Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Continuity mistake: When Lao Che's goons toss Indiana onto the dish cart, in the next shot just as Indy notices the rolling vial on the floor and reaches out to it, at the top left of the screen we see broken dishes and broken remnants of the band's podium lying on the floor, but the problem is the goons haven't yet pushed Indy's cart into the podium, which happens three shots later.

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: During the mine cart chase, in the first wideshot of Shorty being pulled between the two carts where we see the lava under Shorty, this is a flipped shot. Note Indy's ripped sleeve is at his left side instead of his right, and the stripe on the Thuggee's turban is the opposite direction than it should be.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the pilots have jumped from the plane Willie shows Indy the empty cockpit, and in the shot of the front windshield note the view outside and the gauges, then after Indy nervously repeats "fuel" a few times there's another shot of the front windshield which is a flipped shot.

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: 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.

Lynette Carrington

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture Video

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

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

Brad

Factual error: The British / Indian troops at the end of the movie are using Lee Enfield no4Mk1 rifles. These didn't go into production until 1940. Also India never used the no4Mk1, they used the no1Mk3 until the 1950s.

Factual error: Neither Willie nor the human sacrifice victim show signs of significant perspiration when being lowered to the lava. They should have been sweating profusely after being close to the lava.

Phaneron

Factual error: Indy rescues Willie from the lava pit and immediately releases her from the cage. In reality the cage would be too hot to touch for several minutes after being that close to the lava.

Phaneron

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Revealing mistake: 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.

Plot hole: In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy tells Marcus he doesn't believe in magic or superstition. However, in this movie, which is set a year before Raiders, Indy not only witnesses supernatural acts, but takes advantage of them to win the day (by using the incantation to ignite the stones at the end). Therefore, by Raiders Indy would not only believe in magic and superstition but would know they exist. Listed for this movie as it was made after Raiders.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Just because Indy saw magic and supernatural powers in India doesn't mean he should believe the stories revolving around the ark of the covenant. Stories can still just be stories and not believed even by witnesses of unexplained phenomena.

lionhead

Suggested correction: Indy saw some very surreal things and understands why people would form cultures and superstitions around them, but that doesn't mean he's concluded that it's necessarily "magic" or extrapolated that into a belief in superstition in general. You can read the end of Raiders, in which Indy suddenly orders Marion to shut her eyes when the Ark is opened, as being informed by the events in Temple of Doom and him knowing it's better to be safe than sorry regarding matters like this.

TonyPH

Continuity mistake: When Indiana, Short Round, and Willie are watching the ceremony at the Temple of Doom, just after Indy says "nobody has seen this for 100 years" you can also see Indy, shirtless, down near the alter on the top left of the screen and the skull is lit up. When Mola Ram walks out, it isn't.

TD9898

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At Club Obi Wan, Indy reminds Lao Che that Kao Kan tried to get Nurhachi without payment, and when Kao Kan raises his hand we see the gauze wrapped around his palm with a strip from his thumb area going diagonally down to his wrist, but in the next shot the gauze strip is wrapped diagonally from the opposite direction.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After Short Round snaps Indy out of his trance, when the Thuggee continues to lower Willie we see in her closeup that the flowers in her hair and the flower garland around her neck are already shriveled and blackened, but in her next closeup the flowers are back to being vibrant and fresh.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Revealing mistake: During the mine cart scene, after Indy notices that the track cuts out, just as the mine cart flies over the expanse there's a vertical wire at the back of the cart, leading up to the top of the screen, and a horizontal wire at the front of the cart, leading toward the right side of the screen. Additionally, when the mine cart lands on the other track keep your eye on the top edge of the screen as something dips into view, but it's pulled back up immediately, right before the shot cuts away to Mola Ram. The wires and the mysterious object can be seen when viewed on Amazon Prime, but they seem to have been edited out of the DVD (2008 version) I own.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the second band of Thuggees are in the mine cart pursuing Indy's cart, note the metal bar attached to the back of Indy's mine cart which wasn't there before, for use during the ensuing stunt. That bar then disappears and reappears.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At Club Obi Wan, Indy places Nurhachi on the table in the closeup with his left hand, but when Indy puts the diamond on the table with his left hand it's not actually Indy's hand that we see in this shot.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the melee at Club Obi Wan, Lao Che's goons toss Indy onto the dish cart which has a horizontal metal bar between two of its legs over the wheels, but in the closeup as Indy tries to grab the antidote vial, the metal bar has vanished, but it reappears when it crashes into the bandstand.

Super Grover

Willie: There are two dead people down here!
Indy: There's gonna be two dead people in here!

More quotes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Trivia: Just like Indiana was named after George Lucas' dog, Willie was named after Steven Spielberg's dog and Short Round was named after screenwriters Bill Hyuck and Gloria Hatz's dog.

More trivia for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Question: When the man was hanged on the fan, what exactly happened? It seems like he was cut by the fan, but then there's no blood or anything. How exactly did he die? And why did the fan suddenly stop when he hit it?

MikeH

Chosen answer: His neck was snapped by the whip getting caught in the fan. There isn't always blood with a hanging. Since the fan wasn't designed to hold a man's weight, the motor in it would have stopped or given out.

Captain Defenestrator

More questions & answers from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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