The Sum of All Fears

Question: As President Fowler is being escorted from the football stadium, he tells Cabot to "get the people out of here." How did the President know that the bomb was in the building? No one in the scene knew its exact location, so why does he think that if the fans leave the stadium they will be safe?

Answer: The President telling Cabot to "get the people out of here" is just a political life boat. If asked what he did when he found out about the bomb he can "honestly" say he asked for an evacuation.

It's unlikely at such a time of panic that one would consider a 'political life boat'. There's also nothing in the character as presented to suggest that would be his thought process. The president's just been told that there's a bomb in Baltimore (not the building) and says "get those people out of the stadium." He's being evacuated from a location that contains thousands of other people. It's fair to assume he knows all those people are also in danger so wants them evacuated too.

Question: Now i don't know much about missiles and such, but in the scene where the Israeli fighter jet is carrying the nuclear warhead, and is then shot down, well wouldn't the bomb blast that destroyed the plane also detonate the nuke attached as well? correct if i am wrong.

Answer: Nope. A nuclear detonation requires a highly specific sequence of events to occur within the bomb - an explosion nearby wouldn't come close to producing those conditions. The construction of a nuclear bomb requires components to be placed in a highly specific configuration - damage to the bomb would disrupt that configuration and make it effectively impossible for the bomb to go off.

Tailkinker

Question: What is the music playing/who is it by when Clark slits the South African guys throat near the end of the movie?

Answer: The song is the classic "Nessun dorma", composed by Puccini and sung (in this version) by Bruce Sledge.

Continuity mistake: In the aircraft scenes after the blast in Baltimore, watch the clocks closely. The times go forward, backward, and everything in between.

More mistakes in The Sum of All Fears

President Fowler: Order the planes to stand down, take us to DEFCON-3... and will somebody ask Mr. Ryan if I can use the phone now?

More quotes from The Sum of All Fears

Trivia: The SuperBowl game was filmed in Montreal, Quebec in Canada and the two teams are the Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts of The Canadian Football League. They just put them in different uniforms to film them.

More trivia for The Sum of All Fears

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.