Continuity mistake: Abu threatens the chasing guards with the sword pulled from the sword swallower's mouth during the "One Jump" chase scene. The Head Palace Guard yells "Idiots, We've all got swords." The Head Palace Guard pulls his sword with his left hand from the belt on his right side. When they chased Aladdin past the firewalker just seconds before, we can see that the Head Palace guard was leading and was wearing his sword on his LEFT side, and should have needed to use his right hand to pull it. (00:08:20)
Continuity mistake: As the guards chasing Aladdin run over the hot coals and their shoes are catching on fire, The sword in the belt of the guard in the lead disappears from his belt halfway across the coals and then reappears after he has made it across to the dirt street again.. (00:08:20)
Continuity mistake: The tiger bites the seat off the suitor's trousers, allowing the viewer to see his polka-heart boxers. When we see the tiger in the courtyard, he has a part of the same boxer shorts in his mouth. So if he bit off the seat of the trousers, shouldn't he have purple cloth in his mouth? (00:11:45)
Continuity mistake: When Genie rolls out his tongue into a staircase, he drops Aladdin and the pillow at the base of the staircase. When the miniature Genie reaches the bottom, Aladdin and the pillow disappear. (00:38:25)
Continuity mistake: In the Prince Ali parade, the monkeys are on top of wooden poles, with wooden cross member arms, with bells hanging from them. When Jafar is pushing the participants out of the Throne room doors, we see one of the monkeys and the bells are missing from the pole he is sitting on. (00:48:10 - 00:49:00)
Continuity mistake: While Aladdin is in the stranded in the frozen wasteland, the scene cuts back to the newly evil Palace now sitting on the hilltop. You can see stairs leading up to the throne room doors. When Aladdin returns and flies by this same spot, the stairs are gone. An interesting note here is that both of the mentioned views only show the Palace itself on the mountain top, without the surrounding walls and gardens. When Jafar has become a Genie and is being sucked down back into the palace, (on the mountain top), the shot looking down at the palace shows it to have it's walls and gardens still attached. (01:12:05 - 01:13:00)
Continuity mistake: Aladdin, Magic Carpet and Abu have returned to the evil throne room. Aladdin tries to grab the lamp, but is unsuccessful. Abu runs for it and is turned into a toy cymbal clanging monkey. Magic Carpet swoops down to grab the lamp a split second after Abu is transformed, yet Abu is nowhere in sight on the floor even though he was directly next to the lamp clanging his cymbals. (01:15:00)
Factual error: The animators have clearly tried to make all the writing in the film look Arabic. However in one scene we see the faces of Jafar and the Sultan as they read a scroll. Their eyes move from left to right; Arabic is read right to left.
Continuity mistake: When Jafar is holding the Sultan and Jasmine captive, Jasmine is wearing a gold band round one arm. As Jafar pushes her to the floor, it has switched to the other.
Continuity mistake: As Jasmine and Aladdin pole vault across the rooftops at the beginning, her hair flies freely, but when she lands her hair is tucked neatly under her scarf once again.
Continuity mistake: The flower in Jasmine's hair is on the wrong side when reflected in the stream.
Continuity mistake: When Aladdin is first speaking with Jasmine on the palace balcony dressed as Prince Ali. Genie's lamp is under Prince Ali's silk hat (during the point when Genie is a bee). Aladdin is threatened by Rajah and he removes his hat and holds it by the top center (open part facing down) to shoo away the tiger. The Genie lamp is not on his head or in the silk hat. Shortly thereafter, the Genie as a bee goes back into the lamp under his silk hat and it is plain to see how large the lamp is and that it would be impossible for it not to be seen with the hat off. Then Ali and Jasmine fly off on the "Magic Carpet Ride". After the ride, Jasmine, suspecting Ali is Aladdin, unexpectedly rips the hat off his head to reveal his hair. No lamp again. But when he returns to the palace and Ali is snatched by the guards, the lamp is under his hat when the hat falls off as he is thrown into the ocean.
Continuity mistake: The curtain in Aladdin's rooftop home changes size between when he first opens it, when he shows Jasmine, and a reverse shot from outside. The inside shots also show the bottom edge to be jagged, but it is straight and smooth from the outside.
Continuity mistake: Jafar imprisons Jasmine in the hourglass, which has three feet that hold it off the floor. When Aladdin rescues Jasmine, the hourglass has no feet. One of the side supports also disappears.
Continuity mistake: During the " Magic Carpet Ride", the rug swoops down to a pool of water, Both Jasmine and Aladdin look to see their reflections. Another sharp eyed viewer already noticed that Jasmine's flower is on the wrong side, but didn't mention that Aladdin's hair in parted on the wrong side in the reflection as well.
Continuity mistake: Genie transforms Jafar into the Evil Genie. Jafar rises and grows larger to fill the giant onion dome of the Throne Room. The view switches to the outside looking down and Jafar as Evil Genie explodes through the onion dome, completely removing the top half of the entire dome. When Aladdin holds the Black Genie Lamp and Jafar comes swirling back down, the hole has transformed to a squarish opening 75 percent smaller than the original opening Jafar had made seconds earlier.
Continuity mistake: After Aladdin and Abu have given their bread to the hungry street urchins, they step towards the street to see the commotion. Aladdin looks up at the Suitor for the Princess and looks at the LEFT side of the Prince. When the street urchin kids run past Aladdin into the Prince's path, Aladdin is on the RIGHT side of the prince, across the street.
Continuity mistake: When Jafar first opens the wooden door that leads directly into his workshop,( Not the secret sliding door), the knob is on the right and the door opens to the left. After Aladdin accuses Jafar of trying to have him killed, Jafar escapes and again appears before the wooden door to his workshop, It now has the knob on the left and opens to the right. The shape of the door and design of the knob have also changed slightly.
Continuity mistake: Sultan runs out of a wing of the palace to confront Jasmine about Rajah biting the Suitor pants. The opening long shot establishes that the bird cage is on the right side of the fountain,( looking towards the palace). Later that night, when Jasmine is sneaking away through the garden, The bird cage is shown in the long panning downshot to be on the other side of the garden, and now a TOWERING structure as well. In the birdcage's place is a gazebo of some sort.
Continuity mistake: Aladdin and Jasmine climb a ladder onto the first roof on their way to his secret home. They climb over the edge onto the first roof. Behind them is a towering, dark, reddish orange building. The shot changes to a shot looking down on the scene, and the building behind them changes to bright yellow. Once Jasmine jumps to the second rooftop and throws the vaulting stick to Aladdin, the large building in the background behind Aladdin and Abu has disappeared entirely and has been replaced by sunset skies.
Chosen answer: The cave has some level of sentience. It is aware of who is entering the cave, and decides whether to allow them to enter. It is able to tell that Abu is with Aladdin. It seems to keep a watchful eye on the person in the cave, and when it says "touch nothing" what it means is "don't try to take anything. It seems it was fine with them interacting with the carpet, and only had an issue when Abu was attempting to actually take something.