Corrected entry: After Marion supposedly dies in the truck explosion and Indy is drinking outside at the bar, watch to the left of him. You can see a man wearing a modern t-shirt and jeans walking through the crowd. (00:42:20)
Correction: This is probably the most famous non-mistake of all time. Denim jeans date from 1871. They were first sold by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873 and the design hasn't changed much since then! Plain white cotton T-shirts date from 1898 and were first issued by the US Navy to their sailors in 1913. The design caught on immediately and they flew off the shelves. In short, there is nothing at all unusual about a man wearing jeans and a T-shirt in the late thirties.
He's the only person wearing that outfit in Cairo. Every single other person is wearing "traditional" clothing. He's clearly not meant to be in shot.
If that's true, then what about the two guys standing in the door/archway and the one guy who is sitting in the doorway next to them - all three of them don't match the rest of the extras either? All three are in the background to the left of Indy before the supposed blooper guy appears and walks right in front of them during the scene.
Highly possible. Unless you know the man's backstory who's to say he can't be where he is?
All of Cairo? I count 12 people (not including Indy) aside from him wearing traditional clothing. So one in 13 people has a different style of dress than the other 12. So what? A woman wearing a niqab in New York City might be different from others; it's not a mistake to have a niqab-wearing extra in a NYC crowd shot. This should be easily resolved anyway because there's one other person not wearing traditional clothes-INDY. And no-one gave him grief for it. Jeans aren't illegal in Cairo.
Correction: There is a simpler explanation of the man's presence and the fact that he is not there in error. This scene was shot on a closed set, and security was very tight. No member of the public would have got within a hundred metres of the place, and no crew member would be stationed in front of the cameras during a shot. It just doesn't happen. He is an extra, doing what he has been directed to do.
This site is filled with mistakes where crew-members are on camera. Whether it's an error, this correction is an assumption not supported by any facts.
Corrected entry: At the beginning, when the aides of Indy find the poisoned dart the one who tastes the poison says "they know we're here. They are 3 days behind us." If they were behind, the dart wouldn't be there.
Correction: He says "The Hovitos are near. The poison is still fresh - three days. They're following us." He didn't say they were three days behind, just that the poison on the dart is no more than three days old, and it being there means so are the Hovitos, somewhere nearby.
Corrected entry: When Sallah and Indiana are sitting and talking on the terrace, with Cairo in the background, you can see a modern TV antenna over Indy's left shoulder. At the time the movie is set televisions were not available. (00:35:10)
Correction: Where? No antennas at all anywhere.
Corrected entry: As they come out of the "mapping room" in the tomb, there is an extra crouched down by the door, apparently hiding. It seems as if it was a quick fix for someone who was where they weren't supposed to be.
Correction: It's a man, who was punched by Indy in a deleted scene. He is lying still and not crouching at all.
Corrected entry: In the cave in the beginning Indy tells his partner to stay out of the light, then his competitor comes shooting out of the wall attached to spears. After the competitor is killed, how did the trap reset? I doubt one of the natives came in and did it.
Correction: This is a question, not a mistake. The fact that the mechanism is unknown doesn't make it a mistake.
Correction: It automatically retracts. It's unknown how it works though.
Corrected entry: Once Indy & Sallah have descended into the Well of the Souls, they slowly begin to approach the concrete structure that houses the Ark. As they approach, the camera pulls back to reveal the huge scale of the Well of the Souls, and across the top of the screen, in perfect silhouette, is the lighting rig. (01:05:10)
Correction: What you see is an ornamental panel across the lateral beam of the wooden structure over the ark, a bird I think. The panel is visible again from the back side when they are lifting the ark up with the poles, and from the front when Indy and Marion are first trapped and again as the large statue is crashing into the wall.
Continuity mistake: When the temple collapses, Satipo is crouching looking at the chaos. Indy starts to run and there's a wide angle of the passage ahead but Satipo is nowhere around. He couldn't have managed to run that distance in half a second.
Corrected entry: The end credits list Alfred Molina's character as "Satipo". Harrison Ford says "Adios Sapito".
Correction: Actually he said "Adios estúpido", meaning "Goodbye, fool."
He definitely doesn't say "estúpido."
Correction: Nope. I do believe Harrison Ford was meant to say "Adios Satipo" but made a mistake and said "Adios Sapito." Judge by yourselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwXAIlYlkTo&t=1m12s.
Trivia: The German submarine is the same sub that would later be used for Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot".
Suggested correction: The sub wasn't later just used in 'Das Boot', the full-size prop was actually built specifically for its production. Steven Spielberg only rented it for 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', apparently much to the surprise of the German film crew, who one day found their boat 'missing' as it was on loan to Spielberg.
Corrected entry: When Indiana and the other guy are removing the stone cover where the Ark is kept, they are struggling, yet they can lift the Ark out with relative ease. The Ark is made of solid gold and the lid itself is said to need two men to lift, plus it should contain the two stone tablets with the ten commandments on. It should have weighed just as much if not more than the stone covering.
Correction: I think the lid was made of solid gold.
Correction: The Ark was not made of solid gold, but of acacia wood covered with gold leaf (See Exodus 37:1-2).
Corrected entry: In the temple scene when Satipo betrays Indy and he leaves with the idol, he is running away from Indy. but when Indy bumps into Satipo impaled on the spikes in the next scene, he is facing Indy.
Correction: Since we don't see Satipo get impaled in the front and then change position, it's not a mistake. When he realised he set off a trap, he could have turned around trying to escape but didn't make it.
Corrected entry: In the scene with the Nazi plane, Marion gets stuck in the pilot seat, then appears in the gunner's seat, then appears stuck in the pilot seat again.
Correction: The gunner's position and cockpit are connected through a crawl space, which, during the scene, Marion can be seen ducking down and exiting it to move between the two.
Corrected entry: At the beginning of the movie when the temple is falling apart and Indy is clinging to the plant, the stone door is slowly coming down. The implication being Indy will be trapped there forever if he doesn't get out in time. However, there is a shot from the bottom of the pit looking straight up. The scene shows trees and sky above Indy. It would be a simple matter of him climbing up the temple walls to escape.
Correction: From all we see, climbing the temple wall would be anything but a simple matter. In fact, it would most likely be impossible. Even if Indy knew he could try to climb the wall, it would be a last resort. This would be like letting the boulder trap him and Indy hope he can find another way out when it's easier, faster, and safer to escape through the actual opening.
Trivia: The German U-boat in this movie is actually a mock-up built for Spielberg's earlier movie, 1941. It's only the front half of the sub, so you never see past the conning tower in close-ups. When you see the sub in its entirety, it's a model, which was also built for 1941.
Suggested correction: This entry conflicts with the entry stating that the U-Boat used in "Raiders" was the prop used in "Das Boot" that Spielberg had loaned.
Other mistake: In the bar shootout, a man is shot in the head. The bullet hits him in his hat right in the middle of his forehead, and then his hat falls off. But we then see a close-up of his face, and there's no bullet wound in his forehead or anywhere else.
Continuity mistake: There's a shot of the plane at the beginning, taken from the front, looking down the length of the body, where there's no writing on the side. (00:11:45)
Suggested correction: On a good quality frame the number is visible quite clear. Not visible on a poor resolution frame.
Correction: Nobody in that scene isn't wearing traditional Arab dress? What about the man in the dark leather jacket, tan trousers and fedora? What about the man in the pale beige suit, white shirt, white hat and black tie? The one in the pale brown suit and hat, white shirt, black tie? The one in tan trousers, white shirt, patterned tie? The four people indisputably wearing out of place Western clothing in the scene? That's right. Indiana Jones, Belloq and Belloq's bodyguards. Not a mistake.