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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - 36 corrections

Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring David Yip, Harrison Ford, Jonathan Ke Quan, Kate Capshaw (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Short Round's age has been given as somewhere between nine and twelve. But in the campfire scene, Indy says that Short Round was orphaned at the age of four when the Japanese bombed Shanghai, which happened in 1932. The movie is set in 1935, making Short Round seven. But this seems highly unlikely, as the character seems to be at least nine or ten. [The movies explicitly states his age. If the film says he was four in '32, then he's seven in the movie, regardless of what any other source says. Outside sources making claims do not count as movie mistakes.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When the pilots are jumping out of the plane, snow from a blizzard is seen entering the door. Yet several minutes later when Indiana Jones, Willie and Short Round exit the plane, the clouds from the storm aren't anywhere around, there is only clear, beautiful sky. [I'm afraid it's not a blizzard, but feathers from chickens (which are cargo). You can see feathers in the shots showing pilots arguing before jump, and in the shot showing Willie waking up.]
Edit Corrected by ziner
The bats flying above Indiana and his party on the way to Pankot Palace aren't giant vampire bats, but fruitbats (which don't even eat meat, they are vegetarian and mostly eat fruits and vegetables). [Indy was having fun at Willie's expense.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez Time
When Indy, Willie and Shorty are in the palace having the banquet, one of the waiters bring in the "Snake Surprise". After he cuts open the boa and the smaller snakes come out, the British Captain, who is seated quite close to Indy, brushes away a snake in disgust, while Indy does nothing despite his great fear of snakes. [He is not afraid of baby snakes, just as many arachnophobes are not afraid of spiders with thin legs for example. Phobias are irrational, that is their meaning. Also, Indy does not want to offend his host, or lose face with the people at the table.]
Edit Corrected by SoylentPurple
When Indy and Willie are behind the gong and the insane guy is shooting at them, the bullets spark off of the gong. The only way the bullets would spark would be if he was firing tracer rounds. However, even if he was firing tracer rounds, they burn and spark orange, not blue, as seen in the movie. [Bullets hitting metal cannot make sparks unless they are tracers? Without knowing the composition of both the gong and the bullets it's impossible to make this assumption.]
Edit
The description of the ritual as voodoo (by past submitters) as well as the use of a voodoo doll during the ritual (at the point where Indy drinks the blood) is totally incorrect. By this point, it is established that the Thuggee cult is a sub-sect of Hinduism. Besides, the Voodoo religion is indigenous to West Africa, with a small diaspora in the southern U.S., the Caribbean, and the U.K. Unlikely it could make its way to the north India of 1935. [This is a possible mistake made by submitters to this site, not within the movie, as such, it can not be classified as a movie mistake. Additionally, Nobody in the film mentions using the doll as voodoo. Fetish puppets such as this has appeared in multiple animistic religions throughout history, who's to say this particular Thuggee cult did not find a way to use them? Particularly since most of their rituals and magic are made up for the film, and as such, artistic license is permitted.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
Indiana explains to Willie that Shorty is his adopted son, orphaned by the Japanese bombing of Shanghai in 1932. "The Temple of Doom" takes place in 1935, three years afterwards, yet in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade, both of which take place after Temple of Doom, Shorty makes no appearance whatsoever. It makes sense that maybe Indy decided to call a sitter for his latter two adventures, he doesn't even agnowledge his existence once in that entire time. [Character decision, not a mistake. For all we now, Shorty could be dead or reunited with his family in the years between Temple of Doom and Raiders of the Lost Ark. In either case, it would not be something Indy would want to talk about.]
Edit Corrected by Twotall
After the mine cart chase, the three heroes see the water quickly approaching. They run further down the tunnel and make a right. The next shot, they come out of a passageway and look right, only to see the water coming from their left. Now, since two rights is essentially a U-turn, the three are looking back in the direction they came from; the water should be coming from the right as opposed to their respective left. [You're assuming that the tunnel they look into when they look right is the same space they just left, but these are tunnels. This tunnel may go off in a completely different direction which may not even connect to the flooded tunnels form this direction.]
Edit Corrected by JC Fernandez Time
In the camp scene, in the shot of Indy and Shorty playing a game of cards, right after Willie drops the bat and runs off screaming, Shorty drops one of the cards from his hand but never bother to pick it up. [So? This is neither a movie mistake nor a character mistake. It's just a decision Short Round made; or rather, didn't make.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius Time
In the area with the lava the woman is put in a cage and lowered over the lava. She keeps dropping down until she is stopped what looks like a few feet above the lava. In reality she would have been incinerated by the heat. [True, and earlier in the movie in the same room a man's heart is pulled out and yet he continues to live for a minute or so. I think there may be some magic involved.]
Edit Corrected by Foinlavin
During the life raft plunge out of the plane, Willie is the only one who screams. Indy and Shorty are courageously (curiously?) silent. During the next drop off the snowy cliff, it's Indy and Shorty's turn to scream, and Willie remains silent for the entire fall. [While you make a reasonable point, there is no way of knowing where and why a character would chose to scream. Perhaps Willie passed out briefly, and that's why she stops screaming. Also, Indiana could have started screaming because he thought he had it under control then they fall off the cliff.]
Edit Corrected by Foinlavin Time
After Mola Rom tears a man's heart out, the man is lowered in the molten pit. The man's chest is visible and has no hole or mark where his heart was taken. [True, but the man also is still alive after getting his heart ripped out of his chest and the heart is beating. Obviously something "supernatural" is going on.]
Edit Corrected by shortdanzr
Indiana calls Short Round by the name "Data". Data was the actor's name in Goonies. [Indy does not call Short Round "Data", he is known as "Shorty" in the movie not "Data".]
Edit
On the trip to Pankot, they each start out on their own elephant, but during the trip, as the scenes change back and forth between shots, "Shorty" alternates between riding his own elephant and riding with Indiana Jones. [Not necessarily a mistake. Shorty may have just wanted to ride with Indiana occasionally. His elephant is still there.]
Edit Corrected by DJKostya Time
When the credits roll at the end, check out a Thuggee Guard named Pat Roach. He also played a Mechanic in 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark' and the character 'Gestapo' in The Last Crusade. Shouldn't they get different actors/extras to play these parts in case someone notices? I sure did. [If you watch the DVD extras, Spielberg mentions that it was a running joke throughout the three films to have Pat Roach playing a baddie. As well as playing the mechanic in Raiders, he also played one of the Sherpas in Marions bar.]
Edit Corrected by Dr Muppet
When Indy is being forced to drink the blood, the maharaja uses a voodoo doll. Indy spits out the blood and punches someone while Shorty knocks the voodoo doll out of the guy's hand. Indy then punches the priest. When you get an overhead view of the fight, one of the Thuggee guards crushes the doll with his foot. Surely Indy must have felt something?. [There is nothing in the movie to suggest that anybody other than the maharaja can make use of the voodoo doll. Since the maharaja isn't the one who stepped on the doll, one would not reasonably expect Indy to feel anything.]
Edit
When Short Round is forced into breaking rocks, he starts hitting the chain of his leg shackles. After Indy puts Willy in the cage to be dropped, Shorty is seen dropping his shackles to the ground, chain intact but anklets opened. [True, Shorty was hitting the chains, but he hadn't yet worked through them before the shot cut. He went for the anklets instead, hacking them open instead of the middle of the chain.]
Edit
The depiction of the Thugs is not historically accurate. The Thugs were not members of a cult or ever organised in the way shown in the film. Thugs spent most of the year in their villages and then banded together for strangling and robbing expeditions during "the season". A thug viewed himself as a member of a trade much like a plumber or electrician would do today. [Well considering a few characters got "brainwashed" by drinking that blood, who's to say all the thugs didn't go through that as well? But most importantly, this wasn't a historical drama but an action/adventure movie. Expecting realism is kinda pointless.]
Edit
When Indy and the gang jump from the plane, the plane crashes into the side of the mountain and explodes. However, the fuel tanks are empty since the pilot dumped the fuel; there's no gas left on the plane to explode. [The tanks are full of petrol fumes, which are highly explosive. Unless aircraft tanks are properly emptied by the ground crew, they always have petrol fumes in them.]
Edit
In the beginning at the restaurant the waiter who is actually Indy's friend gets shot. You see blood appearing on his clothes but there is no sign of a bullet coming through. [The bullet passed through his black jacket so we can't see the hole. The only blood we can see is oozing out from under his jacket on to his white shirt which is why it appears so slowly.]
Edit Corrected by tw_stuart Time

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