To-do list:

Move examples that fit one of the items on the Critical Research Failure disambiguation page and remove ones that don't.

Original post

Critical Research Failure has an unclear name that results in a lot of different usage. Critical Research Failure Wick Check revealed the following:

5.95% of examples concerned common knowledge.
- 4.76% came from the designated folder.
- 1.19% came from the "fits in multiple folders" folder.
5.95% of examples mentioned someone with cursory knowledge being able to notice the error.
2.38% of wicks described the trope correctly on another page.
1.19% prompted an apology.
1.19% mentions many audience members pointing out the error.
5.95% can be instantly googled.
9.52% concern reality knowledge.
21.43% are media knowledge.
- 17.86% of that came from the designated folder.
- 3.57% of that came "fits in multiple folders" folder.
23.81% are arguably Artistic License
- 13.1% of that came from the designated folder.
- 10.71% of that came from the multiple folders folder.
19.05% require expert knowledge to spot.
8.33% are used in place of In-Universe Factoid Failure, likely because of ignorance about that trope's existence.
- 7.14% of that came from the designated folder.
- 1.19% of the came from the multiple folders folder.
3.57% are the writer displaying selective obliviousness of bias.
- 0% of that came from the designated folder.
- 3.57% of that came from the multiple folders folder.
1.19% was misused as pure complaining.

This shows:

20.24% correct usage (Common Knowledge, Correctly Described, Mentions Cursory Knowledge, Prompted an Apology, Mentions the Audience Pointing Out The Error, Can be Googled)
9.52% ambiguous (Reality Knowledge)
8.33% in-universe examples (In-Universe Factoid Failure)
61.90% misuse (Media Knowledge, Arguably Artistic License, Expert Knowledge, Bias or Obliviousness, Pure Complaining)
1.19% fit the "Common Knowledge" (correct use) and "(Arguably) Artistic License" (misuse) folders.

Wick check:

Critical Research Failure is about egregious factual errors, but due to its terrible name (see here

for why), it gets misused for when a work makes any factual error. Suggested solutions:

Expand to cover all factual errors. NOTE: This also means removing it from YMMV because the subjective component would be removed.
Rename to a clearer name like Blatant Factual Error, Blatant Research Failure, or something else that's clearer.
Redirect to Artistic License.

84 examples gathered from 60 wicks.

The Wicks

open/close all folders

Mentions Someone With Cursory Knowledge Being Able To Spot The Error ( 5 Examples)

YMMV.The Angry Joe Show: When reviewing Episode 3 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier', he comments on Zemo reading The Prince as a sign of his Heel–Face Turn, assuming that Machiavelli's philosophy is about turning over a new leaf. Anyone even remotely familiar with Machiavelli's philosophy on a surface level will tell you otherwise.
YMMV.Expelled: The Hitler Ate Sugar aspect is fairly ridiculous if you know anything about actual Nazi ideology and how little they cared for science. Whether the Nazis even believed in evolution is debated since they never really took an explicit position on it; Hitler especially would borrow Darwin's phrase "the struggle for existence" as a justification for his racial beliefs one moment and reject that humans descend from non-human ancestors out of hand the next. One thing that is absolutely certain is that they were anything but atheists and materialists (those were positions held by their worst enemies, the Communists, for one). See the Real Life section of the Ghostapo trope for several examples.
YMMV.Game Theory: MatPat called a lawyer, Phoenix Wright, a paralegal. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of law knows that paralegals aren't qualified to be lawyers by definition.
YMMV.Dark Sun: See Fanservice on the main page. As anyone with any knowledge of survival would tell you, due to sunstroke and dehydration, you want to wear more clothes in the desert, not less.
YMMV.Dexter: The Beast and Satan are referred to as the same being in season 6. A simple look reading of Revelation will show this to be completely false. The Beast was simply a being — often equated with The Antichrist — given permission by Satan to rule over the Earth for 42 months, and apart from having seven heads, its appearance is vastly different.

Correctly Described on Another Page ( 2 Examples)

Did Not Do the Bloody Research: If you were looking for cases where it's obvious someone didn't do research that is unrelated to swear words, you're looking for Critical Research Failure.
Consistency: It is obvious that the creators did not do their research properly because the information the work gives is blatantly wrong.

Prompted an Apology ( 1 Examples)

YMMV.Jeopardy: April 3rd, 2015: One clue asked for the Catholic sacrament that allows a person to take Communion. They were looking for the response "What is Confirmation?" Communion is a sacrament in and of itself, the initiation of it is just called "First Communion", and the "Confirmation before Communion" concept is generally found in Protestant churches. At the end of the show, Alex took a moment to acknowledge the mistake and promise they would be more careful in the future.

Mentions Many Audience Members Pointing Out The Error ( 1 Examples)

YMMV.Jeopardy: October 8, 2019: One clue asked for a video game whose rotatable blocks have names such as "Orange Ricky, Hero, and Smashboy". While a contestant does provide the correct reponse of Tetris, the names are actually incorrect, having originated from a Twitter meme post showing these names in a supposed copy of the NES version's manual. Even the game's official Twitter account called the show out on it.

Mentions Children or High Schoolers Being Able to Spot The Error

Can Be Googled In 10 Seconds ( 5 Examples)

YMMV.Mothers Basement: His cheat sheet for Jojo claims that Vanilla Ice's Stand, Cream, was only made for the sake of a stupid pun and not a reference to music, tarot cards, or Egyptian gods. A pun maybe, but a quick google search shows the latter is entirely wrong.
YMMV.Scooby Doo And Scrappy Doo: During The Summation at the end of "Hairy Scare from the Devil Bear", Velma states that bears only have four claws. This is incorrect, as bears actually have five retractable claws.
YMMV.The Angry Joe Show: A little more minor one, but his Destiny 2 Angry Review had him laughing at the story that a symbol from the game was removed due to it resembling a white nationalist meme of "Kekistan". Joe laughed it off and didn't see the connection of the "Kekistan" symbol to white nationalism, so his accusations become more jarring when one can simply google the Nazi Reichskriegsflagg and compare it to the flag of Kekistan to see the connection.
YMMV.A Clash Of Kings: At one point, Pia is sent to the buttery to fetch cheese and butter. This is surprising considering a dairy contains cheese and butter and a buttery contains butts of wine.
YMMV.Game Theory: In the "Who Would Win - Samurai, Knight, or Viking? (For Honor)" video, MatPat says that greaves—leg armor—are worn on forearms.

Common Knowledge ( 3 Examples)

YMMV.Death Battle: Furries, with Jocelyn even incorrectly stating Sonic is to blame for creating them due to their weird pictures in the internet.
YMMV.The Emoji Movie: Trolls aren't malware like viruses or Trojan Horses. They're actual people. You would think that Sony would know this after having to deal with them on films like Ghostbusters (2016).
YMMV.Eraser: Dr. Cullen, apparently a physicist, explains that a rail gun fires "caseless aluminum shells at nearly the speed of light."^note

Reality Knowledge ( 8 Examples)

YMMV.The Angry Joe Show: In his movie review of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Joe is under the impression that Kazakhstan is a fictional country.
YMMV.American Sniper: The title cards state that Kyle and his widow donated the entire 3 million that Kyle made from his book to veterans groups such as Wounded Warriors. However, an article from the National Review confirmed that only about $50,000 dollars were donated and that Kyle and his widow kept the rest. A number of spokesmen for different veterans groups have stated that not only is the title card inaccurate, but that Kyle's widow never even attempted to get in contact with any veterans organizations to donate money, and also that Cooper and Eastwood never contacted any veterans support groups or charities to verify her claim.
YMMV.Harry Potter: Rowling's universe expansion with the introduction of the American magic school Ilvermorny and history of magic and wizard society in the USA was met with this, particularly from American fans. Some liked the new additions to the overall universe and the new materials to work with while others were heavily critical of how poorly researched the material felt with regards to American history (especially Native American history, the Salem Witch Trials, and America's own complex racial relations), culture, and politics. At best, it feels superficial and lacking any nuance; at worst, it's offensively insensitive and stereotypical. There was also a meta-backdraft from fans over accusations of Rowling being racist, as racism is something she got famous for speaking out against.
Abandoned War Child: In Miss Saigon, Kim and Chris fall in love when Chris is a Marine stationed in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Chris intends to take Kim back home with him but is forced to leave her behind when the US forces are evacuated, leaving Kim to raise her son as a single mother. The musical also mentioned mixed-race children similar to Tam, but using the term "bụi đời" in a Critical Research Failure, since the word simply refers to homeless people of all ages. In mainland Vietnam, children like Tam would be called "con lai" ("mixed-race children").
YMMV.My Wife Is A Witch: The author's knowledge of various mythology is not perfect. For example, he confuses Tartarus and Hades, claiming that Tartarus is the land of the dead in Classical Mythology, when, in fact, it's a deep abyss that serves as the prison for the Titans and is located far below Hades.
YMMV.Call Of Duty Black Ops II: Menendez and his father ran a cartel during the '80s. Nicaragua had no cartels during this time period; all drug trafficking in that area was done by the briefly mentioned Contras and their CIA allies.
YMMV.Dexter:
- Some of their uses of real-life Miami locations are just plain wrong. A particularly egregious example is when a villain is noted to have had a rich upbringing, demonstrated by going to a Westland Prep School in Hialeah. Nevermind the fact that Hialeah has no prep schools and that it's a low-to-mid income city, and that they've somehow confused Westland High School (which is in Hialeah, Florida) with Westland School in Los Angeles (which is a prep school), but Westland High School was founded in 2007, making it completely impossible for a middle aged man to be an alumni of it. Sure, most non-Floridians wouldn't even notice, but all of Miami facepalmed when that sentence was uttered.
- Season 5 sees a string of murders committed by members of a cult known as Santa Muerte. In Real Life, Santa Muerte is not the name of a cult, but the name of a saint revered by some members of the Mexican drug cartel for secrecy and wealth. Additionally, the cult members in this season are Venezuelan, whereas the "real" Santa Muerte doesn't see much reverence anywhere beyond Mexico and its borders. Further cementing this ignorance, Lauren Veléz said in an interview that her worship is a form of Santeria, which is an Afro-Carribean centric religion with absolutely no roots in Spanish culture.

Fandom Knowledge

Media Knowledge ( 15 Examples)

YMMV.Game Xplain: During an Analysis Video on Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, André erroneously referred Ridley a female when in actuality, Ridley is male. Derrick later recalled this goof and says that he "had to go beat that fact into (André)".
YMMV.Mother: "Is Ness 'x'!?!" ^Explanation
YMMV.Outside Xbox:
- In this video talking about 8 games that could be battle royale hits, Mike mentions Paladins: Battlegrounds as one of these games. The information is, rather unfortunately, a few days out of date for when the video was released. The gameplay was changed drastically than what was shown in the video. Firstly, the game was initially separated into a closed alpha, later becoming an Early Access steam game. It's no longer called Paladins: Battlegrounds, rather it's now known by the less trademark-infringing name: Realm Royale. And finally, The Paladins champions themselves, as well as the cards and chest system are no long present, relying on disenchanting weapons for shards to make weapons within "forges", located in certain parts of the map.
- In this video on companies pulling Take That Us in their own games, the spoiler reel erroneously uses the wrong logo for Hitman 2; it uses the Hitman 2: Silent Assassin logo instead. It's likely whoever edited that video didn't notice the mistake, and forgot about the whole Stopped Numbering Sequels thing.
YMMV.Pokemon The First Movie: Courtesy of the English dub; in one scene Corey refers to his Pidgeot as a Pidgeotto, and in the scenes of Mewtwo's lab Team Rocket mistake the silhouette for Scyther as Alakazam (though that could just be them being idiots as usual), while Meowth refers to the Sandslash clone as a Sandshrew (which likely is an actual mistake on the dub's part, especially since it's one that 4Kids had made on the show before).
YMMV.The Angry Joe Show:
- In his review of Ratchet & Clank he claims that the movie is just a bunch of cutscenes from the game edited into a movie. This is a false claim as the movie was actually finished before the game and was even showed off at film festivals before arriving into theatres.
- In his Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Angry Review, he noted a few changes that appeared to be made for casual players at the expense of the dedicated fans: a simplified button layout, slower gameplay, and 2-on-2 battles. The button layout is basically the same as the layout in Marvel vs. Capcom 2^note, and many of the dedicated fans don't consider the latter two changes to be problems.
TheyChangedItNowItSucks.Film
- An example caused by Critical Research Failure similar to The Hunger Games example below. When Katie Leung was cast as Cho Chang, many fans were angry at the apparent Race Lift - not realising that Cho was meant to be Asian. To Rowling's credit, her race is never mentioned in the book and the only description of her is about her long dark hair. But a few missed the last name, which is the only indicator of her race.
- A misguided example of this happened with The Hunger Games. Fans complained about an alleged change that was actually accurate to the source material. In it, Katniss Everdeen meets a tribute from District 11 named Rue, who later saves Katniss' life after a Mushroom Samba, and then has a heartbreaking death. Some fans were outraged that this beloved character was played by 13-year-old Amandla Stenberg, an African-American actress, almost certainly because of racism. The problem is that Rue and her male counterpart, Thresh, were already supposed to be black in the book. Their introduction specifically mentions them having dark brown skin. Thankfully, it seems Amandla hasn't taken this to heart. You can view an article on these complaints here.
YMMV.Brows Held High: In his video on Guy Ritchie's Revolver (2005), he refers to Vincent Pastore at one point as "Sal from The Sopranos". While Pastore's character in The Sopranos is legally named "Salvatore Bonpensiero", nobody in the main cast calls him "Sal"; he always goes by his Mob nickname "Big Pussy", or just plain "Pussy" for short.^note
Stylistic Suck: The KLF's single under the pseudonym "The Timelords", a deliberately lazy proto-Mash Up of a Gary Glitter song with the Doctor Who theme and the Sweet song "Blockbuster", featuring some Harry Enfield and Chums sound clips processed to sound like Dalek voices. The video was even worse, featuring a Cool Car as the TARDIS and a couple of cardboard boxes covered in tinfoil as a Dalek.
YMMV.Jeopardy: The NES game has a blatant one that the Game Grumps discovered. A clue asked for the Disney Princess cursed by Maleficent to which both Arin and Jon correctly claimed was Sleeping Beauty. They were surprised to discover the game was saying that was wrong, and they both gave a Big "WHAT?!" when the "correct" response was revealed to be Snow White.
YMMV.Pixels: It's a major plot point that one character used "cheat codes" in a Pac-Man tournament. First of all, Pac-Man doesn't have cheat codes. Second of all, the film never explains how said cheat codes were input, how they somehow functioned on the Ghost cars during the Pac-Man fight, or why there are cheat codes for the ghosts, characters you normally never play as in Pac-Man games.
YMMV.Ryan Toys Review: Kirby Star Allies in this video is called Kirby Star Alliance.
YMMV.A Brighter Dark: Nohr does allow the children of Garon's mistresses to succeed him, which does explain why said children's mothers had such intense rivalries—any one of their children could be the next ruler of Nohr.

(Arguably) Artistic License ( 11 Examples)

YMMV.Fifty Shades Of Grey: Hype Backlash: At the time of its publication, the trilogy was hyped up as being a boundary-pushing and risque erotic romance, heavily involving BDSM, which was rarely featured in mainstream romance. While it did make BDSM more visible in the mainstream, some readers felt the trilogy's content was actually pretty tame and inaccurately depicted BDSM...to say nothing of the controversy surrounding the way Ana and Christian's relationship can come off and the iffy writing.
YMMV.Strontium Dog: In reality, Alpha radiation is made up of particles which are not particularly harmful since they can be blocked by something as simple as an ordinary piece of paper. The story makes heavy use of Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
YMMV.The Cleveland Show: A Cutaway Gag in "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Roberta?" has Jackie Earle Haley describe Rorschach as a Serial Killer. While he does have his fair share of blood on his hands, calling Rorschach a serial killer is a huge stretch; an overzealous vigilante is more accurate (though that admittedly wouldn't have fit with the punchline.) The Parabombing makes a case for it being Artistic License.
UsefulNotes.The War On Terror: In John Birmingham's Without Warning and After America the war on terror takes a bizarre turn in 2003 when an energy field of unknown origin and composition wipes out about three-quarters of the population of North America. An energized Saddam Hussein takes the offensive against a demoralized US military just before they were going to invade and drives them out then allies with Iran^note to declare a universal jihad against Israel. This leads Israel to nuke all its Islamic neighbors except Lebanon (too close) in what becomes called the Second Holocaust. Other ripples from this include the French Intifada and the United Kingdom deporting or interning all of its Muslims while parts of Germany, especially Cologne become functionally converted to sharia.
YMMV.Titanic 1996: Just look at the Artistic License subpage (hell, look at the fact that the artistic licenses have their own page, period). It's as though they only took a cursory glance through a book about Titanic or even Jim Cameron's script.
YMMV.The Patriot: While the atrocities showed in the movie often did have basis as real events (the war in the South WAS a very barbaric conflict), the movie overemphasized the British atrocities grossly (which were often the result of the Loyalist Americans rather than the redcoats) and forgets many of the equally horrific atrocities committed by the Patriots. Generally, the war in the south was just a bunch of locals using the war as an excuse to settle old scores. And new scores.
YMMV.Lightning War: Grigori Rasputin and his family were not aristocrats.
Animation Age Ghetto: It kinda pushed into this territory with this article, where some of the entries aren't technically for kids, but even thinking Watership Down and The Plague Dogs are "children's animation" is insane to a ridiculous degree. Of course, this being Cracked, this is almost the standard.
Right for the Wrong Reasons: Jenny Nicholson's review of the book Trigger Warning, a book which lauds Audie Murphy as an example of the "hard man" who didn't whine about needing safe spaces, points this out about a quote boasting "his safe space was behind a gun." The book's characterization of Murphy is horribly off; he did suffer from PTSD and spent much of his later life as an advocate for awareness, treatment, and sensitivity on the subject, and his was so bad that he ended up using a Pillow Pistol as a coping mechanism, as he was unable to sleep otherwise. So his "safe space" was behind a gun... but not at all for the reasons the writers imagined.
YMMV.Law And Order Special Victims Unit S 18 E 3 Imposter: Barba tries a guy who seduces women by pretending to be a college admissions director who can help the women's kids get into college. Barba acknowledges that rape by fraud is not a crime in New York, but then talks about getting the case to a jury. The problem: if someone has not broken a specific law, the case will never see a jury — because the judge will kick it out, and may put sanctions on the prosecutor. (Not to mention that the defendant may turn around and sue for malicious prosecution and wrongful arrest.) Later, the judge in the case hand waves his failure to dismiss the case by saying that no judge would kick out a rape case without hearing all the evidence. Except that's the judge's job when the prosecution has failed to articulate a crime in his indictment. The judge's failure to do this could subject him to "getting his pants pulled down and his reputation sullied in public" as he so put it. After all, his decision is subject to review by the appeals court and even the federal courts, given that the defendant's Fourteenth Amendment rights have been violated. Contrary to what the judge says, using the word "rape" doesn't get around that.
WesternAnimation.Kung Fu Panda Legends Of Awesomeness: Ke-Pa, leader of the demons, is (or at least has the appearance of) a dragon. Which is a rather egregious and puzzling example of a Critical Research Failure, since Eastern dragons have always been portrayed as wise, honorable, benevolent creatures to be worshiped, beloved, and held sacred, and the makers of Kung Fu Panda have consistently Shown Their Work otherwise. ^note Apparently they just couldn't resist the symbolism in having the Dragon Warrior opposed by a dragon—or they wanted to have the cool firebreathing effect.

Requires Expert Knowledge to Spot ( 16 Examples)

YMMV.Grand Theft Auto V: During the Paleto Bay setup mission, the dispatcher uses "code thirty adam" in response to a ringing alarm being set off by Michael. Except "Code Thirty Adam" is the police code for silent alarms being set off, not ringing ones. It would actually be a "Code Thirty Ringer".
YMMV.Madagascar: While the Central Park Zoo does house penguins, it does not house lions, zebras, hippos, giraffes or chimpanzees. It did feature large animals at one point, however, so the filmmakers gave New York in the first film a 60's feel. ^note
YMMV.Mayfield: According to a certain anonymous contributor on Roleplay Secrets, Mayfield was a sex game for people with a fetish for The '50s. This sentiment was not shared by most of Mayfield's moderators and players (as can be seen in the comments). The audience not being aware of it argues for the example being misuse.
WebVideo.Game Theory: In his video on video game boobs, he states that "Nipples always tend to be symmetrical and point in the same direction, botched boob jobs, on the other hand, leave them pointing in different directions." This is not true. Due to natural variations in growth and the tendency of larger breasts to sag outwards away from the midline of the chest, it is possible and common for women who have had no cosmetic procedures to have asymmetrical nipples pointing in slightly different directions. This example also abuses the "invoked" tag for YMMV items.
YMMV.Agents Of SHIELDS 1 E 12 Seeds: "A battery that carries a terawatt of energy". The Watt is a unit of power. The appropriate unit would be the Joule. Both Fitz (who says this) and Donnie (who he's talking to) are nerdy scientists and should not make this mistake. The writers, on the other hand...
YMMV.Brows Held High: His video on The Color Of Pomegranites attempted to do a less-director focused story on the movie as he at first bounced right off of it, and especially tried to move away from that framing as he glanced at the director's wikipedia page and found that he was charged with rape. Which ended up with a scathing retort by a fan who pointed out that the movie is absolutely extremely specific and faithful in it's subject matter^note, but in the way he ended up creating the video basically glossed over several key things about the film: that a) the director, Sergei Parajanov was a bisexual man who was constantly hounded by the Soviet Union for constantly subverting their film practices and got that rape charge trumped up as an excuse for the Soviet government to arrest him for his sexuality, and that he preserved a 78 minute snapshot of Armenian culture and cultural heritage, something that was in genuine danger of being lost at the time due to the aftereffects of the Armenian Genocide and life under the soviet union, and finally the film came with a half hour explanation of what was going on that he, in all likelyhood if he got it as a DVD, would have had to help supplement it. It was so complete (and furious) a rebuttal to the video's point that Kyle ended up pinning the comment, and later commented that he was genuinely sorry for the way he ended up portraying Sarajanov in the essay.
YMMV.Twister: Jo's father describes the approaching tornado as possibly an F5 in 1969, when the Fujita scale wasn't established until 1972. Tornados are measured on the scale of their damage, after they pass. You can't look at a tornado and say "That's an F5." It could turn out to be one. It isn't until it's over.
YMMV.Jeopardy: June 11, 2012: Final Jeopardy! asked "Acts 1:13 says this event occurred in 'an upper room'." They were looking for "The Last Supper", and initially ruled the champion's response of "Pentecost" wrong, but Alex later acknowledged the latter as right in a dubbed-in clip and mentioned that, starting with the next game, his score would be adjusted accordingly. The truth is, there is no right answer — Acts 1:13 makes no mention of any "act" besides the disciples meeting there, and Pentecost doesn't show up until Acts 2. Furthermore, the exact location of the Last Supper is unknown; it is believed to have happened in an upper room simply because that was tradition. Fortunately, this did not affect the outcome, since only two players were present at Final Jeopardy! and the champion, who answered "Pentecost", had a "lock" game.
YMMV.Jurassic Park:
- The lysine contingency is the park's way of controlling the dinosaur population, and making sure that the dinosaurs can't survive off the island, as they provide lysine-rich food. The problem is that no known animal can naturally produce lysine, meaning it's useless. In addition, lysine can be found in everything from beef and eggs to pistachios and pumpkin seeds; if a dinosaur (especially a carnivore) got onto the mainland, they could survive indefinitely.
- The title of Universal Studios Japan's Pteranodon-themed coaster is The Flying Dinosaur, which is inaccurate, as Pteranodons were not dinosaurs — they were a form of flying reptiles.
YMMV.Preacher: One issue focuses on a bartender who went into a clinic for a checkup but, thanks to a clerical error, was mistaken for a registered sex offender and subjected to chemical castration. The comic makes it sound as if the man's genitals were horrifically mangled to the point of being utterly unusable. In reality, chemical castration is medication meant to suppress one's sex drive. All the man would have to do is stop taking the medication and he'd be perfectly fine.
YMMV.Captain America Civil War: During the terrorist attack in Lagos after the prologue, Steve says that Crossbones’ men are armed with AR-15’s. However, none of the rifles the terrorists are armed with even are AR-15’s, nor do they have the same type of firing method^note.
YMMV.Copycat:
- Dr. Hudson mentions that Peter Kürten was a serial killer in Germany in the 1930s. Too bad Kürten didn't kill anyone in the 1930s. He committed his first known murder in 1913 and the rest in 1929.
- A slight case with the first murder we see on-screen, done in the style of the Boston Strangler. The victim is a young woman, but the first half of the Strangler's victims were middle-aged or even elderly ^note. In particular, the one whose crime scene is mimicked in the film.
- Also when they fear that killer is going to imitate Ted Bundy, saying that "he killed three girls in one night at the Chi Omega Sorority House". Bundy killed two girls in that attack and severely injured two others, though they survived, then went to another house and attacked yet another girl, who also survived.
YMMV.Assassins Creed III: Not in the gameplay, but in a certain database entry. In the entry on the Continental Congress, Shaun says the Third Continental Congress formed in 1781 to create a government for the United States and dissolved in 1789 when the Constitution was ratified. The wording, as well as Shaun's joke about long meetings, all but states the Congress took an incredibly long time to draft the Constitution, when in actuality the Congress was serving as the governing body of America under the Articles of Confederation (hence its other name, mentioned in the database, as the Congress of Confederation). It's unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but stands out among the other better-researched entries.

In-Universe Factoid Failure ( 6 examples)

Anime.Time Bokan: Insane Troll Logic: Tomomot's plan. The history book he just wrote is nothing but Critical Research Failure? Just get some guys to go back in time and manipulate the entire history of humankind so that it matches the book!
WebVideo.Game Theory: MatPat claims that Scott Cawthon did not do proper research when creating Five Nights at Freddy's 4 in regards to frontal lobe damage and its effects on dreams specifically nightmares.^note
YMMV.Alvin And The Chipmunks: Alvin doesn't know the difference between a honey badger and a meerkat in Chipwrecked. Strange, since he and Simon watched Meerkat Manor in a few scenes in The Squeakquel.
Black Comedy Rape: In Promstuck, Vriska says it is important to always be on top during sex, because that means you're winning. She also tells John not to bother with foreplay and go straight for the goods ("no-one 8others with the salad 8ar, John!"), and that 'negotiating clear boundaries' are for 'dowdy middle-aged English professors'. Fortunately, being in a fanfic, the humour relies on the audience knowing that this is completely wrong, and that Vriska is therefore an extremely inexperienced blowhard who had no idea what she's talking about.
Feigning Intelligence: Effie Trinket is probably dumber than a jar of mayonnaise, but she certainly doesn't see it that way. At one point, Effie claims to be something of an expert in architecture. Portia only acknowledges this because the silence was getting too long. At one point she claims, "Everyone has their reservations, naturally. You being from the coal district. But I said, and this was very clever of me, I said, "Well, if you put enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls!" This gets a callback in Catching Fire by an amused Peeta when he actually finds a pearl.
Doing It for the Art: Yakuza Kiwami 2 has a substory about Sugano, a former fanboy who became the new director for the Yakuza Sunset film franchise and initially showed enthusiasm into making Yakuza Sunset 3, only for it to be lambasted by the fans and he considers quitting over this. Kazuma Kiryu, a semi-retired yakuza himself, watches the movie and praises his music direction and poignant interpersonal character drama, then helps to improve in the areas of action and Critical Research Failure about yakuza customs, while encouraging him to stick to his strengths and not live in the shadow of the previous director.

Writer Displaying Confirmation Bias or Selective Obliviousness

Fits In Multiple Folders Above ( 10 Examples)

YMMV.Grand Theft Auto V: Josef makes a comment about how the United States is for Europeans who've committed genocide to get the land, not those south of the border. It's intended to be racist, except it conveniently ignores that the reason most of Central and South America speaks Spanish is because they were occupied by Spain, a genocidal European power. Fits the "In-Universe Factoid Failure," "(Arguably) Artistic License," and "Writer Displaying Confirmation Bias or Selective Obliviousness" folders.
YMMV.Family Guy S 13 E 10 Quagmires Mom: Quagmire is put on trial for sleeping with an underage girl. However, he was surprised to find out that she was a minor, exclaiming that she said she was over 18. Because she lied about her age, she should also be on trial. Chris even points this out, but nothing comes of it. Fits the "(Arguably) Artistic License" and "Writer Displaying Confirmation Bias or Selective Obliviousness" folders.
YMMV.Game Theory: A particularly noteworthy example in "Phoenix Wright is a Criminal": He claims that Phoenix concealed the "Maya" note in ''The Turnabout Sisters", even as his own footage proves otherwise. Fits the "Media Knowledge" and "Writer Displaying Confirmation Bias or Selective Obliviousness" folders.
YMMV.Ride To Hell Retribution: The game developers apparently believed that plastic hockey masks can deflect bullets, given that you can't kill thugs with hockey masks by shooting at their heads. Fits the "Common Knowledge" and "(Arguably) Artistic License" folders.
YMMV.Forum Fantasy: Both examples fit the "Media Knowledge" and "(Arguably) Artistic License" folders.
- User enemy Devilnevercry123 takes the form of Vergil, so you'd expect him to drop the Yamato, right? Nope, he drops a Buster Sword of all weapons. While this is likely invoked as the Real Life version of the user requested the item as part of the enemy, it's still odd to see Vergil drop a Buster Sword.
- TyrannoGamer uses Lucario as his sprite and uses "Aura Sphere" as his signature move. As a move in the games from Gen IV onward, it is a special attack that always hits. In the Super Smash Bros. series it is one of Lucario's moves that inflicts a higher amount of damage the more damage Lucario takes. This game's version of "Aura Sphere" is neither of those, instead it inflicts multiple status effects. Similar to Devilnevercry123 above, it is likely invoked, but it is still strange to see "Aura Sphere" inflict status effects.
YMMV.A Brighter Dark: Up to about Chapter 30, the author had failed to look up a single map of the entire game, going entirely off of their own memory. This led to several locations being way off from where they actually were. After a minor major breakdown due to the discovery of this, the author has declared that there is no longer a map and it does not exist. All of the examples fit the "Media Knowledge" and "(Arguably) Artistic License" folders.
- The Ice Tribe was placed in the far north, rather than just south of Castle Krakenburg.
- Cyrkensia is placed on the Hoshido side of the continent, rather than the peninsula on the Nohrian side.
- Cheve is in the location that Port Town of Dia was.
- Hoshido is much larger than it probably should be, being divided up among 12 Shoguns to govern.

Pure Complaining ( 1 Examples)

YMMV.My Immortal: Tara admits that she bases some of it on the movies because she hasn't read all of the books. This is a very good way of upsetting people in Harry Potter fandom circles, but everyone's too busy laughing to care.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 30th 2022 at 5:03:24 AM

Albert3105 Since: Jun, 2013

#276: Jul 16th 2022 at 11:21:31 PM

Artistic License – History I guess?

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#277: Jul 17th 2022 at 2:29:39 AM

The video was about anime dubbing, so no.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 6th 2022 at 5:01:26 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Ferot_Dreadnaught Since: Mar, 2015

#278: Aug 6th 2022 at 2:37:51 PM

YMMV.Pokemon The Series:
- The 4Kids dub-added Trainer's Choice misspelled many Pokémon names, got the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors wrong on multiple occasions, and once asked "Which Pokémon evolves into Seviper?" They claimed Arbok does, but in reality, Seviper is a fully-contained 'mon that doesn't evolve from or into anything.
- The 27th episode of Advanced Generation, "A Three Team Scheme," was one of the biggest examples of 4Kids glossing over stuff that appeared in the Gen III games. Not only did they mistake Tabitha of Team Magma and Shelly of Team Aqua by calling them "Harland" and "Isabel" respectively, they also ended up calling the Red and Blue Orbs as the "Rose" and "Indigo" Orbs. These errors are fixed in later episodes. CRT was about screwing up basic facts about real like so I don't think getting facts about fiction wrong count. Anything this does fit? (Cowboy BeBop at His Computer doesn't as it's media getting facts on the work wrong not the works creators, right?)
YMMV.Pokemon Mewtwo Returns: At one point, a father Rhyhorn and mother Nidoqueen are seen with their children of both species. In the games, Nidoqueen can't breed, and their offspring include baby Nidoqueen, a Pokémon at the third stage of its evolutionary line. The latter mistake has been fixed in the manga adaptation. The Series has many similar examples of how it disregards game mechanics. Does CRT not count as the work does not necessarily/is not obligated to have the same mechanics/happenings of the work it's adapting? Anything such changes do fit?
YMMV.Rogue Squadron: The opening of the Rebel Strike mission "Attack on the Executor", has you escorting Home One past three Star Destroyers. Except the ship isn't Home One, its Liberty. Not only was the Liberty destroyed by this point in the battle, the two ships don't look anything alike. What makes this particularly bad is that Rogue Leader got it right.

What to do with these?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Aug 7th 2022 at 1:15:35 AM

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#279: Aug 6th 2022 at 3:03:19 PM

I'd say remove them, because I don't think there's anywhere to move them to.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Mysterium I am you from Winden Since: Mar, 2020 Relationship Status: Browsing the selection

I am you

#280: Aug 23rd 2022 at 11:26:16 PM

Stranger Things has this long list:

Critical Research Failure:

Dustin repeatedly claims that compasses should point to "true north". In fact, compasses point to magnetic north. He does say magnetic north a few times, so it could be that he is using the terms interchangeably In-Universe, as expected of a kid his age.
When Will says that his favorite candy is Reese's Pieces, Dr. Owens agrees that chocolate and peanut butter is an unbeatable combination. Reese's Pieces don't have any chocolate. That's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. However, this may have been intentional as many, for years, have mistakenly believed that Reese's Pieces has chocolate when it's never been an ingredient in them (which is mostly due to the correlation to the Reese's name and their association with the peanut butter cups they make).
In the Season 3 finale's climax, Dustin and his girlfriend Suzie sing a duet and harmonize almost perfectly over the ham radios. The problem? Said ham radios cannot send AND receive transmissions at the same time. Realistically, either person would only be broadcasting to themselves and neither would hear the other. That said, any others on the same channel would hear both, albeit probably out of tune/desynced (unless they were REALLY good at keeping pace with the song). However these are custom built super radios so it's not unreasonable to assume that Dustin and Suzie built them to do this specifically to let them sing a duet.
The idea that an untrained listener could perfectly transcribe Russian by ear. To give but one example, kogda is pronounced kagda, and plenty of Russian characters are near homonyms, especially when heard over a crackly radio recording. It would be akin to writing a perfect sentence in Mandarin by ear alone.
The use of Vecna as the name for the villain of season 4, with specific characterisation nodding to the choice, is actually a huge anachronism. Vecna, though a prominent villain in D&D lore, didn't get introduced in-proper until 1990 (the fourth season is set in 1986); beforehand, he was referenced in the descriptions for two items (his hand and his eye), but only as a powerful lich that was betrayed and defeated long ago.
The 1979 flashbacks in Season 4 show Eleven playing Plinko. Plinko, which was created for The Price Is Right, made its debut in 1983.

I would say Artistic License Technology for the one with the radio, Artistic License – Physics for the one with magnets, the one with Russian to Contrived Coincidence and the ones with Vecna and Plinko either as Anachronism Stew or Artistic License – History. The one with the candybar, I don't know either.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#281: Aug 24th 2022 at 3:33:57 AM

If an example doesn't seem to fit anywhere else, I don't have any problem with it being removed.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)

#282: Sep 15th 2022 at 4:26:44 PM

The use of Vecna's name also isn't example. The writers stated they were well aware when Vecna was fully introduced. They made a conscious decision to go ahead with the association because they felt that Eddie was such sharp D&D super-fan, that he was able to correctly predict the direction Vecna would eventually be taken in.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#283: Oct 13th 2022 at 10:03:31 AM

Since Critical Research Failure has a Projects thread, should we do what we did with Were Still Relevant Dammit and send the rest of the cleanup there?

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining

Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him

#284: Oct 13th 2022 at 10:04:18 AM

Sure, and if not much gets done we can always just reopen the thread in that event. But until then, to closing this

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

GastonRabbit MOD Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#285: Oct 13th 2022 at 10:10:17 AM

All right, deferring this to Projects since that was done for Were Still Relevant Dammit. Here's the thread.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

GastonRabbit MOD Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#286: Nov 11th 2022 at 2:06:04 AM

Moved back because the move was premature.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Amonimus the Retromancer from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle

the Retromancer

#287: Dec 12th 2022 at 10:43:18 AM

e: I'll move to the cleanup thread (why both are open at the same time?)

Edited by Amonimus on Dec 12th 2022 at 9:44:44 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Tropiarz Since: Sep, 2022

#288: Dec 12th 2022 at 10:05:20 PM

Question - is there currently ANY trope to describe what the late Critical Research Failure did? I've already went through the disambg page, along with Artistic License and Hollywood tropes (none of them would fit anyway) and there seems to be nothing to just say "the creators failed spectacularly with doing even most basic research" (which should be a trivia entry, not ymmv).

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#289: Dec 12th 2022 at 11:22:32 PM

No, there isn't. A general trope for inaccuracies in fiction was sent to TLP a while back (this draft), but it failed.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 12th 2022 at 1:42:26 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Orbiting Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name

#290: Dec 13th 2022 at 8:00:23 PM

What do we do if it's directly mentioned (not potholed) in a Dethroning Moment of Suck entry?

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#291: Dec 13th 2022 at 9:06:22 PM

Maybe you could simply replace it with "research failure", but I suppose separating the words to keep the text while removing the wick would also work.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Orbiting Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name

#292: Dec 15th 2022 at 9:25:14 PM

To echo Amonimus, why are both this and the projects thread open?

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#293: Dec 15th 2022 at 10:25:17 PM

Because I neglected to close the Projects thread when I reopened the TRS thread. I fixed that since we only need this one, since we won't need either thread when dewicking is done.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]

She / Her

#294: Dec 17th 2022 at 1:59:20 PM

Down to 1,340 wicks (though most of that wasn't my doing admittedly).

Orbiting Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name

#295: Dec 21st 2022 at 11:08:48 PM

The only wicks remaining now are YMMV, archives, and some sandboxes that I didn't want to touch since they seemed to be about ongoing wiki projects. There are 832 left.

Edited by Orbiting on Dec 21st 2022 at 2:09:39 PM

Ferot_Dreadnaught Since: Mar, 2015

#296: Dec 26th 2022 at 3:56:32 PM

Now 550 wicks.

YMMV.Transformers Dark Of The Moon

Critical Research Failure: When the Apollo 11 landing site is visited, the upper half (Ascent Stage) of the LM is shown. The Ascent Stage is what the astronauts leave the moon in. It should only be on the moon during the mission, not afterwards. Once the astronauts have left the moon, then only the descent stage/lower half should remain.

I believe this is a common error. Anything it fits?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Dec 26th 2022 at 3:57:03 AM

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#297: Dec 26th 2022 at 7:55:38 PM

Maybe Artistic License – Space, but if not that, then I'm leaning toward deleting anything that doesn't clearly fit anywhere else due to how often this was misused for errors in general.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love

How sweet it is

#298: Dec 29th 2022 at 3:58:40 PM

I see that we're under 200 wicks now. Go go go!!

Edit: Also got creative with the wick in YMMV.Work Name. Instead of removing the whole gag, it just got a delink + added gag.

Edited by Berrenta on Dec 29th 2022 at 6:10:36 AM

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#299: Dec 30th 2022 at 3:50:42 PM

Locking up since it's done.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Add Post

Trope Repair Shop: CriticalResearchFailure

30th Nov '21 12:53:09 PM

Crown Description:

Critical Research Failure is often misused. What should be done with it?

27 (Yeas:37 Nays:10) 3.70 : 1

Disambiguate between Artistic License, In-Universe Factoid Failure, Dan Browned, and Cowboy BeBop at His Computer

15 (Yeas:24 Nays:9) 2.67 : 1