Plot hole: If the Medjai are supposed to be the guardians against Imhotep and sworn to make sure he never comes back to life then why weren't they in possession of the key that opened everything in the first place?
lionhead
10th Jul 2022
The Mummy (1999)
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Suggested correction: Because it got lost in the centuries that passed. It's possible they don't even know every step on how the mummy can return.
29th Jul 2020
The Mummy (1999)
Corrected entry: When the locusts attack the camp, you see one of the workers get attacked and killed by them within seconds. Then, you see the Egyptologist covered in them. Why isn't he getting attacked and killed by them as well? You'd think that, just like the scarabs, they'd never stop eating.
Correction: I don't think they are attacked necessarily, you never see them get eaten or die, they are just stopped by the huge wave of them as they are running, whilst the Egyptologist was standing still. Their run is blocked because so many surround them and land on them. Locusts don't eat meat, you got nothing to fear from them although they can cause scratches if they hit you and might damage your eyes. It's a natural response to start running when a huge wave of flying critters approach you.
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.
21st Jan 2019
The Mummy (1999)
Corrected entry: When the city of the dead is sinking into the sand at the end of the movie, Beni becomes trapped in the treasure room. As the ceiling comes down it crushes the reflective mirror Rick shot earlier, meaning there has to be a light source coming from above to reflect on the mirror to begin with. So even if the mirror was damaged, there still should have been adequate light in the room instead of being completely dark.
Correction: The room Beni was in was closing up, walls were coming down all around. The moment the mirror got destroyed the walls blocked the last light source, wherever it was.
21st Jan 2019
The Mummy (1999)
Corrected entry: Ardeth and his men are supposed to be the descendants of the warriors who buried Imhotep at the beginning of the film. They claim to have sworn to keep Imhotep from ever arising from the dead, so why is the key to the book and Imhotep's sarcophagus just lying around for Rick to magically find as he claimed? Shouldn't this very important key have been in the possession of Ardeth's people all along, or even destroyed?
Correction: Simple, they didn't know it was there, only the sarcophagus. Even though they have protecting the site for generations it's not impossible to think only the protection of the site remains as their objective after thousand of years of protecting it. This whilst the location of the key and book got lost in time. All they know is they need to keep people away from the mummy.
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 2018
The Mummy (1999)
Corrected entry: The Pharaoh accuses Anck Su Namun of cheating on him as soon as he sees the smudged body paint on her arm - but she could have just smudged the paint herself by scratching. As a system of checking whether she had cheated on the Pharaoh, perfect body paint would constantly fail, whenever she bumped into or leaned on anything or scratched.
Correction: She would have been trained not to smudge the paint, because smudging it would mean the death penalty. The Pharaoh is a very unreasonable man, making his wife wear body paint to make sure she isn't cheating. I don't think he cares why the paint would be smudged, he won't believe any other explanation.
Correction: It wasn't that the paint was just smudged; as another correction points out that could happen in any one of a number of ways. It was that it was smudged with fingermarks. Nobody was allowed to touch Anck Su Namun, and someone had.
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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