Just a brief IMDb rant.

[AlecWest]

Since 2005, I've submitted updates on three films to IMDb and no action has been taken on any of them. Obviously somebody gets their updates noticed but mine seem to fall into a black hole. Anyway, I added a new update to IMDb today regarding a revealing mistake found in "The Good Shepherd" (submitted as a film "Goof"). But, I also posted it (along with the gripe) in the IMDb message board to see if they notice it.

Near the end of the film, there are two separate scenes showing Agent Edward Wilson reading his father's suicide note. The first scene shows him removing the note from his safe and reading it for the first time. Other brief scenes follow. Then, the second scene shows him reading it one last time before he burns it.

The problem? In each scene, though the words in the note remain the same, he's reading a different note (grin). The first sentence of the first note starts closer to the top of the paper than the first sentence in the second note. The first line of the first note has four words in it while the first line in the second note has five words in it. And, the first paragraph of the first note has seven lines in it while the first paragraph of the second note only has six lines in it. Here's the visual proof:

http://alecwest.com/shep.html

Why such a goof? Only the studio knows for sure. But, I have a suspicion. I suspect that the second scene was planned to be the ONLY scene showing Edward reading the note. Later, they decided to add in the first scene but (snicker) realized that it had been burned up. So, they gave the second scene a quick look and someone rewrote the note so the first scene could be added - but rewrote the note without at least attempting to keep it as close to the original note as possible. The other possibility is that the first scene was planned to be the only scene showing the note ... after which it was tossed in the garbage ... requiring them to rewrite the note for the second scene.

Regards,
J. Alec West

[Midzuki]

AlecWest wrote:

Since 2005, I've submitted updates on three films to IMDb and no action has been taken on any of them. Obviously somebody gets their updates noticed but mine seem to fall into a black hole.

It seems the "Wikipedian spirit" has contaminated the Internet Movie Database too...

[Krispy Kritter]

I've made a few additions myself from time to time. They are often quite slow at updating the site.

In regards to your goof, there are any number of possiblities. It's possible the both scenes were always meant to be shown, but the letter was lost or damaged between scenes.