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When Rick and Evy are fighting the clay mummies, Rick yells, "Shut up, clay boy!" before he hits the mummy with a machine gun. In the very next shot, he is holding a pistol - an entirely different gun, as it never shows Rick dropping the machine gun and pulling out a pistol. See more...

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The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) - 18 corrections

Directed by Rob Cohen, starring Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, John Hannah, Luke Ford, Maria Bello (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Horror, Thriller

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.

Mistakes
Trivia
Pictures
Quotes
Corrections
Questions
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When the assassins are coming to kill the emperor in the beginning, watch as one slices a hole in the cloth from outside. The cloth has obviously been pre-scored to easily cut, as several mini-cuts are visible. [What you are seeing is where sections of the tent have been stitched together. The reason the assassin is cutting there is because it will be easier to cut along the stitches.]
Edit Corrected by wizard_of_gore
Soon before the final battle, as the O'Connells are preparing, you see Rick and Evie emerge from behind a rock with guns in hand and cautiously watch over what is happening. In this shot, Evie is holding two pistols, and you can see that one of the pistols (should be on the the viewer's right) has a bent barrel, revealing it to be a prop. [Already submitted.]
Edit
At the paramilitary camp, when the Emperor is talking with Yang, he gets angry and several pieces of his terracotta face crumble off. Yet, in the next wide-shot, there is no trace of the pieces anywhere on the ground. [After the pieces fall off of him they continue to crumble into dust, leaving nothing of them intact.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
The good guys are buried in an avalanche, then walk to Shangri La, encounter the bad guy, then travel to the Great Wall for the ultimate showdown. Their suitcases were left under the avalanche, yet they have them at the Great Wall: guns, equipment, even a suitcase of clothes. [They have a suitcase of clothes. They also had to return to the plane where they likely had more equipment stored. They didn't walk from Shangri-la to the Wall. This is a perfect example of time compression, not a mistake.]
Edit
When Mad-Dog is preparing his meal in the plane, he is singing. However, just before he notices Yang's people approaching, he drinks from his flask one last time and you can still hear him singing. [Untrue- I just watched the film and looked for this mistake, and he stops singing specifically so he can drink from his flask, and then only resumes once he has finished drinking.]
Edit
When Brendan Fraser gets stabbed by the Emperor's dagger/sword, the outbound wound is at his belly height. When his son checks his back, the inbound wound is between the shoulder blades, although the weapon came in straight. Had the blade entered from such a high angle, the damage would have been unsurvivable by means of puncturing heart and/or lungs. [The sword did come from high in his back, down and out through his stomach. The wounds are consistent with the angle of the sword stab. The whole point of going to Shangri-la was to save Rick's life, which the magical water in the pool did. He wasn't breathing when he got there, so he very well may have died on the way up.]
Edit
The Mad-Dog character is a continuation of a tradition in the series - in each movie, an old pilot friend of O'Connell arrives to help. Winston in the first film, Izzy in the second film, and now Mad-Dog in this third film. [This isn't even remotely interesting trivia. Rick O'Conell is also a continuation as a tradition of The Mummy movies, do we list that as well?]
Edit Corrected by GalahadFairlight
When Alex falls into the tomb and lands on the terra cotta horses, we hear a "clank" as if he landed on metal. [The horse is made of bronze, not terracota, as you can see further into the movie. ]
Edit
Alex could never defeat a ninja, they're masters of all forms of combat. [Ninjas are Japanese, not Chinese, therefore Alex could not have been fighting against a Ninja.]
Edit Corrected by GalahadFairlight
The position of the Emperor when he was cursed and changed into a stone is different from when he was discovered and released from the curse. [When he cames back to life, you see the face of his statue breaking, and his raised hands under it; this means that he was put inside a larger statue, still in the position he had when he was cursed.]
Edit
In The Mummy Returns, Alex O'Connell has blondish hair and a British accent. In the 3rd installment, Alex has brown hair and an American accent. [My hair was blond when I was a kid but now it's brown. His father is American and it's clear the family travels a lot. He could have very easily picked up an American accent over the years.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius Time
Although Qin Shi-Huangdi really did oversee the first construction of the Great Wall of China (to keep out the Mongol hordes), it was originally a series of earthen embankments - not the stone wall shown in the film. (The wall as we know it was built much later.) [It's an action movie, not a documentary. This is just artistic license, not a movie mistake.]
Edit Corrected by Phixius
When Evie and Rick are asked to take the artifact to China, Evie says that they are through with "espionage." However, the O'Connells were never spies; they were archaeologists. [The man asking them makes specific reference to their efforts in WWII which happened between the 2nd and 3rd films. It's entirely possible, and given their backgrounds highly likely, that they worked as spies during this period.]
Edit
The emperor's general had all his limbs pulled out by horse at the first of the movie, but when the general is raised he only has one arm missing. [You never actually see his limbs torn off. It's implied, but the shot moves away from him as the horses take off. He could have one arm still attached.]
Edit
Neither the emperor nor any of his soldiers are actually mummies, despite being referred to as such by the main characters several times. Given their field of work and areas of expertise, it is doubtful that they would repeatedly make such a mistake. A mummy is a body that is embalmed, dried and preserved, which the emperor and his soldiers had not gone through. [Incorrect. The technical definition of a mummy is a body that's been preserved in some manner, either through intentional intervention (as with the classic Egyptian mummies) or through happenstance, as with those bodies preserved by cold or by being buried in bogs or whatever. While mystical intervention isn't part of the usual real-world definition, it's certainly true to say that the emperor and his soldiers have been preserved through time, thus qualifying them for the description.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
In the beginning of the movie it shows Brendon Fraser fly fishing with the year stated as 1946 or similar. Then when shooting the gun at the "soldiers" he shouts welcome to the "21st" century, but that was the 20th. [He says "Welcome to the 20th century." At first, I thought he was wrong (since 2008 is in the 21st century), but then I remembered that 1947 was in the 20th.]
Edit Corrected by Cubs Fan
Although Alex is now a college student, Rick (his father) has hardly aged since the last film. They look more like brothers than father and son. [True, they look like brothers (and in real life Brendan Fraser is only 13 years older than Luke Ford), but the way two characters look is not a movie mistake - only poor casting if it distracts from the story. And, as you mentioned, Brendan Fraser looks like he has hardly aged in the past seven years. Some people just hold onto their youthful appearance longer.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
In the movie, the three-headed dragon has wings. Oriental dragons have no wings. [The traditional oriental dragon doesn't have three heads, either. Clearly not a traditional oriental dragon.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker