Goofs

Several scenes show the Met Life building (with "Met Life" in huge letters) behind Grand Central. However, the old stock "sky view" footage right before Dade's first day of school shows the building with its original "Pan Am" signage, which was taken down three years before filming.

When Dade first enters Cyberdelia, there is an overview shot of the whole place, and for a moment we see Joey and Phreak on the top balcony talking around a table. The problem is, this is the scene from the next day. You can tell by the clothes they are wearing.

When Plague shows up to threaten Dade in his room, Dade's camouflage-painted computer is visible in some shots. However, Dade doesn't actually paint the camouflage on it until later in the film.

When Joey initially "hacks" into the "gibson" he stashes the disk in the air vent. However, his clothes change as it goes from the air vent shot to a normal shot.

In the "Hack the Gibson" scene Dade steps out of his phone booth to the one in front of him to answer Plague's call, which is the same booth occupied by Burn who is present before the phone rings, disappears during the call and then reappears again after.

In the scene when Acid is showing-off her laptop, they speak of the laptop having a processor called a P6 and a PCI bus. Further examination of this scene and another scene with them looking over the damaged code, the laptop that Acid-burn has is clearly a Macintosh Powerbook 280C (sub-notebook) made by Apple Computer Inc. This model does not have a PCI-bus, or a P6. It does have a Motorola 68030 33mhz CPU.

After Richard Gill's credit card is canceled by Dade, the scene cuts to the card being swiped through a machine by a waiter. The card is run through the reader "right side up", with the Mastercard logo at the bottom. The magnetic stripe is at the top of the card and could not have been read this way.

Any threat to ships via virus would fail if announced ahead of time. Even if the virus couldn't be removed from each ship, the engineering crew would only need to cut power to the ballast tank pumps until they could rewire them to run manually. If the virus was a surprise attack, the crew would still have plenty of time to kill the pump motors. Filling a single tank can take 15 minutes or more depending on the capacity of the pump and tank.

When Plague is looking at the FBI's NCIC system in order to incriminate Dade's mother, the file he's looking at has 'possession' spelled incorrectly twice.

The videocassettes at TV station OTV are all labeled "25 fps," which is the PAL broadcast standard used in Europe at the time. An American TV station would have been using NTSC videotapes which ran at 29.97 fps.

When swimming in the rooftop pool at the end, Kate and Dade's ears are underwater as they talk to each other. They would still be able to hear each other speak, since water transmits sound waves just like air, albeit somewhat distorted to the human ear. Their voices would be audible to one another, just not as clear as if they were completely out of the water.

In the scene where all of the hackers watch "Hack the Planet" prior to this episode there is a newscast where Gill is being interviewed was clearly shot before this scene. He stands, acts and says exactly what he does in the next scene. You can also see Joey being walked down the stairs on the TV and in the film scene afterwards.

This is clearly a case of deliberate, non-linear story-telling by the film-makers.

When Dade is introduced to Lord Nikon, he asks if anyone knows who the Hacker Acid Burn is, but no one knows. Later at Kate's party, the same hackers that said they did not know who Acid Burn is, are calling Kate "Burn" as though they were aware of her hacking handle. However, they are lying because they didn't know who was asking and they didn't want to reveal Kate's identity and get her into trouble.

In the opening scene of the plane flying Dade and his mother from Seattle to New York, the plane's tail clearly shows "757" on it, indicating this is likely Boeing stock footage of the plane (and not a commercial airline). Additionally, the cabin shot shows 2-by-2 seating, which is not accurate of the economy class plane seating configuration (which is 3-by-3) unless they are in first class. Based on appearances (narrow seats) and coordination with the described economic situation of the mother, them being seated in first class is highly unlikely. At the end when "Mr. Babbage" is flying to Japan, the plane shown is clearly a Boeing 727. The flight attendant tells him the flight time is about 14 hours. A 727's range is about 2700 miles, and cruises at about 615 mph. Simple math would tell you that a 14 hour flight was not feasible with this plane, which is logical since the plane was always considered a medium-range aircraft.

At school when Dade is looking at Kate's profile information to promote himself to Adv English, Dade's school photo is shown in the new window that is opened on the computer before Dade enters his name.

Hackers is set in NYC however in the "Hack the Gibson" scene Plague places a call to Dade in Grand Central Station but the phone rings using the European tone (ring ring - pause - ring ring) rather than the American tone (riiiiiing - pause - riiiiiing) indicating that this scene was either filmed or sound recorded in the UK.

As Dade opens his soda while taking over the TV station with his computer, the viewer can see that the phone is on the hook, and Dade's modem (the box in front of the phone with two rubber acoustic couplers) is unused, yet proceeded to get into a "hacker battle royal" with Acid Burn.

After Dade, Phreak, and Joey exit Cyberdelia, Dade has his roller blades slung over his shoulder. However, the laces are black in this scene, while they are red in all other scenes.

Most of the actors playing high-school age children, including the male and female leads, were between 20 and 23 years old when this movie was made, making them look like very slow learners.

The Pan Am building seen in the New York City flyover had the Pan Am sign removed in 1992, approximately one year after Pan Am ceased operation, and three years before the film's setting.

The satellite shown orbiting the Earth at the end of Cereal Killer's announcement is Skylab, a U.S. space station which crashed to Earth in July 1979.

The tanker pictured in the film is Shell's "Mysia" VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), which had been scrapped 17 years before the film was shot (the 1978 decommission).

At the beginning of the movie, when Dade calls the Television Station and talks to the Security guard, the guard says a different phone number than the one on the modem.

When Dade is typing on Kate's laptop at her party she stands over his shoulder and says, "I hope you don't screw like you type," but her words don't match her mouth.

At Kate's party, you see Cereal Killer walking through the crowd. You hear him talking, saying something along the lines of "... big man, big boots..." but his mouth is not moving.

When the pool on the roof "springs a leak", you hear a sound effect for an "impact" type sprinkler. This is the type you would use on your lawn or garden with the little arm that slaps back and forth to move the head, and they have a very distinct sound due to the way they operate. Fire sprinklers have fixed spray heads with no moving parts, and can not make that noise.

Margo and The Plague are talking when she warns him to "get the file or else you'll lose all your toys" but her lips do not match the audio.

When Dade and Kate are dumpster diving for information, she uses a flare gun "Subway Defence System" to scare off the guard. In the shot from above you can see the guide wire for the pyrotechnic.

In the police car right after Acid Burn beeps Cereal Killer, the passenger turns to the left and you can see a red light shine on his head. That light is from the camera.

When Dade is making a fake personal ad for Richard Gill, Kate reads aloud as he types, "Disappointed white male..." Dade is actually typing a word beginning with "dissa"... (spelling mistake)