Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Continuity mistake: Indy crashes against the orchestra, musicians, instruments and decoration. Two seconds later everything and everyone manages to be perfectly back in place.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the baddie hands Indy the diamond, the black napkin in front swaps from wrinkled to straight.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the three walk towards the palace, they pass by a wall with an elephant painted on. Round the corner, a guard stands 10 meters in the back. A frame later, the guard stands right next to the three. In the following shots he keeps appearing or disappearing randomly.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the plane, Willie wakes up Indy, who asks if they've arrived, and a feather lands on his head. A frame later the feather is gone.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Short falls through the hole and there's a POV shot of his legs moving wildly while he cries "Help!" Then he is rescued by Willie and lifted up safely, his legs now still, and his nerves calmed. However, the very same shot of the wild legs and the cries for help from before is suddenly inserted, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: During dinner, a man in front of Willie asks her is she isn't hungry. The way he holds the huge beetle swaps from straight to sideways between angles.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Short tries to wake up brainwashed-Indy, who smacks him. Short falls on the floor and his hair becomes messy. A frame later it's neatly brushed.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Mola Ram throws a Thuggee down the bridge and Indy moves away. The angle cuts to a closer angle and Indy is in the previous position moving away again.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the pilot checks if Indy is asleep he holds the curtain with his thumb inside the cabin and fingers on the passenger part. From the opposite angle he holds it with the side of his hand, all fingers inside the cabin.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the mine, Indy fights against a bearded bad guy, who throws a hammer backwards that lands on a worker's head, knocking him out. The workers are very close together in the wide angle, then equidistant in the close-up when the hammer lands, and then together again in the wide angle. Also the worker that falls unconscious is standing straight a frame later.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the pilots are about to jump off the plane, they walk between Willie and Indy. Her head swaps from tilted to straight from frame to frame.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Short is hanging through a hole in the bridge, his shirt keeps changing back and forth from being motionless in the POV angles, to wildly flickering in the wide ones.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Indy is first raising Willie up from the pit of lava, as he just begins to raise her up you can see that the eye hooks and rods that hold the cage are rising up out of the hole. However when we switch to the shot of Willie in the hole, she's just a few feet from the lava.

Continuity mistake: After the man is burnt in the lava pit, Indy says the word 'diamonds'. Willy comes closer and then turns her head to the right. When the shot changes she's facing straight.

Sacha

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy is fighting the Chief Guard on the conveyor belt, there is nothing behind the guard before he picks up the large rock, but in a close-up there are now small rocks on the belt.

Continuity mistake: When Indy hangs the assassin on the fan, in one shot he's spinning, but in the very next shot he's not. He can't just instantly stop, he'd have to slow down.

MikeH

Continuity mistake: On the bridge, when Indy threatens the Thugees to drop the bag, they're a couple meters away from his back, but in the next angle they're further away.

Sacha

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Short Round rams the car into the back of the rickshaw, in the next shot facing the rickshaw driver we can see that he loses his right shoe (viewer's left) just as he's lifted into the air, but his shoe returns in following shots. (00:12:05)

Super Grover

More mistakes in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
More quotes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Trivia: Just like Indiana was named after George Lucas' dog, Willie was named after Steven Spielberg's dog and Short Round was named after screenwriters Bill Hyuck and Gloria Hatz's dog.

More trivia for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Question: Does anyone have a translation as to what the Mullaram says during the human sacrifice scenes? He chants something like 'Cully-ma, Cully-ma, Cully-ma sha-ti-day.' Also, what does the human sacrifice say? It sounds like 'Oh num-shi-vye.'

Answer: He says "kali ma, shakti day". This is hindi and means (literally) "black mother, give me power/strength". "Ohm nama Shivaya" means "I bow to Shiva." Both are Hindi.

More questions & answers from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.