Escape From New York
Escape From New York mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Snake kills the wrestler he falls forward shoulders forward, next minute his arms are over the ropes, next minute his arms are in a different position again - quite active for a dead man. (01:16:55 - 01:18:10)

Continuity mistake: When Snake kills the wrestler, he does so by jamming the nails of his spiked bat into the back of his skull. Snake releases the bat, which stays stuck to the wrestler's head. The next shot, the bat is now missing as the wrestler falls forward against the net, dropping his own bat to the floor. But Snake's bat is nowhere to be seen. Then a few moments later after Snake activates the tracer, the bat is shown on the back of the wrestler's head as he is slumped over the net, which Snake knocks off. Yet the wrestler's own bat is no longer seen, which was by his feet before. (01:16:55)

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Escape From New York mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When trying to escape the gang on Broadway, Snake and the others are in a yellow station wagon they stole from the Duke's men. They turn the car around to back it through a barricade of cars to escape. One shot shows their car's head lights are on, but just before it hits the barricade, the headlights are suddenly off and then are back on again in the next shot. (00:56:55)

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Escape From New York mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Snake is back on top of the skyscraper to get to his glider you can see the elevator doors sliding shut behind him....and the fingers of the people pushing them. (01:19:50)

Factual error: The wrestler is killed by Snake stabbing the back of his head with a spiked bat, having rather long and thick spikes on it. As the Wrestler falls against the net, the back of his head is shown as he is slumped over the net. There is no wound on his head, nor any trace of blood, despite having one or more large spikes just jammed into it. (01:16:55)

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Escape From New York mistake picture

Revealing mistake: At the end when Snake drives over the hidden land mine and the cab is blown in half you can see three sets of wheels under the front half of the cab and a strange looking flap probably used to conceal them. (01:24:50)

Leonard Hassen

Revealing mistake: When Snake is escaping from the crazies just outside of Chock Full O' Nuts Diner, Snake breaks into an apartment and shoots the wall. When he breaks through it, the wall is Styrofoam. The little platelet hangs for a second or two. (00:43:30)

Escape From New York mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Snake finally stops the glider on the roof of the WTC, the nose of the glider sticks over the edge several feet but when the shot briefly switches to an aerial view, the nose is entirely on the roof. (00:27:35)

William Bergquist

Revealing mistake: Near the end of the film Snake hands Maggie a very large hand gun on the bridge before he takes the President toward the wall. When Maggie starts firing the gun at the Duke's approaching car, there is absolutely no recoil after each shot. (01:27:00)

Continuity mistake: When they steal the yellow station wagon, they are going easily 20 miles an hour. In the next shot, when escaping from the guys on Broadway, they are going at least 55 miles an hour. (00:57:00)

Revealing mistake: When Hauk finds the president's escape pod, there is a fire burning on the right of the screen. The camera was poorly placed in this part as the fire is horribly reflecting in the lenses, causing a bad distortion on screen that is highly distracting and covers the pod. (00:15:05)

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Continuity mistake: After the President gets up the wall, Snake is waiting for the harness to be lowered down to him again. The Duke shoots at him and puts a line of bullet holes across the wall. In that shot, you see the holes are not close to any of the horizontal lines of the tiled wall. But in the shot where the harness is being lowered, you see the line of bullet holes is not only close to, but crossing one of the horizontal lines at an angle. (01:28:50)

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Continuity mistake: On top of the World Trade Center, some "Redskins" are rocking the Gulf Fire back and forth over the edge and cut it loose. You see very large red markings on the Gulf Fire's wings. But when you see it falling in the next shot towards the camera, the red markings are gone and the wings are solid black. (01:19:30)

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Revealing mistake: In one shot, it shows Air Force One on a direct heading to crash into New York, and a wall guard watches it fly by him. The movement of the guard's head does not match up with the movement of the jet as he watches it approach the city. (00:12:15)

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Other mistake: When Snake is injected, and his timer is set to 23:00, Hauk tells him the glider is waiting. The next scene has Snake getting into the glider, but when he radios in, Hauk says there's 21 hours left. Snake was pretty upset that he didn't get a full 24 hours; knowing his life is on the line, why would he take 2 full hours to walk out the door and over to the glider that was waiting for him? (00:24:00 - 00:24:55)

DavidRTurner

Continuity mistake: As Snake makes it back up to the top of the World Trade Center, he sees Brain, Maggie, and the president in a fight with a gang of "Redskins". The Redskins cut the line on the Gulf Fire and it plummets to the ground. Maggie, Brain, and the President are hiding behind some air ducts and tubes. just before the shot cuts, the President pops his head up and looks around, making his head the highest of the 3. Maggie is holding her gun pointing up, and Brain is sitting still just looking at the President. It then cuts to an angle behind them. Suddenly the President is down on his hands and knees again, Maggie is holding her gun lower and sitting up straight, and Brain is leaning back looking like he is about to fall over. (01:19:35)

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Continuity mistake: The revolver that Snake uses in the film is a 6 shooter. But on the bridge in the end when he gives it to Maggie, Maggie fires the gun at Duke's car 7 times without reloading. (01:27:00)

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

Suggested correction: She only fires 6 shots. Watched the scene 3 times. Only 6 shots.

Continuity mistake: After Snake gets the X-ray to disable the tiny bombs in his neck, he pushes the timer and holds his hand there, pushing it. Then, the next shot shows the countdown timer, but his hand is not holding it down. In the very next shot, he is pushing in the timer button again. (01:30:45)

posty

Plot hole: When Snake gets knocked out by the Duke he wakes up with twelve hours left but for some reason the guards watching Snake makes him sit where he wakes up until he's got only two hours left.

jbrbbt

Continuity mistake: In the Chock Full O'Nuts diner, Snake passes a pack of cigarettes to a woman hiding in the diner. The woman lights a match and Snake tells her to keep her hand over it. The woman then says a line and lights the cigarette. At this moment, she is holding the cigarettes pack with two fingers around the top area of the packet. In the next shot, she is suddenly holding the bottom area of the pack. (00:41:00)

Casual Person

Bob Hauk: There was an accident. About an hour ago, a small jet went down inside New York City. The President was on board.
Snake Plissken: The president of what?

More quotes from Escape From New York

Trivia: In the scene where the helicopters come in and they retrieve the President's briefcase containing a message, one of the people in the chopper points down and says "People down in the park. Can you see them?" That guy is the film's director, John Carpenter. (01:07:35)

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More trivia for Escape From New York

Question: Since Snake knew that X-rays would neutralize the pellets in his neck, couldn't he have asked brain about medical facilities within New York so he can neutralize them himself?

William Bergquist

Chosen answer: Yes, but A. finding a working one is very unlikely, B. it would need a power source, also very difficult, C. Snake had no way of knowing if x-rays of a different frequency would work or set them off, and D. if he does disarm them, it's already been proven that New York is escape proof, so where would he go?

Grumpy Scot

Answer: To be honest, why not extend this question further? The doctor explains to Snake that X-rays will neutralise the cores 15 minutes before they go off. Snake could fly the Gullfire to Canada and he would have about 20 hours to find a place (such as a hospital) that would have an X-ray machine. The frequency range of X-rays is so small that you could easily change frequencies within the 15 minutes. Additionally, we all believe what Halk says. Perhaps it was all a con to get Snake to help him (like the Plutoxin virus).

More questions & answers from Escape From New York

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