Goofs for
Die Hard (1988)

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• Continuity: The contents of and the ramp leading up to the truck that the terrorists arrive in.
  
  
• Continuity: There is clearly no ambulance in the truck when the terrorists first arrive, but Theo drives an ambulance out of the truck near the end of the movie (error acknowledged by moviemakers).
  
  
• Continuity: Takagi's blood/brains on the glass wall.
  
  

• Continuity: Al's police cruiser's lights are on as he drives up to the building. The very next shot is from John's point of view in which they are off, only to come on again when the body crashes onto the hood.
  
  
• Continuity: The wound on the cop's head disappears suddenly after McClane shoots at the police car.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The eyes of the dead terrorist in the elevator close just before Gruber touches his face.
  
  
• Continuity: The Christmas tree on the table that Karl hides behind is lying down before it gets knocked over by McClane later.
  
  
• Continuity: The first and second rocket attacks both blow out the same window on the APC.
  
  
• Continuity: McClane's hands while holding the wallet with the picture of his family.
  
  
• Continuity: McClane swings through the window on the hose and lands on his back. In the next shot, he's on his chest.
  
  
• Continuity: In the first close up where Hans is hanging from Holly's wrist, there is blood on Holly's face from John's arm. In the second close up this blood is missing.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double for McClane (missing a tattoo on the shoulder) during the fight with Karl.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double for John McClane during the fight with Tony.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: John's vest is white when he enters the vent system and brown when he exits. It got dirty. It's *so* dirty that it's changed color and is, of course, a completely different vest, but it's all part of the fun.
  
  
• Continuity: When McClane is having a gun fight on the roof of the building he slides down a slide with his machine gun in the right hand; the next shot he has the gun in the left hand.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Squibs are visible on the metal door that McClane goes through when Karl shoots at him during their final fight.
  
  
• Continuity: Early in the film, shortly after the terrorists have launched their assault, McClane glances out a window and sees a woman in the building across the street. However, previous and subsequent long shots of the building he's in show that there are no other buildings close by.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): On the ambulance used for the escape near the end, "Department" in "Fire Department" is misspelled "Deparment". But, it isn't a real ambulance, and furthermore, it was painted by people who don't speak English.
  
  
• Continuity: When McClane goes to the roof to get the hostages off, he is not wearing his undershirt, but in the view from the helicopter when he is firing into the air, you can see him wearing a white undershirt.
  
  
• Factual errors: Several times during transmissions with the two-way radios, characters interrupt each other, which would be impossible given the type of radios they were using.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When jumping off the roof at Nakatomi Plaza just before it explodes, you can clearly see John McClane's "rubber shoes" that were used to protect his feet. While the people are being held hostage, he is supposed to be barefoot.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: Just after we are first introduced to Johnson and Johnson, Hans is seen walking on the top floor in, looking up and shining his flashlight. In the Forward Tracking Shot, just before he climbs the wall, the shadow of the boom mike is visible just above his shadow on the far right of the screen in the widescreen version of the film.
  
  
• Continuity: When Takagi is asked for the code key of the main computer, he says he doesn't have it. Trees outside the windows shake in the wind. In the next shot, they are suddenly standing still. Furthermore, in the wide angle shots of the outside of the building, there are no trees at all that high up the side of the building. The only trees are on the ground and Takagi and the terrorists were on about the 30th floor.
  
  
• Continuity: Al's patrol car has had the spotlights removed, but in the overhead shot of Marco's body crashing through the windscreen, there are dual spotlights visible.
  
  
• Continuity: Holly's maiden name is Gennero. This is misspelled in the credits as "Gennaro", and also on the Nakatomi computer that McClane uses at the start of the film. Furthermore, when he hits the touch screen button with her name, it suddenly changes from "Gennaro" to the correct "Gennero".
  
  
• Continuity: Trim on the rear doors of Al's patrol car disappears and changes style.
  
  
• Continuity: John's tank top changes from white to gray in various scenes.
  
  
• Continuity: When John is first hanging from the hose from the roof, he ends up right next to a band of stone between floors, in the next shot he is directly in front of a window.
  
  
• Continuity: When Karl steps out of the elevator after Hans and John's conversation, he appears on the right, then left, then right side of the hall.
  
  
• Continuity: In the fight between John and Karl, John jumps onto Karl's back and knocks him onto his stomach on the rolling cart. In the next shot, however, Karl is lying on his back.
  
  
• Continuity: When Karl's brother comes to apprehend John, we see a close-up of his weapon when he flicks the light switch. The charging handle is forward (the bolt is closed). In the next shot, however, it's back, and the bolt is open. We later see him slap the handle forward.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Near the end of the movie, when McClane walks through the large hall (where the hostages had been held captive earlier), you can see a shadow of someone behind the Christmas tree just after the tree falls.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Right after John states his name as John and is told to hold tight, the drill on the safe is restarted and the sparks start coming out before the drill starts moving. Also the sound of the drill is at a way higher RPM than the drill itself is moving once it does start moving.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the shots that we see of John McClane when he asks the hostages where his wife has been taken to by the terrorists, you can see the pyrotechnic charges taped to the roof that are about to be used. When the helicopter swings overhead and a soldier uses his machine gun, you can see the charges detonating and the fact that they are charges being used to simulate M-60 bullets hitting the roof.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): After the terrorists blow the roof up, and the hostages are running down the stairs, one of the hostages gets hit in the head with a softball-sized rock and it doesn't faze him.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When John is first chased by a terrorist, up on the floor still under construction, he turns on and off a radial arm saw. The very distinct sound of the blade running against either a kerf in the fence or a kerf in the table can be heard. However, when the terrorist finds the saw, it can be clearly seen that the blade is running free.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When John meets Hans by the roof and gives him his empty Beretta, Hans (who is obviously proficient with firearms) would have noticed the light weight of the empty gun. A Beretta 92 holds 15 or 17 rounds making an empty Beretta much lighter than a loaded one.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Hans reads "Now I have a machine gun, ho...ho...ho," and then rolls the dead guys head, you see him blink.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the swat team is trying to enter the building and they fail to pick the lock, a swat team member clearly lights a cutting torch to burn the lock. A few scenes later you can clearly hear a grinding sound indicating a drill or grinder is being used to try to break the lock.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Theo updates Hans on the police activity, he reports that "the four assholes [are] coming in the rear in standard two-by-two cover formation." The SWAT team members are not in '2x2 cover', they're all running together single file (more or less).
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Argyle first learns of the Nakatomi takeover, he is pouring a glass of whiskey just off screen with the appropriate sound effect. However, when the glass reappears on screen a moment later, it is empty.
  
  
• Continuity: As Hans falls out of the window the window breaks and there is no glass on the sides of the window. Then by the next shot you can clearly see glass on the left side of the window.
  
  
• Continuity: Prior to climbing down an elevator shaft staircase, McClane (who is supposed to be barefoot) is clearly seen wearing shoes as he jumps through an elevated service door.
  
  
• Continuity: McClane's shirt goes from white and then to a dark grey and then to a mixed color or dirt, blood and white.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Holly's office is used as the command for Hans Gruber. Early on, the office is located down the hallway with the door on the right hand side of the office and Hans would not be able to see Holly, with the rest of the hostages, from the office. When Hans realizes that Holly is married to John, the office location changes so that the office is now a corner office, the door is on the left hand side and Hans' view of Holly McClane is direct and unobstructed.
  
  
• Factual errors: Although a reporter refers to the terrorists radios as CB radios, the walkie-talkie is either a VHF or UHF, not HF radio, therefore not capable of transmitting in the 27.065MHz emergency channel of the Citizen's Band (Channel 9)
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When Hans is holding onto Holly's watch out of the window and then falls, he is shot in slow motion but the paper that is falling in the background is moving at normal speed.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Gail Wallens is discussing the hostage situation at Nakatomi Plaza with Dr. Hasseldorf, the term "Helsinki Syndrome" is mentioned. Harvey Johnson, desperate to join the conversation, replies "As in Helsinki, Sweden". The fact is that he wasn't that far out with that remark. The condition that Dr. Hasseldorf is talking about is actually called the "Stockholm Syndrome", and Stockholm is in fact the capital of Sweden.
  
  
• Factual errors: When McClane drops the monitor with the C4 down the elevator shaft, he has time to jump away from the door as the explosion rises. The gases from C4 actually expand faster than the speed of sound, so his face would have been melted off.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When reporter Richard Thornburg is listening to his police scanner, he hears Officer Powell screaming for backup. At this point the red lights on the front of the scanner are continually blinking from left to right. However, on this particular model scanner the lights would cease blinking, and remain solid on a single channel as long as it was active.
  
  
• Factual errors: The power had been cut to the building leaving what should only emergency lighting working (all non-essential equipment would be disconnected via electric failsafe switching gear). When McClane is on the roof trying to get the hostages to go back down stairs, the Huey choppers approach showing us that the building has all of its roof lights on which would consume considerably more than battery back up could ever supply. Also the lights are turned ON, on one of the Christmas trees seen throughout the movie long after the power has been cut.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When the terrorists are first walking in as a group looking very serious and sinister, the one on the viewer's far left is clearly on a collision course with the wall! But it cuts away just before he walks into it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Hans reaches out to turn the dead man's head in the lift, the man's head moves to the left before Hans has actually touched him.
  
  
• Factual errors: As in most movies, the C-4 explosive is packaged incorrectly. Real 1.25 pound blocks of C-4 are packaged in dark green (olive drab) plastic wrapping with yellow markings.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Takagi speaks to the employees at the party they erupt in loud applause. Looking at the employees, none are clapping their hands.
  
  
• Factual errors: Channel 9 (CB distress channel) is monitored by Radio Emergency Associated Communications Teams (REACT), not the police department. If someone were calling for help on Channel 9, they would talk to a REACT operator, who would then call the authorities. Either way, it would not be an FCC violation.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Theo and Karl first enter the Plaza Lobby, and Karl shoots the security guard, Theo says into his walkie-talkie "Okay we're in!". The next shot shows Heinrich in the truck in the basement car park replying but nothing is heard.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the beginning, while at the party, it's mentioned the time is 5:40 p.m. on Christmas Eve. While Argyle is driving John to Holly's work site at presumably the same time, it is very much daylight. In LA, on Christmas Eve at that time, it would be dark already.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: There is a camera shot after Ellis is killed where the camera pans around the back of his chair, and we can see Hans sitting across the desk from him through a rather large hole in the back of the victim's head. Later, when Ellis' body is dragged away, there is a moment where we can clearly see all of his face, and there is no significant damage, let alone a gaping hole that would allow one to actually see through his head.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: In the battle scene with the police, Alexander's first shot with the anti-tank gun breaks the glass. However, the second shot also breaks the same pane of glass.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: SPOILER: When McClane supposedly kills Karl by hanging him with the chain, Karl's Steyr Aug assault rifle had been thrown to the ground so they could fight man to man. Later, at the end of the film when Karl suddenly springs back to life and jumps off the paramedics' gurney he is holding the Steyr Aug assault rifle. Paramedics would never transport a gun with a patient - dead or alive.
  
  

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