Goofs for
The Running Man (1987) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The video scoreboard shows footage that occurs later in the film.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: A springboard launches Ben when Dynamo shoots with a lightning bolt.
  
  
• Continuity: The stain of Subzero's blood on Ben's gamesuit.
  
  

• Continuity: When Richards is fighting Fireball, he throws several 55 gal barrels at him. The barrels he picks up are made of lightweight polyethylene; however in the following shot, they have been replaced by much heavier steel drums.
  
  
• Continuity: In the helicopter, Ben says, "I will not kill helpless people"; in the game show with the original "uncensored" footage of the massacre he says, "I will not kill helpless human beings."
  
  
• Continuity: In the uncensored version of the Bakersfield massacre, it shows the man knocking out Ben with his gun from Ben's point-of-view, which is not a view the camera could see from.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: While the chainsaw chain is not moving all the time when Ben fights Buzzsaw, that's normal; the chain doesn't move, even though the engine is running, unless the clutch is being held.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the prison Ben says to a guard, "Give you a lift?" and picks him up but it's clearly a dummy that he lifts up.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When in the ice rink, Weiss is pushed along by Sub-Zero towards the camera. Just as Weiss almost hits the camera an arm reaches out from the left-hand side to catch him.
  
  
• Continuity: When Killian is at the entrance to the control room, the gate opens before Sven has finished entering the security code.
  
  
• Continuity: When Richards returns to the studio to confront Killian, the television audience is able to continue watching the show even though all the camera operators and stage crew have run away.
  
  
• Continuity: The wound holes in Ben's jumpsuit disappear and reappear at various points in the movie.
  
  
• Continuity: During the opening dance number for The Running Man game show, one spectator is seen twice, in two different places, at the same time.
  
  
• Continuity: Flipped shot: When Ben is fighting Buzzsaw, the name on Ben's jumpsuit moves to the other side and is mirrored.
  
  
• Continuity: When the old woman chooses Richards to get 'the next kill', the scene cuts to the two men taking bets from the crowd. It is made obvious that betting for a runner has never happened before. But the name 'Richards' was already on the chalkboard when Buzzsaw and Dynamo entered the game several scenes earlier.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Ben is in the helicopter cockpit, the display that gives the helicopter's latitude and longitude is changing at a rate of one degree per second, an impossible speed for a helicopter.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Wire visible to stop Dynamo's car when it crashes and rolls down the hill.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Just after Dynamo kills Weiss near the up-link box and Amber is thrown to the floor, the next cut shows Dynamo advancing towards Amber. He is speaking or singing, but there is no audio for his voice.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Just before Subzero slices the gong in two, the breakline is visible.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Richards kills Fireball, he does this near the corpses of last year's winners, however at TV time the crowd doesn't know this, as they can't see the dog tags around their necks, and the TV crew could easily have muted the transmission later. When Mick's film at the end shows the crowd who the bodies belong to, they show surprise. This is because they realize Killean has been lying to them.
  
  
• Errors in geography: During the aerial attack on Bakersfield, the helicopter's computer shows the city coordinates as Lat 45.04 N, Long 119.06 W. If you plot these coordinates on a map, they show as being in the area of Umatilla National Forest of northeastern Oregon, not Bakersfield, CA.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Damon Killian's stunt double can be seen when Ben flings him into the Running Man starting rocket.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): "Subzero" is misspelled "Zubzero" on the bet takers' chalkboard throughout the whole movie.
  
  
• Continuity: When Richards, Whyse and Laughlin are sent through the rocket cage tunnel at the beginning of the game show, there is a camera angle that obviously shows the rockets to be going in tandem (one tunnel). This cannot be the case as when Richards hits the safety net at the bottom, he would almost immediately be rear ended by the following rocket (possibly ending Richards game before it had begun).
  
  
• Continuity: When Killian is talking to the old lady about who will make the next kill, his hand changes position on her shoulder/back between shots.
  
  

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