A continuity error in the 2011 film 'We Bought a Zoo' has Twitter cracking up and it has everything to do with Chilean miners.
Films have continuity errors. Even the most celebrated and lauded of movies. And that's because they're created by human beings. Now unless you're a completely pedantic nerd who mainly derives pleasure from pointing out flaws in others and the work that they do, or the continuity error really itself really isn't that massive, you probably just go ahead and enjoy the movie.
Or you use it for a bit of Twitter comedy, like this one user did after watching the 2011 film We Bought a Zoo.
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What is the continuity error in 'We Bought a Zoo' that was broken down in a Twitter thread?
If you aren't familiar with the film, it stars Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Elle Fanning, and Colin Ford and is based on the 2008 memoir of Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken-Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives Forever.
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While there are some big differences between the film and memoir — namely that Benjamin's wife passed away after they bought the zoo (in the movie Damon's character decides to buy the property after his wife's death) and that the real-life zoo was in Devon, England, as opposed to the flick's California location — that's not what Twitter user Zach Silberberg is concerned with.
i'm going to talk about the continuity error that pisses me off in the 2011 film We Bought A Zoo 1/
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
while based on a 2008 memoir which details events that took place years prior, the events of the film are clearly set in 2010. we know this because the death of Spar the tiger is commemorated by a plaque which clearly states the year of his death. RIP to a legend. 2/ pic.twitter.com/yk6eXrHgzh
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022He carefully establishes the timeline that the movie is set in, and points out some other little errors along the way that (for him) pale in comparison to a single glaring reference that Matt Damon's character makes that is so out of place in the Cameron Crowe movie.
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First, he points out that the movie begins in February of 2010 as depicted by on-screen evidence showing a memorial plaque for a tiger that's passed away and a conversation over a meal between Damon's character and his brother (Haden Church) in the film.
we also know that the timeline of the film is condensed into a five-month period during which the zoo is bought and restored. we know this because Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) tells his brother that it is "currently February" and they will open the zoo by july. 3/ pic.twitter.com/NbQp4lADL1
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
we also know that the climactic zoo opening at the end of the film takes place, as mentioned, in july. 7/7, to be exact. they keep track on a cute little calendar. 4/ pic.twitter.com/xQXaGTxdQF
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Zach then goes on to further delineate the movie's five-month-period timeline, showing the zoo opening date on the "cute calendar" to be July 7, 2010. Here's where the first continuity error pops up: July 7, 2010 takes place on a Wednesday (not a Saturday that the movie indicates), but this isn't what upsets Zach the most.
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the thing that upsets me is not that, in reality, july 7th 2010 was a wednesday, not a saturday. i don't care about that. what pisses me off is a scene that takes place 45 minutes into the film. 5/
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Zach's ire has everything to do with the Chilean mining accident that occurred on Aug. 5, 2010, when 33 individuals were holed up underground for a whopping 69 days. Thankfully, every single one of the miners was rescued which is wonderful news, but there's still the business of a particular date peculiarity to be dealt with.
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beginning august 5th, 2010, 33 chilean miners were trapped underground in the San José copper–gold mine, and remained stuck for 69 days. they were all eventually rescued in october. this became known as the Chilean mining accident. 6/ pic.twitter.com/AsHNePkCSm
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
Namely the fact that Matt Damon's character calls his daughter a Chilean miner, a clear reference to the mining accident, some 45 minutes into the movie.
Seeing as the film ends with the July 7, 2010 opening of the zoo, nearly a month before the mining accident, this means that in the We Bought a Zoo universe, there is really no reason why Matt Damon's character should be making that allusion.
45 minutes into the film, Rosie Mee, Benjamin's daughter, is too warm in bed and insists on getting more fans, instead of getting rid of her pile of stuffed animals, blankets, and clothes. 8/ pic.twitter.com/tvNeORuPei
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
For Zach, this reference completely takes him out of the film and he wants to know: Was it a scripted line or an instance of Damon riffing? But he did do some digging to find out what could've influenced the reference: that particular scene was most likely filmed in September of 2010, and the Chilean miner story was the height of the global news cycle.
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as we know, the events of the film take place no later than july 2010. it would be impossible for benjamin to have advance knowledge of the Chilean mining accident, which does not happen until august. 10/
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022not only that, but at this point of the film, renovations have only barely begun, putting the events of this scene sometime around mid-spring. we aren't even in the same season as the accident. 11/
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
Zach's clearly perturbed by the incident and riffs on it throughout a series of tweets. He eventually discovers that the correct term he is looking for is an "anachronism" and not a continuity error, but the fact remains that Matt Damon's character referenced the Chilean mining accident well before it happened.
it is possible that Benjamin was referencing generic "chilean miners," but he is specifically cracking wise at how buried Rosie is, and how difficult it will be to remove her from her pile of toys. as far as i'm aware, that association didn't exist until after the accident. 12/ pic.twitter.com/63PHW3Pcut
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
so here is what i must ask: was this line scripted? did the screenwriters have this moment in global history fresh in their minds when writing and revising the scene, or was it merely an ad-lib by Damon, who similarly was thinking of a timely reference? 13/
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022You can check out more of Zach wrestling with this "anachronism," which even includes a call-out to director Cameron Crowe in a series of tweets below:
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according to an LA Times article, the scenes on the Rosemoor property were not filmed until after September 2010, when the set was being built. this would have been right in the middle of the mining crisis, which dominated the news at the time. 14/ pic.twitter.com/wVTrT8sllb
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022no matter how this line made it into the film, one thing is certain: it fully and completely breaks the reality of We Bought A Zoo, cementing it as a film which takes place in a world similar to, but not exactly, our own. 15/
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
if i have one remaining question, it is to director @CameronCrowe, who can perhaps answer some of my lingering questions. why bother answering, you may ask? well, as they say so often in the 2011 film We Bought A Zoo, "Why not?" /thread
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 29, 2022Article continues below advertisement
it has been brought to my attention that the word i was looking for was "anachronism," not continuity error. sorry to my fans. i've let you down. but i am not redoing the thread as this misused nomenclature does not take away from the larger point of the thread.
— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) March 30, 2022We Bought a Zoo is currently streaming on Disney Plus; if you wanted to see the continuity error for yourself, click here.
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