Corrected entry: When Jack comes up with the idea to hold the elevator with the cable and says that he has an idea, Harry says "You're not going to shoot them are you?" The next scene has them on the roof and Jack answering "No, we're just going to take them out of the equation." Sure, that seemed good while watching the movie since the answer came just seconds after the question. But in reality, they had to climb out of hte elevator shaft, and run up 20+ flights of stairs. This would have taken at least 4-5 minutes. So why is Jack just answering this question NOW, and why does he answer it as if it was just asked?
Corrected entry: When Sam gets shot Jack takes off his blue button down shirt to help stop the bleeding. Later he has the shirt back on without a drop of blood on it.
Correction: When Jack first gets on the bus he is wearing a t-shirt, a blue button down shirt and multi-colored flannel looking shirt. When Sam gets shot Jack takes off the flannel shirt and the blue ones slides off his shoulder but it never actually comes off. It is the flannel one that he gives to Sam.
Corrected entry: During the police officer's awards ceremony it is mentioned that the only life taken by the terrorist bomber was his own. What about the security guard that he visciously stabbed in the head?
Correction: He actually says "the only life taken by the terrorist BOMB was his own".
Corrected entry: When the sharp curve is coming, Keanu Reeves tells everyone to get onto the side of the bus that the bus will be turning *into*. This would only cause more weight on that side and thus cause the bus to flip.
Correction: No it wouldn't. The weight was on the correct side.
Corrected entry: As the end of the conversation about Jack getting off the bus nears, there's a picture on the TV behind Payne showing the bus going down the freeway, but the bus is on the airport tarmac at that time.
Correction: The local news coverage is, typically, replaying earlier highway footage throughout the incident. But the bomber, Howard Payne, was watching the bus the entire time with a hidden camera that had nothing to do with local news coverage. The police tell a television news crew to record the private transmission and rebroadcast it in a continuous loop, to fool Howard while the bus passengers were offloaded at the airport. So, Howard is watching his private feed, not the local news coverage. Howard still thinks the bus is on the tarmac and under his control. Too late, he realises that he was completely fooled by the video replays.
Corrected entry: Payne tells Jack he wants the money left in a green bin on the northeast corner of some intersection. Then later we see Payne looking out a window at the drop bin. If that's the northeast corner, then the shadow of the bin indicates the sun is shining from due north, and quite low to the horizon. That would never happen - certainly not in Los Angeles.
Correction: The garbage can is in place at the northeast corner of Pershing Square, not an intersection (Payne worded it as so). When Traven runs towards the trash can, the Biltmore hotel is ahead of him due west. The sunlight is coming from the east, so Payne's directions were accurate.
Corrected entry: At the airport, as the last bus passenger is crossing to the rescue vehicle, the right rear tire of the city bus blows out. The bus immediately veers to the left, and Annie pulls the wheel to the right to try to keep a straight course. However, a vehicle will always veer to the side with the blown out tire, which in this case, should have been to the right. (01:24:50)
Correction: Actually, with the weight of the bus being distributed over so many other wheels, this blow out most likely would have had little to no effect. I had a blow out in my car's right rear tire and my car didn't even flinch because the majority of the weight was in the front where the engine is and rode smooth on the remaining three wheels until I was able to pull over.
Corrected entry: Our heroes steer the bus toward a gap in an elevated exit ramp even though we can see in a wide shot that they have at least two alternative routes, one of which is completely unobstructed. It appears that the only possible reason for taking the route that they chose could be to film a jump scene. (01:02:35)
Correction: The other routes would not continue on the freeway. They may lead to other unfinished roadways and the jump was the best option for them.
Corrected entry: At the end of the film, a tape loop is made of the camera inside the bus to trick the villain to think that everybody's still on board. With the video equipment shown, it is simply not possible to do a seamless loop in a flick of a second.
Correction: It is possible to do a tape looping because TV crews have that equipment in their trucks, and it wasn't in a "flick of a second"; Mac tells Jack "I only have a minute of tape", but it could've been a bit longer than a minute.
Corrected entry: When Howard is talking to Jack on the payphone, after blowing up the bus that Jack's friend was driving, Howard says, "I want my money by 11am." Later on when Jack is trying to defuse the bomb when the bus is in the airport, Jack's watch says 5:01pm. We know the time's right as he checked it earlier. (Frame by frame required.) (00:29:10 - 01:11:25)
Correction: I refer you to the contribution rule that states "If something requires slow motion to spot, chances are it's not a valid mistake, but there are exceptions. For example, a cameraman in shot for a few frames or something else fairly major is worth listing, but a tiny change in position or set wobble that's only noticeable by slowing the shot down won't be listed. Minor mistakes have their place on this site, but they must be noticeable in regular viewing." Please take these things into account before submitting.
Corrected entry: Howard Payne says to Jack at the beginning when they are talking on the phone, that if the bus drops below 50mph it blows up, so how come when we finally see the bus explode at the airport we see the speedometer on the bomb explode at 50 not below it. (00:28:40 - 01:26:55)
Correction: Probably because the speedometer on the bus is analogue and the speedometer underneath is digital and more accurate. As soon as the speed hit 49.999 mph it blew up.
Corrected entry: Stephen Baldwin was the first choice for the part of Jack Traven.
Correction: It was William Baldwin, not Stephen.
Corrected entry: Soon after Jack gets on the bus, Howard can see the bus on the news. Why is the news at this stage covering this? The only thing that has been suspicious is someone from a car coming from a car onto a bus, but what has happened before this that makes this newsworthy? Looks like regular traffic is flowing up to this point. (00:44:00)
Correction: It is extremely common for news helicopters to cover rush hour traffic in major cities. If a news crew happened to be monitoring the freeway and noticed a pedestrian running to catch up to a bus, stop a convertible dead in its tracks, get in the convertible, catch up to the bus, the man jumps from the speeding car onto the bus at 50 plus miles per hour, and the car then crashes; it seems fairly normal for the bus to be on the news by this point. It certainly isn't a plot hole.
But for that scenario to work, not a single element can be missed. If the film crew missed any of it why would they film the bus?
I don't think if a single element was missed it wouldn't be newsworthy. If, for example they missed everything but a man jumping from a moving car onto a bus I still think that makes the bus newsworthy. That's really the only element that can't be missed by the news for this explanation to work. Payne himself comments on Jack's bravery in getting on the bus so that means he saw it. The only thing that could make the news following the bus a plot hole would be if Jack managed to get on without any fanfare at all, which of course didn't happen. It can't be a plot hole because it's not impossible for the news to have followed the entire incident of Jack getting on the bus. The fact that they may have been able to miss something doesn't make it impossible that they didn't.
Corrected entry: Halle Berry was the first choice for the part of Anne.
Correction: According to the IMDb, the part was written for Ellen DeGeneres (and the role was a lot more comedic). Halle Berry was just one of the people to turn it down.
Correction: According to Wikipedia and Rolling Stone, the role was offered to Halle Berry but she declined the part. Berry would later regret the decision. Later, the character had then been changed to a driver's education teacher, and made the character more of a comic-relief sidekick to Jack, with Ellen DeGeneres in mind for the part.
Correction: Jack's idea is dependant on there being a crane in the right position on the roof to run the cable down to support the lift. He only replies when he gets to the roof and sees that there is one. During the run up the stairs, there wouldn't be time, or breath, for conversation, so Harry's question has just been left hanging.
Tailkinker ★