Raiders of the Lost Ark

Continuity mistake: Just before the car carrying Marion in the wicker basket explodes in the alley, Indiana shoots a man twice in the chest. The man has blood stains on his shirt before he is shot.

Continuity mistake: As Indy and Marion are starting to run from the plane, you can see the yellow wheel chocks are back in place under the plane's tires.

TD9898

Continuity mistake: After Indy steals the idol, while he is hanging in the well, in the front angle his left leg is bent and already outside, in a quite comfortable and secure position; yet in the angles from behind both legs are inside, hanging loose.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: After hitting one thug, Indy jumps out of the way of one trying to spear him, leading to the one behind Indy getting run through. As the guy gets run through, he is in front of a hanging string of fruit, with the stacked fruit to his right. After a cut scene to Indy and Marion running away, the run through thug is now facing the fruit stand, setting up the sight gag of the blade sticking out with two fruits stuck on it.

Movie Nut

Continuity mistake: While Indy is in the Well of Souls, Belloq greets him and is standing by one of the four sides of the rectangular hole. A frame later he stands by one of the corners.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: After grabbing the idol, the cave starts to collapse, filling the place with rocks and rubble. When Indy starts to run, from the angle behind the floor is clean, rocks starting to fall for the first time.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Satipo drops the whip half a meter away from the closing gate, then runs away. However, when Indy rolls underneath the door, the whip is laying right next to it.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Indiana is hiding his face with the cloth, watch as he enters the tent that Marion is being held prisoner in - at first, Indiana has to hold it in place; in the next shot, he has it tucked into the rest of the folds. The next shot, the actual position of the cloth changes.

redbaron2000

Revealing mistake: The Pan American aeroplane Indiana Jones boards in San Fransisco looks similar to (but has noticeable differences from) the Boeing 314 PanAm used for transpacific flights. This aeroplane did however not fly until 1938 and at the time of the story the company only flew transpacific with Sikorsky S-42s, an aeroplane with a completely different body than the one used in the scene.

Raiders of the Lost Ark mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Indy is fighting the big German at the base of the airplane, Indy reaches down and grabs a handful of sand to throw in his face. You can see the finger marks in the sand from a previous take.

Lynette Carrington

Audio problem: When Marion meets up with Indy on the steps of the building at the very end of the film, she asks what was going on in there. Her first few lines of dialogue were dubbed in after shooting. Her mouth isn't moving with the dialogue.

Lynette Carrington

Factual error: Several times during the movie, Indy is under fire from Nazis or other bad guys wielding what look like MP-38 sub machine guns. The movie is set in 1936, 2 years before the weapon was even designed. The Erma EMP-36 has wooden parts (the grip), the muzzle spike at under the barrel is more pointy and the front sight are more massive than MP-38/40, and the magazine is tilting slightly forwards towards the muzzle. The MP-38/40 is all stamped sheet metal (no wood, because it would slow down production), the muzzle spike under the barrel is more smooth (maybe so it won't get stuck?) and the front sight is more simple (basically just a ring with rumble strips) than the ERMA's, and the magazine on the MP-38/40 is vertical.

ssgemt

Raiders of the Lost Ark mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After Indy replaces the idol for a bag filled with sand, the position of the bag changes between frames.

Sacha

Other mistake: During the truck scene, after the German officer hanging onto the door falls down and another guy crawls over the roof, palm trees are reflected on the windshield, but wide shots show not a single tree around because the palm trees area was left behind a while ago.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the map room, after Indy has discovered where to put the stick in, the sun rays lights the head and shoulder of a painted figure and the whole body of the figure to the right of it. A frame later the first figure is now completely lit. Too fast a change.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Belloq talks to Indy in the Well of Souls the two Arabs on the left disappear in the angles from Indy's POV.

Sacha

Audio problem: When Toht walks in with Dietrich and Gobler, watch the background, you will see Dietrich's lips moving, but you cannot hear him saying anything.

Other mistake: At the beginning of movie when Indy is about to steal the gold idol, the camera does a close-up of it. The idol has been in a decaying temple for hundreds of years. but it appears shiny and new, as though just placed there. You'd expect the idol to at least be dusty or covered in jungle debris.

mikelynch

Continuity mistake: Indy climbs on a plane's wing and a German officer arrives and asks him what's he doing, raising his left arm ordering him to approach. A frame later the arm is down.

Sacha

Raiders of the Lost Ark mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy and Brody meet at the University with the two government officials, a group of rolled maps or plans are placed on a podium horizontally. Halfway through the scene, they are all laying vertically.

Lynette Carrington

Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indiana: Give me your torch. [He drops it in and sees why.] Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
Sallah: Asps. Very dangerous. You go first.

More quotes from Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark trivia picture

Trivia: There's a Star Wars reference to Obi-Wan and C-3PO on the plane rescuing Indy at the start - it has the registration OB-CPO.

More trivia for Raiders of the Lost Ark

Question: After the scene where Indy first goes onto the German U-boat, he runs around apparently looking for something, then the scene changes to the inside of the sub where you can hear that the order has been given to dive. Was there an actual scene cut out of the film where Indy lashes himself to the periscope? (When Raiders first came out in Aus, I vividly remember seeing it with this scene.)

Answer: The scene you describe was indeed filmed. It was cut out of the US release of the film although I cannot speak for the Australian version. The scene also appears in the Marvel Comics adaptation. http://www.theraider.net/films/raiders/deleted_scenes.php has a list of this and the other deleted scenes.

Phil C.

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