Trivia / Clear and Present Danger

The novel

• Shown Their Work: Inverted. Clancy himself had confirmed that he made up the cellulose-encased laser-guided bomb.
  I learned later that stealty [sic] bombs were looked at, but the problem was combining stealth and ballistic stability. The problem was never solved, and the project was cancelled.

The film

• Disowned Adaptation: Tom Clancy was very critical of the film adaptation of Clear and Present Danger. Most notably, he disliked the ending. In the movie, Ryan blows the lid off the covert operation in Colombia by publicly testifying before Congress. In the book, the men responsible for the operation are quietly dealt with behind the scenes. Tom Clancy feels that Jack Ryan would never take a course of action that would result in the United States being damaged by a major scandal.
• Deleted Role: Downplayed with Anne Archer's role. A hefty chunk of her role, including a subplot about Cathy Ryan was left on the cutting room floor after a negative response with test audiences.
• Fake American: British-born actor Donald Moffat as President Bennett.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The line "Are you going away again?" was never said anywhere in the film. Subverted with the line "We've got our own little war," which only appears on a computer screen, unlike in the trailer where it was said on a radio.
• Orphaned Reference: In the scene where Ryan hacks onto Ritter's computer, SHOWBOAT briefly appears on the screen above RECIPROCITY. Operation SHOWBOAT was a subplot in the the original novel that was removed due to objections from the Department of Defense.
• Recycled Set: The Oval Office set was originally built for Dave.
• Stock Footage: Footage shot for this film, featuring the F-18 Hornet, was used for 10 seasons in the opening titles on the Paramount series JAG. Footage from the convoy ambush scene was also used by JAG, in the first season episode "War Cries" (with careful editing to remove Harrison Ford in a suit and insert David James Elliot in Navy Whites).
• Throw It In!: Ryan's line asking Ritter if he played tennis (to distract him during the computer showdown) was ad-libbed by Harrison Ford.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A subplot involving Cathy Ryan performing experimental eye surgery on a child was filmed, but cut from the final product.
  • The first draft of the script was written by John Milius, and allegedly it was faithful enough to the book that Tom Clancy loved it. This script was ultimately discarded because, just like in the book, Jack Ryan barely appears in the first half of the story (instead the first half of the story is mainly about John Clark and the American soldiers in Colombia) and the studio wanted Jack Ryan to be at the center of the story (they feared that if Jack Ryan's role wasn't big enough, Harrison Ford would not agree to star).
  • Plans were in motion to adapt The Cardinal of the Kremlin, which would have been a direct sequel to The Hunt for Red October. However, various plans to adapt the novel into a script failed, allegedly because the material (which revolved around "spy games" and espionage in Russia set against The Cold War) was too difficult to adapt for the screen. Various press reports also suggest that efforts were made to adapt Debt of Honor (which was released in 1996) and The Sum of All Fears, but this never got past the drawing board, and both Harrison Ford and director Phillip Noyce officially abandoned the potential sequel in 2000. Sum of All Fears was subsequently given a Continuity Reboot and was released in 2002.

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