we move back to a wider shot.
