Continuity mistake: When Danny gets shot at the end of the film, his paper flies out of his hand. But the very next shot of him shows that the paper is still in his hand being held over his head while he falls backwards. In one of the following shots the paper is back on the floor, but it's on the opposite side it should have been when it flew out of his hand. It's all shown in slow motion and it's very obvious.
American History X (1998)
Directed by: Tony Kaye
Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Ethan Suplee, Elliott Gould, Beverly D'Angelo, Fairuza Balk, Avery Brooks, Jennifer Lien
Continuity mistake: Toward the beginning, when the principal calls Danny into his office to discuss his Mein Kampf paper, he first glares at the Jewish teacher who exits the principal's office. As the teacher is walking past, the clock on the wall reads 8:10. But when the camera angle changes to show him walk around a corner, the same clock reads 8:20. Apparently it took him 10 minutes to turn the corner.
Continuity mistake: When Danny and Derek are taking down the Nazi-posters in Danny's room, the big poster above the computer is a very large Nazi flag that takes up about one fifth of the entire wall. During one of the shots in which all other smaller posters are being taken down, it is not there, and then it reappears and is the last one they take down.
Trivia: The ending was originally different. After the scene where Derek is crying over Danny, it cut to Henry being arrested, then his family in the kitchen mourning him and saying he was a good boy, and then Derek shaving his head again while smiling. When Edward Norton read the script, he said "I thought the movie was supposed to be anti-Nazi." So the ending was soon changed.
Trivia: At the end, when Danny is heard quoting from the paper he wrote for Dr. Sweeney, the quote which begins "We are not enemies, but friends..." is the closing paragraph from President Abraham Lincoln's first Inaugural Address on the 4th of March 1861.
Trivia: Edward Norton drank purified tuna to bulk up for his role of Derek Vinyard.
Bob Sweeney: There was a moment, when I used to blame everything and everyone for all the pain and suffering and vile things that happened to me, that I saw happen to my people. Used to blame everybody. Blamed White people, blamed society, blamed God. I didn't get no answers 'cause I was asking the wrong questions. You have to ask the right questions.
Derek Vinyard: Like what?
Bob Sweeney: Has anything you've done made your life better?
Murray: He's lost.
Murray: Derek, what are you trying to prove?
Question: We see something going on between the corrupt skinhead and the Hispanic criminal inside the prison, and it makes Vinyard leave that gang. What exactly was the arrangement by the skinheads to 'protect' Vinyard?
Question: What does D.O.C stand for?
Answer: The tattooed DOC on gang members' arms means Disciples of Christ - the gang that they belong to in the movie.
Question: What happened to Little Henry after he killed Danny in the bathroom?
Answer: We don't find that out. It happens right at the end of the film, and we don't get to see the aftermath.
Answer: This is what I'm trying to figure out - when he shot Danny he disappeared, he probably got away with it or he was arrested later on.
Answer: In the original ending he was supposed to be arrested. It is possible that he was arrested in the final version of the film too.
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Answer: It's quite simple: He was one of them, a fellow skinhead. In prison different groups stick together for mutual protection and comradeship, and as neo-nazis/skinheads would be fairly unpopular with the colored inmates, all the more reason for them to protect each other.
Twotall