Home Alone will be getting a reboot soon, something which the original movie's director Chris Columbus is not happy about. However, the decision to reboot the iconic holiday movie is understandable since it's a family movie and modern-day kids are unlikely to be interested in checking out a movie that came out in 1990.
In as much as Home Alone is a blast, it has plenty of errors in it. All these might be hard for viewers to notice as the top-notch humor covers up for every negative thing about the movie. Since it's the holiday season again, let's examine some of the continuity errors that were present in the movie.
Pizza Delivery
While alone in the McCallisters mansion, Kevin orders pizza. He'd need a phone to do this since it's the year is 1990 and you can't really order food via an app or website. He doesn't have one of those early cell phones either. A few minutes earlier, the phone lines were down. Despite this, he still manages to order pizza from the house and have it delivered
Kevin's father even tries to reach him to confirm if he's at home but he can't reach him because the phone lines are down. Logically, Kevin shouldn't have been able to reach the pizza delivery service right after the phone lines went down.
Kevin's Clothes Dry Up Magically
When Kevin runs across the street to the neighbor's house, he enters through a basement that is flooded. His clothes end up getting soaked as he walks up the stairs.
In the following scene, he runs into the Wet Bandits and his clothes are suddenly dry. They obviously couldn't have dried up that quickly. Actor Macaulay Culkin must have switched clothes between the scenes. Alternatively, this scene was filmed before the one where he gets wet.
Heather Goes Up The Stairs Twice
Remember Heather? She is Kevin's oldest cousin in the movie. She happens to be living with the McCallisesters when the family forgets Kevin. She is also the person that Kevin's mother tasks with making sure everyone is in the van. However, she mistakes a neighborhood boy for Kevin and they leave without him.
When the McCallisters wake up in the morning of the flight and realize they overslept, everyone is seen running around the house. During the mayhem, Heather goes up the stairs. Moments later, she can be seen going up the stairs again, in the same exact manner. Twin? Impossible.
Harry's Feathers Disappear
Joe Pesci is so good as Harry Lime in the movie that it's hard to notice anything wrong about his character. But there are a couple of things wrong and one of them has to do with the feathers.
Right before Harry and Marv step into a pile of little toy cars and falls, Harry's body had been covered in bird feathers. However, in the next scene, there are absolutely no feathers on his clothes or face. They mysteriously disappear without him washing his body or picking the feathers.
The Plate Changes
On the night that the wet bandits, Harry Lyme and Marv Murchins, make the mistake of breaking into the house, Kevin is getting ready to have dinner. Just before 9 pm, he sits down and says grace before he starts eating.
The food is macaroni and cheese. Later on, when Harry's body is covered with feathers, thanks to the traps, Kevin's meal is shown again. This time the food is in a microwavable container with three different sections. Given how busy Kevin gets during the break-in, it's highly unlikely that he considered transferring the food.
Kevin's Pants
Kevin is initially afraid of his neighbor "Old Man" Marley who is rumored to be a serial killer named The South Bend Shovel Slayer. He later warms up to the old man, realizing he isn't what people say he is. He even advises Marley to warm up to his estranged son.
When Kevin walks away from the church after having a conversation with Old Man Marley, he has green pants on. But when he arrives home a few minutes later, he has blue jeans on. Moments later when he is preparing the traps for the burglars, he is back to the green pants he was wearing before.
The Plane From Chicago
There are two errors regarding the plane that the McCallisters board from Chicago to Paris. When they leave Chicago, it's 10 in the morning. Just a short while later, it appears to be dark outside the window.
The McCallisters also board a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 from Chicago, which is a tri-jet (a triple engine jet). When they arrive in Paris, they alight from a Boeing 757, which is a twin-engine jet. The family doesn't switch flights at any point so this comes off as rather odd.
The Detergent Disappears
After the family leaves Kevin behind, he goes to a nearby supermarket, where he buys a couple of essentials. He also buys more Tide detergent. Earlier in the movie, he had used the same kind of detergent to wash clothes and it ran out. This is obviously some kind of product placement but it comes with an error.
As he is walking back home, the shopping bags he is carrying end up breaking and all the items fall off. Surprisingly, there is no Tide detergent among the things that fall out.
Angels With Filthy Souls
One of the best parts of the film is when Kevin uses an old black and white movie titled Angels With Filthy Souls to scare the pizza guy as well as the Wet Bandits. The movie isn't real. It was made for Home Alone and it's a reference to the 1938 movie Angels With Dirty Faces.
When Kevin plays the movie to scare off the pizza delivery guy, the villain says "Hey. I'm gonna give you to the count of ten. One, two...Ten!" When Kevin first watches the movie (without rearranging the scenes or forwarding), the word "Hey" is never mentioned. The words that are spoken before "I'm gonna give you to the count of ten" are "I'll tell you what I'm gonna give you, Snakes".
Didn't Kevin Mess Up The Michael Jordan Poster?
When Marv tries to hit the tarantula on Harry's chest, he knocks him misses, and knocks him with the crowbar. Behind them, a Michael Jordan poster can be spotted in the room of Kevin's oldest brother Buzz.
The poster is in one piece yet Kevin had cut it out the previous night to make Michael Jordan look like a real person. He then made the cut-out move around like a train. Buzz only had one poster of Michael Jordan in his room. It thus makes no sense for the poster to reappear again in full after Kevin already cut it.