Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the villains are following Indy through the caves, the old wooden bridge completely breaks and falls apart. However, when they make their escape across the same bridge, it's intact with only a couple of wooden slats broken.

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Suggested correction: You can see a goon holding it up when they come back.

He's just holding it steady, the mistake is right and there's a picture online to prove it.

Sacha ★

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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.

Harrison Ford's voice has definitely become pretty gravelly.

Phaneron ★

Continuity mistake: When Indy arrives in Tangier at Hotel Le Atlantique, it is evening. A party is going on in the hotel while the auction is being held. A discussion starts, and a fight breaks out. They go outside, and all of a sudden, it is daytime.

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Suggested correction: When Indy arrives, there's a mild light on the horizon, which becomes brighter in perfect continuity throughout the scene, giving away he arrived moments before dawn and that the sun rises while he's inside. When he exits, it's finally daylight.

Sacha ★

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

Continuity mistake: While on the boat, Helena does her 7 spades card trick. When she gives Indy a turn, you can see the bottom card is a black 2. When she fans them out, it changes to black king of clubs. Then, in the next shot, it changes to 8 of clubs. (01:16:00 - 01:17:00)

gazza2009

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Suggested correction: Not necessarily a mistake. She could be changing those cards by sleight of hand, while moving the 7 of spades into position for the final force. The mistake was not using the 3 of clubs for it.

More for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Mistakes

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.

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Quotes

Indiana Jones: I've believed in magic a few times in my life. I've seen things... things I can't explain. I've come to believe it's not so much what you believe... it's how hard you believe it.

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Trivia

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

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Questions

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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