Die Hard 2

Continuity mistake: After McClane gets the car towed away, notice that it is night and snowstorming all over the place. When he enters the airport, you can see that outside it is daytime and sunny, yet McClane shakes off snow whereas other people in the airport don't have snow on them at all. The airport scenes were filmed at LAX's Bradley International Terminal during the month of February, so this explains the sunny day. (00:01:35)

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Continuity mistake: Two guys dressed in red go to the church and are let in by the old man. One of the men then says something like "You were right about that," and the scene shows him shoot his gun with his arm outstretched (obviously). The next scene though of the old man falling backwards shows the shooter's arm down by his side, however in the next scene where it cuts back to the shooter his arm is outstretched with the gun again. (00:07:30)

Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the movie when John is sitting at a table in the airport smoking a cigarette, you see him notice the table with the 3 (2 white and 1 black) guys that are acting suspicious. When the black guy gets up to leave, he leans down and you see a hand grab a package. If you notice, the hand that grabs the package is white. Later when the two white guys leave, one of them leans down to grab the package and it's the same shot that was used when the black guy grabbed his package. (00:08:50)

Continuity mistake: When McClane is lying on the conveyor, and he picks up his gun, just before the camera switches to the terrorist, you see the slide on the Beretta go back into the empty position, but when the camera changes, you hear another shot from McClane's gun. (00:13:15)

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Continuity mistake: The dead bodies of the SWAT team move around on the escalator between shots. The best example of this is after the last SWAT guy dies, there is a body or two near the end of the escalator. They disappear or at least move much further away after McClane drops his gun on the escalator. And all this happens while the escalator is not moving. (00:45:15 - 00:48:00)

Daz

Die Hard 2 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Col. Stuart is talking to Gen. Esperanza on the walkie-talkie about what runway to land on, behind Stuart you can see one of his men walk up to the map of the runways. Stuart turns around and starts walking to the map and the guy isn't there anymore. When Stuart gets in front of the map, the guy comes up and tells him which runway Esperanza should land on. (01:09:05)

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Continuity mistake: Bruce Willis is emerging from an underground air-vent when the plane with General Esperanza is landing. Initially the plane is coming on a direct course for him and he struggles to get out. In fact the front wheel is on course with and knocks the vent cover. But in the very next scene, the tire marks clearly show the front wheel passed to the right of the vent and so completely missed it. (01:11:40)

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Continuity mistake: When John is coming out of the drain on the runway, in shots facing him it's snowing, and in the shots that face both John and the plane, it's snowing. Yet, when the camera is just on the plane it's not snowing. (01:13:30)

Die Hard 2 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When McClane is desperately trying to get out of the manhole cover to avoid the plane, he props it open with a steel bar. Moments later, just before the plane runs over it, the bar is gone, so there should be nothing holding it open. The size of the gap between cover and runway also decreases between these shots. (01:14:50)

Die Hard 2 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Richard Thornburg is in the aeroplane bathroom giving his live report, in a number of the shots he is holding the phone upside down. (01:37:00)

Continuity mistake: During the last fight scene on the wing of the plane, just after the guy is sucked into the engine, general Stuart comes rushing out and yells something like "it's time for the main event". At this, John rolls over onto his back. The shot then switches to much further away, and he is still on his stomach. The camera cuts in close again, and John is back on his back, and sliding towards the center of the wing. The camera cuts away again and shows John back on his stomach and just now rolling over. (01:43:40)

Continuity mistake: McClane's fireman's jacket gets progressively bloodier throughout the film, but around the time when he is fighting the terrorists on the planes wing, it is miraculously clean again. McClane is not wearing it, but it does get cleaner. (01:45:50)

Ssiscool

Die Hard 2 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: John McClane and Major Grant are fighting on the wing of the aeroplane, and Major Grant's mouth gets extremely bloody. The shot switches to McClane and then back to Grant, whose mouth is still bloody. However, after the shot switches back from McClane to Grant, Grant's mouth is no longer bloody. (01:47:10)

Continuity mistake: When McClane is fighting Col Stuart there is an up close shot where McClane kicks the Colonel and the Colonel grabs his leg. When the camera cuts away he is holding McClane's arm instead of his leg. (01:48:40)

smd9

Continuity mistake: When Mclane is desperately trying to get his fallen Beretta from the conveyor, he flicks the on switch to the conveyor. The terrorist then sprints down the conveyor to try and get the gun before Mclane, and you can see in the first shot of the terrorist running, that he is virtually at the gun immediately. The camera cuts to Mclane, and then back to the terrorist who is now significantly further away from the gun than he was before.

GalahadFairlight

Continuity mistake: When McClane lights the torches on the runway he is surrounded by rough snow, then the long shot shows a smooth runway in the snow, then when the plane crashes the pilots see the tarmac with no snow, then the outside shot of the plane crashing shows the runway covered with snow again.

Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the film when two of Stuart's men arrive at the church, their van stops and it is not snowing outside,same thing when they're shown knocking and then when the man opens the door. However, in the shot just after (which is taken from behind the door) snow is falling on them. The shot then switches to an outside view ,and it's not snowing anymore .

Continuity mistake: When the army truck arrives at the 747 hangar, we see a line of snow on the ground behind it. The actual truck has no snow on it at all, despite its journey to the hangar.

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

Suggested correction: Snow doesn't generally accumulate on a moving vehicle. Anything resting on the vehicle will blow off once it's in motion unless it's very wet and/or heavy.

As a truck driver, I can tell you that the conditions shown would have snow accumulating on a moving vehicle at least in some places.

Continuity mistake: While Barnes is brainstorming ideas with his staff about using the marker beacons to communicate with the circling planes, he has a pen in his right hand held to his face. The next shot he turns, but the pen is no longer in his hand and his hand is nowhere near his face.

Scott215

Continuity mistake: When the lady sitting next to Holly pulls out her stun gun, her book is resting against her stomach. However, in the previous shot from a different angle, the book isn't seen.

Bishop73

Plot hole: The only reason the terrorists' plot can work is that the airports around Dulles are all closed to landings because of the violent snowstorm. If there were no storm, the pilots of the airliners in the holding pattern would simply divert to nearby airports when they started running low on fuel. If they were able to do that, the whole plot would simply fall apart. How were the terrorists able to count on the storm happening on the very day General Esperanza's flight was due to land? They didn't have any influence over the date of his flight. How did they know the storm would be so bad that all airports would be closed - except Dulles? I don't think they had any way of predicting the weather quite that accurately, and If the storm hadn't hit or had been even slightly less severe the pilots of the stranded airliners could easily have diverted to any one of half a dozen alternate landing sites, including a nearby Air Force base. They could do this without consulting or even contacting air traffic control. The whole plot falls apart from there - no hostages, no leverage, and who cares what happens to the people on Esperanza's plane? They'd have it shot down as soon as they knew Esperanza had killed the pilot and taken over the flight.

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

Suggested correction: The terrorists in the film planned extensively for this operation, but the storm occurring may have just been a coincidence for them. They may also have had the plan waiting for a perfect opportunity, like a snowstorm. In the beginning of the movie, there's a news story on while the Colonel is exercising nude. The story says Esperanza's extradition has been long and drawn out, until a phone call from..." and he cuts the TV off. Given his connections, Colonel Stewart may well have been able to arrange a State Department call the week of a predicted snow storm. Esperanza's adherents may also have been able. Another scenario they may have had is to take the Air Traffic Controllers hostage (as they did) and have the other aircraft diverted for a supposed emergency, but the snowstorm worked out. Whatever the case, that element of the plot is an interesting discussion, not a mistake.

If the storm hadn't hit the pilots of the stranded airliners could easily have diverted to any one of half a dozen alternates, including a nearby Air Force base. They could do this without consulting or even contacting air traffic control. The whole plot falls apart from there - no hostages, no leverage, and who cares what happens to the people on the Esperanza's plane? They'd have it shot down.

That bothered me too when I first saw this in theatres. The chances of it snowing in D.C. on any particular day are pretty low, and the plan falls apart without it. The only way to 'fix' this is to assume that when the film was originally written, it was set in New York City. This makes more sense thematically...with the original set in Los Angeles. But at some point, probably late in the production, they changed it to D.C. for some reason, and made it fit as best they could.

The snowstorm was not part of the plan. Early on when the group of terrorists is sitting around the table about to exchange the package, Cochran is listening to a weather report and states that a huge storm is approaching, which makes the other men smile and one of them responds "God loves the infantry." The terrorists could still crash planes without the snow storm because they could impersonate the tower. The planes that are circling overhead are the planes that didn't have enough fuel to be diverted to another airport and that has nothing to do with a snow storm. The blizzard was simply fortuitous for the terrorists.

BaconIsMyBFF

The airliners we see could easily glide to any one of seven nearby airports from the airspace over Dulles, let alone fly there when fuel began running low.

That is a separate issue (and is indeed a mistake in the film) that doesn't really have anything to do with the blizzard. This film acts as if Baltimore Washington International or Richmond International Airport don't exist.

BaconIsMyBFF

And since they do, it is both a plot hole and a factual error. If they had called their fictional airport Springfield International, fine, but they didn't. They identified it as Dulles International which is within easy flying - or gliding - time to half a dozen other airports.

This is possible that other airports were closed due to bad weather.

Which necessitates the terrorists knowing that! They had to know the storm was coming for their plan to work. The stranded airlines could easily have diverted to an alternative even if that meant gliding, and they could do so without consulting air traffic control.

The terrorist obviously knew that. They are very arrogant and planned everything very accurately. They knew that other airports are closed because of the bad weather.

The airports were closed AFTER Esperanza's flight took off. The storm is an essential part of the terrorist's plans. Storms like the one we see can can diminish very rapidly or veer away from their original course (I have seen both happen) and cannot, ever, be counted on to the meticulous extent the terrorists do.

More mistakes in Die Hard 2

McClane: Hey, don't I know you?
Col. Stuart: No, I get that a lot. I've been on TV.
McClane: Yeah, me too.

The_Iceman

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Trivia: When being played on basic cable or regular TV, John McClane's catchphrase "Yippee ki yay, mother fucker!" is sometimes oddly redubbed as "Yippee ki yay, Mr. Falcon!" Falcon is the call sign for General Esperanza's original flight, which half explains the odd wording.

Phaneron

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Question: When McClane ejected from the cockpit of the military plane, why didn't Colonel Stewart and his men shoot him while he was in the air? These men deliberately crashed a commercial plane killing innocent civilians and by doing this, it's obvious that they are ruthless, so why wouldn't they try to kill their main enemy when he is at his most vulnerable? (With the weapons the soldiers had, McClane was still in range to be hit.) Can someone explain this for me?

Answer: Because the police were moments away from arriving at the scene. They needed as much time to get away without being tracked. Every moment counts. And a target rocking about a few hundred feet in the air doesn't seem to be such an "easy target".

XIII

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