Broken Arrow

Plot hole: Slater decides to render the nuke inert by punching in the wrong code three times. However, when he does this, the nuke becomes armed, and Travolta reveals that he is one step ahead by having used a special kind of circuit board to produce this result. Two questions: One, once Slater has armed one nuke, why not arm them all? You've got nothing to lose, and you can keep Travolta from getting them for whatever evil purpose he has in mind. Slater plans to send them all to the bottom of the copper mine anyway, so just arm them all. Two, Travolta later arms a nuke himself, and then smashes the keypad with his gun. Well, if you can do that, why doesn't Slater just smash all the keypads as soon as he gets the nukes? Travolta would be defeated; movie over.

rbryant73

Plot hole: In the mine shaft, with the lift going the speed it does, it would take over 10 minutes to travel 2000 feet. Yet our characters manage to do it in about two minutes (use the bomb timer for reference). With the bomb timer starting at 30 minutes (not to mention Travolta puts it down to 13 in a later shot), everyone in the mine should be dead before they could escape.

Davidian

Plot hole: There is no logical reason as to why two pilots on a training exercise would be given classified info such as the access codes for the nukes.

Other mistake: When Christian Slater shoots 9 or 10 shots out of a 6-shooter, there is no possible way that he could have had time to reload in the time allotted.

More mistakes in Broken Arrow

Vic Deakins: Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?

More quotes from Broken Arrow

Trivia: John Woo wanted Hale to die in the film, but the studio was against it because of Slater's popularity with younger audiences.

More trivia for Broken Arrow

Question: Like the Wilhelm scream, is there a name to the scream Howie Long makes he falls? I've heard that in more than few other things.

Answer: To me it sounds a lot like a Tie Fighter flyby, also been used in a few movies for various different things.

ScottytooHotty

Answer: Funnily enough, it is actually often referred to as the "Howie Scream," in reference to this film, which famously used it. It's a stock sound effect that's been in use since at least 1980. It's also referred to as "Screams 3; Man, Gut-Wrenching Scream and Fall into Distance," which was presumably the title of the track in the music library it's from.

TedStixon

More questions & answers from Broken Arrow

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.