Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the escape from the mine, Indy has to slide along on a rope to catch his companion's cart. Whilst hanging from the rope the shot switches from in front to behind a number of times. Depending on the shot, Indy switches from barely hanging on to having the rope grasped tightly next to him. (01:34:45)

Continuity mistake: During the 8 minute race on the mine carts through the mine. The group passes several bottomless cliffs, several huge holes, and even a hole of lava about 200 feet long. Yet when the water is released, it gets to them in about 30 seconds, and shows no sign of stopping when they outrun it. (01:36:00 - 01:39:30)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy starts climbing up the cliff after the water bursts through, we see a close-up of the back of his shirt, and there's one small tear quite high up. We cut to a wide shot, and now there are several quite wide rips across the back of his shirt. (01:36:30)

Jon Sandys

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy fights the two guards before the bridge scene, the sequence is all off. He knocks one to the ground, who lands still clutching his sword. The other one has his sword whipped away from him - it flies over the cliff, and he runs off, whimpering. We then see the other guard approach, and suddenly Indy's standing over an unconscious guard by the boulder and clutching a sword, both of which have appeared from nowhere. (01:37:25)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: On the bridge scene Indy's sword changes. Initially, he has a sword with a straight blade and no hilt; however, when he shouts at Mola Rom, he has a something like a cutlass curved blade and heavy handguard to a machete-like weapon he uses to cut the bridge. (01:38:05 - 01:38:55)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the water tank is about to collapse there's a closeup of Mola Ram and a few Thuggees, then after a shot of the water tower collapsing there's another closeup of smiling Mola Ram and his Thuggees, but the second closeup is a flipped shot. (01:39:25)

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: When Mola Ram is climbing the bridge, Willie and Short stand together; half a second later Mola Ram falls and Short has managed to climb up and move apart to let him pass by. Then a nano-second later, Mola Ram grabs onto a piece a wood and Short and Willie manage to stand together again. (01:41:15)

Sacha

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Shorty falls through the bridge, a large hole is made. Later on, the hole disappears. (01:41:55 - 01:42:50)

Continuity mistake: On the bridge, an arrow suddenly appears to the right of Indy's foot seconds before any arrows are shot at him. (01:42:55)

Sacha

Continuity mistake: As Mola Ram and Indy fight hanging from the broken bridge, there is a wide shot of the fight. In this shot, the Thuggee that was right above Mola Ram disappears. (01:46:17)

Big Game

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After Wu Han is shot there's a closeup of the gun in Chen's hand, and as the camera slowly pans up to Chen's face note the carnation is on Chen's right lapel, though in the previous and following shots Chen's boutonnière is on his left lapel. The closeup is a flipped shot.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The mine cart Willie pushes and then climbs into does not have an actual braking mechanism at the bottom of the braking pole, but after Indy joins Willie and Shorty in the mine cart there's a sudden appearance of a metal braking mechanism, which is attached to the pole and base of the cart, for use during the chase.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the mine cart scene, right after Indy strikes the overhead metal bin, the next wideshot of the Thuggee goons is a flipped shot, note the stripe direction on their turbans and their cart's brake has switched sides. Then another shot with a view facing the front of Indy's cart looking back towards the Thuggee cart, note the brake at the front of Indy's cart has switched sides.

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: All during the fight in the sacrifice temple, the strap across Indy's chest hangs from his left shoulder to his right side. When he hugs Shorty, the strap is reversed. Also, the blood on his mouth occasionally switches sides, as does the parting of his hair. They obviously flipped the negative. Fixed in some DVD versions.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy, Shorty and Willie are looking at the ritual from the "balcony" in the cave, they take a look at the big skull on the wall. The artifact stones aren't placed in the skull. In the next shot the stones are there. After a few seconds the camera turns and the stones aren't there again. Some minutes later some of the bad guys bring them and put them in the skull.

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

Visible crew/equipment: After Willie spits in Indy's face it cuts to Short Round running through the mine, and just as Shorty turns his head toward the camera behind him, we can catch a glimpse of something blue which does not belong in this dark dreary environment, at the right side of the screen. There is a tall spotlight and two crew members, one is wearing a solid blue shirt and a cap, and the other a blue/white striped shirt with white pants. (01:21:25)

Super Grover

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

Suggested correction: This takes place in milliseconds and there's no way to see it unless you pause the image or play it in slo-mo. It should be under trivia.

Sacha

Right now I have it playing on Netflix, and there is no slow motion. The striped blue shirt is noticeable as it plays without any slo-mo. If something catches my eye onscreen, it is fair game to go back and rewatch what was noticed in the first place. And in order for me to confirm what I find, I do pause, and may take screenshots. By the way, I've seen this movie countless times over the years, and it was just a matter of catching that glimpse of the color blue because it popped out against the dreary surroundings. I'll leave it up to Jon whether to move it to trivia or not.

Super Grover

Fair enough :).

Sacha

More mistakes in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom trivia picture

Trivia: After the fight in the nightclub, when Indy and Willie make their escape, the name of the club is visible as they drive away - Club Obi Wan - a reference to Star Wars, also by George Lucas.

More trivia for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Question: Why did Spielberg make Temple of Doom a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark? I read somewhere that he didn't want to make the Nazis the villains again, but that wouldn't be a problem since the Nazis never went to India or China.

MikeH

Answer: This is conjecture, but it seems the general function of setting Temple of Doom before Raiders of the Lost Ark is that it helps set audience expectations that the two movies are self-contained episodes. For instance, Karen Allen has said she wasn't disappointed about not being asked to return because she'd already been told that the next installment was being set in the past before her character is reunited with Indy. Conversely, since we're already aware Raiders makes no mention of the events of Temple of Doom, we know we shouldn't necessarily expect any further installments to continue directly from prior movies' storylines regardless if they are set forward in time.

TonyPH

Chosen answer: It was actually George Lucas who wrote the story, made it a prequel, and has stated it was because he didn't want the Nazis to be the villains again. The idea most likely seems if it wasn't a prequel, the Nazis could still be after Jones, even in China or India. But alas, there is really no other insight as to Lucas' prequel decision.

Bishop73

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

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