The Rock Trivia (1996)

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The Rock Trivia

• When Stanley and Carla are making love on the roof of their apartment, the Elton John song "Rocket Man" is playing in the background. This is the same song that Stanley refers to later in the movie when he kills Capt. Darrow.
• Don Simpson was largely responsible for creating the critical Gen. Hummel character. Simpson watched a "60 Minutes" segment about the U.S. government's refusal to acknowledge soldiers who had died during covert overseas missions, and later read Col. David Hackworth's memoirs which harshly criticized U.S. planning during the Vietnam War. He combined these elements into Hummel's character and, as Hensleigh described, created "a really compelling villain: a soldier with a noble end but, unfortunately, psychotic means."
• According to Michael Bay the script was written much more straight and serious than the final film. Most of the humorous moments and lines were improvised during filming.
• The coordinates given for Alcatraz when the missile is launched are 67°25'0"N by 37°25'0"W. These actually put you in Greenland. (Alcatraz is actually at 37°49'36"N by 122°25'23"W.)
• At the beginning of the movie, General Hummel kisses his wife's grave stone and leaves behind his Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award in the armed forces of the USA. It is bestowed on a member of the US armed forces who distinguishes himself "conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States"
• Body Count: 25
• The furnace on Alcatraz is made by "Bay Foundry", a reference to director Michael Bay.
• While the film was shooting, Alcatraz the island was still open to the public, and many visitors watched the movie being shot. However, on December 15, 1995, the federal government, which owns Alcatraz Island, partially shut it down due to stalled budget talks, and filming continued with no visitors present.
• The trailer shows several shots of Goodspeed firing an M-4 assault rifle. While Goodspeed does acquire an M-4 during the course of the film, he never actually fires it.
• Average Shot Length = ~2.6 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~2.5 seconds. (About 2900 shots)
• The Beatles LP that Goodspeed buys is Meet The Beatles.
• Sean Connery's character, John Mason, insists on having a suite from the Fairmont Hotel, which is conveniently located at 950 Mason Street.
• Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais provided an uncredited re-write of Sean Connery's dialogue.
• Aside from the obvious references to Elton John's "Rocket Man", there is another, more subtle astronaut-themed reference: Maj. Baxter's first name is Tom, hence Major Tom, the ill-fated astronaut from David Bowie's "Space Oddity".
• Ed Harris, playing Brig. Gen. Hummel here, co-starred with Michael Biehn in The Abyss (1989) (although not as a Marine). In that film, it was Biehn's character who was a renegade soldier and Harris' character was attempting to stop him.
• Some of the Navy SEALs in the film were played by real Navy SEALS.
• Cinematographer John Schwartzman is one of Nicolas Cage's cousins. Schwartzman's stepmother, Talia Shire is Cage's aunt.
• Most of the scenes involving F/A-18s are stock footage of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.
• Sean Connery insisted the producers build a cabin for him on Alcatraz as he didn't want to travel from the mainland to the island every day; he got what he asked for.
• Despite Michael Bay's current reputation with film critics, both this film and Armageddon have been enshrined in The Criterion Collection.
• The film was dedicated to producer Don Simpson who died before the movie's release. This would be the last movie he produced with Jerry Bruckheimer. The duo also produced Beverly Hills Cop, Flashdance & the first Bad Boys among other films.
• Quentin Tarantino, Jonathan Hensleigh, and Aaron Sorkin were all uncredited writers for the film.