When the real MI6 learned that this movie would shoot a scene around their Headquarters, they moved to prohibit it, citing a security risk. However, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, at the urging of Member of Parliament Janet Anderson, moved to overrule them and allow the shoot, stating, "After all Bond has done for Britain, it was the least we could do for Bond."

Desmond Llewelyn (Q) died in an car accident soon after this movie was released. Llewellyn said just before his death that he was planning to appear in the next Bond movie. The video release was dedicated to Llewelyn, and featured a tribute montage of his appearances in seventeen Bond movies over thirty-six years. Not only was this his final Bond movie, it was the last James Bond movie of the second millennium.

In the warehouse that Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) has turned into an operations room, the girlie pictures seen on the walls are of former Bond Girls.

To create the effect when Bond looks through his X-ray glasses, the actors were first filmed in their regular costumes, then again this time wearing special costumes that revealed the shapes of guns and knives underneath translucent clothing. The two were then matted together.

The scene in which James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) grabs the cables on the Millennium Dome required extraordinarily difficult stunt work. Director Michael Apted intentionally left a shot of one of the stuntmen missing a cable he was attempting to grab in the final cut. Apted included the miscue in order to highlight how difficult the scene had been to film, and as an honor to the stunt performers who worked on the movie.

Continuity

During the caviar factory battle, Bond hides behind a table, holding his P99 pistol as he yells, "Get out!" to Valentin and Christmas. After a cutaway, Bond is holding a machine gun, then after another, he fires the original pistol.

During the opening scene, before Bond jumps out the window, he is clearly shown tying the curtain rope to his belt (this is also seen again as he is falling). Yet, when he lands on the ground, he simply lets go of the rope and walks off without undoing it.

When Bond is sitting in the torture chair, and his right hand becomes free, you see him release his neck restraint, but never his left arm as he jumps from the chair.

In the opening scene in Bilbao, Spain, after the shots, police sirens are heard, and several cars of the Spanish National Police are seen through the window, at several different times. When the police enter the office, however, their uniforms are not of the Spanish National Police, but the Basque regional police (Ertzaintza), which would not have jurisdiction in this case.

In the Millennium Dome chase sequence, just before Bond jumps from Q's fishing boat to the balloon, the canopy on the boat is present. When Bond actually makes the jump, the canopy has disappeared without explanation.



Factual errors

Dr. Jones claims that six kilos of plutonium is not enough to make a bomb, yet the "fat man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki contained six kilos of plutonium.

Renard's file says that the bullet traveling through his brain is in the medulla oblongata, thus killing his senses. This area of the brain controls basic functions such as breathing and heart rate, not the sensory perceptions.

King can't be a terribly good engineer. He's built his oil pipeline over a glacier. Glaciers flow. The pipeline would break within a year.

When James is being told why Robert Carlyle's character is so deadly (no pain etc.), they mention a specific part of the brain - Medulla Oblongata, which the character has a bullet travelling through. This area of the brain controls basic functions such as breathing and heart rate - you can't survive with a bullet there.

Renard is supposed to be stronger than the average person because he cannot feel pain. There are people born with this problem; it's called "CIP," and they are not super-strong. Most die in childhood because they cannot feel injuries. Lepers suffer similar problems because they lose sensation. As a plot point, it's pretty weak, even ignoring the other posts which explain that the location of the bullet would not cause such an effect.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

When Bond stands up behind the glass doors after the MI6 explosion, he is dry. When he climbs into the jet boat, he is already wet. This is from the sprinkler system that activated immediately after the explosion.

Assuming - wrongly - that a rod of weapons grade plutonium probably can cause a meltdown in a reactor, while it wouldn't technically be an "explosion" it would still be a massive release of energy. So that's a fair enough word, especially when used a non-expert such as Bond.

When Bond drives his speedboat through the market during the boat chase scene, a view from the driver's perspective shows food and debris striking what is apparently a windshield. While his boat has no windshield, the police car following (whose perspective we see) does.

In the MI6 opening sequence we see a hole blown in the face of the building when the money explodes. When Bond launches the jet boat, the hole is gone. The hole is obscured by a lamp pole and the smoke from the explosion.



Revealing mistakes

When Bond slices the parachute with his skis, not only is the damage in the wrong place and the wrong size in the next cut, but there is no reason for the engine to be sputtering once the parachute is damaged - it was not hit.

Plutonium is very dense (19.8 grams per cubic centimeter) and a hemisphere of the size depicted couldn't be handled as if it were made of foam.

When Bond is traveling down the pipeline there are lights on the inside of the pipe. No pipeline would be built with lights inside it.

After the gun barrel sequence, Bond walks down a street in Bilbao and you can see an old lady hiding and looking at him as well as the fans (some flashing cameras) being held back by a steel fence so that they don't walk in the scene.

When Bond and Elektra are trapped inside the inflatable shield, it is dark. Bond turns on the lights on his wristwatch, and the entire place lights up. Bond moves around a lot, but the lighting does not change at all, revealing that the lighting is coming from a different source.



Miscellaneous

Although the helicopter-carried buzz-saw blades look impressive, in practice, they would be totally ineffective killing tools against anyone who wasn't taught to run away from things by Prometheus' Meredith Vickers.

At the caviar factory the bullets make bright flashes on impact (which in itself is not realistic), even on wooden surfaces.

In the chase scene with Bond and the Lady in the Sun seeker, in the location near the Millennium dome as the sun seeker approaches the beach you can see that the metal barrier has been already been damaged prior to the sun seeker actually crashing in to barrier.



Anachronisms

A price tag is clearly visible inside a supposedly old and rusty lamp hanging above the table in the room where M is held prisoner.



Audio/visual unsynchronised

In the casino scene, Bond remarks "Nothing comes free from you, Zukovsky." However, Bond's lips do not mouth the word "Zukovsky," but the word "Valentin".

The engine on one of the parahawks can be heard to be having trouble even though Bond only managed to damage the parachute.

While in the caviar factory, Bond fires his P99 at the Renard goons, and the slide of the gun can be seen going back three times, but we hear only two shots.

When Bond is questioning Valentin after falling into the caviar pit, Bond says "And the payoff in the casino?" However Bond's lips do not mouth the word "casino." The cadence and tone of his voice suggest this line was dubbed in post-production. (iTunes Movies - US - 1:35:22)

As Bond jumps through the door in the underground shootout, we see a brief shot of him bounding headfirst through a door, with his gun outstretched. Closer inspection reveals that the gun was discharging during this jump, but no sound is heard.



Crew or equipment visible

In Bond's barrel roll in the film's beginning chase sequence, the stunt driver's helmet is seen.

During the boat chase, after the boat hits the passenger jetty a camera on a boom can be seen on a boat as the boat speeds away. (DVD Widescreen Version)

At about 8:58 during the boat chase, a barge with "PLA diver London" is visible with a camera on a boom and at least 3 crew members.

The shadow of the camera crane is visible when Bobby's car breaks down.

A remote head camera crane is visible during the opening boat chase (as the lead speedboat destroys the pier on left-hand bank, the wide shot reveals crane in the top left corner).



Errors in geography

The protesters at the church are waving Hungarian flags, not Azerbaijani ones.

During the opening boat chase, the route actually taken through London's Isle of Dogs does not match the route displayed on Bond's on-board computer map. Specifically: The map shows the route through West India Docks, but the chase is obviously through Millwall Inner and Outer Docks. Further, the boats come out of what is, in reality, a dead end.

The Russian Atomic Energy Commission plane has a French registration number.

The acronym for the "Russian Atomic Energy Agency" is written in Greek (Alpha Sigma Delta), not Cyrillic (Russian) characters. The real name of this agency is Minatom.



Plot holes

It's never explained why Renard's henchmen are willing to die with him on the submarine. The explosion would kill them too, yet they completely ignore this.



Character error

It is stated that the bomb traveling in the pipeline is traveling at 70 miles per hour and has to cover a distance of 106 miles. Bond states that this will take 78 minutes. To cover 106 miles at 70 miles per hour would actually take 91 minutes. However, Bond admits in GoldenEye (1995) that he was never good with numbers.

The torture chair would crush Bonds windpipe (pushing from behind against the metal collar) before it would break his neck. The sound Bond makes under the pressure is the sound of a man suffocating, not an under pressure neck.

Renard talks about Hindu pilgrims holding scalding rocks to "test their devotion to God." Hindus have never had any such tradition.

After the pipeline explosion, Bond calls Roberts, who tells him that M has been taken. Roberts then signs off without waiting to hear why Bond called in the first place.

Elektra King claims to be of Azeri descent on her maternal side. Thus she thinks she is saving her cultural heritage by rerouting the pipeline around the church. But the church as proved by the priest is Russian orthodox and that is far removed from Azeri culture.