26th Jun 2019
Hard Times - S1-E3
Corrected entry: Aziraphale cites the only prophecy from Agnes Nutter that he could find as one for 1972, "do not buy Betamax" (a reference to the home video format war). Betamax was only launched in 1975 starting in Japan, so this advice should have been for then, not 1972. These prophecies were completely, even ludicrously accurate, so that excludes any explanation that she was simply a few years off, because she was never wrong. (00:19:10)
Correction: Aziraphale is not quoting from The Book, but an extract from a publisher's catalogue, and as a (newly) published author, I can tell you they are rotten with misquotes and other inaccurate information.
It's probably true in your case, but this was a few hundred years earlier? And she would have corrected the proofs, surely? Besides, I don't think the makers deliberately planned this (adding a misprint for more realism).
14th Oct 2022
Continuity mistake: During the final battle, the T800 at one point is trapped but manages to free himself (losing one arm in the process). He comes back to slice the T1000 in half with a metal bar. The T1000 kicks backwards at him (karate-style) - and the metal bar is flying away! Yet in the following shot, it is still there embedded in the T1000.
Suggested correction: It doesn't fly away. It is wrestled out of the T-800's hands as the T-1000 turns around because it's stuck in the T-1000's body.
Like, to the top left of the frame? Possibly. Depends a bit on playback speed too.
10th Sep 2020
Continuity mistake: The T-1000 has the gun holster on his left side and takes the gun out with his left hand when the guard in the psych ward hits the alarm. A few scenes later when the T-800 (Arnie) asks Sarah to 'come with me if you want to live' the T-1000 walks through the cell doors, the holster is on the right hand side and the gun in his right hand. (01:10:00 - 01:12:00)
Suggested correction: The T-1000 can change shape at will so it is safe to say the he changed hands with the gun and switched its holster to suit. The T-1000 uses both hands throughout the film to hold and shoot his gun.
I am not sure if the holster has changed to his right-hand side at all - isn't that just his walkie-talkie, which was there all along? Very few clear shots of his belt in that sequence though. I hate speculative explanations but if it's just the gun changing hands, that doesn't sound too serious... Could just be for opening a door.
22nd May 2008
Corrected entry: After the motorcycle chase, Indiana drives past the road sign, which points to Venice and Berlin. He then talks to his dad before looking straight ahead at a sign which is behind him.
Correction: He's not looking at the sign, he's making a decision. The shot of the sign was for the audience's benefit.
The combination of the two shots is conventional movie language for him looking ahead at the sign (which, I agree, signifies his decision). But he drove PAST the sign.
If it's not in the same shot, he is not looking at the sign but towards the road ahead. The mistake is an assumption and has been corrected appropriately.
Indiana Jones is not some experimental, challenging movie, like Fellini Satyricon. It follows standard montage conventions for understandable viewing. Person looks ahead, followed up with a "subjective" shot. It's textbook stuff - it's called the Kuleshov effect ("a mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots"). Also, since they drove past the post, they should then be visible in the second shot.
26th Apr 2006
Corrected entry: When Indy and his father come to the crossroads after having escaped the Nazis the sign says "Berlin" and "Venedig". When they leave it says "Berlin" and "Venice". It's the same side of the sign both times.
Correction: Yes, it does. And the wavery effect in the middle of the shot is meant to be a translation so that viewers can understand where Indy is driving to.
What wavery effect? Not sure if joke or false memory. Still, stuff being in English for the benefit of the viewer isn't necessarily a mistake. In fact, the previous shot was of the other side of the sign.
Correction: It is not the same side of the sign, the last shot is from the front.
7th May 2003
Corrected entry: When Indy and Elsa are back at the hotel after the boat accident, Elsa's room is wrecked. How did Indy not know she wrecked it herself or hear her wrecking it? He was only 2 doors down. He could hear the music playing in the bathroom but not her trashing her own room. He should have known she did it when she came out the bathroom surprised. Seriously, how can you be in the bathroom and not hear someone trashing your hotel room?
Correction: If the music was loud enough for him to hear it, it would have been loud enough to cover up the noise.
It seems a bit weak, but even a wind-up gramophone can make a lot of noise, especially in a small bathroom.
11th Aug 2004
Corrected entry: In the battle with the Germanians, we see a Roman soldier killing a fallen opponent with the tip of his spear. This would not happen in reality. The spear is a javelin, or 'pilum', used for throwing. If the soldier still had his pilum, he would have used the reverse end of it, the 'shoe', for finishing off his foe. The shoe was a sharp metal point used to stick the spear into the ground. (00:09:35)
Correction: Another of those entries that is really just an "I would have acted differently" submission. Faced with a German barbarian, nothing a Roman soldier does with a weapon that stops him, is a mistake.
Except that the Romans were a highly organised killing machine on the battlefield. Not really much room for improvisation and a personal style in hand-to-hand combat.
All medieval fights are messy, all medieval fights required combatants to improvise to survive it. Doesn't matter how organized an army is (and the Roman armies were a lot less organized than they are portrayed in movies), once the fighting starts it's pretty much chaos till one side wins.
Eh... No it's not. I'm sorry but if you write "medieval Roman warfare", that sort of gives away that you're not an expert. ANCIENT Roman warfare on the other hand has been extensively studied by military history anoraks. (Anyway, are you following me around now, or what? This isn't supposed to be a personal thing).
I didn't write "medieval roman warfare" I wrote "medieval fights." If medieval fights were messy, imagine fights 300 years earlier. Extensive studies show that the way the Roman Empire legions fought in the border wars was in fact a lot of improvisation and they had some major defeats against Germanic tribes caused by overextension. These soldiers were far less trained and thus improvised. Not attacking you personally, but defending the correction. If you got a problem take it to the discord.
Romans were in fact ahead of the inhabitants of the Middle Ages in almost everything. This is common knowledge. It's sort of useful to know what you're talking about when making confident statements. (I have no interest in discord, I only reply here in the hope that people won't fall for misinformation).
22nd May 2008
Corrected entry: There is a problem with the following scene: The Nazi plane crashes into the tunnel, slides past Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and explodes when exiting the tunnel. The problem is that the plane shouldn't explode since its wings (filled with gas) were torn off. It couldn't have been a bomb attached to the plane either, since, as it is seen only seconds afterwards, a bomb would leave a big crater in the street and make it impossible for the car to go on. Yet, Harrison Ford has no problems at all driving through what's left of the plane.
Correction: The engine and hosing that delivers the gas to it is attached to the fuselage.
Could someone elaborate on the proposed correction please?
The engine can still explode and there could hypothetically still be fuel in the hosing connected to the engine.
But there's not a LOT of fuel left there, when the tanks fell off half a minute earlier. It's not a terribly entertaining mistake, granted, because some movies really do need explosions. But it might be technically valid in a boring way.
31st Mar 2008
Corrected entry: When Indie rescues his father and shoots the Germans, the one that he pushed over stayed on the floor. Surely being pushed over couldn't have caused him that much damage.
Correction: He probably stayed down to avoid getting shot, since that's what happened to the others.
I checked the scene just now - the guard who has some lines is taken out without any sort of proper fight. I ask you, Mitchell and Webb excepted, when do Nazi henchmen EVER decide to take it easy and live to tell the tale instead? At any rate, he's taking a huge risk that the Joneses won't sway the gun on him for good measure.
8th Dec 2004
Corrected entry: At the book signing in Berlin, the camera pans from right to left and the guard at the very end of the line of soldiers (to the left) has his left hand raised in military salute to Hitler. All the other soldiers have their right hands extended.
Correction: The person in question could have an injured right arm that he simply can't lift.
Exactly. "If physical disability prevented raising the right arm, it was acceptable to raise the left." Kershaw, Ian (2001). The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192802064.
There's nothing about it in the script though. So between the two options, on the one hand (no pun intended!) that the creators were aware of that fact, and on the other hand, that it was a movie mistake that wasn't noticed, well... There's no possible reason why they'd put that in deliberately. Still, Jon decides, and the rules seem to be that behavioural oddities are not generally considered mistakes.
But not every single bit of background extra behaviour gets detailed in the script. The point is simply that based on what we see there's no way to decree something like this as a "mistake", because it has a perfectly reasonable in-universe explanation, and there's no point having an endless chain of bickering about it.
So just to summarise: the "perfectly reasonable explanation" is, then, that some random bystander has an extremely convincing prosthetic arm (which serves no purpose at all for he story); and NOT that one of the many "extras" simply made a mistake.
27th Aug 2001
Corrected entry: When the Nazi convoy enters the canyon the Nazi leader says "it must be one or two miles away from here" but if he is German wouldn't he use kilometres instead of miles?
Correction: Not in the late '30s. It took a while longer to become a standard (ie. daily usage) even in Europe.
It had been the official system since 1872... But they aren't speaking German either, so we can simply consider it translated.
12th Jun 2020
Corrected entry: When Indiana and Henry is escaping the castle, Indiana sets off a motorboat to trick the Nazis that they're in it. The Nazis falls for the trick, but Indiana initiates escaping with the motorbike way too early, being spotted immediately, rendering the boat bait pointless. If only Indiana would had waited for the Nazis to get enough far away, the following bike chase could have been avoided. (01:02:40)
Correction: They were inside the closed box (which is open in the back I reckon) so he couldn't tell if they fell for it already. It was too early though and I think his dad agreed, seeing his unimpressed face when they are underway. It did delay them.
There is a slight chance that the Nazis halfway would've noticed that the Jones' aren't actually in that motorboat. But Indiana Jones could've waited at least for the Nazis to be in the middle of the river, which he'd know by the sound of their motorboat gradually decreasing.
If they would. Or some would get in whilst others walk around the dock and discover them. You'd be dead then. The point is they can't see what they are doing, so he has to make a decision. Either trust they'll take the bait or get out of there before you are discovered. I'd make that second choice too.
You are correct! All the Nazis that chased the Jones' down to the dock did fall for the trick, but the Jones' wouldn't have known that for sure since they were inside the motorcycle-box and couldn't see the Nazis. The Nazis could've also decided to split up and have some of them search through the dock, while the remainders chase the boat, only for them who stayed on dock find the Jones' and stop their escape plan. I may be repeating what you have said just to show you that I've understood your correction. My entry is incorrect. I have upvoted your correction.
If you ask me, this isn't Indiana wanting better chances, but the writers/director wanting a more exciting movie. The whole thing isn't terribly logical - who boxed a working motorcycle? Like you said originally, "the bike chase could have been avoided" - at the cost of a few perfectly good scenes.
Question: Shouldn't opening the Palace of Eternity (pulling out of the stone heads and falling in the place) only have to be done once (Oxley mentions he was there before)? Because who's gonna fill all that sand back up and replace all the stones that keep the sand in?
Answer: Oxley had been there before but couldn't figure out how to get in, so the stones were never removed by him.
That is true, but... There are dead adventurers inside... And this place is a LOT harder to reset than e.g. the one with the golden idol.
28th Aug 2013
Revealing mistake: It's obvious by his hand movements that Gunner Graham isn't actually playing the piano.
Suggested correction: If I take some random episodes, S7E5 (01:54) or S3E1 (21:51) or S7E1 (13:21), it's either real or at the very least the touch matches the notes in time. This is all on YouTube for easy check-up. S8E2, which centers on him playing something complicated, doesn't show his hands, so avoids a mistake. Glimpses during opening credits are less well-matched over the seasons, but then, that is supposed to be the score only. Claims that it's all very obviously fake just don't seem to ring true.
Suggested correction: I have recently watched the whole run of the series, every single episode, and I do not agree for two reasons. First, there are no close-up shots of hands on the keyboard. Sometimes it's bound to be a recording, for example when the monsoon breaks and the piano is full of water. But that is not a mistake. Second, the show released its own LP record, and actor John Clegg is credited for playing one musical number on that album. So I'm not so sure if he wasn't the real pianist all along. It makes sense that they'd cast someone who could actually play well enough.
If you look carefully, it obvious to any one who plays the keyboard, he's not playing. Also its as plain as the nose on his face that in shots with him playing the accordion, it's a fake.
Of course the accordion is fake - that is just the one episode where they were sent to the front line, so they needed to do something. But I'd very much like to get an episode & time where it's "plain as the nose on his face" please, apart from special situations like in the pouring rain. (I repeat, no-one else is ever credited for the piano, not even on the record album; and it would be strange casting then, since he was always the mediocre pianist from day 1).
27th Aug 2001
Continuity mistake: When Indy and gang are racing the Nazis to the canyon of the Crescent Moon, Indy looks at the Nazi convoy with binoculars. Close-ups of Indy show the sun is clearly behind him, and the binoculars are in his shadow. But then a glare from the lens alerts the Nazis to their presence. (01:24:25)
Suggested correction: It is not clear that the glare is coming from the binoculars rather than the car behind them (after all, the Nazis target the car with the tank).
They see a glare rather than a car. But anyway, regardless, the problem remains that the sun is behind the car too.
21st Mar 2005
Corrected entry: In the tank scene, a German fires a bullet which hits the tank driver and he falls on to the controls, turning the tank. As almost everyone in the tank is dead/unconscious nobody would move the body so the tank should go round in circles.
Correction: Henry Jones Sr and Marcus Brody were in the tank when this happened and they weren't killed nor knocked out. It is likely that they moved the body.
Senior and Marcus are consistently depicted as totally useless in practical situations. They get out and there's no indication that they contributed anything like that off camera. The original mistake should stand?
13th Nov 2018
Question: They didn't make it out of the cave with the grail because they dawdled... I wonder, would someone be able to make it out running at a dead sprint once they crossed the seal? And if so, does that mean that they're home free? Or would disaster follow them outside of the cave?
Answer: The implication is that disaster would follow them outside of the cave as well. It wouldn't make much sense if you could simply outrun the disaster.
"Followed by disaster" is a kind of curse, a thing not common in Christianity. It doesn't make much sense anyhow. A seal is just a dot - OK, so let's at least grant that the seal represents a circle that the grail has to stay in. Who decided where those borders are? The grail was taken there during the first crusade. That was closer to 1938 than it was to 33 AD. The three knights could move the grail about then. Why not afterwards? The knights could have built the traps. But the borders could only have been set by god, in an unusually late and completely atypical miracle.
There are several examples of curses in the Christian Bible: Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom, the plagues visited upon Egypt, Adam and Eve are cursed for eating fruit from the tree of knowledge, etc. The knights did not move the grail around after finding it, they stayed in the temple for 150 years and then two left leaving the third behind. The great seal and it's restriction was already in place when the knights got there.
Where in the movie is that stated? I interpreted the knight's story as them having made that place. Looks like it isn't actually specified. But if God made it, then I submit that he would have used Greek, not Latin, for the stepping stones. (All of those curses are from the old testament. The book where god kills firstborn children as long as they're Egyptian. Grail is by definition new testament where you turn the other cheek. There simply are no curses in the gospel, that's just not how Jesus rolled).
The tests were made by the knights, but the seal had God's power in it. Just like the cup.
It's still a bit dodgy. What if you take a shovel and dig yourself a back door? Basically this film really excels at stuff that makes no sense but helps the storytelling, or to be precise, creates dramatic effects.
Every fictional story is like that in some way. That's why it's called fictional. It's just a story.
Not a particularly convincing argument, "stuff happens for no reason all the time", if I may say so. Why is this website even here then? The fact is that some stories are more coherent than others. (♫ "In olden days, a hole in the plot, would seem to matter, quite a lot. Now heaven knows, anything goes..." ♫);).
It's the difference in what story they want told. Is it a fairy tale or based on actual events? A huge difference in plausibility between the two. The site is there to look at mistakes, not how believable the story is.
It is not set in another universe so plausibility isn't somehow suspended. Maybe take a look at the categories recognised by this website. Plot holes, factual errors, even stupidity. (They? Who are they?).
It is set in a fictional universe because it's not a true story. With "they" I mean the writers/director. Mistakes in a plot (plot holes) have nothing to do with how believable the story is. As long as it's plausible, it's not a mistake.
Pretty sure it's the same universe, just with some added characters/events. What about the total lack of spaceships or orcs or talking animals for example? The seal business is not a mistake YET, but it's very dodgy because no-one knows how it works or why. Like all Indys "trapped" secret places, it's (among other things) unclear who resets the traps for the next visitor. We can't brush it ALL off as "the hand of god" every time.
Huge amounts of stuff in films isn't exhaustively explained. Doesn't mean there isn't an explanation that's perfectly believable. There's zero evidence either way to say how "followed by disaster" would manifest, and just because there's not a thorough explanation doesn't mean that it's "dodgy", and it's not worth bickering about either, because there's no concrete answer either way.
OK but I would like to note that not everyone who offers creative explanations has recently seen the movie; some people just invent their own. E.g. "followed by disaster" is not an actual explanation from the movie, it was just one of the suggestions made here and only here. Or the ones on my own question below. All I'm saying is, it's very hard to tell what the "rules" / "logic" of this place are supposed to be, so I understand what the OP was driving at.
21st Jul 2020
Question: In the first half of the movie, the problem that needs to be solved is where the known route starts. Indy finds out when he finds the second, complete shield in Venice and deciphers it later. When exactly do the Nazis find out? He has told Marcus Brody, but not Elsa, because he does not fully trust her. The Nazis find the diary, but not the rubbing. They don't "extract" the information from the Joneses when they are captured in Austria, at which time Indy confidently states that Marcus has a two day head start (unless the Nazis know something that Indy doesn't). But they are already waiting for him in Iskenderun when he arrives. (No indication is ever given that Marcus is being followed in Venice; at any rate, no-one pays much attention to him, because all eyes are on Indy.) When and how do the Nazis discover where to go?
Answer: There is one theory to answer my own question. It could be that the room where Jones Sr. Is kept is "wired" (seen and mentioned), and Indy is saying out loud that the mystery city is in fact Alexandretta. Only, he KNOWS that it's wired. So that would be spectacularly stupid after all the safety precautions he took.
Answer: They don't know Alexandretta is the city when they set out to capture Brody; he travels to Iskenderun (modern Alexandretta) himself, and the Nazis capture him there. They probably sent his description, and orders to capture him, to all their agents in Hatay (whose leader is sympathetic); as we see, Brody is very easy to spot, and naïve enough to be captured with relative ease (he also contacts Sallah in advance of going there, leaving a further trail). At that point, it's not difficult for them to deduce that the starting point on the map is the city that Brody has traveled to.
No, I'm sorry, but that second reply makes very little sense. Sure we can speculate that his phone call to Sallah was tapped. But speculation is not good enough. And there's no indication at all that Brody was being followed. In fact he's all but ignored. The idea that at every train station there would be nazi agents waiting is a bit impractical. Hatay is perhaps small enough to do that, but then we're just renaming the problem: how did the nazis know to go there, and not Syria, or Palestine, or Istanbul, or any other place once visited by crusaders? They can't watch out for every scholarly type in every train station in the entire Middle East.
Answer: There are several possibilities. Indy started trusting Elsa after their escape in Venice when he revealed the grail diary to her. He sent Marcus off to Iskenderun after, while he and Elsa rescued his father in the castle. It's possible Elsa asked him before they left Venice or on the way to the castle where Marcus was going and Indy revealed it. She could have slipped away when they stopped somewhere and called her superiors. The other possibility is Indy or Marcus called Donovan and let him know about their progress. Marcus could have told Donovan where he was headed.
Most of that is conjecture or speculation, though. I simply mean that we don't see or hear that happening. I've thought over my original question, and the only provable point is some extreme stupidity on the part of Indiana Jones himself. If he hadn't mentioned the town while he was in his dad's room (that he KNEW was 'bugged'), they wouldn't have known.
Answer: They capture Max Brody with the map shortly after they capture the Jones'. They learned through him.
And WHERE do they capture him...? Right. So that's not it.
When wandering around Egypt alone with the map, Brody meets up with Sallah who tries to prevent him from being captured. He fails by accidentally leading him into a nazi controlled truck that takes him away and into the hands of Donovan. They have the map then.
Brody is not "wondering around Egypt." We explicitly hear Indy instruct Salah and him to meet in Iskenderun before he left for Austria and that is where Brody descends from the train station. Or am I to believe, again, that the nazis have camouflaged truck traps in every town in the entire Middle East, just in case? No, they intercept Brody because they know where he's going to be. (Iskenderun, by the way, is nowhere near Egypt, it's not even on the same continent. I suggest you re-watch the relevant bit of the movie first).
27th Aug 2001
Corrected entry: While Donovan and Indy are looking at the tablet, if you freeze the movie while it shows the tablet, you can clearly see the word "deorum", meaning "of the gods". Not something you would expect a Christian to be carrying around, considering they are monotheistic. (00:17:50)
Correction: Firstly if you have to pause the movie then it's not a mistake but aside from that, some early Christian theology believed that the holy trinity was to be interpreted literally and hence Christianity was not monotheistic.
It's visible without freezing - although the normal viewer wouldn't start reading. It's not coherent Latin to begin with, deorum is basically just one example of that. Borderline. They knew what they wanted it to say, so they could have made a better prop. But if someone is reading a newspaper headline and there's nonsense below, is that a mistake? Not sure.
The tablet simply should not speak of gods, plural, because the Crusaders were monotheistic. The trinity (although a confusing concept) is not referred to as three gods. And other, obscure and far away versions of Christianity have nothing to do with it.
Actually it says "rex deorum nostrum" which means "Our king of the Gods." Meaning the one true God, above all other gods. If you read the few words before it left of the cross it fully says "The army of the king of the Gods.", meaning the templars I think.
I feel that this is putting a positive spin on it. Nostrum by the way should be "noster" for your interpretation to work. I stand by my earlier opinion that they could have made a better prop, one with a "prop-er" Latin text without errors.
I think for a prop it's actually pretty good. Most parts of the text in Latin is almost identical to what Indy is reciting. He just happens to skip the part we are talking about. The tablet is worn down and partial too so the wrong spelling is explained by the missing words or letters, like "nostrum." They took a while to make this thing for the movie.
Oh right. Good, except that the fact that there were plenty of people just a phone call away who could have made a CORRECT Latin text. And I don't want to sound sarcastic or anything, but I didn't know stone inscriptions could develop spelling errors. It hasn't been badly copied by a monk - they are looking at the original - epigraphy is generally very reliable, when it's there, it's there. And IF there were gaps in the text, then we would see the actual gaps. (Also: If you want to connect "exercitum" to "rex" then the latter should become "regis.").
You know what? You may be right. For those few seconds of screen time, I'm OK with it though, personally.
Yes that is what I agree with as well. It's not visible long enough for any normal person to start seeing the errors.
1st Nov 2003
Corrected entry: When Indiana flips the knight's coffin over into the petrol, and they're underneath it, it should be sinking. There are holes in the top that the rats come through, yet this stone coffin floats so well.
Correction: It's not a stone coffin. It's wood. That is evident by the ease with which Indie takes off the lid then flips it in the water. A stone coffin would not have holes eaten through and termite burrows.
Isn't the point that you can't have an air pocket if there are huge gaps? A wooden boat still sinks if it's got a hole in it.
Almost all wood floats, and a wood boat, even with holes in it, will still float, unless there is other material (like metal or stone ballast) that makes its total density greater than water. A wood coffin might have a lot of metal attached that could cause it to sink, but we don't see that so it would float, even upside down and with holes in it.
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Correction: Nothing wrong with warning people in advance.
That's what prophecies are for, you say? True, for all of them. But if they come with a specific year and are infallible, then this one is a mistake.
Spiny Norman