Goofs for
Twister (1996)

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• Miscellaneous: The opening shot of gathering storms features sped-up footage; plants in foreground jump too quickly.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In 1969 Jo's father describes a tornado as "like an F5", yet the Fujita scale was not introduced until 1971.
  
  
• Continuity: During the "twister sisters" scene, the truck is shown on a one-lane dirt road. In a character shot, you see cars passing by through the back window.
  
  

• Continuity: As the truck enters the house (which is on its side) the interior shot shows the truck smashing through the front door, driving up a flight of stairs, and then leaving through an upstairs window. In the next shot, the truck is coming out through what appears to be the kitchen area.
  
  
• Continuity: When the tanker truck comes out of the tornado and skids into Bill's pickup, the axle is bent at an angle that would make the truck impossible to drive. Seconds later, they are speeding down the road.
  
  
• Continuity: Many times the views of the roads and/or scenery are inconsistent across cuts.
  
  
• Continuity: Characters' clothes tend to clean themselves.
  
  
• Continuity: Jonas opens DOT3 after it is visibly open.
  
  
• Continuity: The truck's tailgate after Dorothy II gets smashed by a telephone pole.
  
  
• Continuity: The final twister changes directions at least once, yet it leaves a very straight track.
  
  
• Continuity: When Melissa asks about an F5 tornado Bill takes the cup out of his mouth. The next shows him drinking and then taking it out of his mouth.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo leans out of the window to videotape "Dorothy IV" she has no video camera. In the next scene, a camera is in her hand.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Camera crew visible reflected in sunglasses and truck doors.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Skies change from clear to cloudy very quickly. That happens in twister country.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the opening scene, a helicopter is reflected in Bill's truck.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo and Bill are arguing before they go off the road, a pair of safety goggles are hanging on a hook behind Bill. He goes off the road, swerves back on the road, and the goggles disappear. Moments later the goggles are back on the hook.
  
  
• Continuity: After Jo's truck is destroyed and she commandeers Bill's Ram, there is a "capper" over the truck bed. Moments later, the capper has disappeared as Bill and Jo are driving along.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bill's fiancee almost gets hit by Jo's Jeep, she is screaming with the driver's side window down. When she gets out of the truck, the window is up.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Jo and Bill are stuck on the tree in the Dodge Ram, a tanker truck flies out of the tornado (at an amazing speed of at least 30 miles per hour) and bumps them off the tree. The tanker is then lifted back into the air, only to be dropped and explode a few seconds later. Unless the tanker was extremely light, the twister should have picked up the much-lighter Dodge.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo and Bill are driving out of the explosion from the tanker truck, the passenger side door window is closed. Seconds earlier, Jo had the window open and was leaning out of it. Even the electric model Ram window takes about 30 seconds to close.
  
  
• Continuity: As soon as the crew attaches "propellers' to all of the sensors, they pass boxes of winged sensors from person to person, ending at Bill. He dumps the first box of sensors into Dorothy. Quite a few sensors fall out of Dorothy, which is full. Bill then dumps at least two more full boxes of sensors into Dorothy.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bill says the tornado is about to shift directions to the left, he and Jo are driving side by side with Jonas. Bill hits his brakes and Jonas's team passes him completely. When Bill puts the truck into reverse and starts backing up, Jonas's team passes him again.
  
  
• Continuity: When the farm machinery is being thrown about and lands in front of Bill, and Jo shouts "We have debris!" the last piece of machinery has an arm that breaks the windshield in front of Jo. In all of the scenes after, the windshield is intact.
  
  
• Continuity: At the start of the film Jo's yellow Jeep is a 1981 or later model. But the Jeep that Bill drives into the ditch and hits the bridge with is a 1980 or earlier model. The earlier Jeeps had a swept forward "visor" above the windshield.
  
  
• Continuity: When everyone is eating at Aunt Meg's house, Melissa's steak is in one position on the plate. When Dusty goes to serve her mashed potatoes, the steak has moved to the other side of the plate.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo's truck falls down to the ground after the first tornado, the driver-side window is smashed from the tornado, but in the next shot Jo has to break the same window open to retrieve a towel.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo and Bill are driving out of the explosion from the tanker truck, you can clearly see Jo taking off a fire resistant suit through the front window of the truck. In the next scene she's in the shirt she was wearing before heading through the fire.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the end of the movie, just before they go into the shed to escape the tornado, everything is blowing around but the trees and plants are stationary.
  
  
• Continuity: During the tornado at the drive-in, the station wagon is slammed into the truck's camper shell. But when the group pulls up to Aunt Meg's house after the tornado hits Wakita, the truck with the camper shell pulls up to the damaged house.
  
  
• Continuity: Several times, scenery from within a truck doesn't match scenery when seen from outside.
  
  
• Continuity: The utility pole that falls on the truck soon disappears.
  
  
• Factual errors: The drive-in theatre is showing The Shining (1980), but the film jumps about an hour.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the twister lifts the corrugated iron roof of the garage, you can see a wire attached to one of the iron parts to pull it upwards.
  
  
• Continuity: In the auto shop outside the drive-in movie theatre, the pickup truck is hit by a flying car, and one side of the truck falls into the service pit. In the next scene, the same truck falls into the pit again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the Galaxy Theatre sign is flying through the air, a cable attached to the point of the sign's arrow is pulling the sign through the scene into the auto shop.
  
  
• Continuity: At Aunt Meg's house, the number of buttons fastened on Bill's shirt changes between shots.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Just before a twister strikes the Jo's aunt's farm, the windmill artwork in the yard starts to move. In the upper right corner of the scene, a hand can be seen turning one of the windmills. [widescreen only]
  
  
• Continuity: In the truck after leaving Aunt Meg's house, Bill says to Jo "Let's wire you up." She is already "wired," with a headset round her neck. Her wiring disappears in the next cut, allowing Bill to replace it.
  
  
• Continuity: Right after Jo and Bill run through the house, a tricycle is on the truck. It disappears and reappears in the next few shots.
  
  
• Continuity: State of repair and cleanliness of the truck's windshield as it dodges the falling houses, tractors, etc.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Jonas' truck hits the ground, the explosion and associated smoke billow straight up. They should have been sucked into the tornado.
  
  
• Continuity: When the final twister goes through the farm machinery yard, the two flags at the front of the shop are facing in the wrong direction and gently flapping in a light breeze.
  
  
• Continuity: In the final scene, the headset is around Jo's neck, then not around her neck, then back on again. When she's wearing the headset, her hair is wet and stuck to her forehead. When she's not wearing the headset, her hair is not as wet.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bill pulls into the ditch, he is already in the ditch. In the next shot, he is in the middle of the road, just pulling into the ditch.
  
  
• Continuity: In the shed, Jo puts on the leather belt strap. In the next scene, she puts on the strap again.
  
  
• Continuity: When the sensors are getting their "wings", Moose is riding in the front seat of one of the trucks, and under the workbench where the vanes are getting attached, at the same time.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In many scenes, a clear blue sky is reflected where it should be dark and cloudy.
  
  
• Continuity: When everyone is leaving the truck stop for the first twister chase, the yellowish-brown bus leaves first. Moments later it's still in its parking spot. Then it follows the rest of the crew out.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bill crashes Jo's truck on the bridge, the hood crumples up. When they duck under the bridge for safety, it is restored.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Jo and Bill are driving through what's left of Wakita, they see Aunt Meg's house. At the top of the house, ropes are visible to prevent the house from falling off cue.
  
  
• Continuity: At one point the truck's windshield is hit and gets cracked; a second later the windshield is fine.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The strap Jo is attached to is broken just below where it is attached to the pole. Yet she doesn't fly away, and is still in the harness.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the end, when Bill and Jo are in the "well shed", the shed, including electric pole, gets sucked away yet, there is water shooting from the well. The well would have lost its prime as soon as it lost electricity. It should not have been still working.
  
  
• Continuity: In the last scene, when Jo and Bill are in the twister, the tornado suddenly disappears and boards from the barn smash down to the ground. In the next scene, Jo and Bill are sitting happily on the ground, completely unharmed, with no sharp equipment in sight.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the third tornado, when the bicycle hits the windshield and Jo hits the brakes, Bill hits his head at 60+ mph, but suffers only a scratch.
  
  
• Continuity: The vehicles that "stayed back" were wet in one scene, dry in an other, then wet again.
  
  
• Continuity: When the convoy split in two, Dusty's coat is on/off.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: As Jo drives Bill's truck out of the corn field and almost hits Jonas' truck, the top half of a crew member's body can be seen, just above the driver's side mirror, across the street poking out of the corn.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo, Bill and Melissa set out on a single lane gravel road across a dam to chase a "twin tornado", the camera angle cuts to a shot looking back over their shoulders out the left hand side of the car. From that angle, they're on a two lane highway with traffic going the other way.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bill gets out of the truck for the first time, at the beginning of the movie, he doesn't shut the door on the truck. However, a few lines later, when he introduces Melissa to Dusty, the door is shut.
  
  
• Continuity: Right after the first cow flies past the truck, you can see another truck passing them behind Bill's head. This is right after a shot of the road showing no traffic ahead.
  
  
• Continuity: The truck is consistently a Dodge Ram, but different models, as noted by different wheel styles. The opening shot shows a model 1500, then later a 2500, then back to a 1500.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo, Bill, and Melissa are on the 2-lane gravel road where they encounter the twin tornadoes, the mileage on the truck keeps changing, sometimes several hundred miles (up or down) in each shot.
  
  
• Continuity: When Melissa drives the Dodge Ram nearly missing Jo's truck her driver side window is rolled down but moments later as she steps out of the truck her window is closed.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Jo and Bill are running beside the picket fence, the boards right beside them start getting hurled around, but the boards closer to the tornado merely sway back and forth.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The movie takes place in Oklahoma, but all of the road signs say Texas.
  
  
• Continuity: At Aunt Meg's, Jo is watching the news. First there are two dinner rolls on her plate. Two seconds later there is only one. Her knife is in the same spot.
  
  
• Continuity: When Melissa is under the umbrella and talking to Dusty, her hair is alternately wet/dry between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: While Melissa is in the restaurant getting lemonade and Bill is outside, the sky is grey and cloudy when seen from outside, but sunny and clear when seen from inside.
  
  
• Factual errors: The GOES-8 meteorological satellite shown at the beginning of the film is incorrectly oriented: the onboard sensors should be pointed toward the earth in order for it to function (ie, obtain weather photography), instead, it was shown as facing the audience. In the film, the spacecraft's solar sail boom is shown pointed at the earth, when in fact it should pointed in the general direction of the earth's south pole.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Dodge Ram pickup's speedometer is shown for the first time after Bill floors the accelerator, the "Air Bag" light is on. This was to facilitate driving the truck through the house later in the movie without the chance of the airbag firing.
  
  
• Continuity: When Bill turns to the last page of the divorce papers, a red signature tag can be seen. But when he shows Jo the papers, there are no tags present. When he hands the papers to Jo, there are now two tags on the page.
  
  
• Continuity: When they turn onto the dirt road, they don't know what road it is, so they call it "Bob's Road". In the next shot, they are back on Highway 33.
  
  
• Factual errors: The last twister was an F-5, which can hurl strongly built frame houses from foundations, flatten brick homes and severely damage steel reinforced concrete buildings. Yet after it hit the farm where Jo and Bill sought shelter in the shed, about one third of the barn is still intact and standing and the house has no more damage than several tiles torn from the roof. Also, the farm was in the worst possible place; on the right hand side of the tornado's vortex, where the wind speeds and forward motion of the tornado combine to cause the most damage. In reality, if a real F-5 had hit the farm, only the cement foundation would remain of both the barn and the house.
  
  
• Continuity: During the first Twister chase when the camera cuts between inside and outside views of the truck with Billy and Jo, the amount of rain on the windshield goes from lots (view into cab) to virtually none (view out from cab).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Jo and Bill are running from the F5, their faces are clearly lit by the sun, even though the skies are completely clouded.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the end, the F5 demolishes a house and hurls an 18-wheeler through the air. Jo and Bill are still strapped to the pipe, and their clothes are not ripped from their bodies.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jo's dad holds down the storm cellar door, the windows are completely perfect. After he says "I can't hold it any more!" the second time, the window is broken open in the next shot (with no indication of debris flying in).
  
  
• Continuity: When the crew is riding in the sunset (before the F-5), the horizon is very orange. When Preacher is petting Mose, the sky is bright and sunny.
  
  
• Continuity: As Haynes picks up a sensor to work on, her hand is covered with a tan glove. When she pushes past Dusty with her handful of completed sensors, the glove is visible on her left hand, and her right hand is bare. When she dumps the sensors into the bin, both hands are bare.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the start of the movie, in 1969, Jo's father is wearing a hat which first appeared in the 1980's.
  
  
• Continuity: During the first tornado, when Melissa is driving the Dodge Ram on the dirt road, she turns the wheel right to avoid Jo's yellow truck, but the truck moves left.
  
  
• Continuity: When Melissa is getting into the car with the lemonade, she puts it on the top of the car. As she drives off, the cups come tumbling down and nothing spills. One "blows" in the wind. Where is the lemonade?
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning of the movie during the crew camp out, the weather changes in some shots. The sky changes to fully cloudy, partly cloudy, and clear blue sky.
  
  
• Continuity: Just before driving through the house, Bill and Joe try to evade a farm vehicle that's in the way. They don't make it completely and the left side of the windshield is destroyed. In all the subsequent shots the glass is OK again.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Jo and Bill are hiding from the first twister under the bridge, Jo turns around and her "voiceover" says, "Where's my truck"? but her lips say something else.
  
  

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