Revealing mistake: When the parking lot building collapses, check the right side where the cars are. All along the ground level there's a rectangular strip where the film of the miniature building was pasted on top of the film with the real-sized parked cars. Note how all the debris falls behind that strip, it never falls on top of the cars, as if there was a weird black hole of some sort. (01:37:54)
Continuity mistake: When the aftershock hits L.A. and destroys Wilshire Plaza, the camera shows the destruction underground and at some point a brick pillar falls over. Instead of being made of brick it's really made out of wood with brick type wallpaper. You can tell this because if the pillar was really made of brick, when it fell over chunks of brick would at least break off. (01:38:20)
Revealing mistake: When the parking lot collapses, there's a brick pillar that not only does it not break into pieces, but it bounces around, revealing it's a hollow light-weight prop. (01:38:26)
Revealing mistake: In the office tower after the quake there is a panic and workers rush down the stairs only to find them fallen away. After two women fall to their death a man is left hanging on a girder, but falls onto a giant piece of glass. Look at the top of the frame and you will see the airbag shooting our from under it.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the earthquake, outside of the office building the entire scene is out of continuity. Just watch the woman with the orange dress.
Revealing mistake: When the airplane is coming in for a landing, we see an exterior shot of the plane shaking violently well before it has touched down. Clearly the "earthquake" effect is achieved by merely shaking the camera.
Other mistake: During the quake, we see the furniture, wall panels, ceiling tile, windowpanes, vertical blinds, etc., in the office fall, shake, or crack. Yet the leaves of a large potted plant do not move at all.
Continuity mistake: During the scene at the airport when the tower OK's the plane to land we can see it is a 707 with TWA-like colors of red and white. Then when there is the shot of the plane on the ground it turns into a DC-8 with orange markings. When the plane takes off into the air the camera shows the 707 again.
Revealing mistake: During the quake, a mother is seen having a plate glass window fall on her face while her daughter screams. Before the mother turns around to show us the gore, look close and you can see a shard of glass already "placed" in her face before the fake glass falls her. Additionally, while not a "mistake", it's clearly a "stuntman" portraying the mother. The face and yelping give it away.
Revealing mistake: When the elevator crashes, there's a really crappy splat of blood on screen that appears abruptly, which is a very obvious over-impression of a painting.
Continuity mistake: When the big afro gal opens her jacket to show Lew her shirt, her nipples change appearance between shots, from visible, to smooth like she's wearing a bra, and then visible again.
Revealing mistake: After failing to spin the loop in the motorcycle the first time, Miles tries again. He starts driving towards the loop, and after he finishes the first half, if you look carefully, the bike then falls out of the loop. For the rest of the scene, he continues to ride the bike around the second half of the loop anyway. The shot of him riding towards the loop was probably a previous take.
Continuity mistake: After the drunk faints, there's a wide shot of the dam. The number of people next to the railing differs between wide and close shots.
Revealing mistake: When the executive at Royce's offices looks out of the window to the building across, you can see that the two people deliberately fell out of the window, instead of accidentally falling through.
Other mistake: As the earthquake hits, outside of the movie theatre, a blonde, short-haired woman in an orange shirt and beige pants is running out of the theatre. A second later, she is pummeled by bricks along with two others and collapses to the sidewalk. Then, she is coming out of a doorway a couple of seconds later.
Other mistake: Early in the movie, at the dam when Fred is found drowned in the elevator, there was not enough water trapped in the elevator to drown him.
Revealing mistake: When the earthquake strikes, there's a shot of a tall black glass building shaking. Check the lampposts and buildings around and you'll notice that it's a very obvious film negative being distorted by just wobbling it back and forth.
Character mistake: Remy is Sam's daughter despite that they look the same age.
Suggested correction: This would be trivia at best. Characters are often older or younger than the actors portraying them. Greene being less than 8 years older than Gardner in real life isn't a mistake.
Character mistake: Near the beginning, Denise tells Stuart she has two small scenes in a movie, but then moments later tells him it is one whole scene.
Continuity mistake: When the man eating chicken falls off the balcony, curtains appear on the windows behind.
