Plot hole: When the warden comes into the cell the morning after the escape, the poster covering the hole is fastened down on all four corners - impossible to do after squeezing into that small hole. [On the DVD commentary, the director confirms that this was a movie "cheat".] (01:49:05)
Continuity mistake: When Brooks has the knife to Heywood's throat, in one shot there is blood visible on his neck, yet in the next shot the blood is gone. (00:54:15)
Suggested correction: It was always there. But in the 3rd of 4 scenes it was significantly more visible as a bright red streak. The other 3 times it's a dark red dot near the knife point.
The amount of blood changes from scene to scene, not just how visible it is.
Trivia: The sound of the warden shooting himself is the same sound of the man stamping "Approved" on Red's paper.
Suggested correction: Please provide evidence of this. I've just done a comparison, and they sound different.
Continuity mistake: When Andy is in the bank, in the background you can see a man in a "porkpie" hat and a white shirt move forward to talk to the cashier. As Andy stands up to leave, the man can be seen again, standing towards the back of the queue. (01:56:10)
Suggested correction: The man may have made an error to some paperwork (deposit slip or withdraw slip), and had to get another one and fix his mistake...which would have put him at the end of the queue. You don't get to jump back in line, unless offered that convenience.
Trivia: The Humane Society had to be present for the scene when the maggot is feed to the bird, Jake. The Society said it was cruel to the maggot, so it had to get a maggot that died of natural causes before the crew could shoot it.
Suggested correction: Tim Robbins said this on a 1997 interview on the Tonight Show, but he really seemed to be joking.
Continuity mistake: At the start when Andy opens a bottle of alcohol, he drinks it with the same hand he opened it with. His hand is shifted after the second time we see him take a drink. (00:03:00)
Suggested correction: Watch carefully he takes the cap off and palms it in his right hand and as he does, so he lowers his hand and grabs the glass bottle to have a drink.
While the mistake isn't very clear, this mistake seems to be about the second time we see him take a drink, after the cut. After he says it's inconvenient the gun was never found, he's seen lifting the bottle by the neck, then the next shot, he's holding it further down.
Other mistake: When the cons are drinking beer on top of the roof, the man that finished his bottle gestures for another. The guy takes out an already-opened bottle of the bucket horizontally, the beer should've poured out.
Suggested correction: The bottle is only horizontal for a second as he lifts it; enough time for some of the contents to pour out but not all.
Suggested correction: It's a shame the director surrendered, but for someone as smart as Andy, this is the smallest of problems. He could've put weights on the bottom of the poster, or used magnets he embedded in the walls together with iron glued to the poster, or enough washers in the bottom to essentially do both.
dizzyd
That's a load of rubbish. Embedding magnets in the wall? Really.
Ssiscool ★
If he can make a six foot escape tunnel, he can scrape out several small holes around the poster's edge, and insert the aforementioned magnets, glued in however he can manage (ie tape, chewing gum).
dizzyd
He could have simply used glue mixed with dirt to weigh it down. Once the glue dried it wouldn't matter how heavy the poster was, so long as there was contact.
How could Andy do that after he escaped through the hole in the wall?
satishsasikumar
I don't think it's what happened, but easily enough. Put magnets in the wall during his tunnel digging process - he had years - then something magnetic affixed to the corners of the poster. As soon as he was in the hole the poster would hang down and affix itself to the bottom corners.
Further, if the poster weren't "glued" on the bottom, it would not have been taught enough for the warden's pebble to go through it. If the poster were attached loosely, the pebble would have simply bounced off.