Speed

Continuity mistake: When Payne shoots the train driver in the back, blood appears on his shirt. A few seconds later when he is falling down, his shirt is clean. (01:37:10)

Ssiscool Premium member

Continuity mistake: In the shots before the bus blows up the Pacific Courier Freight plane, you can see that the vehicle towing it and the plane itself are no longer moving, as opposed to a couple of shots before this where the tow vehicle and plane are moving at a good pace. You also can no longer see the man who is supposed to be driving the tow vehicle (who might have run for it, but there's minimal time).

Continuity mistake: As Jack's initial pursuit of the bus begins, you can see although both vehicles are supposed to be traveling north on the 110 freeway, the sun changes position during filming several times. Shining on all sides for several minutes. This lasts up until the moment that Jack boards the bus.

mike2574

Continuity mistake: When Jack pulls the Jaguar alongside the bus and starts honking, Tuneman's right hand changes its position between shots. First he's got a grip on the vent window, but then all of a sudden his hand rests on the windshield's upper edge. (00:36:45)

ryguy_1983

More for Speed

Mistakes

Character mistake: There is no way on earth that a police officer would shoot a hostage in the thigh to 'take them out of the equation'. Anyone who suggested such a thing would likely be taken out and shot themselves. Bullet wounds to the thigh are often fatal, as an injury to the femoral artery causes massive and frequently unstoppable blood loss. Breaking the femur often leads to fat embolisms as bone marrow gets into the bloodstream and then to the lungs. In fact a broken femur is a life threatening injury in itself, and a shattered femur - a typical bullet injury - would almost always result in a total amputation. You cannot aim carefully enough to avoid the bone or artery as their position in the body varies, (as will the bullet trajectory upon impact). Jack is an experienced cop and would know the potentially disastrous consequences of shooting someone in the thigh. He'd shoot him in the foot.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Jack is a cop and as such he would have extensive training in first aid, including treating bullet wounds. He would know perfectly well that shooting someone in the thigh was almost certain to cause a life threatening injury. He would shoot him in the foot.

Jack and Harry aren't just "cops," they're elite members of S.W.A.T., meaning they employ "special weapons and tactics." The hostage shooting is extreme, in any case; but the film wanted to quickly portray Jack as unorthodox and a bit of a loose cannon.

Charles Austin Miller

And as an "an elite member of S.W.A.T." Jack would be even more aware of the fact that a bullet wound to the thigh would probably kill or permanently disable his partner. I am not questioning the plot line of showing Jack to be a renegade by having him shoot a hostage, I am simply stating the obvious. He absolutely would not shoot him in the thigh.

No, he didn't. An actor fired a blank round at another actor and a special effects technician detonated a blood squib that had been installed under the second actor's costume, thus creating a fictional representation of logically absurd situation. It's a plot hole.

Then the entire movie is a plot hole. Speaking factually, you could just as easily say that a random passenger could never drive a commercial bus at highway speeds and make 175-foot ramp jumps with it. And, yet, there it is, and that's the story the producers wanted to tell. Call it a factual error, certainly, but the films are doing precisely what the screenwriters and director intended.

Charles Austin Miller

Except for blatant continuity errors, your comment negates every posting on this site. It's a mistake, plain and simple, lazy screenwriting, sloppy plotting, factually inaccurate. The original posting is valid, this is not a chatroom and I have nothing else to say on the matter.

Precisely. That's what makes it a character mistake, per the rules of this site.

Tailkinker and CA Miller are correct. This is a character mistake in an over the top action thriller. In real life cops don't shoot hostages in the thigh but buses don't fly over gaps in bridges either. If you can't watch Speed with a willing suspension of disbelief then it's not the movie for you. Enjoying fantasy action with its flaws does not validate mistakes in other movies and claiming it is lazy writing etc just makes a mistake picker seem uptight.

Suggested correction: It's made abundantly clear that shooting hostages is NOT something that they're trained to do - Jack merely suggests it during one of their 'pop quiz' exchanges; Harry's incredulous reaction should be more than enough to indicate that this is not standard operating procedure.

Tailkinker Premium member

More mistakes in Speed

Quotes

Swat Cop: Anything else that'll keep this elevator from falling?
Jack: Yeah. The basement.

More quotes from Speed

Trivia

Trivia: When the bus crashes into the plane at the end, the company logo on the plane is "Pacific Courier." This fictional company name also appears in "Die Hard"--it's on the truck the terrorists show up in (except Karl and Theo, who arrive by car). Jan de Bont, who directed "Speed," was DP on "Die Hard."

rbryant73

More trivia for Speed

Questions

Question: When they notice there's a gap in the freeway they keep to that route. However, there were other routes available. Why not take them?

Answer: If they had, there might have been the possibility that to get to these routes they would have to go down a different road and depending on which route they take they might have to slow down to make the turn which would likely cause the bus to drop below 50 mph. Better to just keep going straight and keep the bus going. There's also the possibility that had they taken a different route, they would have to deal with a lot of traffic especially if there was traffic stopped at a red light. By using the highway, there'd be no traffic lights and less traffic to deal with.

More questions & answers from Speed

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.