"THE WIZARD" MISTAKES By Tim Connolly "The Wizard" is probably regarded as the movie tribute to NES fans. Its poignant quotes like "Keep your Power Gloves off her" and "AAAAAHH! He touched my breast!" have gone down in history as some of the most notable quotes in a movie. However, there are some contradicitons in the movie regarding our hallowed NES and its games. Were you keen enough to spot them? I was. I counted 17 discrepancies in the movie, and here they are, in chronological order. - Things don't start going until Corey (Fred Savage) gives Jimmy (Luke Edwards) something to do by slipping a quarter into a PlayChoice 10 and handing him the reins to Double Dragon. Listen how he wiggles the joystick and presses the buttons (they're out of the shot, but you can hear them click) during the opening sequence (Where the Shadow Boss punches Marian and takes her off). The problem? The opening is uninteractive. Pressing buttons wouldn't do anything. - During the bet between Corey and Haley (Jenny Lewis), two problems arise. First of all, when Haley stops playing, Jimmy starts right where she died (Mission 3), despite the fact that the game was over. Not only that, if you keep an eye on the scores, you'll notice the hi score (which we assume is Haley's) is already beaten, yet it takes Corey another 15 seconds to figure out he's won the bet. - In the diner, Haley notes how good Jimmy is doing in Ninja Gaiden (question: why is there an NES in the table? You'd think it was made just for him). "He's making the jump... it's his second time through and he hasn't even taken a hit yet!" But if you saw the player's life gauge, you'd see 2 marks missing. The only way they could be missed is if he took a hit. - Things take a long breather until late in the movie, when Haley is talking with the game counselor. If you watch the monitors that all the counselors have, you'll notice that A) there isn't an NES anywhere to be seen around them and B) the games are playing themselves. I know these guys pride themselves on being good at these games, but they aren't THAT good to just have the game play by itself! - Metroid is a long, sprawling game. Why would Nintendo make a coin-op out of it? - Sam (Beau Bridges), although his record was so far spotless (he did fine with the Ninja Turtle scene), flubs up here when he mentions he's at Adventure of Link's sixth palace. The combination of music and sound (screen is out of shot), he's obviously at the North Temple, the very beginning of the game. - Sam then flails the controller around, presses a few buttons madly and excitedly declares he got past the River Devil in ZAL. The River Devil, though, takes place BEFORE the sixth palace, and getting through him requires the press of ONE button on the overworld map (Not a fight scene as the slashing sword sounds imply). - When Nick (Christian Slater) has had enough of Sam's inaccurate babbling, he proceeds to disconnect the Nintendo. The movie screws up by making the screen go out when the CONTROLLER is unplugged. Try the power switch, bub. - More ZAL follies occur when Corey makes the analogy between the game and Haley's life: "It's like the Adventures of Link. He has to find Zelda, you have to find a home." In ZAL, Link KNOWS where Zelda is. In fact, she's in the very start of the game. She's only under a sleeping spell, and THAT'S the conflict. - Video Armageddon. The competition itself has 8 errors. First, at the end of the prelims, Jimmy walks away from Ninja Gaiden. We again see a great example of the game playing itself. - In the countdown before the finals, a woman's voice announces the contest as being T-minus two minutes away, yet the clock on the lower right corner reads 1 minute. Not necessarily an NES mistake, but so glaring I had to mention it. - The competition begins, and so does the scoring - in fact, the scores immediately start climbing the moment the host says go. Even at full speed, it takes a good 2 seconds in SMB 3 to find anything to score on. Also, the score goes up in increments of 50 points, despite the fact that nothing in the game is only worth 50 points. (Coins are worth 10, everything else is in 100's) - It seems like everyone skips a level! Immediately after clearing World 1-1, they head right for 1-3! - When Jimmy loses a life, the "scoreboard" (which depicts each player as a knight, their score a lightning bolt pushing them on) sprouts a wall in front of Jimmy's knight as a sort of penatly. But if you looked at his score, it's more of a blessing - right after the wall pushes him back, his scores shoots up from around 30,000 to over 48,000! - Mora Grissom, one of the other finalists, supposedly finishes World 1-2 (the one they skipped, remember?), according to the host. Yet only 10 seconds ago she was playing on 1-1! - Jimmy loses a second life (again on 1-3) and AGAIN his score goes from 30K to 48K. Try hard not to yell "STOCK FOOTAGE! STOCK FOOTAGE!!!" - When Jimmy finds the Warp whistle and goes to World 4, he manages to find himself right in the middle of the level only seconds after warping! They must play a turbo version of this game. - And finally, one of the most common quotes in the final part of the movie is "Get the star, Jimmy! Get the star!" When he does get the Star card at the end of the level, his score amazingly shoots up about 10,000 points, edging out his competitors and winning the contest. However, "Getting the Star" doesn't influence the score any more than getting a Flower or Mushroom card would. Any other video-game related mistakes? Let me know. Questions? Comments? Email Tim Connolly (loogaroo@mail.geocities.com).