Dante's Peak

Revealing mistake: After Dante's Peak explodes for the final time, the pyroclastic cloud rolls down the mountain toward the town. Harry shouts "Don't look back, kids, don't look back." and then we are shown a wide shot of the truck zooming down the ash-choked streets. Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that this is either a miniature or CGI shot, because the truck isn't leaving any tracks behind it or trailing any clouds of ash despite its high speed. (01:28:19)

Phil C.

Revealing mistake: In the scene where the van is about to be flipped over on the washed out bridge, wires can be seen on the hood of the miniature that pulled it across.

Revealing mistake: When the volcano begins to erupt, cars are seen driving out of the city. When the motorway collapses, and the cars go with it, in the close up shots, there are no drivers inside them.

Revealing mistake: During the pyroclastic flow scene, the flow sweeps a tractor trailer off an overpass, which blows off some of the side panels in the back. Watch the back of the truck before the flow hits it, the panels that come out are already popped out and ready to blow off.

Revealing mistake: When the group is first leaving shore in the boat in the acid lake with the cabin behind them on fire, the angle of the river behind them compared to the shore line doesn't match and moves independently showing how they matted the two different scenes together.

jerimiah

Revealing mistake: When the lava comes through Ruth's house you can see that it's done with CG. The reddish "streaks" look like from a sci-fi movie. The shapes of the lights and streaks are unnatural.

Revealing mistake: While the scientists are trying to escape, Paul and his truck get tossed aside into the swollen river, but the truck is suddenly much smaller than it should be.

kh1616

Revealing mistake: When Lauren screams after seeing the bodies in the hot spring, someone grabs her, but it is none of the characters in the scene.

Factual error: After the volcanic eruption, there's a scene where we see our heroes going across a lake, which has been turned to acid by the lava. If this acid is strong enough to corrode the propeller, then surely the fumes would be destroying their lungs, in which case they should be dead, or close to it.

Davidian

More mistakes in Dante's Peak

Harry Dalton: My 9th grade science teacher always said that if you put a frog in boiling hot water, it would jump out. But put it in cold water, and heat it up gradually, it would slowly boil to death.
Nancy: What's that Harry? Your recipe for frog soup?
Harry Dalton: It's my recipe for a disaster.

More quotes from Dante's Peak

Trivia: The ‘volcanic ash' you see in this movie is actually finely shredded newspapers.

More trivia for Dante's Peak

Question: Why is the rescue pilot helicopter such a selfish person? He complains about working over lunch, refuses to embark on a search-and-rescue mission without hiking his rates, and even extorts desperate townspeople trying to evacuate on his helicopter for all their money. Why was he such a greedy and insensitive egotist?

Answer: Because the character is written to be the stereotypical antagonist whose sole purpose is to create the obligatory plot conflict. This was such a silly, unrealistic, and all-around bad movie, that the two-dimensional villain guy fits right in. I live in Washington and remember when Mt. St. Helen's erupted. Dante's Peak, which was based on it, was nothing like the real-life event.

raywest

More questions & answers from Dante's Peak

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