One continuity error from Remember the Titans continues to haunt fans. The 2000 classic follows the biographical true story of the groundbreaking Black football coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) as he tries to integrate a high school football team in 1971. With Coach Boone under threat of removal if he loses even a single game during his time as coach, he manages to lead an undefeated team, despite numerous conflicts among the teammates and in spite of a school desperately trying to intentionally sabotage their own team.
While the story centers around desegregation and racial tension within the T. C. Williams High School, it relies on football as a backdrop to explore those otherwise overwhelmingly heavy topics, much like the true story of Coach Carter did. Unfortunately, some of the football scenes happened to have had some major flaws that are still memorable today. Twenty-two years after Remember the Titans first hit theaters, DisgruntledMax took to Reddit to show off exactly how they earned their name by bringing up a montage continuity error that continues to make them scratch their head. Check out their post below:
How Good Is Remember The Titans’ Historical Accuracy?
While Remember the Titans is based on a true story, not every aspect of the film can be considered completely accurate. Some elements were dramatized for entertainment, conflict, or to better suit the movie’s themes. It isn’t alone in changing details, as even the true story A League of Their Own included some embellishment. In Remember the Titans‘ case, for instance, the brick that was thrown through Boone’s window was little more than an understatement and a fabrication. In reality, Boone found a toilet flying through his window, which was toned down to better suit the movie’s rating, but the message remained the same.
The reality was that the racial tension in Remember the Titans was also overstated when it came to the players themselves. While T. C. Williams High School staff did try to work against Boone, the players were not quite as brutal as the film depicted them to be. Any player with the level of racism depicted on-screen would have been removed from the team before they had the chance to play a single game, especially since Boone would have had the opportunity to boot them if they refused to work with him. Additionally, unlike the way that Hustle included real NBA players, the team members didn’t actually play football. While that isn’t game-breaking, since actors can do their jobs without experience, it does explain how an inexperienced player ran the wrong way during the montage.
Of course, Remember the Titans wasn’t intended to be a biography. The film even included fictional characters, such as Emma Hoyt (Kate Bosworth), Ray Budds (Burgess Jenkins), and Alan Bosley (Ryan Gosling). Since it is only a semi-biographical drama, there is no need for complete accuracy, which gives the film the opportunity to lean into its themes and drive the narrative in a more direct way. It also helped to give Ryan Gosling his start, which led him down the path that gave him the opportunity to star in the unexpected and deliriously bright Barbie trailer. The film also occasionally breaks the rules of football by having players run the wrong way, which was unsurprisingly inaccurate.
Source: DisgruntledMax / Reddit