The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Plot hole: Zi Juan tells the rest of the group when they are in Shangri La that she will take the first watch at the entrance and guard against the emperor getting in. A few shots later, she then decides to have a conversation with her daughter nowhere near the entrance, and now with no-one guarding, means he gets in unchallenged.

GalahadFairlight

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Suggested correction: A character briefly leaving their watch to deliver important information as Zi Juan was doing isn't a mistake, and it's definitely not a plot hole, since it in no way contradicts the movie's logic or creates a hole in the narrative. At best, Zi Juan was being a little foolish leaving her watch, but a character being a little foolish isn't a "movie mistake." After all, people make foolish choices all the time in real life. Plus, as demonstrated by the movie, it doesn't really matter anyways - the Emperor's powers are back, so she wouldn't have been able to stop him even if she had kept watch.

TedStixon

Factual error: The aircraft used to fly to Shangri-La is a Bristol Beaufighter, a single seat long range fighter bomber. It was not a transport aircraft and could not carry passengers. Some variants of the Beaufighter were two seaters but none at all could be used as small airliners as they do here. It is not possible to simply reconfigure the aircraft as shown here - the centre of gravity, balance and trim would all be thrown out. The resulting jury-built aircraft would be uncontrollable in flight.

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Trivia: The motorbikes with sidecars used in the chase are a playful homage to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which Indy and his dad escape on a motorbike with almost the same configuration.

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Question: Near the beginning of the film, in 1946, Rick and Evie are asked to take the Eye of Shangri-La to China as a peace offering from Britain, and a subsequent shot is them arriving in China in 1947. Since the task seems to be of extreme importance, why do they wait an entire year to deliver it?

Cubs Fan

Chosen answer: For one thing, just because two different years are shown does not mean that a full twelve months passed before they arrived in China. Also, travel to an undeveloped third-world country in the mid 20th century was not like it is today. There were no jet planes, much pre-planning and preparation would have to be done before departure, different modes of transportation would have to be arranged, and there would be many stops, delays, and transfers along the way. This could cumulatively take many months.

raywest

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