10 Movie Mistakes That Became Canon
1. HAL's "Incorrect" Chess Play - 2001: A Space Odyssey
We return again to the indefatigable Stanley Kubrick and his sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Throughout the years, chess fans have periodically pointed to an alleged mistake when Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) plays the Discovery One's sentient computer HAL 9000 (Douglas Rain) at chess.
HAL wins by persuading Poole to resign the game after pointing out his future moves, but if you're much of a chess player you might've noticed that HAL actually describes an incorrect set of moves.
HAL says "queen to bishop three" when he should've said "queen to bishop six," yet the latter move would've allowed Poole to stay in the game a little longer.
Is it easy to believe that Kubrick, an avid chess player, didn't think fellow chess lovers would notice, or more likely that he included HAL's "error" intentionally?
After all, it's easy to interpret HAL's mistake as both a sign of his impending malfunction and him testing his ability to deceive the astronauts, even at something as comparatively trivial as a chess game.
While the chess community might want to hold onto this one as a mistake, knowing Kubrick and his deliberate mindset as we do, it's basically accepted as canon today that HAL intentionally cheated.