10 Disney Movie Mistakes You Can't Unsee

By James Egan / June 29, 2020

The main difference between an animated feature and live-action is the creators of an animation seem to have a lot more control. In live-action, mistakes can occur due to bad lightning, sound interference, visible crew members, poor editing, or inconsistent continuity.

But in animation, workers usually don't have to worry about problems like this. Artists render or handdraw every hair fibre, map out every object, and colour every scene. After creating an entire movie frame-by-frame and pixel-by-pixel, you'd assume the artists know their work inside-out.

But no matter how hard-working these cartoonists are or how much time and money the studio put into an animated feature, mistakes are unavoidable. Even though Disney is one of the world's most powerful companies, their animated films aren't devoid of blunders. We're not talking about blink-and-you'll-miss-it flubs. We are talking about mistakes so glaring, you'll can't understand how the animators didn't notice them.

What makes these errors so frustrating is some of them occur in the closing shot or during an emotional and tender scene. Instead of being invested in a powerful moment, the viewer may be distracted by a character's outfit changing or a person's eye colour switching from scene to scene. Here are ten Disney movie mistakes that you can never unsee, no matter how hard you try.

10. Captain Hook's Clothes Keep Teleporting - Peter Pan

Throughout Peter Pan, Captain Hook has a habit of losing an item of clothing only for it to reappear on his person without explanation. If this happened once, it would be an honest mistake. However, it happens in nearly every scene Hook appears in! When the crocodile bites off his left boot, Hook's right boot is missing in the next shot. Seconds later, the pirate captain's boots suddenly reappear on his legs.

While the dastardly villain fights Peter Pan in the scene with Tiger Lily, his sword falls off a ledge. In the following shot, Hook's sword has magically returned to his scabbard. When Peter Pan slices off the feather on his nemesis' hat, it appears undamaged a moment later.

However, there is one mistake that trumps all the ones aforementioned. Despite the fact the Pan's arch-enemy is best-known for his hook, the animators forget what arm his hook is on... TWICE! When he is in the cabin with Tinkerbell, Hook drags Smee by his hook on his right arm instead of his left. The hook switches to his right arm again in the shot when Hook tries to jump on Smee's boat to get away from the crocodile.