When Jackson Curtis' children call him to the tent, he places his laptop in the folding chair in front of him and moves to the tent. In the next shot, the laptop is on top of the ice chest. It moves back to the chair for the following shot.
When Curtis is driving back to the light aircraft in the RV as he puts his foot to the floor he is wearing Nike Shox trainers in black. However, when he gets out of the RV he is wearing other black shoes.
The Antonov that takes off at the Las Vegas airport is clearly a 124 model, with its two engines on either side and its normal tail. When they are in the air it is an Antonov 225, which has three engines on either side, and a double tail made to carry the Russian Buran space shuttle.
When Laura Wilson is sitting in her cabin in Air Force One talking to Adrian Helmsley, she is clutching a blanket. In the next shot, the blanket is also covering her leg.
On a virtual map of the world (shown on Air Force One) it shows a megatsunami striking the whole U.S. east coast, before it's actually seen striking Washington D.C.
A background character can be heard warning that the ship's compartments are flooding progressively. But all ships have been built with truly watertight compartments for nearly a century. Certainly a futuristic ship of this size couldn't sink due to 1 door being open.
The fact that the watertight compartments had metal grates above leading to the zoo area negates any watertight design (and sense)
The twin-engine plane is shown to be engulfed by the pyroclastic cloud, before flying out and continuing to fly for several hours. Even if the super-hot low-Oxygen air in the cloud didn't stall the engines, the abrasive ash dust would severely damage them.
The film is about the apocalypse predicted on the Mayan calendar. In one of the first trailers/previews, the calendar moving and forming into position at the beginning is Aztec, not Mayan.
Caldera eruptions do not occur as a single, massive explosion as depicted; they occur as a series of eruptions along a circular series of fissures.
Several large waves are shown in the deep ocean, resulting from earthquakes. Tsunami means "harbor wave" because it only rises as it makes landfall. In the deep ocean, these waves are measured in millimeters.
The Antonov AN-225's flight range is 15,400 kilometers, more than enough to reach China from Las Vegas. Considering the panic on the ground, the plane may not have been fully fueled when it left.
The time lines in the movie imply that Yellowstone and Los Angeles are a few hours from each other. Yellowstone is 1,000 miles from Los Angeles. (Correction) Yellowstone is only some 800 miles from Los Angeles. Although perhaps still far enough that it's more than a few hours.
Yellowstone is 1,100 miles from the Los Angeles area where Jackson & the kids live. Yet when they drive there & back it seems to take a few hours. This drive would take at least 18 hours and would have arrived late at night at Yellowstone even if they left at sunrise from L.A.. (Correction) Yellowstone is not 1,100 miles from the Los Angeles metro area. It's only some 770 miles from it.
On TV, the Governor's press conference appears to violently shake from an earthquake at the same time a massive earthquake hits Los Angeles, even though the Governor's office is in Sacramento. It's likely there were several earthquakes happening around California state, at the same time the massive one hit Los Angeles. (It could also be assumed that the Governor just happened to be in LA, giving a press conference).
Yuri says the Antonov "An-500" aircraft is Russian. The Antonov is actually a Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer. Many Russians who were adults before the fall of the Soviet Union refer to the entire former Soviet Union as Russia.
When Curtis is racing to get his family out of their neighborhood and the limo flies into the air, the wheels aren't moving.
In at least one of the flooded compartments at the end there are stairs in the background leading to a small balcony above the water line. Yet the various characters insist on standing in the cold water.
When the Cessna leaves the cloud, a moment later, it should be pushing air downward in order to achieve lift. However, it leaves the dust cloud completely undisturbed behind it.
While flying in the twin engine plane (A Cessna 340) taken from Los Angeles, characters are shown conversing normally inside the quiet aircraft. In reality, the noise from the engines would make it impossible to carry on a normal conversation in the cabin without headphones.
When Curtis drives the Bentley out of the Antonov's cargo hold, he fights to retain control of the vehicle and bring it to a stop. He should be able to see the Antonov and the other driverless cars move away from him in the same direction. Instead, they move away from the plane toward him.
A British news reporter mentions the tunnel in Paris which Lady Diana 'died' in. Technically, she didn't die in the tunnel, she sustained life-threatening injuries and died in the hospital. However, "die in" of a location, sometimes refers to the area where someone sustained their fatal injuries.
Just before the Anatov crashes, the Russian pilot yells at Gordon to leave twice. He's wearing glasses. When he turns to face forward, the glasses are gone.
The scientific paper on crustal shifting is said to have been published in 1958, and Albert Einstein supported it. Einstein died in 1955.
When already in 2012, we see almost exclusively old analog television sets everywhere: on board Genesis cruise ship, in a Yellowstone convenience store, etc. As we know now, after the 2009 digital transition, old analog sets were very quickly phased out because prices for LCD and LED sets dropped almost 100% within less than 2 years, so by 2012 it is highly unlikely than a state of the art cruise ship had an analog set even in the kitchen. All hotels, ships, restaurants, were retrofitted with flat panels in 2012. During the making of the film, even in 2008-2009, they should have easily predicted that by 2012 all sets would have LCD panels.
When the Tibetan village is evacuated in the beginning of the movie, the ridge for the arks is shown. A massive explosion from the ridge is simultaneously seen and heard in the village. Because of the distance, the explosion should be seen first, then heard a few seconds later; light travels faster than sound.
Phones go dead a few times due to the communications network being destroyed. When the line cuts, the phone makes a rapid high pitched beep, typical of a land-line phone left off the hook for a while. Cell phones don't make that sound, they just go silent.
The light twin plane's engine sounds like a piston engine, but when shut down, it spins slowly to a stop. A piston engine would stop quickly, much like a car engine.
The Antonov could fly from Las Vegas to Shanghai (for example) without refueling if it departed Las Vegas fully fueled. If it had to stop at some intermediate point, it would go to Alaska or the eastern tip of Siberia, not Hawaii. Using either Anchorage or Honolulu as intermediate destinations, it would add about 1,100 miles to the trip to head for Hawaii instead of Alaska. The movie makers should have glanced at a globe instead of a Mercator map. It would be about 7,716 miles via Honolulu, but only about 6,629 miles via Anchorage.
When the cruise ship Genesis surges against the pier, the Golden Gate bridge is shown where the San Francisco Bay Bridge should be.
When Curtis looks at the map of Yellowstone on his laptop, Yellowstone Lake takes up about half the park. In real life, it's a small feature in the park's southeastern quadrant.
After the Tibetan family rescues the other family, all of the signs are in Traditional Chinese characters. Tibet is part of the PRC, and Mandarin is not a native language in Tibet, so all signs would be written with Simplified Characters.
When Charlie is broadcasting in Yellowstone, he says he is at the top of Mount Bighorn. He also passes the wooden sign that says "Mount Bighorn - Elevation 2500 feet". Not only is Mount Bighorn completely fictitious, the lowest elevation in Yellowstone is 5,314 feet.
When the Ark 4 engines are started, clouds of soot emit from the exhaust stacks, indicating the engines are diesel powered.
Requiring a ship designed to survive an apocalyptic flood, with no set duration to how long it may be at sea, to rely on such a limited consumable as diesel fuel would be an incredibly poor design choice.
An officer says that all communications from Earth have stopped. Later, Dr. Satnam Tsurutani is able to call Dr. Helmsley to tell him about the tsunami.
Jackson removes the strap holding the Bentley's front tire in place, but he never removes the chains from the back tire. It's still in place when Gordon gets in the car. How were they able to leave?
Much is made of the engines being non-functional while a door is open, with no explanation even suggested why the vessel would have been designed or built that way. In fact, it would require engine power to repeatedly close & open the doors, as well as powering all the electronic & hydraulic systems shown. It is eventually shown to be underway with EVERY door open.
When the film first shows Yuri, Tamara, Sasha and the boys in Vegas, their plane is on a hoist and Sasha shakes his head at Yuri, indicating his private plane isn't going to be able to fly (it's never revealed what happened to it, presumably a bumpy landing screwed up the landing gear). Then, while they're in the terminal, Sasha hurries in and says he's found an Antonov that was just about to take off but the tower wouldn't let them.
So the Antonov isn't Yuri's plane, but the cars in the hold apparently are -- the Bentley's programmed to start at his voice command.
With the watertight bulkheads closed in front of her and behind her Tamara would be in the few safe places in the Arch. Yet the water still comes in after the closure of both doors rendering them useless.
In the Antonov plane, Jackson scans FM frequencies on the Bentley's radio. FM frequencies are relatively short-range, and can't be heard at all when flying over open ocean. Jackson may not realize that.
At the G8 summit, the U.S. President enters the conference room and asks to be left alone with the other heads of state. The Russian President whispers to his interpreter to stay put ("Ti ostajes") in Serbo-Croatian, not Russian. When the U.S. President asks again, the Russian interpreter can be heard in the background, translating in Russian. The Russian President tells his interpreter he is free to go ("Mozes ici") in Serbo-Croatian, not Russian.
Satnam calls Helmsley and says he sees a tidal wave approaching. A geophysicist would know the difference between a tidal wave, and a tsunami.
When Jackson shows his driver's license in Yellowstone Park, his name appears on the card as "Jackson, Curtis." It should be either "Curtis, Jackson" (Last name, First name) or be written without the comma.