(no subject)
I was looking around on IMDB and since I've been reading every entry of this community since early January (and even going back) and not seen this posted, I think it is safe to say that it hasn't been :D So! I'm going to post this here :D
Here you have spoofs, goofs, continuity errors and so on from Sherlock Holmes... Some I actually saw myself, but others I'm a bit wtf over, like, do Americans hold the fork and knife different to Europeans when eating?!
Anyways, here you go:
* Continuity: A scratch appears on Sherlock's right cheek, then disappears by the next scene.
* Anachronisms: When the camera flips over during the chase of the big man, the modern symbol for 'this way up' appears on a packing crate.
* Continuity: During the bare-knuckle fight scene, Holmes is clearly tanned. When he is shackled to Adler's bedposts, his body is not tanned.
* Revealing mistakes: When fighting the large man with the hammer at the boat dock, Holmes stumbles over one of the very large dock chains and moves it several inches, revealing it to be made of a lightweight material instead of iron.
* Revealing mistakes: After the opening scene in the crypt, a newspaper front page is shown, with the headline "Sherlock Holmes Aides Police". ("Aids" is mis-spelled.) - They must have corrected this, that is if it supposed to have been "aids" instead of "aides" 'cause I'm looking at it right now and it says "Sherlock Holmes Aides Police" and in my book that is correct
* Crew or equipment visible: When Holmes and Watson are in jail, close-ups of Jude Law reveal a hearing aid in his left ear.
* Anachronisms: Irene refers to Jordan, either as a province or state. At the time, the modern region of Jordan was part of the Ottoman empire. Historically, it was called the Transjordan when ruled by the Israelites, Quod when part of the province of Quod (Jordan and Israel), the Emirate of Transjordan when ruled by the Ottomans, and Transjordan after the Ottoman empire broke up. It became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1949.
* Anachronisms: In the scene following Holmes' leap from the House of Parliament, a statue of Boadicea can be seen at the end of Westminster Bridge. The statue was erected in 1902, 8 years after the opening of Tower Bridge, which is partially built in the film.
* Errors in geography: When Irene escapes from the sewers beneath Parliament with the poison, she emerges at Tower Bridge, about two and a half miles away, within 30 seconds.
* Anachronisms: Characters refer to radio waves. The term "radio" was first used as a noun in 1907.
* Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Ambassador Standish is referred to as the American ambassador to the United Kingdom and the English Ambassador to America. Based on his accent, he is clearly the former.
* Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Mary Morstan (Watson's fiancée) says she is a fan of detective novels, including those by Poe. Edgar Allan Poe wrote short detective stories, not novels.
* Anachronisms: The tables in the restaurant have electric lights, not the candles or oil lamps that would have existed then.
* Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the end of the restaurant scene, in which Holmes analyzes Mary, who leaves in disgust, Holmes uses a knife and fork to cut up and eat his meal. He holds the fork vertically between thumb and index finger, American-style.
* Continuity: When Holmes, Watson, and Irene are in the shack and Holmes is explaining the crime, Irene kneels to the ground to put a candle down to flatten out the map. In the next shot, she puts the candle on the map again.
* Continuity: When Irene is running across the rooftops with the gas tanks, she holds each chamber in different hands. When Lord Blackwood takes the device, both pieces are together, obviously welded.
* Continuity: Holmes leaves the house after examining a body in Watson's office, leaving his pistol behind. Watson sees the gun and says "He's left it behind on purpose." We then see a reaction shot of Holmes's bulldog, Gladstone, who is clearly in Holmes's library/laboratory room.
* Crew or equipment visible: Studio lights reflected in some of the cutlery during the restaurant scene.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The filmmakers chose to show 221b Baker Street with 3 steps to the front door. Although there is at the present time an actual 221b Baker Street in London, with a street-level entrance, the address was wholly fictional in Doyle's day and thus has no "real" representation.
* Continuity: When Holmes and Watson are taken to the pig slaughter house run by Lord Blackwood, they both jump from the Lucy into the shallow water near shore and make their way to the building. In the very next scene there is no sign of wet clothes.
* Anachronisms: There is shot of St Stephen's Tower (Big Ben) and the building to the right is Portcullis House, the UK MP's offices, with its distinctive chimney stacks. Portcullis house was built around 1992 / 1993.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Although Sherlock Holmes refers to the book of Revelation as "Revelations", it is noted by Watson in the Doyle novel "A Study in Scarlet" that Holmes' knowledge was limited to what he found relevant to his detective work, and in fact that he had very little knowledge of literature or philosophy.
* Anachronisms: In Reordan's laboratory Holmes says he smells candy floss and molasses. Candy floss (or cotton candy) wasn't invented until 1897 and it was first introduced to a wide audience at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.
* Plot holes: In a community of Witchcraft and Alchemy, the members of the Order of the Ox simply assume that Lord Blackwood has "real" magical powers and never apparently stop to question that he might be using the same methods they'd been using for centuries.
* Continuity: In the fight scene when we first meet Adler. We see her handkerchief on the ledge which distracts Holmes when he goes to look for her. He's punched and spins around where he falls to the ground. The handkerchief is missing. When he stands back up it has returned.
* Continuity: After Irene visits Holmes, we follow her back to the carriage. In the next sequence, we see what Holmes has been doing during the time Irene was walking to her carriage and getting in. Thus both sequences occupy the same time and begin with the same scene. In the first sequence (Irene leaves Baker street) Holmes plays one set of random notes on his violin; in the second, he plays a slightly different set of notes (higher pitched) even though these are supposed to be two representations of the same scene.
* Continuity: In the fight scene on top of the half-built bridge Homes swings around on a bit of netting which subsequently disappears once he dismounts.
* Continuity: In the fight on top of the bridge, Holmes uses a net to hurl away from Lord Blackwood. After a change of camera-angle the net is gone and keeps so for the remainder of the scene.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Holmes and Watson cross the Thames to go from Baker Street to Parliament. However, Holmes and Watson may have taken the boat to access the sewer stealthily.
* Errors in geography: En route on the river towards Queenhithe slaughterhouse, they approach from the west, the direction of Westminster. Tower Bridge is in the distance (i.e. downriver). The slaughterhouse - located in the medieval ward of Queenhithe - should be on the left-hand riverbank (i.e. north), but the boat moors on the right-hand riverbank (i.e. south).
* Errors in geography: In the scene where the boat slips into the Thames and sinks, it sinks like the Titanic, bow down, stern in the air. The Thames isn't anything like deep enough at this point for this to happen.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Dredger meets Holmes for the second time under the House of Parliament, he quips "Tu m'as manqué?", which can mean two things: one is "I felt your absence", the other is "you didn't hit me". That's because "manquer" is phrased inversed to English only in one of the two meanings, while in the other it is just the same. Hence, given the situation, "Tu m'as manqué" is a perfect translation for "you missed me".
* Continuity: In the first scene we see Sherlock Holmes meeting Watson he says "It is ten o'clock...". However, the clock on the wall clearly indicates that it is eight o'clock.
* Factual errors: The large shot showing the streets of London just before being introduced to Holmes' house shows two barouches driving in both sides on right-hand traffic, while in the UK, it should be left-hand traffic.
* Errors in geography: Irene Adler is staying at the Grand Hotel which is showing as being in Piccadilly Circus. It was located at Trafalgar Square.
* Errors in geography: The statue of Eros (or Anderos) at Piccadilly Circus points toward Shaftesbury Avenue. In the establishing shot in the movie, it is pointing in the opposite direction.
* Anachronisms: When Holmes is explaining how Blackwood faked his death, he says he used an extraction from a flower which is "quite infamous in the region of Turkey bordering the Black Sea for its ability to induce an apparently mortal paralysis". Turkey was not founded until 1923 whereas the movie takes place in 1891 when Ataturk, the founder of Turkey was only 10 years old at the time. The correct statement would have been "in the region of the Ottoman Empire bordering the Black Sea".
* Continuity: Near the beginning of the film there were lots of establishing shots of London that included the Tower Bridge fully built and in use. Later in the film, it is only half built, and there is a big fight on it.
* Anachronisms: There are several background shots where you can see that they have gone to the effort of adding smoking chimneys by CGI but forgotten to remove the modern bright red cranes
* Revealing mistakes: In the slaughterhouse the pig bodies get transported straight from the flaming to the band saw, at which point the body is still not opened. But yet when the band saw cuts them apart there are no internal organs and the bodies are hollow.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Goofs below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
* Factual errors: SPOILER: Lord Blackwood was executed by hanging, yet when Dr. Watson declared Blackwood dead, there were no bruises, ligature marks on the neck, or dislocation of the cervical vertebrae. Absence of these traumas from hanging should have aroused Watson's suspicion.
* Factual errors: SPOILER: Lord Blackwood would have been offered a silk halter for his execution, so the hemp rope didn't irritate his throat.
* Factual errors: SPOILER: Lord Blackwood's execution is done American-style. In Britain, the hood placed over the condemned's head was white, not black. The rope was not the coiled noose of western movies; it passed through a simple eyelet.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: Even though Sherlock Holmes did not witness Standish's murder, he was still able to describe it presumably because Inspector Lestrade, who was both a member of the secret society and also held Holmes in his confidence, related what he had heard of the event through his secret channels.
* Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: The dead body of Blackwood's father in the bathtub blinks his eyes.
I also have for you trivia:
* Colin Farrell was in talks to play Watson before Jude Law was cast.
* The first Sherlock Holmes film to reach U.S. movie theaters in over twenty years, since the 1988 comedy Without a Clue (1988) with Michael Caine as Reginald Kincaid/"Sherlock Holmes".
* Robert Maillet accidentally knocked out Robert Downey Jr. while filming a fight scene.
* Robert Downey Jr. read many Sherlock Holmes stories and watched "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1984) by Granada Television (starring Jeremy Brett) in order to learn more about the character.
* Sienna Miller was in talks for a role before her ex-fiancé Jude Law was cast as Watson.
* The song that plays from 1:03 to the end on the second trailer is a piece called "Unstoppable" by the group E.S. Posthumus (specifically 1:47 to the end on the track).
* The set for Sherlock Holmes's home in this film was previously used as Sirius Black's home in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007).
* The part of Sherlock Holmes has been previously played by Michael Caine, while Watson is played in this film by Jude Law. Law took over Caine's role in Alfie (2004) and Sleuth (2007), appearing together with him in the latter film.
* There were rumors that Brad Pitt has been cast as Moriarty and re shoots have taken place, but the rumors were quickly denied.
* Guy Ritchie's first film not to be Rated R in the US.
* Guy Ritchie's first film to be rated 12 in his native country U.K.
* The outfits worn by the navvies are the same ones worn by the railway workers in "Cranford: Part One: August 1844 (#2.1)" (2009).
* Delivered to some theaters under the fake title "Elementary Education".
* Watson's line to Holmes, "You know that what you're drinking is for eye surgery," is an obscure reference to Holmes's cocaine usage. At the time, cocaine was used as a topical anesthetic for eye surgery. In the stories, Holmes injects cocaine.
* The first scene in Baker Street is a nod to Granada Television's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1984) series, starring Jeremy Brett. In the scene, the camera focuses on a "Baker Street" street sign, then tracks backward down the street and over a clopping horse pulling a carriage. This same camera shot and angle - with the overhead tracking shot over a horse and carriage - was used to reveal Baker Street in the opening credits sequence of the Granada TV series.
* At the end of the film, Mary asks Watson if she could read his journals of his adventures with Sherlock Holmes. Of the 60 Doyle penned stories of Sherlock Holmes, all but four have Watson serving as the narrator.
* Although Irene Adler plays a large role in the movie, she only appears in one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, "A Scandal in Bohemia", briefly referenced in the movie.
* The story "His Last Bow" mentions that Holmes practiced shooting his pistol by putting VR (Victoria Regina) on his wall with bullet holes. In the movie, Holmes shoots VR in the wall in his room with a gun.
* The four symbols referred to in the movie, the Man, the Lion, the Ox and the Eagle, are also attributed to the four Gospels of the Christian Bible: Matthew (the Lion, kingship), Mark (the Ox, servitude), Luke (Man, the humanity of Christ), and John ( Eagle, the divinity of Christ).
* Rachel McAdams, Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. reportedly did most of their own stunts.
* Attempting to escape the clutches of wearing a tight corset every morning, Rachel McAdams would trick the costumers by pushing her stomach out or eating a big breakfast of oatmeal before being laced up. However, they eventually caught on to her ruse.
* Before the scene where Sherlock Holmes reenacts the black magic ceremony, we see a brief shot of an Inn called The Punch Bowl. The Punch Bowl is the name of Guy Ritchie's pub in Mayfair, London.
* The letters "VR", visible throughout the film, stand for "Victoria Regina," the Royal Cypher (monogram) of Queen Victoria, who ruled England at the time.
* The name of Holmes and Watson's English bulldog is Gladstone. He seems to be named after William E. Gladstone, four times Prime Minister under Queen Victoria. A Gladstone is also a type of bag, named after the man, which was sometimes used by doctors in this period to carry their medical equipment.
* Guy Ritchie has stated in interviews that he is a fan of (and a practitioner) Brazilian Jujitsu, made popular in mixed martial arts. Towards the end of the movie Holmes and Watson fight Dredger and finally manage to subdue him with an arm-bar and a modified rear naked choke, both popular Brazilian Jujitsu submissions.
* At one point, Holmes drinks something that Watson notes is meant "for eye surgery." In the Sherlock Holmes novel "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution," Watson laments that the cocaine mixture that Holmes was addicted to was originally meant for eye surgery.
* It's the second movie that Geraldine James (who plays Mrs. Hudson) makes about Sherlock Holmes. She was previously in The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) (TV).
* Jude Law previously appeared in the Granada TV series "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes" (1991) with Jeremy Brett.
* The fight at the shipyard is inspired by the first steel-hulled, steam-powered ocean liner built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel a few years prior to the setting of the film. The actual ship was launched badly and sank after an explosion on its maiden voyage.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
* SPOILER: The three murders of the men and the attempted murder of Parliament coincide with the four Greek elements. The first was a burial crime scene (Earth), second was drowning (water), third was immolation (fire), and fourth was poison gas (air).
* SPOILER: Before the Parliament meeting toward the end of the movie, a clock tower is shown with ten minutes until the hour the meeting is due to begin. From this point, there are ten minutes until the end of the film.
* SPOILER: All events take place in the year 1891. After Holmes and Watson are released from custody following the events in the shipyard, Inspector Lestrade hands a newspaper ("The National Police Gazette") over to Holmes. The title on the newspaper is "LONDON IN TERROR", and the date is Friday, November 19, 1891.
Here you have spoofs, goofs, continuity errors and so on from Sherlock Holmes... Some I actually saw myself, but others I'm a bit wtf over, like, do Americans hold the fork and knife different to Europeans when eating?!
Anyways, here you go:
* Continuity: A scratch appears on Sherlock's right cheek, then disappears by the next scene.
* Anachronisms: When the camera flips over during the chase of the big man, the modern symbol for 'this way up' appears on a packing crate.
* Continuity: During the bare-knuckle fight scene, Holmes is clearly tanned. When he is shackled to Adler's bedposts, his body is not tanned.
* Revealing mistakes: When fighting the large man with the hammer at the boat dock, Holmes stumbles over one of the very large dock chains and moves it several inches, revealing it to be made of a lightweight material instead of iron.
* Revealing mistakes: After the opening scene in the crypt, a newspaper front page is shown, with the headline "Sherlock Holmes Aides Police". ("Aids" is mis-spelled.) - They must have corrected this, that is if it supposed to have been "aids" instead of "aides" 'cause I'm looking at it right now and it says "Sherlock Holmes Aides Police" and in my book that is correct
* Crew or equipment visible: When Holmes and Watson are in jail, close-ups of Jude Law reveal a hearing aid in his left ear.
* Anachronisms: Irene refers to Jordan, either as a province or state. At the time, the modern region of Jordan was part of the Ottoman empire. Historically, it was called the Transjordan when ruled by the Israelites, Quod when part of the province of Quod (Jordan and Israel), the Emirate of Transjordan when ruled by the Ottomans, and Transjordan after the Ottoman empire broke up. It became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1949.
* Anachronisms: In the scene following Holmes' leap from the House of Parliament, a statue of Boadicea can be seen at the end of Westminster Bridge. The statue was erected in 1902, 8 years after the opening of Tower Bridge, which is partially built in the film.
* Errors in geography: When Irene escapes from the sewers beneath Parliament with the poison, she emerges at Tower Bridge, about two and a half miles away, within 30 seconds.
* Anachronisms: Characters refer to radio waves. The term "radio" was first used as a noun in 1907.
* Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Ambassador Standish is referred to as the American ambassador to the United Kingdom and the English Ambassador to America. Based on his accent, he is clearly the former.
* Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Mary Morstan (Watson's fiancée) says she is a fan of detective novels, including those by Poe. Edgar Allan Poe wrote short detective stories, not novels.
* Anachronisms: The tables in the restaurant have electric lights, not the candles or oil lamps that would have existed then.
* Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the end of the restaurant scene, in which Holmes analyzes Mary, who leaves in disgust, Holmes uses a knife and fork to cut up and eat his meal. He holds the fork vertically between thumb and index finger, American-style.
* Continuity: When Holmes, Watson, and Irene are in the shack and Holmes is explaining the crime, Irene kneels to the ground to put a candle down to flatten out the map. In the next shot, she puts the candle on the map again.
* Continuity: When Irene is running across the rooftops with the gas tanks, she holds each chamber in different hands. When Lord Blackwood takes the device, both pieces are together, obviously welded.
* Continuity: Holmes leaves the house after examining a body in Watson's office, leaving his pistol behind. Watson sees the gun and says "He's left it behind on purpose." We then see a reaction shot of Holmes's bulldog, Gladstone, who is clearly in Holmes's library/laboratory room.
* Crew or equipment visible: Studio lights reflected in some of the cutlery during the restaurant scene.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The filmmakers chose to show 221b Baker Street with 3 steps to the front door. Although there is at the present time an actual 221b Baker Street in London, with a street-level entrance, the address was wholly fictional in Doyle's day and thus has no "real" representation.
* Continuity: When Holmes and Watson are taken to the pig slaughter house run by Lord Blackwood, they both jump from the Lucy into the shallow water near shore and make their way to the building. In the very next scene there is no sign of wet clothes.
* Anachronisms: There is shot of St Stephen's Tower (Big Ben) and the building to the right is Portcullis House, the UK MP's offices, with its distinctive chimney stacks. Portcullis house was built around 1992 / 1993.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Although Sherlock Holmes refers to the book of Revelation as "Revelations", it is noted by Watson in the Doyle novel "A Study in Scarlet" that Holmes' knowledge was limited to what he found relevant to his detective work, and in fact that he had very little knowledge of literature or philosophy.
* Anachronisms: In Reordan's laboratory Holmes says he smells candy floss and molasses. Candy floss (or cotton candy) wasn't invented until 1897 and it was first introduced to a wide audience at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.
* Plot holes: In a community of Witchcraft and Alchemy, the members of the Order of the Ox simply assume that Lord Blackwood has "real" magical powers and never apparently stop to question that he might be using the same methods they'd been using for centuries.
* Continuity: In the fight scene when we first meet Adler. We see her handkerchief on the ledge which distracts Holmes when he goes to look for her. He's punched and spins around where he falls to the ground. The handkerchief is missing. When he stands back up it has returned.
* Continuity: After Irene visits Holmes, we follow her back to the carriage. In the next sequence, we see what Holmes has been doing during the time Irene was walking to her carriage and getting in. Thus both sequences occupy the same time and begin with the same scene. In the first sequence (Irene leaves Baker street) Holmes plays one set of random notes on his violin; in the second, he plays a slightly different set of notes (higher pitched) even though these are supposed to be two representations of the same scene.
* Continuity: In the fight scene on top of the half-built bridge Homes swings around on a bit of netting which subsequently disappears once he dismounts.
* Continuity: In the fight on top of the bridge, Holmes uses a net to hurl away from Lord Blackwood. After a change of camera-angle the net is gone and keeps so for the remainder of the scene.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Holmes and Watson cross the Thames to go from Baker Street to Parliament. However, Holmes and Watson may have taken the boat to access the sewer stealthily.
* Errors in geography: En route on the river towards Queenhithe slaughterhouse, they approach from the west, the direction of Westminster. Tower Bridge is in the distance (i.e. downriver). The slaughterhouse - located in the medieval ward of Queenhithe - should be on the left-hand riverbank (i.e. north), but the boat moors on the right-hand riverbank (i.e. south).
* Errors in geography: In the scene where the boat slips into the Thames and sinks, it sinks like the Titanic, bow down, stern in the air. The Thames isn't anything like deep enough at this point for this to happen.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Dredger meets Holmes for the second time under the House of Parliament, he quips "Tu m'as manqué?", which can mean two things: one is "I felt your absence", the other is "you didn't hit me". That's because "manquer" is phrased inversed to English only in one of the two meanings, while in the other it is just the same. Hence, given the situation, "Tu m'as manqué" is a perfect translation for "you missed me".
* Continuity: In the first scene we see Sherlock Holmes meeting Watson he says "It is ten o'clock...". However, the clock on the wall clearly indicates that it is eight o'clock.
* Factual errors: The large shot showing the streets of London just before being introduced to Holmes' house shows two barouches driving in both sides on right-hand traffic, while in the UK, it should be left-hand traffic.
* Errors in geography: Irene Adler is staying at the Grand Hotel which is showing as being in Piccadilly Circus. It was located at Trafalgar Square.
* Errors in geography: The statue of Eros (or Anderos) at Piccadilly Circus points toward Shaftesbury Avenue. In the establishing shot in the movie, it is pointing in the opposite direction.
* Anachronisms: When Holmes is explaining how Blackwood faked his death, he says he used an extraction from a flower which is "quite infamous in the region of Turkey bordering the Black Sea for its ability to induce an apparently mortal paralysis". Turkey was not founded until 1923 whereas the movie takes place in 1891 when Ataturk, the founder of Turkey was only 10 years old at the time. The correct statement would have been "in the region of the Ottoman Empire bordering the Black Sea".
* Continuity: Near the beginning of the film there were lots of establishing shots of London that included the Tower Bridge fully built and in use. Later in the film, it is only half built, and there is a big fight on it.
* Anachronisms: There are several background shots where you can see that they have gone to the effort of adding smoking chimneys by CGI but forgotten to remove the modern bright red cranes
* Revealing mistakes: In the slaughterhouse the pig bodies get transported straight from the flaming to the band saw, at which point the body is still not opened. But yet when the band saw cuts them apart there are no internal organs and the bodies are hollow.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Goofs below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
* Factual errors: SPOILER: Lord Blackwood was executed by hanging, yet when Dr. Watson declared Blackwood dead, there were no bruises, ligature marks on the neck, or dislocation of the cervical vertebrae. Absence of these traumas from hanging should have aroused Watson's suspicion.
* Factual errors: SPOILER: Lord Blackwood would have been offered a silk halter for his execution, so the hemp rope didn't irritate his throat.
* Factual errors: SPOILER: Lord Blackwood's execution is done American-style. In Britain, the hood placed over the condemned's head was white, not black. The rope was not the coiled noose of western movies; it passed through a simple eyelet.
* Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: Even though Sherlock Holmes did not witness Standish's murder, he was still able to describe it presumably because Inspector Lestrade, who was both a member of the secret society and also held Holmes in his confidence, related what he had heard of the event through his secret channels.
* Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: The dead body of Blackwood's father in the bathtub blinks his eyes.
I also have for you trivia:
* Colin Farrell was in talks to play Watson before Jude Law was cast.
* The first Sherlock Holmes film to reach U.S. movie theaters in over twenty years, since the 1988 comedy Without a Clue (1988) with Michael Caine as Reginald Kincaid/"Sherlock Holmes".
* Robert Maillet accidentally knocked out Robert Downey Jr. while filming a fight scene.
* Robert Downey Jr. read many Sherlock Holmes stories and watched "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1984) by Granada Television (starring Jeremy Brett) in order to learn more about the character.
* Sienna Miller was in talks for a role before her ex-fiancé Jude Law was cast as Watson.
* The song that plays from 1:03 to the end on the second trailer is a piece called "Unstoppable" by the group E.S. Posthumus (specifically 1:47 to the end on the track).
* The set for Sherlock Holmes's home in this film was previously used as Sirius Black's home in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007).
* The part of Sherlock Holmes has been previously played by Michael Caine, while Watson is played in this film by Jude Law. Law took over Caine's role in Alfie (2004) and Sleuth (2007), appearing together with him in the latter film.
* There were rumors that Brad Pitt has been cast as Moriarty and re shoots have taken place, but the rumors were quickly denied.
* Guy Ritchie's first film not to be Rated R in the US.
* Guy Ritchie's first film to be rated 12 in his native country U.K.
* The outfits worn by the navvies are the same ones worn by the railway workers in "Cranford: Part One: August 1844 (#2.1)" (2009).
* Delivered to some theaters under the fake title "Elementary Education".
* Watson's line to Holmes, "You know that what you're drinking is for eye surgery," is an obscure reference to Holmes's cocaine usage. At the time, cocaine was used as a topical anesthetic for eye surgery. In the stories, Holmes injects cocaine.
* The first scene in Baker Street is a nod to Granada Television's "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1984) series, starring Jeremy Brett. In the scene, the camera focuses on a "Baker Street" street sign, then tracks backward down the street and over a clopping horse pulling a carriage. This same camera shot and angle - with the overhead tracking shot over a horse and carriage - was used to reveal Baker Street in the opening credits sequence of the Granada TV series.
* At the end of the film, Mary asks Watson if she could read his journals of his adventures with Sherlock Holmes. Of the 60 Doyle penned stories of Sherlock Holmes, all but four have Watson serving as the narrator.
* Although Irene Adler plays a large role in the movie, she only appears in one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, "A Scandal in Bohemia", briefly referenced in the movie.
* The story "His Last Bow" mentions that Holmes practiced shooting his pistol by putting VR (Victoria Regina) on his wall with bullet holes. In the movie, Holmes shoots VR in the wall in his room with a gun.
* The four symbols referred to in the movie, the Man, the Lion, the Ox and the Eagle, are also attributed to the four Gospels of the Christian Bible: Matthew (the Lion, kingship), Mark (the Ox, servitude), Luke (Man, the humanity of Christ), and John ( Eagle, the divinity of Christ).
* Rachel McAdams, Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. reportedly did most of their own stunts.
* Attempting to escape the clutches of wearing a tight corset every morning, Rachel McAdams would trick the costumers by pushing her stomach out or eating a big breakfast of oatmeal before being laced up. However, they eventually caught on to her ruse.
* Before the scene where Sherlock Holmes reenacts the black magic ceremony, we see a brief shot of an Inn called The Punch Bowl. The Punch Bowl is the name of Guy Ritchie's pub in Mayfair, London.
* The letters "VR", visible throughout the film, stand for "Victoria Regina," the Royal Cypher (monogram) of Queen Victoria, who ruled England at the time.
* The name of Holmes and Watson's English bulldog is Gladstone. He seems to be named after William E. Gladstone, four times Prime Minister under Queen Victoria. A Gladstone is also a type of bag, named after the man, which was sometimes used by doctors in this period to carry their medical equipment.
* Guy Ritchie has stated in interviews that he is a fan of (and a practitioner) Brazilian Jujitsu, made popular in mixed martial arts. Towards the end of the movie Holmes and Watson fight Dredger and finally manage to subdue him with an arm-bar and a modified rear naked choke, both popular Brazilian Jujitsu submissions.
* At one point, Holmes drinks something that Watson notes is meant "for eye surgery." In the Sherlock Holmes novel "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution," Watson laments that the cocaine mixture that Holmes was addicted to was originally meant for eye surgery.
* It's the second movie that Geraldine James (who plays Mrs. Hudson) makes about Sherlock Holmes. She was previously in The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) (TV).
* Jude Law previously appeared in the Granada TV series "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes" (1991) with Jeremy Brett.
* The fight at the shipyard is inspired by the first steel-hulled, steam-powered ocean liner built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel a few years prior to the setting of the film. The actual ship was launched badly and sank after an explosion on its maiden voyage.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
* SPOILER: The three murders of the men and the attempted murder of Parliament coincide with the four Greek elements. The first was a burial crime scene (Earth), second was drowning (water), third was immolation (fire), and fourth was poison gas (air).
* SPOILER: Before the Parliament meeting toward the end of the movie, a clock tower is shown with ten minutes until the hour the meeting is due to begin. From this point, there are ten minutes until the end of the film.
* SPOILER: All events take place in the year 1891. After Holmes and Watson are released from custody following the events in the shipyard, Inspector Lestrade hands a newspaper ("The National Police Gazette") over to Holmes. The title on the newspaper is "LONDON IN TERROR", and the date is Friday, November 19, 1891.