Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Continuity mistake: When the three walk towards the palace, they pass by a wall with an elephant painted on. Round the corner, a guard stands 10 meters in the back. A frame later, the guard stands right next to the three. In the following shots he keeps appearing or disappearing randomly.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the plane, Willie wakes up Indy, who asks if they've arrived, and a feather lands on his head. A frame later the feather is gone.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Short falls through the hole and there's a POV shot of his legs moving wildly while he cries "Help!" Then he is rescued by Willie and lifted up safely, his legs now still, and his nerves calmed. However, the very same shot of the wild legs and the cries for help from before is suddenly inserted, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: During dinner, a man in front of Willie asks her is she isn't hungry. The way he holds the huge beetle swaps from straight to sideways between angles.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Short tries to wake up brainwashed-Indy, who smacks him. Short falls on the floor and his hair becomes messy. A frame later it's neatly brushed.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: Mola Ram throws a Thuggee down the bridge and Indy moves away. The angle cuts to a closer angle and Indy is in the previous position moving away again.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the pilot checks if Indy is asleep he holds the curtain with his thumb inside the cabin and fingers on the passenger part. From the opposite angle he holds it with the side of his hand, all fingers inside the cabin.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the mine, Indy fights against a bearded bad guy, who throws a hammer backwards that lands on a worker's head, knocking him out. The workers are very close together in the wide angle, then equidistant in the close-up when the hammer lands, and then together again in the wide angle. Also the worker that falls unconscious is standing straight a frame later.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the pilots are about to jump off the plane, they walk between Willie and Indy. Her head swaps from tilted to straight from frame to frame.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Short is hanging through a hole in the bridge, his shirt keeps changing back and forth from being motionless in the POV angles, to wildly flickering in the wide ones.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Indy is first raising Willie up from the pit of lava, as he just begins to raise her up you can see that the eye hooks and rods that hold the cage are rising up out of the hole. However when we switch to the shot of Willie in the hole, she's just a few feet from the lava.

Continuity mistake: When Indy tries to grab the antidote vial from the table, in the closeup just as the vial falls off the table the camera follows the vial as it lands in the empty area to the left of Lao Che's chair where Kao Kan's chair should be, but it's not, and the rug's edge with wood floor beside Lao Che's chair though it shouldn't be. Then Indy hits Kao Kan who is again seated closely to Lao Che's left, as he should be, and when Kao Kan falls backward we see the rug edge is nowhere near Lao Che's chair, also as it should be. (00:08:20)

Super Grover

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

Suggested correction: Actually it appears the vial falls to the left of Kao Ken's chair, not Lao Che's. It appears after Indy pierces the other guy with the shishkebab, Kao Ken, off camera, takes the vial and puts on his left side. Indy jumps on the table and after missing the vial he slides further and then elbows Kao Ken who is on the right side now. The vial is still on the left side of Kao Ken's chair when it's kicked onto the wooden floor.

lionhead

You're very much mistaken. Lao Che is wearing an embroidered dinner jacket and has a pinky ring on his left pinky, and Kao Kan's left hand is bandaged in gauze. After Indy skewers Chen, in the closeup of Indy's hand just as it knocks the vial off the table, it's Lao Che's hand (note the pinky ring, etc) that we see on the table next to Nurhachi's urn, the stack of money, and the vial. That is not Kao Kan's hand/arm, remember his left hand is bandaged. And as this closeup continues to pan down it follows the vial as it lands on the floor in the empty space where Kao Kan's chair should be, but it isn't.

Super Grover

Yep, you're right I see it. There are 2 shots of Indy trying to grab the vial off the table and the second one is followed through with the vial falling off it and that one is wrong. Alright.

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

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

Join the mailing list

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.