Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - 67 mistakes

Continuity: When Shorty falls through the bridge, a large hole is made. Later on, the hole disappears.

Other: Indy's bridge breaks and he is hanging by it with the natives shooting arrows at him. If you look closely you can see two arrows bounce off his back. All the other clatter noisily onto the cliff-face or stick in the bridge, so it's not like they've lost much force due to the range.

Factual error: When they fly from Shanghai (southern China) to India (southwest of China) you see the plane passing the Great Chinese Wall. But the wall is placed in northern China, not on the route Shanghai - Chungking - India.

Revealing: When Indy and Willie jump out of the Obi Wan Nightclub, they fall through several awnings, the idea being that they will break the characters' fall. All well and good. But, if you look very carefully, you can see small taped-up cut marks which the crew made so the stunt men (and women) could effortlessly glide though the awnings.

Continuity: During the 8 minute race on the mine carts through the mine. The group passes several bottomless cliffs, several huge holes, and even a hole of lava about 200 feet long. Yet when the water is released, it gets to them in about 30 seconds, and shows no sign of stopping when they outrun it.

Continuity: Outside the club, a sailor and a girl are in a buggy, which crashes. When the buggy is on the road, the sailor is on one side - when it crashes, he is on the other side, having swapped places with the girl.

Visible crew/equipment: When Indy enters the dungeon, he is using a match to lighten the writing on the wall. You can see the shadow of his whole arm which shouldn't be visible if that match was the light source.

Continuity: When Indy is at the banquet, he has a large silver platter in front of him with a smaller plate of food on top of it. When the maharajah speaks, his smaller plate of food has mysteriously disappeared.

Continuity: All during the fight in the sacrifice temple, the strap across Indy's chest hangs from his left shoulder to his right side. When he hugs Shorty, the strap is reversed. Also, the blood on his mouth occasionally switches sides, as does the parting of his hair. They obviously flipped the negative. Fixed in the DVD version.

Continuity: During the escape from the mine, Indy has to slide along on a rope to catch his companion's cart. Whilst hanging from the rope the shot switches from in front to behind a number of times. Depending on the shot, Indy switches from barely hanging on to having the rope grasped tightly next to him.

Continuity: When Indy and Willie are waiting for each other to come to their respective rooms, Indy's clock shows the time as 10.17 and yet when the Thuggee guard tries to strangle Indy, the same clock shows the time at 10.36.

Continuity: The scene in the Obi Wan nightclub when Indiana runs out of the window with Willie Scott. Indiana is running behind the gong and we see him collect Willie. In the next shot seen from behind the gong Indiana has yet to reach Willie before they jump out of the window.

Continuity: When Short Round is dangling between the two carts, just before the cart tracks split, he goes from being held by one arm to suddenly being held by two.

Visible crew/equipment: When Indy appears at the entrance of the mining caves to free the enslaved children, he punches out one of the guards and he goes flying in the air and across the gravel. You can see two suspension wires attached to the actor to drag him back through the dirt.

Continuity: Willie Scott's fingernails are considerably shorter in the nightclub scene compared to when she "burns her finger and cracks a nail" in the car.

Continuity: When Indy is in Club Obi-Wan, he spills a drink down his front. In the next shot, he is completely dry.

Continuity: When Indy starts climbing up the cliff after the water bursts through, we see a close-up of the back of his shirt, and there's one small tear quite high up. We cut to a wide shot, and now there are several quite wide rips across the back of his shirt.

Continuity: When Indy is struggling on the bridge, he breaks one or two of the planks. When they are shown again, they are undamaged.

Visible crew/equipment: When Indy is on the rope bridge at the end, his sword keeps reflecting the white lights being used to illuminate the scene. The sun wouldn't be at the angle he's reflecting as it would be up in the sky, not behind the camera where this light source is.

Continuity: When Indy, Shorty and Willie are looking at the ritual from the "balcony" in the cave, they take a look at the big skull on the wall. The artifact stones aren't placed in the skull. In the next shot the stones are there. After a few seconds the camera turns and the stones aren't there again. Some minutes later some of the bad guys bring them and put them in the skull.

Continuity: When the girl falls off the elephant, she falls off head first, and during a 5 foot fall, at most, manages to do a complete flip and land on her backside.

Continuity: Lao Che knocks some money off a big stack of bills at the nightclub table. In the next shot, the bills are once again neatly stacked.

Revealing: At the end, the elephant that the kid is riding sprays Indiana and Willie with water. If you watch very carefully or in slow-mo, Harrison winces in anticipation right before the water hits them.

Continuity: When Indy uses his whip to swing into the mine cart that Willie and Shorty are in, the way that he is holding the whip changes from shot to shot. Frontal shots show Indy holding the whip with his hands above his head. In shots from behind, Indy is holding the whip with his hands at his chest.

Revealing: To escape the Obi Wan Nightclub, Indy and Willie jump out the window and fall through several awnings. When they hit the second to last awning, there is a close up on the actors. Just before they hit the awning, there are butt-shaped indents in the fabric from a previous take.

Factual error: The village Indy floats into, supposedly in north India, is populated with people who speak with Indy in Sinhalese, the national language of Sri Lanka. The film was shot on location in Sri Lanka.

Revealing: The skull which Indiana forces under one of the wheels in the spiked room's ceiling has a very straight, clean-cut line through the cranium. It has none of the imperfections or signs of growth which would occur naturally; this is a very fake-looking skull.

Audio problem: A few times during the banquet scene, various snakes make noises like squealing pigs or large bugs.

Continuity: As Indy, Willie, and Short Round are going down the river in the raft, their positions in the raft keep changing, from Indy being on one side of them, to being in the middle, then on the other side, etc.

Visible crew/equipment: During the chase with the trucks in the mine, you can see that figures who are supposed to be Indy, Willie and Short Round are in fact dolls, and is not a very good example of special effects.

Continuity: When Indy is fighting on the conveyor belt, he is about to be run over a couple of times, but in the next shot he is further away.

Continuity: When the group piles into the lifeboat on the crashing plane, Shorty (who is stuck between Indy and Willie) exclaims "Indy, I can't breathe!", but his lips don't move.

Continuity: When Indy is trying to save Willie from the lava pit you can see Mola Ram remove his skull but when Indy goes after him he has his skull on and has to remove it before escaping.

Continuity: Some bad guys throw knives at Indy as the band is seated and playing "Anything Goes". Then Indy throws a cymbal at one of the bad guys and the entire band is now gone.

Continuity: The scene on the bridge takes place above a river. Sometimes the river underneath it is very wide, at other times it's just a small river.

Other: When fighting the sword wielding guards before getting on the bridge, Indy uses his bullwhip to disarm one of them. As the sword flies out of his hand it kind of hangs in the air as it falls. It is obviously a prop made of a very light material.

Visible crew/equipment: In the wide shot as Willie sits down after Lao shouts at her, you can very briefly see a member of the crew lift his head as he pulls the chair across the floor as she sits.

Continuity: When Willie is put into the cage, she has many necklaces around her neck. However, a few seconds later when Mola Ram walks up to her, all of the necklaces have completely vanished with no sign of anyone actually removing them before.

Continuity: When Willie falls from the elephant into the puddle of water, her hair varies from very wet at the bottom to mostly dry from each different camera angle.

Continuity: 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: During the mine cart scene, Indy hits the second lever with the shovel to change the course. The Thuggees in the cart behind him shoot the same lever and it flies back just as Indy hits it, and changes the course again.

Revealing: In the wide angle of the mountain where Indy, Willy and Short Round lean on, they cast no shadow, revealing it's a composite image.

Continuity: On the bridge scene Indy's sword changes. Initially, he has a sword with a straight blade and no hilt; however, when he shouts at Mola Rom, he has a something like a cutlass curved blade and heavy handguard to a machete-like weapon he uses to cut the bridge.

Continuity: On the mine conveyor, the guard pins Indy to the belt with his foot and his head toward the grinder. When Short Round tackles the Maharajah, we can see the guard on the conveyor, but he's facing the wrong way, both his feet are on the belt, and Indy is nowhere in sight.

Audio problem: Indy's line "Those aren't big birds, sweetheart. They're giant vampire bats," doesn't match the mouth movements he is making at the time.

Revealing: In the scene where they are climbing up the broken rope bridge after Indy cuts it, Indy is fighting the bad guy and falls a bit further down the bridge (which is now a ladder). You can see the climbing rope that is attached to Indy's waist (obviously a harness) that stops him from falling all the way. There are several other pieces of rope in the scene because it's a broken rope bridge, but this is quite visible.

Revealing: During car pursuit, when the Chinese thugs drive into the food stands and two of them fall onto the tables, you can see that at least one of them is a puppet from the way his arm is rigidly sticking out when he has fallen. It should have fallen to his side.

Revealing: When Indy is hanging on the cliff as it falls out from underneath him (right after the mine cart scene), as he's kicking, you can see the stone wall moving in and out as he hits it after the rocks fall out underneath him.

Audio problem: When Indy, Willy and Short Round are leaning on the mountain where the jet of water comes out, none of their cries match their lips.

Continuity: When Mola Ram is trying to get Indy's heart on the hanging bridge, the opening of Indy's shirt keeps changing drastically through shots.

Other: During the Tri-Motor crash sequence, the crew dumps the fuel from the aircraft and bails out. In the shot of the red fuel pouring out, the fuel is shown streaming out of the exhaust pipe for the center engine, which would be hot enough to cause the fuel to ignite and either set the aircraft on fire or cause it to explode.

Continuity: Near the end when Kate Capshaw, Harrison Ford, and the kid are on the bridge, Harrison cuts the bridge with a large sword. Several men fall into the water below. The bad guy grabs hold and hangs on to some of the henchmen. The number of henchmen changes between shots. Close-up 3, wide shot 2, close-up no men, then back to 2 and so on. The bad guy throws some off as he climbs up the bridge but the number changes in the wrong order.

Revealing: During the "Anything Goes" dance number, the shot of the dancers doing the 'splits' is simply ran in reverse to produce the illusion that they're rising up from the stage floor.

Continuity: As Willie Scott frantically searches for the diamond after the ice has been spilled on the floor, the red glove on her right hand disappears.

Continuity: A large pile of cash mysteriously appears on the table in the nightclub scene when Indy asks for the diamond. The glass nearby also refills itself.

Continuity: When Indy is fighting with the Thuggee guard, the Thuggee picks Indy up and is about to throw him into one of the mining trucks, you see Willie and Short Round hiding behind a pillar. When she says to Short Round "okay save him" you can see she is wearing a piece of jewellery on her forehead. About a minute later as she says her next line "what's the matter with him?" the piece of jewellery has gone.

Continuity: When Willie and Shortie go to watch Indy and the thuggee fighting on the conveyor belt you see Willie pick up a canteen and lean up as though she is going to give it to Indy but in the next shot the canteen is back on the rock and she has to grab it again.

Factual error: When they are riding the life raft off of the top of the snow-covered mountain watch how it falls. All three people were close to the front of the raft, yet the raft drifts backwards before plunging in nose first. That would be impossible with all of the weight shifted to the front of the raft to begin with.

Continuity: Before the first guy is lowered into the pit, the leader of the group is taking out his heart. Before he takes the heart out it is his real body, but when he is taking it out it is blatantly a model, as it doesn't have the same amount of hair and is a different colour.

Continuity: Indy's waiter friend gets shot and slumps over the table. He curiously disappears and reappears during the remainder of the the nightclub shootout scene.

Other: When the Thuggee throws the sledge hammer over his shoulder, notice that the man whose head the hammer lands on closes his eyes and leans his head slightly forward before the hammer hits him, as though he was already expecting the hammer to land on his head.

Continuity: When the fuel runs out, the engines die and propellers stop. They are stopped as it grazes the mountain peak. In the next two outside shots as they exit the plane, you can see the propellers are again at full speed and can hear the engines.

Factual error: In the scene at the end of the movie on the bridge, the fear of heights is increased by the shots of hungry reptiles waiting below. The reptiles shown are alligators. This is wrong: crocodiles are the animals that live in India, not alligators.

Other: When Willie is trying to find the "Fulcrum Release Lever" she screams when Indy grabs her hand, but if you watch her mouth (just visible through her hair) it doesn't open.

Other: In the "tunnel of bugs" you may reasonably expect there to be such creatures as cockroaches, spiders or giant centipedes, but the majority of the insects are locusts which are herbivorous and would not be found in an underground tunnel. Other out-of-placers are giant stick insects (also herbivorous) as well as a South American harlequin beetle (this part of the film is set in India). You can also see, in the scene where Willie turns her hand over to reveal one of the giant stick insects, that she is cupping it to hold the insect in place.

Other: When the airplane Indy and company are flying in runs out of gas, there is a close up of the instrument panel. The hands of the altimeter start spinning as the plane descends. However, so does the altimeter setting at the side. The altimeter setting is changed by the knob at the bottom. It does not change with altitude.

Continuity: When Indy fights the two guards before the bridge scene, the sequence is all off. He knocks one to the ground, who lands still clutching his sword. The other one has his sword whipped away from him - it flies over the cliff, and he runs off, whimpering. We then see the other guard approach, and suddenly Indy's standing over an unconscious guard by the boulder and clutching a sword, both of which have appeared from nowhere.