Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy kicks the Thuggee rifleman off the scaffolding, you can see in the background that Mola Ram is about to reach the scaffolding. In the next shot, he is no longer there. (01:34:54)

Big Game

Other mistake: In the spike room, you see Shorty step on the switch that seals the two doorways. During that part, you see the stone extend from the wall, which he leans against to start the lowering ceiling. However, when Willie enters, without stepping on the switch, she pushes the stone to both seal the doors, start the ceiling lowering again, and extend the spikes. Why did it come out without anyone stepping on the switch beforehand like it did previously?

Other mistake: When Willie is given the pot of soup, she puts her spoon in and the eyes float up to the surface. Why are all of the eyes looking straight upward? Unless they're anchored in some way, not all of the pupils, if any, should be on top.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Indy is put inside a cage Short Round comes to hug him. There's a shot of Indy from behind and he is a noticeable stand-in: Thinner face, clean hair, no sweat, and clean shaven instead of stubble.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: After the man is burnt in the lava pit, Indy says the word 'diamonds'. Willy comes closer and then turns her head to the right. When the shot changes she's facing straight.

Sacha

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy is fighting the Chief Guard on the conveyor belt, there is nothing behind the guard before he picks up the large rock, but in a close-up there are now small rocks on the belt.

Revealing mistake: When Indy is whipped six times, the first time we can see the whip doesn't touch him, or go anywhere near him.

MikeH

Continuity mistake: When Indy hangs the assassin on the fan, in one shot he's spinning, but in the very next shot he's not. He can't just instantly stop, he'd have to slow down.

MikeH

Revealing mistake: When Indy wraps his whip around an assassin's neck and hangs him on the fan, we can see it's not actually around his neck, it's just attached to his clothing.

MikeH

Audio problem: Indie lifts Willie from the lava pit, she is semi unconscious. She slaps him weakly but instead a loud and strong punch is heard.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: On the bridge, when Indy threatens the Thugees to drop the bag, they're a couple meters away from his back, but in the next angle they're further away.

Sacha

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Mola Ram falls off the bridge-ladder when a step breaks in two, but from the immediate wide angle it just moves slightly out of place. Furthermore, in the next angles the step is perfectly fixed.

Sacha

Revealing mistake: When the water tank falls over, the vapour fumes are moving in slo-mo, despite the whole scene moving at a normal speed.

Sacha

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the three heroes arrive at the village there's not a single bit of grass around. When they leave the place the morning after there's vegetation everywhere.

Sacha

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Trivia: When Indiana Jones is confronted with the two swordsmen and goes to draw his gun to repeat his easy kill from the first Indy movie, listen to the music. It's the same music that was played in Raiders of the Lost Ark in the marketplace shortly before he pulled his gun on the big twirling swordsman.

Lynette Carrington

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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

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