Corrected entry: When they both leave the Warlocks house, you see a close up shot of the headlamps on the vehicle lighting up. In subsequent shots of the journey, the headlamps are off.
Corrected entry: As Gabriel is starting the download from Woodlan to the "portable" server set up by his men, the progress bar shows "0 of 500TB used". Even with today's harddrives, one would need to carry 250 to 500 harddrives to reach this capacity.
Correction: Gabriel didn't download the data to a portable server. His men went to Woodlawn to disable all the safety protocols (firewalls etc) and the download was completed via the normal Internet to a server farm elsewhere. This is why Gabriel turned off phone networks, satellites etc to make sure he had as much bandwidth available as possible for his download.
Corrected entry: In the street scenes of Washington, DC, the cabs are Yellow Cabs. DC does not have a yellow cab system, but rather "gypsy" cabs that come in all colors. There are actually very few yellow-colored taxi cabs. (00:21:30)
Correction: During the movie, only two taxis are seen during the entire time in Washington D.C., so it's entirely possible they could be the same colour. And you in your mistake acknowledge the existence of yellow cabs in D.C.
Corrected entry: When the terrorist holding Lucy is shot in the foot, it is very clear that Lucy is wearing sandals, but when we see her feet from under the van as she kicks the gun to her dad, she has brown boots instead.
Correction: The scene happens fast but if you watch close, you can see that Lucy is wearing sandals and the terrorist has the boots.
Corrected entry: In the final chase scene with McClane driving the semi along the freeway, none of the cars in traffic have drivers or passengers. You also notice that the cameras don't have any stationary shots so that it creates an illusion that the cars are actually moving. But if you use the street lights and intersections as reference you can see they're not moving.
Correction: Of course they don't have anyone in them - the public were told earlier in the film to abandon their cars. The cars aren't moving; they're parked.
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie the CIA helicopters are flying from DC to Baltimore. We see them over a wide stretch of water. Then there is a long sequence with McClane, and when we get back to the helicopters they are still over water. When you fly from DC to Baltimore you do not cross a long stretch of water.
Correction: In the Washington D.C.- Baltimore area there is a "No Fly Zone" that has been in effect since the late 1950's. The most recent edition is the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) that extends from DC to literally the edge of Baltimore. Woodlawn is on the west side of Baltimore, but because of the radius of the no fly zone, the fastest way to get from DC would be to go east then follow the Chesapeake bay to Baltimore, over water almost the entire trip.
Corrected entry: McClane carrys a Sig Sauer P220, which has an 8 round single stack magazine. In the first shoot scene in the apartment, he reloads twice and then fires over 12 rounds blindly around the corner.
Correction: The gun McClane uses is actually a P226, the P220 is an older version dating from 1975. The P226 has a 12 to 13 round capaticy, thus making it possible to fire more than 8 rounds.
Corrected entry: When McClane drives the SUV into the elevator shaft, you can see where the windshield has been "smashed out". There are wavy clean breaks along the perimeter of the lucite used as the glass. In reality, a windshield would shatter but still hold together in one sheet. It's impossible for it to break cleanly like shown in the scene.
Correction: Back in 2003 when I was in Iraq, we had half a windshield shot out in an ambush. Yes, it is Very possible.
Corrected entry: In the scene when Bruce Willis and Maggie Q are having a fight, Bruce throws Maggie through a shelf and the next shot cuts to Bruce holding a piece of her hair. The next shot cuts to Maggie and there is no sign of hair or scalp damage. (01:04:35)
Correction: Hair doesn't always break/snap at the root. Besides we do not see her entire head to make the assumption that there is "no sign of damage". She also has long black hair, impossible to tell where exactly the hair was ripped off.
Corrected entry: Henchmen are shown flying a helicopter over DC, with automatic weapons and such. After 9/11, DC has very strict airspace security, and a helicopter flying around without broadcasting its position would be beset by fighter jets in no time at all, especially if the helicopter was carrying armed men.
Corrected entry: When McClane and Farrell are stealing the BMW 5-series in Washington DC, Farrel hits the cars bumper with a trash can in order to deploy the airbags and prevent McClane from disabling the vehicle. Airbags do not deploy if vehicles are hit on the bumper with small objects, only if the vehicle is hit with sufficient force to trigger the airbag, usually by another vehicle or a large stationary object.
Correction: This is a valid mistake but your reasoning is incorrect. There are compression sensors across the bumper and if sufficient pressure is applied the airbags will deploy BUT ONLY if there is also sufficient deceleration detected by the ACU (to prevent such unnecessary deployment). As the car is stationary it is not possible to set off the airbags in this manner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_bag#Triggering_conditions.
Corrected entry: Near the start of the chase involving the HAZ-MAT van and the semi, John runs into a black Mercedes Benz car, skewing it round to the left of the cab, later on in the chase, he hits exactly the same Mercedes.
Corrected entry: The news broadcast showing panic on the stock markets is shown shortly after McClain arrive in DC. However the speaker says panic broke out "this afternoon". But it's morning.
Corrected entry: The amount of data that is stored at Woodlawn is so massive, the computers need cooling towers. However, the DHS guy tells Bowman that Gabriel could load the data onto a portable hard drive. The problem with that scenario is that a hard drive of that size would be able to hold a minuscule amount of the data.
Corrected entry: McClane carries a Sig P220 .45. NYPD only approves the Sig in 9mm, like the P226. You can easily tell it's a .45 due to the single stack magazine, while the 9mm uses a double stack.
Correction: McClane was never one to follow the rules. So using a different gun is not beyond the realm of reality.
Corrected entry: When talking to Gabriel, McClane covers the camera with his hand and asks the Warlock to locate him, only to be told that covering the lens does not deactivate the microphone. So if Gabriel is aware that an attempt is being made to locate his position, why doesn't he take any measures? Especially when he sees McClane bursting out of the basement?
Corrected entry: Farrell's own cellphone was Nokia E61. In the car, Farrell used his car-lighter charger to charge the battery of the stolen Nokia 9300, which has different charger connector than his Nokia E61.
Correction: The fact that Matt (Farrell) uses his own car-lighter charger, which he carried around with him, implies that he also carried around with him other other computer/phone related bits and pieces. This is shown by the fact that he has a "soft" keyboard with him which he uses later on in the movie. Therefore it would be safe to assume that he has an adapter plug in his bag to charge any phone or any other device with his car-lighter charger.
Corrected entry: When McClane drives the truck into the computer control room, he smashes into the Thai goon with high speed, and then slams her into a wall. Her legs would have been crushed by that impact, but she's not hurt at all, and we see her moving her legs around with ease when she's trying to climb up the truck.
Correction: If you look closely, she does not actually hit the wall. The truck slams into an elevator shaft, and the rear of the truch gets stuck and stops it just short of the front end slamming into the opposite wall.
Corrected entry: When the hackers have taken over the TV broadcast signal and the picture is being displayed in the FBI command centre, a message scrolls across the screen. Cut to another shot with John McClane watching the same TV channel as the FBI, the same message scrolls across, when it had in fact already been displayed.
Correction: This is a standard movie making convention of showing the same scene or shot from different characters' point of view.
Corrected entry: In the scene where McClane is in the truck being chased by the jet plane, the truck is attacked by missiles. In a particular shot a missile blows up the road making the truck almost flip-over. The truck is in a hard LEFT-turn. McClane steers hard LEFT to prevent the truck from flipping over. But that would only make the truck flip harder. He should have steered hard RIGHT.
Correction: The trailer portion is trying to flip overto the right. He steers hard left to try to counterbalance the effect of the trailer tipping over.
If you look at the scene, the truck is also tipping, not just the trailer. Steering hard left with a truck and trailer on the verge of tipping to the right would increase the centrifugal force already acting upon it and it would have completed the tip over. Steering hard to the same direction of the tip while moving forward would apply the counter force necessary to allow the truck/trailer to return to normal center of gravity over the wheels. It is a physics error.
Correction: They turn the lights off when approaching Woodlawn so they can't be seen.