Goofs for
Australia (2008) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: At the end, when King George is waiting for Nullah to come on walkabout, the position of the spear he is holding changes angles several times - from straight up to 45 degrees from his body to straight up again.
  
  
• Continuity: When The Drover (Hugh Jackman) rescues the children, he is holding the youngest one as they enter the water. When the camera cuts back, he's holding a rifle. Then he is holding onto the raft with the others without a gun, and the action continues to switch between him holding and not holding the gun.
  
  
• Continuity: When it starts to rain and you see Hugh Jackman with his coat off and over his shoulder, there are brown mud spots all over his shirt sleeve and jacket. In the very next shot the spots are gone and he appears to be wearing a clean shirt.
  
  

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During the screening of _Wizard of Oz, The (1939)_, the first time it is seen in sepia. The two additional times they show the movie, it is in color. Famously however, the first 18 minutes of the film were shot in sepia (while Dorothy is in Kansas), with a transition to color once Dorothy arrives in Munchkinland.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Nullah "pulls up" at Faraway Downs and prepares to dismount from his horse, someone is holding the horse by a visible lead line (third rein).
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: As Nullah gallops back to Faraway Downs after mounting the horse in the waterhole, there is a dust trail visible in front of his horse. Evidently someone is galloping ahead of him to ensure that his mount will follow, since Nullah is obviously too small to control an animal safely at speed.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Right at the end of the movie, when Nullah is about to go walkabout, in one scene he commits the cardinal sin of looking directly into the camera. Although it could be argued he's looking at Drover, but Drover's too far away beside a tree, and the angle of view is wrong.
  
  
• Factual errors: Earlier reported that Drover sees the burnt shoes of the children on mission island and that all boys were accounted for. In fact, it is never mentioned that all the boys survived the initial attack and the burnt shoes may have been those of children killed in the attack.
  
  
• Continuity: Nullah's pinto pony, which has distinctive markings, changes to another pinto (possibly several) throughout scenes and from scene to scene, probably to accommodate a stunt rider.
  
  
• Plot holes: When the Japanese patrol arrives at the beach, they cannot see the 30 foot sailboat close enough to shore that little children could walk or easily swim out to it.
  
  
• Plot holes: The policeman, Callahan, and his men arrive at Faraway Downs looking to take Nullah and don't find him. However, while they are driving up to the ranch, Nullah and his mother can be clearly seen climbing the water tower ladder as the truck is facing in that direction. As they are leaving, two of the policemen are seen sitting in the bed of the truck as it pulls away. People on the station are running toward the water tower in obvious distress, Jackman climbing the ladder to retrieve Nullah and his mother, in full view of the policemen in the truck bed as it is no further than 50 yards away, yet, the truck makes no response to the obvious activity in full view of them.
  
  
• Continuity: Drover begins lassoing a horse in a circular corral holding the lasso in the rope with his right hand. In obvious continuous motion, we see it in his left hand after a cut, then back to his right hand after the next cut.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene in which Sarah first meets Nullah, she is speaking to him with her left hand near her chest. In obvious consecutive action, it suddenly appears at her side after a cut, then, after the next cut, suddenly back near her chest.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Lady Sarah Ashley's mount - the last before she leaves England - has what appears to be a freeze brand on his shoulder. Freeze branding was invented in the 1960s and used as ID for valuable horses in the 1980s.
  
  
• Continuity: During their trip to Darwin the group is resting at night, when suddenly Fletcher's guys pour out the gasoline and light it up. When the fire is lit it is pitch black and the stars can be seen. Then the stampede starts and suddenly it is in the middle of the day.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the film Lady Ashley and Nullah view a newspaper in Australia advertising the "The Wizard of Oz". Later in the film a sign in Darwin indicates that the year is 1939. It is highly unlikely that the newspaper or the showing of the "The Wizard of Oz" occurred in 1939 because the it was actually released in Australia during April 1940.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the Drover gets into the pickup truck to leave Faraway Downs, he gets into the left-hand seat and drives away with the steering wheel on the left-hand side. Australian vehicles are typically equipped with steering wheel and driving controls on the right-hand side because Australian traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road.
  
  
• Factual errors: Japanese bombing of Darwin includes a shot of a naval warship exploding. The ship exploding is an older US battleship with the distinctive tripod masts. The USS Peary which was destroyed during the first raid of the bombing of Darwin was a Clemson-class destroyer.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lady Ashley, Drover, and the children are reunited on the wharf, a military ambulance seen behind them is also shown in other battle scenes at different locations in the same time setting. The hood ID numbers are the same.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lady Ashley tells Drover to either stay at Faraway Downs or never return, Drover slams the white gate shut behind him as he storms out. In the next scene the gate is wide open again.
  
  
• Factual errors: Maitland is shown being murdered in the Faraway Downs "billabong". A billabong is a small lake of stagnant water when cutoff from the river. The scene and subsequent map show it just to be a pool attached to the river.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Late in the movie the barman can be seen with crates of Victoria Bitter. This beer or "VB" as it is known is the local beer in the southern state of Victoria was not available in other areas of Australia until the 1970s.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In an early scene, the Drover's truck is running beside some bounding kangaroos. The leg action of the kangaroos does not match the speed they are moving at - the swing backwards is stopping too soon.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Japanese planes are shown dropping torpedoes on land based targets. While maybe appropriate for the ships in the harbor, no pilot would use a torpedo for a land-based target.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the first "tent" scene between Grover, Sarah and the Aboriginal stockmen, Grover speaks to Sarah whilst cleaning his teeth. A close inspection of his toothbrush reveals that it is not 1939-vintage. It has dark bristles in the centre and white bristles around the outside. Also the toothbrush has an oral-dynamic shape, with a pointed end. In 1939 toothbrushes were not this sophisticated. They were rectangle-shaped with white bristles.
  
  
• Continuity: In the ball scene, Sarah suddenly appears in a close-up with her make-up redone. Her lipstick was the most obvious change.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Sometimes during the attack scenes, the aircraft wheels are retracted; other times the wheels are extended while dropping bombs or firing at ground targets. This is not a goof, since the planes with extended landing gears are expected to be Aichi D3A "Val" bombers. This kind of plane had fixed landing gears. Other Japanese planes were Mitsubishi "Zeke" (or "Zero") fighters. The "Zekes" were embarked aircraft with retractable landing gears.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the charity ball the song 'Aquarela do Brasil', composed by Ary Barroso in 1939, is heard. The song was first recorded later that year in Brasil by Aracy Cortes. It became an international hit after it was sung by Carmen Miranda in the movie "The Gang's all here" in 1943. It's most improbable the song could have been orchestrated, arranged and performed by a band the same year it was composed in a far away spot such as Australia.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Sarah and Nullah first meet in the house, Nullah's shell necklace disappears and reappears from shot to shot.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene when Sarah asks Flynn to tell her all about Faraway Downs and Fletcher, Flynn pulls out of his stock a full bottle of rum. In the close-up shot when he is opening it, it's another kind of bottle, not entirely filled with rum. In the next scene, he is again holding the (opened) former bottle.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the scene when Drover storms away from Faraway Downs after his argument with Sarah, the traces of the camera truck in front of his horse are clearly visible in the Sand.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): As the Japanese air-strike starts, a priest makes a transmission from Mission Island, and ends it with "over and out". The correct way to end it is saying "out", as "over" means you are giving the word to the person you are talking to.
  
  
• Factual errors: As the boat carrying the mission children enters the harbor after the attack, they pass the bombed and obviously destroyed remains of the ship Barossa lying on her side and burning. History however records that the Barossa, although heavily damaged was towed to safety and later salvaged.
  
  
• Continuity: When the cattle stampede wakes everyone up, the hat that Drover places on Lady Sarah's head is black. However, in a wide shot, it is a light beige.
  
  
• Continuity: On arriving at the mission ball, Drover is freshly shaved. However, when discussing the Wet with Lady Sarah, he has stubble.
  
  
• Continuity: When Drover shows up at the ball freshly shaved, there is no tan line from where his beard once was. Since he spends all his time out in the intense sun, the bottom half of his face would surely be paler.
  
  
• Continuity: After Sarah Ashley fired Neil Fletsher, she talks to Kipling Flynn. He takes a new bottle of rum, but when you see him opening it, it is empty. It is also a different kind of bottle, the empty one is more straight, while the full one is more round.
  
  
• Anachronisms: After the title, when the animated globe switches from Australia to Europe, Serbia and Montenegro are already shown as separate states.
  
  
• Continuity: Near the end of the film, when Sarah and Nullah are gathering wood, Nullah has wood in his arms. The next shot, meant to be an exact continuation of the previous shot, shows him about to turn around to Sarah - but the wood is gone.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At one point during the film, the Union Flag is being flown upside down.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The water tower housing Nullah in the beginning shows him looking numerous holes in the tank. However, later when they are hiding from the police, it clearly fills with water with no leaks, and no leaks were visible. The movie offers no suggestion or time frame this equipment was fixed. Also, Nullah's mother breaks the mechanism that monitors the water level in her struggle to survive. Again, the water doesn't stop and the water tower never over flows even though the water shut off valve is broken.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Lady Sarah Ashley is on the telephone switchboard in Darwin she is shown wearing a headset that was not invented until the 1960s. Prior to that the microphone was on a separate breastplate hung round the neck.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Nullah has just been taken away to Mission Island and Fletcher comes over to speak to Sarah, Sarah is holding her hat in one hand. She hastily switches it over to her other hand, but in the next cut, it is back in the hand it started in.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Sarah mentions "a wonderful School of the Air" when discussing Nullah's future. A School of the Air is a method of education in Australia - essentially, a correspondence course - using shortwave radio (and, now, the internet) to teach children in the outback. For instance, the Alice Springs School of the Air covers over a million square kilometers. However, Schools of the Air did not come into existence until 1951.
  
  
• Factual errors: There is character in the filmed named Administrator Allsop (played by Barry Otto), who is the Monarch's representative in the Northern Territory. However, at the time the actual Administrator was in fact named Aubrey Abbott, who served from 1937 to 1946.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Outback night sky shows incorrect Big Dipper constellation. This cannot be observed in southern hemisphere, especially from Australia. Southern Cross not the North Star should have been shown.
  
  
• Anachronisms: After the title, when the animated globe switches from Australia to Europe, Nazi flag is shown only over the nowadays German territory, but in 1939 the III Reich possessions included also west Poland and Oriental Prusia (between modern Poland and Lituania), Austria (1938) and Czech Republic (after march 1939).
  
  
• Continuity: When King Carney hands the pen to Captain Dutton to sign the sales contract its black cap is up, when the camera angle changes it's down in his hand.
  
  
• Continuity: After Drover cuts the rope to block Carney's people from loading their cattle, the door goes down right in front of a cattle. A moment later, shot from another angle, there is no cattle in the passage.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): After several references to the tradition that one can't say the name of the dead, Nullah says "Flynn" after Flynn's death.
  
  
• Factual errors: During the Charity Ball the bandleader calls for a foxtrot. The band plays "Begin the Beguine" which is not a foxtrot.
  
  
• Continuity: After the cattle stampede, the cattle are shown running backwards.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Japanese did not land troops on any island near Darwin.
  
  

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