Question: What does Colonel O'Connell yell to his Legionnaires in French as the cavalry charge nears? And why does he then continue in English ("Steady, Steady...Fire!").
lionhead
20th May 2023
The Mummy (1999)
1st Jan 2023
The Mummy (1999)
Question: Why is it said that Imhotep and his priests were mummified alive? Mummification occurs when someone dies and has most of the organs removed. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he was buried alive?
Answer: It means the process of removing their organs was performed while they were still alive. Certainly at some point they would die during the process from blood loss or having a vital organ removed. And it was just the priests that were mummified alive, Imhotep was subjected to a different punishment.
Their internal organs were not removed or they'd die instantly. In the movie you see them being bandaged up and put in the sarcophaguses whilst still moving and then sealed up so they still had their organs. It is indeed more like being buried alive but then as a mummy.
Indeed, but you can also see the Medjai using sharp tools against some of the priests. The priest on the left side of the screen with his arm writhing has a Medjai placing a sharp object around his face, indicating he might either be cutting out his tongue or removing his brains through his nose. The Medjai in the immediate foreground is (badly) making a slashing motion with his sword towards the priest lying on the table before him.
2nd Apr 2019
The Mummy (1999)
Question: In the Mummy, when we first meet Evie, after knocking down multiple bookshelves, the "Egyptian Librarian" is scolding Evie. He mentions her parents then says, "Allah, rest their souls." This leads us to believe that he of Muslim faith. In the next sentence though he says, "Clean up this meshiva." My first thought, the word sounds Yiddish. The only reference or definition I could find was to a new Final Fantasy video game. There were several Yiddish translator and terminology websites included in the search engine results, but the closest reference I could find was for meshugah. Did they make up a word just for that part in the movie? Was it a mispronounced and missed in editing? Could it be Yiddish slang? And my last question started all of this; why is an Egyptian of Muslim faith using Yiddish terminology or slang?
Answer: He's a scholar, probably knows many languages. Why wouldn't he use foreign expressions or words regardless of his own religion? Many multilingual people interchange expressions and words all the time so it's really not that odd.
Answer: The word "meshiva" is Hindi, and it means simply "mess."
Answer: The word is indeed "Meshuga" (various ways to spell it) meaning craziness, and is simply Hebrew. You gotta remember the order he is part of is way older than the Muslim faith and even the Jewish faith. I'm sure the order turned to the Muslim faith at some point in time and probably Jews have been part of it as well, anyone who can help keep the mummy secret. They all probably have mixed faiths and believes along with the ancient task to protect the mummy.
Mishugash is yiddish. And yiddish is a combination of hebrew and german... so not exactly something you would expect from a person native to the mid east.
It's used in both Yiddish and Hebrew.
10th Aug 2008
The Mummy (1999)
Corrected entry: There was no solar eclipse visible anywhere near the Middle East in 1923.
Correction: The eclipse was caused because Imhotep was regenerating. An event that happens in a fantasy, as a result of a fictional character's actions, cannot be considered a factual error.
Correction: "Magically" creating a solar eclipse would mean altering the rotation of the earth and its orbit around the sun. The earthquakes would be beyond imagination and the resulting tsunamis and devastating climate changes would wipe out the few survivors. Some things are beyond magic. This is one of them.
But using magic he could "easily" (at least judging by his powers in this film) cast a shadow over the sun - it doesn't have to be the moon. Especially given that the sun stays dark for a while, whereas natural eclipses are over quite quickly.
Actually creating a solar eclipse would require moving the moon, not the Earth. It's not "beyond magic", magic is magic.
Correction: The ancient Egyptians worshipped the Sun as their ultimate god, Ra. Given that their "magic" seemed to function remarkably well (well enough to resurrect desiccated mummies after 3000 years, anyway), there's a slight chance that the ancient Egyptians were slightly more in touch with the magic of celestial mechanics than we are today with our dogmatic Science. I mean, if it happened that they were correct about the Sun being a God, then perhaps they were knowledgeable in summoning the Sun's cooperation in their magical endeavors.
4th Jan 2019
The Mummy (1999)
Question: In the scenes where Rick lights a match to use on a stick of dynamite, he does so by striking the match against either his own ear or the ear of Ardeth Bay. Is there an explanation to how he does this?
Answer: He's lighting the match on his beard-stubble by raking it down his face. He's not striking the matches on his ear. It's not practical at all (and in fact, it's basically impossible unless you have beard-stubble like sandpaper), but it's just a cute way for the movie to show how much of a bad-a** he is. In reality behind the scenes, they actually had a strip of matchbox taped to the actor's faces that they were striking the matches on to light them. But with the right camera placement, it looks like they're lighting them on their faces.
Answer: Matches in those days were friction matches, with added red phosphorous so you could light them on basically any surface, as long as you generated enough heat. Some prefer the bottom of their boots, or a wall, but others light them on their own body, or someone else's.
Bare skin does not provide the necessary friction to light a match. It's possible to light one using one's fingernail by flicking it hard against the match head, but not with skin. There has to be a hard textured surface to create a spark.
Rough stubble?
Those matches are known as 'strike anywhere matches', because of the phosphorous coating on the matchhead they can be used on any suitably frictional surface. That's why Rick used Ardeth's stubble beard to strike the matchhead against.
Answer: I don't think he was rubbing the match on bare skin, more likely the edge of where the beard grows. The rough hairs would make the area of skin able to produce enough friction to light the match as long as it was rubbed fast enough.
21st Oct 2003
The Mummy (1999)
Other mistake: Evie explains that if Imotep was resurrected he'd bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt. This is followed by (in no particular order) a plague of Locusts, Flies, Water running to blood, the sun being eclipsed and a plague of boils. At the plague of boils Jonathan says 'last but not least, my favourite plague - boils and sores'. How does he know this is the last plague? Aren't there supposed to be 5 more? (01:23:10)
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Suggested correction: This may be taking the dialog too literally. It may be foreshadowing, in the sense of "uh, oh, they've got us now" or Jonathan may simply be expressing the fact that he's had enough plagues now and would like it to stop please. By the way, you forgot the fire raining from the sky, so technically Imhotep did six, not five.
The fact that Evie stated specifically 10 plagues, it makes no sense for Jonathan to say "last" on the 6th one, without considering it a mistake on the parts of writers, actor, or director.
Jonathan doesn't simply say "last", but rather "last but not least" - a statement that is regularly used on things the speaker knows for a fact to be, in fact, not the actual last. Taken as a sarcastic remark it makes perfect sense in the situation.
I know he said more than just "last", but that was the keyword to point out that the mistake is in fact valid. "Last but not least", weather said sarcastically or not, is never meant to be said about something that is in fact not last. It's always said to indicate the last item is not necessary the least, such as at Christmas when the last gift remains or when the last graduating student is given his or her diploma.
Also it's a possibility that off screen there was death of livestock, lice, raining frogs and death of first born children. Just want to show which we missing and it's obvious why, as in a movie raining frogs or dying livestock isn't all that threatening to the main characters and doesn't look cool. And for the movie showing first born children die is just stupid. And lice, that's just too much like flies.
20th Dec 2001
The Mummy (1999)
Factual error: I counted five canopic jars, one of which has the head of a lion. In ancient Egypt there were only four canopic jars - Hapi, the baboon-headed god representing north, Imseti, the human-headed god representing south, Duamutef, the jackal-headed god representing east and Qebehsenuef, the falcon-headed god representing west. None have lion heads. (00:04:20)
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Suggested correction: Why does it matter. They added a fifth. No reason after making up a lot of history and a cover to cover book instead of a scroll for us to suddenly go, hmm, they gave the ten plagues of God in the Bible to an Egyptian priest? Lions are cats. Therefore worship, plus the lioness goddess who slew through the land once. They can certainly add that and might make it a nicer play on the mummy's power and deadliness comparatively to the canopic heads and their gods.
A better excuse is the fact that the earliest found canopic jars are from the 11th dynasty (2200 BC) whilst the jars in the movie are way older than that (2700 BC) and could have represented anything they wanted and be more than 4. Someone should make a correction like that.
There is no real excuse. It is simply an inaccuracy and the trivia section to include it as such. It certainly "does matter".
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Answer: He is in the French Foreign Legion, which is a corps in the French army which allows foreigners to sign up. But, it is mostly led by French and a lot of French nationals are still a part of it. So hence why he speaks in multiple languages, being trained by French.
lionhead
Yes, I know, but what does he yell in French? Does anyone have the text? It's not in the script. Fraser is fluent in French, maybe it was his improvisation. I'd still like to know what he said.
tovangar
Ah yes, sorry. I was too focussed on the second question. He says "Prenez vos positions." Which means "take your positions!"
lionhead