Question: On the phone conversation, Howard Payne claims that it took him two full years of his life setting up that elevator job and investing himself in it. So how is he able to move out of his old retirement home and relocate in an apartment building in downtown LA near Pershing Square, rig 2 city buses with a handheld remote with C4 bombs, rig his old home, cut the hole on the street underneath the garbage can and think of that revenge plot and plan and set up everything else in just a month. That's just not enough time for him to do all that.
Sierra1
6th May 2016
Speed (1994)
27th Dec 2014
Speed (1994)
Question: I know this would end the movie, but when Jack is running alongside the bus, trying to get on before it reaches 50, why doesn't he shoot one of the tires? This would've taken the bus to a stop.
Answer: Shooting out car tires is a bit of a movie myth, and bus tires are much more heavily reinforced, so it would be very difficult to hit and puncture a tire successfully. It would also be very dangerous to fire a gun at a small, rapidly-moving target on a busy highway, and a person shooting at the bus would almost certainly make the driver speed up to get away. Finally, one of the tires does blow out at the airport, which makes virtually no difference to the bus's speed or motion.
14th May 2014
Speed (1994)
Question: What did Harry mean when he said to Jack "And I got shot... Another few inches and they would have given the medal to my wife." I still can't make complete sense of that line.
Chosen answer: Jack shot Harry in the upper leg, and Harry is presumably referring to the proximity of the femoral artery, a large and vital blood vessel in the thigh. If Jack's shot had hit him there, he would almost certainly have died within minutes, and they would have to give the bravery medal to his widow.
Answer: Apart from setting the bombs and a camera on the buses, the rest of the setup (the apartment, booby-trapped house, hole under the garbage can) could have been part of the elevator job, which Payne just re-used.
Sierra1 ★