Other mistake: As Plisken escapes in the hijacked chopper, Quervo Jones picks up a bazooka and prepares to fire on it. As Fast Eddy shoots him through the chest, watch the bazooka. You can see right through the barrel. In other words, there is no ammo in the weapon. (01:25:05)
Continuity mistake: In Escape from New York, Snakes tattoo on his stomach is filled in. In Escape from LA, his tattoo is just an outline. (00:18:05)
Other mistake: Snake is taken to the sports arena. We see a man in a basketball court racing a timer to score hoops. He fails miserably and is riddled by dozens of gunmen stationed all around the court. The crossfire would have killed more than just the unlucky basketballer. (00:56:05)
Revealing mistake: Painfully obvious bluescreen/CGI effect when Snake makes the motorcycle jump into the back of the pickup truck in Cuervo's motorcade. (00:32:45 - 01:08:20)
Continuity mistake: When Snake rolls from one sewer pipe down into another, right before the tidal wave/surf scene, his hair is dry, but it would have been wet from being fully submersed in the water, which you can also plainly see in the previous scene where he's shot in the leg. (01:05:45)
Continuity mistake: At one point, we see Snake's countdown timer drop from 7:00:00 to 6:59:59, accompanied by the appropriate vocal. Later, Malloy tells him he's only got seven and a half hours left. (00:35:40)
Factual error: From the range that Snake fired his clip full of blanks at Malloy and his aide, they still would have been burned by the muzzle blasts and quite possibly deafened by the noise. They assuredly wouldn't have stood there smirking. (00:20:15)
Continuity mistake: When Snake and the rest of the group are escaping in the helicopter; a rope is tied to left side of the helicopter. Carjack shoots and breaks the rope but in the immediately following shot, the part of the rope that should still be attached to the helicopter is gone. (01:25:05)
Factual error: In the future it is possible to travel from Griffith Park to central Orange County (around 50 miles) via unpowered hang glider in only 10 or 20 minutes, according to Snake's countdown timer. This would mean the hang glider would need to be traveling somewhere between 150 and 300 miles per hour.
Revealing mistake: When Snake is surfing with Peter Fonda, if you look, you can tell some of the shots are using a stunt double who appears to have some sort of hood on to try and match Snake's hair. (01:07:55)
Continuity mistake: When Snake goes to retrieve the basketball before his final shot, you can see the countdown timer reach three. But, seconds later, you see the crowd counting down from four to three.
Continuity mistake: After Snake has entered the sports arena, you see a guy playing a basketball game. When it gets closer, you see him moving to the right and take a shot with eight seconds left and with six points. Then, when you get a close-up of the guy again, he is going to the left and the crowd starts counting at ten. He still has only six points. With the rules outlined at the beginning, this would not have been possible. (00:55:30)
Other mistake: Snake finds a pack of cigarettes at the end of the film. Since they've been illegal for so long, why does the pack look brand new? It should be covered in years of dust, or completely decomposed.
Plot hole: Malloy and the others tell Snake that the Plutoxin 7 virus would cause nervous system shutdown without the antivirus. When he got back, it was revealed that it was just a hard hitting case of the flu. Why then did, at the base, the computer showing his countdown timer over the course of the film say when nervous system shutdown, not the full extent of the flu, would occur. Maybe for sake of the audience to avoid a spoiler, but those who had already seen the movie would notice this.
Suggested correction: Because the countdown timer was lying to him as well. It was programmed to do so.
Factual error: When Snake crashes the chopper in the final scene, it is going down nose-first, and just the nose hits the ground. The explosion area would be (approximately) 10 sq. feet and expanding outward from that spot. But the initial explosion is down the whole length of the chopper with the grass exploding into fireballs. (01:27:20)
Other mistake: When the President asks someone to connect him to the White House to talk to his warn his wife as Cuerva threatens the power outage, an extra hands him the phone, but does nothing to contact the White House (OK, someone off-screen could be doing it, but the President was talking directly to this extra). A mere 3 seconds later, he is asking the (White House) operator to connect to his wife. Just 1 second after that, she's on the line. (00:53:25)
Continuity mistake: When Cuervo takes out Snake with the bolo on the racing cars, Snake falls to the ground; he is wearing his leather coat. When the camera shows him hitting the ground, the coat is completely off one arm, allowing it to be slipped off by the bad guy. (00:33:25)
Other mistake: When Snake lands in LA in the sub, it shoots out of the water, lands on a concrete pier, and hits a wall at a very high speed. Its future technology must be why it doesn't crumple up like a tin can; but Snake exits the sub just fine, despite there being no apparent safety harness. As this is just a decade or so in the future (and not a century or more), it is highly unlikely that this society's technology has advanced to a state where the basic laws of physics can be broken. (00:23:10)
Factual error: When Snake shoots through the tunnel in the sub and splashes into the water, the big splash comes back towards the rear of the sub, not forward of it as it would in real life. (00:21:55)
Continuity mistake: When Snake takes his full-court shot, you see the clock is already at ten points, as he should only have eight points. Basically, they already knew he was going to hit the shot.
