The clumsy Stormtrooper – ‘Star Wars’ (George Lucas, 1977)
Star Wars is now a phenomenon that has practically become an institution, but the original 1977 film had a famously disastrous production that sent George Lucas to the hospital due to the stress involved. Putting together the new environments, vehicles, technology, and costumes for the film resulted in some blunders, including a now infamous moment in which an actor playing a Stormtrooper bangs his head while pursuing Harrison Ford’s Han Solo.
While it’s an amusing moment for those that caught it, this has actually been incorporated into Star Wars media with the understanding that those recruited to be the foot soldiers of the Galactic Empire aren’t exactly the best and brightest. The complete incompetency of the stormtroopers would become a recurring joke throughout the rest of the franchise, and The Force Awakens actually delved into the people behind the masks for the first time.
The smirking soldier – ‘Dunkirk’ (Christopher Nolan, 2017)
Christopher Nolan has directed his fair share of high-concept science fiction films, but Dunkirk was the first instance in which he adapted a true story. In an ambitious act of historical recreation that required a tremendous amount of research, he recounted the escape of the British troops during World War II by exploring the events from the air, land, and sea.
It’s a film that earned the praise of both Nolan’s fellow directors and actual veterans, but not all of the extras were as committed to authenticity as he was. There is one soldier who seems to be smirking at the camera when the battalion of British soldiers looks to the sky for incoming ships; this might not have been noticed if it were presented in a vacuum, but the scene ended up drawing more attention because it was prominently featured in the film’s teaser trailer.
The Batman lover – ‘Batman Forever’ (Joel Schumacher, 1995)
Batman has had quite the history onscreen, and it was after Tim Burton’s creative partnership with Warner Bros. broke down that the studio decided to take a different direction with the series when they hired Joel Schumacher to direct Batman Forever. While Burton had drawn from noir films and the German Expressionist movement of the 1930s, Schumacher directly invoked the campier elements of the original 1966 Batman television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward.
While it makes sense that Schumacher’s version of Gotham City would be far more over-the-top and silly when compared to the more somber version that Burton had done with Batman and Batman Returns, there is an extra who is enthusiastically cheers for Val Kilmer’s version of the Dark Knight in Batman Forever to a degree that suggests he thought he was getting co-billing in the film’s credits.
The happy beach-goer – ‘Jaws’ (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
Steven Spielberg infamously went through hell when making Jaws, which went over its budget, faced schedule delays, and featured a mechanical shark that wasn’t working, raising his concerned about getting fired, but his inventiveness on set ended up making a creative, inventive classic that topped the global box office and became an all-time masterpiece. Spielberg still wasn’t able to be entirely on top of things during Jaws’ shoot, and there’s one extra who clearly didn’t get any direction on the tone that was supposed to be set.
It’s during an intense sequence in which Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody is trying to clear the beach that one particular extra seems to be having a jolly good time, and smiles at the camera while everyone else is running in fear; he may have been better suited for a cheesy B-movie like Piranha.
Boy plugging ears – ‘North by Northwest’ (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
Alfred Hitchcock loved extras to the point that he would actually take their place by appearing in the background of his films. While it began as a necessity early on in his career because he did not yet have the clout to bring together an entire ensemble of extras, he ended up gaining more notoriety and making deliberate cameos for his fans to point out.
A strange blunder in North by Northwest takes place in a scene in which a character fires a gun. While blanks would be used on set, they still set off a sound that could be disruptive. There’s a boy in the background who can be seen plugging his ears; this creates a continuity error, because none of the characters should know to expect that a gun would be fired, especially not a little boy who isn’t involved in the conspiracy storyline.
The Hulk fans – ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2019)
Marvel reached its apex in popularity when they closed out the ‘Infinity Saga’ that had started with Robert Downey Jr’s debut in Iron Man back in 2008, and fulfilled the aspiration of seeing all of the characters united onscreen for the first time in Avengers: Endgame. The marketing was highly secretive to hide the twist that Bruce Banner, played by Mark Ruffalo, had actually managed to make peace with his Hulk persona after being unable to transform in the previous film, Avengers: Infinity War.
There is a funny moment when Hulk is at a diner with the other characters and is approached by a group of young fans who want to take a picture with him, but it’s pretty obvious that they didn’t know what the final animated version of the character would look like, as they clearly aren’t looking in the right place.
The red-haired extra – ‘Ghostbusters’ (Ivan Reitman, 1984)
Ghostbusters was a phenomenon that not only launched Bill Murray to a level of stardom that he had never experienced before, but also created a logo and merchandising line that was basically marketed in the film. Since it examines how the Ghostbusters start their own business and take advantage of their newfound popularity among the residents of New York City, it was able to play into the notion that the brand itself had developed a following.
One extra seems to be extremely enthusiastic, as he’s absolutely freaking out when the Ghostbusters arrive, perhaps offering a preview of the tenacious relationship that the Ghostbusters fans would have with the franchise. Ghostbusters II played into the idea that the team was struggling to live up to expectations, and 2016’s Ghostbusters ended up being a box office flop because it was perceived as being disrespectful to the fan community.
The diner customer – ‘Goodfellas’ (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Martin Scorsese often blends fiction and fact in his best films, with Goodfellas a breakthrough hit because it felt like an authentic depiction of the mafia lifestyle, and while a generation previously saw The Godfather elevating the role of the Italian mafia into one of Shakespearean depth, Scorsese was able to gain the approval of actual gangsters because of how lived-in Goodfellas felt. However, he was still not able to completely nail the grittiness because of an extra who is clearly staring at the camera during the diner scene.
Reshooting a moment like this would have been challenging for Scorsese to do because so much of Goodfellas was improvised, with Joe Pesci’s “Do I look like a clown?” speech being the most famous, so the only defence of this extra is that it is already a film that breaks the fourth wall because Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, is talking directly into the camera.
The excited boxing fan – ‘Million Dollar Baby’ (Clint Eastwood, 2004)
Clint Eastwood has developed a reputation for making films at an alarming rate, often because he generally goes off the first take for what he shoots, often defending this choice because he feels that actors are at their most effective when they are raw and haven’t learned to second-guess their performative choices.
This has been proven true in a film like Million Dollar Baby for actors like Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, both of whom ended up winning Academy Awards for their performances, but the film has an overzealous extra who could’ve used another take because of his overblown reaction to a match. When considering that Million Dollar Baby is a film that takes its time, earning praise for how methodical and grounded it was, the presence of an extra who is overrating sticks out like a sore thumb.
The Vulcan salute – ‘Logan’s Run’ (Michael Anderson, 1976)
Science fiction is a genre that responds to the current moment in time, and Logan’s Run is a classic from 1976 that has aged incredibly well, exploring societal beauty standards by taking place in a dystopian future where people aren’t allowed to live past 30.
Although Logan’s Run made allusions to what the world was actually like in the ‘70s, it didn’t make sense within the context of the film to make homages to popular culture of that moment, which made it extremely distracting in the final scene where an extra seems to perform the Vulcan salute from the Star Trek franchise. Audiences watching the film in 1976 may not have picked up on this, but it became much more of a glaring issue three years later when Star Trek: The Motion Picture debuted, introducing a new generation to the customs of the Vulcan race.