Continuity mistake: When Ariel is climbing from the car into the truck, the weather is bright and sunny when we see her in closeup, and it is quite cloudy without sunshine in the wide shots. (00:07:00)
Continuity mistake: When Ariel climbs from the car into the truck, one of the wide shots shows her practically "stretched" between the two vehicles, with her fingertips and toes holding her up. In the next closeup she is back into the car down to her knees and she starts climbing out of the window again. (00:07:20)
Continuity mistake: When Ariel is standing on both cars, from the truck driver's perspective, the trailer truck is a few meters away from a railroad crossing and the other two cars are quite near. The truck driver drives on, pulls the horn, then we cut back to Ariel. Now, the truck is far away and no railway crossing can be seen. (00:07:55)
Continuity mistake: During the book-burning scene, when the Reverend sends the people home, in closeup it is obvious that he has a small rectangular pin attached to his upper jacket pocket. Before and after that specific closeup he wears no pin whatsoever. (00:21:20 - 00:22:10)
Continuity mistake: During the "chicken race", there is a wide shot showing both tractors with a few meters between them. The supporters of Chuck are far away from Chuck's tractor and Ren's friends cannot be seen at all. In the next closeup showing Ren, his friends stand in the background just a few meters away from him. (00:29:05)
Continuity mistake: During the "chicken race" there is a wide shot showing both tractors with a few meters between them approaching each other very quickly. Then Ren's shoelace gets caught, he tries to jump, and Chuck jumps off his tractor several seconds later. With the speed shown in the wide shot, the two tractors would have collided in an eye-blink. (00:29:05)
Continuity mistake: When they are playing chicken with the tractors, when the guy driving the red tractor jumps, the tractor is about to flip over to the right side. After they cut away and then cut back the tractor flips over to the left side. (00:30:45)
Continuity mistake: When Ariel and Rusty are at the diner discussing Ren, Ariel drinks and puts the coke cup down, with her left hand under the table. A second later she toys with some French fries and both of her hands are on the table. (00:31:00)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Ren does his dance at the warehouse when he is angry he gets out of the car with a cigarette in one hand. He slams the door with the other hand, but the next minute he drinks out of a bottle, which he had not previously been holding. (00:34:10)
Continuity mistake: Ariel's prom dress is a plain pink one with a wide sash and a prominent bow in the back when we see her getting ready. When Ren helps her into his car the pink dress is bustled in the back and has a narrow ribbon around the waist. (01:28:40 - 01:30:00)
Continuity mistake: When Willard and Rusty arrive at the prom, Rusty's hair is asymmetrical and completely covers her left ear. When Willard pulls her into the middle of the dance floor to show her that now he can dance, her hair is much less asymmetrical and her left ear is perfectly visible. Her hair has not became ruffled while dancing, as the party has just begun. (01:34:10 - 01:36:05)
Visible crew/equipment: In the sequence where the young are in the field to clear up the rules of "chicken game" (or something), you can see a part of a microphone above them.
Continuity mistake: As Ren is dancing after the confrontation with his uncle we can see him dancing through the factory. He then does some gymnastics on a bar on the loft. If you look you can see that he is wearing gymnastics grips on his hands. Yet he did not have them on in the shot before, or in the shot afterwards.
Continuity mistake: During the final dance at one point within the last minutes of the film, Willard and Rusty are dancing together and she has his cowboy hat on her head. In the next shot he puts the hat on her head.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Ren is dancing in the warehouse, he takes off his sweatshirt on the second level and throws it at his feet. His beater-T is clean then. After he jumps back down to the first level, his beater-T is dirty. Then he goes through a door and slides down the staircase and his beater-T is clean again.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning when Ariel is standing between the cars Chuck pulls her in and tucks her head under his arm. When they are on the shoulder on the other side you can see her sit up, when they are back on the road she sits up again.
Visible crew/equipment: When Ariel is jumping from her car to the truck we catch a reflection of the "TRUCK" in the window of HER car. What we see is the rounded end of a silver vehicle. The truck has a flat bed.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Ren is playing chicken with Chuck on the tractors, the position of the sun repeatedly changes.
Factual error: When Ariel is playing a tape in her boyfriend's boombox in the parking lot of the diner, when her dad comes over he pushes a button once and the tape ejects. However, on this type of boombox, the stop and eject button are the same button. So in order to eject the tape, he would have had to push the button twice.
Continuity mistake: When Ariel and Rusty are at the diner discussing Ren, Ariel has a French fry in her hand halfway up to her mouth, but when the shot changes her hands are back to the bowl of fries. The bowl of fries move closer to her between shots as well.
Answer: The belief was that rock and roll was the root cause of the accident. The adults who supported the ban believed that rock and roll influenced the teens to do things they wouldn't normally do, such as drinking and driving.
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