I’m a movie guy, no doubt about it. And I love Rian Johnson’s filmography. When Knives Out dropped in 2019, it was maybe one of the most perfect movie-going experiences I’d ever had. It was fun and exciting and most importantly it wasn’t a remake or a sequel or part of some cinematic universe. It was refreshing and eye-opening. I was a little disappointed when I heard the film had been optioned for a sequel, but I was still there in the third row of the luxury cineplex when Glass Onion had a limited release for one week only, several weeks before the Netflix-produced film dropped on its own streaming service. If there’s Benoit Blanc on screen, I’m going to be there. And it was pretty great. Not as great as Knives Out, but still quite good.
I tend to pride myself on noticing minuscule details in movies, particularly as they relate to cars. But I’ll be the first to admit that I totally missed the continuity error regarding Miles Bron’s (played by Edward Norton) Porsche 918 Spyder, which plays a pretty big role in the film’s climax. Bron is your typical self-indulgent billionaire. He flies the Liquid Metal Chrome Blue 918 Spyder out to his private island purely for display purposes, as the island doesn’t even have any roads. He has a miniature 918 Spyder remote control car fitted with a drinks cooler to drive around the pool of his resort home, the titular Glass Onion. And he uses the highly recognizable multi-million dollar hybrid hypercar in the committing of a murder, so clearly he’s not the smartest guy in the world.
According to user theFettster on the Movie Mistakes subreddit, his car, dubbed “Baby Blue” transforms slightly during the course of the film. Their logic states that during a scene early in the film where Blanc visits Bron’s office, there is a shot showing the car out on its glass platform (seen at the top of this post) and oh, what’s that on the rear quarter panel aft of the rear wheel? Could it be the carbon winglet found exclusively on the track-focussed 918 Spyder models with the rare optional Weissach package? Only about 25% of 918 Spyders were equipped with the package, which drops the car’s weight by 99 pounds and added aero modifications to make the car faster around track. The option cost a whopping $84,000, and included magnesium wheels, lighter brakes, extensive use of titanium hardware, and an extended rear diffuser, plus a windscreen frame, roof, rear wing, and rear-view mirrors crafted from carbon fiber.
There are a few problems with this. When the car is shown later in the film, that carbon flap is totally absent.
See?
To make matters even worse, the car does appear to have the alcantara interior and carbon roof panels/wing of a Weissach, but not the magnesium wheels. So what’s actually going on here? Ultimately it doesn’t matter, but it’s fun to try to ply apart the car’s makeup in the film. It’s likely that most of this car’s on-screen time is computer generated. Netflix had to spend their budget somewhere, I guess.