Continuity errors

Pirates of the Caribbean is a large franchise, and as such its films, books, video games, and comic books contain many continuity errors. Several movie mistakes and plot holes can also be found in the films.

The Interceptor's multiple foremasts
In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, during the battle between the HMS Interceptor and the Black Pearl, Pintel and Ragetti fire a chain shot at the naval vessel, breaking its foremast and causing it to fall on the Pearl's main deck. However, a few moments later, right after Marty fires from a swivel gun, when Barbossa's pirates swing aboard the Interceptor, the foremast can be seen standing intact, with ANOTHER, broken foremast connecting the Interceptor and the Pearl.

Jack Sparrow's curse of the Aztec gold
In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, during the Battle of Isla de Muerta, Jack Sparrow stabs Hector Barbossa with his sword. Being under the curse of the Treasure of Cortés and therefore immortal, Barbossa pulls out the sword from his chest and stabs Jack with it. Seemingly mortally wounded, Jack makes a few steps back, with the moonlight transforming him into a skeleton, showing that he was under the same curse as Barbossa. Shocked, Barbossa looks at Jack as the younger pirate shows him one of the cursed gold coins which he stole from the Aztec stone chest a few minutes earlier. However, Barbossa should NOT be surprised to see Jack cursed because he took four coins from the chest right in front of Barbossa, automatically falling under the curse. Barbossa himself stated earlier that "Any mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity". In a post credit scene Jack the monkey, now free from the curse, swims back into the treasure cave and takes one of the coins from the chest, instantly becoming cursed again. The only way to remove the curse was to put all the Aztec gold back into the chest AND offer the blood of all the people who took the gold from the chest as a sacrifice to the Heathen Gods.

Jack Sparrow's compass
In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Tia Dalma reveals that Jack Sparrow bartered his famous compass from her. According to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide he got the compass from Tia Dalma seven years before the events of Dead Man's Chest.

However, Terry Rossio later said that Jack had the compass even before Barbossa's first mutiny on the Black Pearl, and that's how he knew where to search for Isla de Muerta and the Treasure of Cortés. The short comic book The Compass of Destiny! confirmed that when in it Tia Dalma gave the compass to Jack and he said he intended to use it to search for the Treasure of Cortés.

A few years later, Ann C. Crispin was contracted by The Walt Disney Company to write an adult novel set in the POTC world. She specifically asked the Disney employees if she could put the compass in the book, and they answered positively. The book showed Jack in possession of the compass when he was a twenty-year-old pirate. The specific date when he received the compass was not given. However, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales shows a different origin of Jack's compass, which seemingly retcons all the other stories. The film's flashback scene shows an eighteen-year-old Jack aboard the Wicked Wench, receiving the compass from the ship's mortally wounded captain, a pirate named Morgan. With his last dying breath Morgan explains what the compass does and warns Jack never to betray it. In one of the earlier versions of Jeff Nathanson's script the original owner of the compass was Captain Salazar.

Jack Sparrow's Jolly Roger on the Black Pearl
In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, when Jack Sparrow shows his crew the Black Pearl, magically shrunken and trapped in a bottle, Jack Sparrow's pirate flag, the white skull with two crossed bones and a red sparrow on a black background, can be seen flying from the mainmast. However, when Blackbeard captured the ship between the events of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, she was under Barbossa's command, not Jack's. When Jack takes the bottle in his hands at the end of On Stranger Tides Barbossa's flag, the white skull with two crossed swords, can be seen right before Jack the monkey appears.

Barbossa's crew hangs from nothing
In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, when Jack Sparrow, Carina Smyth, and Henry Turner escape to Hangman's Bay, the vengeful ghost Captain Armando Salazar hangs Barbossa and his surviving crewmen upside down on the main deck of the Silent Mary and starts slowly killing them one by one. However, on that part of the ship there was nothing they could be hanged from. The only thing that could be used for something like that were the yards of the ship's masts, but the mast closest to them, the mainmast, was lying on deck, broken.