Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Other mistake: Dive boat interior, as the tablet is unboxed, there is a clear lens distortion as Indi looks round to his diver friend and the focus follows - giving a disturbing jolt to the image. (01:08:27)

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Suggested correction: It's not a distortion. It's a visual effect produced when the camera swaps from having a blurry background to a focused one. It happens again when Indy and Helena are about to steal the car (1:40:10).

Sacha

Suggested correction: It just appears to be the result of the movie doing a slightly unconventional rack focus. I don't think that really qualifies as a mistake. If it does count, it opens far too big a can of worms in terms of various camera techniques being considered "mistakes."

TedStixon

Other mistake: When the divers ascend from the Roman shipwreck, an odd sort of heat-seeking mini-torpedo or poison homing dart projectile is fired down from the surface. Any idea what this is supposed to be? The henchmen on the boat appear to be wielding a knife, a Luger, and a (wrong for the period) 1986 micro Uzi. (01:10:20)

Other mistake: Whilst swimming towards the Roman shipwreck, the divers appear to be moving at a speed similar to an unrestricted diver wearing flippers. The drag resistance from the air pipe umbilical, together with the divers' lead boots, would make this an unfeasible maneuver in real life. Equally, the divers have no BCD or method of maintaining equal buoyancy and would sink to the seafloor - not swim like a fish. (01:13:14)

Other mistake: As the divers prepare to descend to the Roman shipwreck, none of their buoyancy aid inflation valves are connected to an air intake. This makes the rapid inflation, which happens on their ascent back to the surface, impossible. (01:15:15 - 01:15:50)

Other mistake: Towards the start of the film, at the end of the train crash on the viaduct, time seems distorted. By the time it's taken Indy to wade out of the river and walk up its bank, magically a troop of British soldiers appear from nowhere, having entirely and instantly overrun a train full of Nazis? (02:16:01 - 02:16:35)

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Suggested correction: Harrison Ford's voice has always sounded the same. Watch any film he's done.

Gavin Jackson

It's a noticeably "older" voice than in previous films when he was about the age his de-aged self is meant to be. I mean he's now in his 80s not 40s, of course his voice is different! An unavoidable mistake but still clearly different.

Actually, it is easily possible to augment his older voice to sound young. If his older voice is too deep, for example, Ford could merely speak slightly slower when recording the dialogue - and then it could be sped up slightly in the final cut. Or, audio AI can be used to alter voice patterns as desired nowadays (ex. To remove the 'gravelly' aspect of his voice).

Harrison Ford's voice has definitely become pretty gravelly.

Phaneron

Other mistake: In Tangiers, Indy's cab pulls over in front of the mob-owned hotel where the famous illegal auction is taking place. It's dark outside, but when we see Indy in the hotel, and more evidently when they get out of the hotel and the car chase starts in the span of 5 minutes, it's broad daylight. That also means that just before 6 AM (when dawn would take place in August), the hotel is chock full of normal people boozing, playing cards, plus an assembly of rich baddies from all over the world who just happen to wait to have an auction.

Sammo

Other mistake: The US forces that apprehend Voller in Tanger carry modern-day M4 carbines. These weren't in use until the early 1990s. While similar weapons (XM177) were in limited use in the late 60s, the troops sent to apprehend Voller would much more likely have had regular M16s or WW2 M1 carbines.

Plot hole: At the start of the film, a young Jürgen Voller gets hit square in the face, at high speed, by trackside equipment and gets knocked off the train. But somehow, he isn't killed and survives without so much as a scar on his face.

More mistakes in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Sallah: Give 'em hell, Indiana Jones.

More quotes from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Trivia: This is the first movie in the Indiana Jones series not directed by Steven Spielberg, nor with a story written by George Lucas.

More trivia for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Question: Maybe I missed some dialogue, but why exactly did Voller think the fissure they were flying towards would take him to his desired date in 1939? I get that the dial detects fissures in time, but why would he think that particular fissure was the one he needed to travel through?

Phaneron

Answer: There is a bit of dialogue en route to the airport when Voller sets the instrument that says, "the first hand sets the destination," as in the time you want to travel back to. This would make the device completely absurd in principle if true (that's why I wanted to mark it as a plot hole/stupidity). Since it's supposed not to open portals but just detect them, it can't be that there are infinite portals for every moment in time you can choose to go back to (and they even close). The sky, while vast, is not infinite. We then find out that it is a trick since it is set to actually bring you to just one destination, but they don't know it yet.

Sammo

Answer: We're supposed to accept that the dials are pointing to the rift in the sky, which is what makes this plot decision so ridiculous. There's no common reference point (magnetism wouldn't be discovered until and used in compasses for another 2,000 years), and the dial is 2-dimensional. Thus, you could turn your body 90 degrees and aim it down, and there's no indication from the movie that the dial would in any way turn to face the previous rift.

I think, technically, the fact that there's no common reference point is addressed when Voller mentions that the coordinates given are 'Alexandrine coordinates'... which I think might be another anachronism since all I can think it means is the ones used by Ptolemy in his Geography, which was hundreds of years after Archimedes' time. The dial is 2-dimensional, but there are 3 hands. It can be argued that when all 3 align, it does show that the direction you are headed is definitely correct, including the height you are pointing at. I definitely think it's entirely implausible, but the way the unknown mechanism works, attuned to something that does not exist such as time rifts, is kind of a lesser problem. Even if it is supposed to work by some mathematical principle, and then acts as some dowser rod.

Sammo

Not true. The Chinese were using compasses around 200 BC, and Vikings are believed to have had them as well.

Answer: As they approach the rift, all three of the dial's hands are suddenly pointing towards it. If that is no clear indicator, then what is?

Daniel4646

The dial pointing towards it only indicates that they are heading towards the fissure. How does that give Voller any certainty that this is the exact fissure he needs to travel through in order to reach his desired destination, especially considering it ended up not being the one he needed? Were there coordinates in Basil's diary that indicated where the exact fissure would open? I only recall the date of August 20 (?), 1939 being written down.

Phaneron

Only the time is written in the diary (the date you mention is next to August 20, 1969, which would be then supposedly when the finale of the movie takes place). For the coordinates, you need to have the device, which, apparently, allows you also to input with firsthand your desired destination. Voller couldn't know that to concoct his plan, though, since he did not have the diaries at the beginning of the movie.

Sammo

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