Corrected entry: In the beginning, Irina Spalko says the size of the metal container should be 2 meters by 1.5 meters by 66 centimeters. After finding the container, it's nowhere near that size.
Corrected entry: After going over the last waterfall, everyone bails out of the boat in mid-air but when we see Marion again she is holding the steering wheel as if she held on the whole time.
Correction: The steering wheel broke off as she fell out of the vehicle.
Corrected entry: The characters refer to the local natives as Mayan. Incas are native to Peru, Mayans to Central America, and Aztecs to Mexico.
Correction: They don't refer to them as Mayans, Indy says he needs to run Ox's coded letter through Mayan in order to translate it. However once in Peru Indy speaks Quechua, which he qualifies as a local Incan dialect.
Corrected entry: When the characters are wading out of the river onto the shore (after the waterfall scene), a metal swimming pool ladder can be seen in the lower right corner of the screen.
Correction: Not on the DVD - and that's a gentle slope, so why would there be a ladder? I'm pretty sure you're thinking of the steering wheel Marion's clutching.
Corrected entry: In the final scene, at the wedding, the officiant refers to Marion as "Marion Ravenwood," even though it's made clear earlier in the film that her last name is now Williams, same as Mutt's and her late husband's.
Correction: Some women choose to go back to their maiden name after a period of grieving, or a divorce. This name change could have been done legally before the wedding.
Corrected entry: In the warehouse, no one thinks to track down the magnetic artifact by using a simple compass.
Correction: First of all, character mistake. Second, as pointed out several times, the force emanating from the skull is NOT magnetic, but a different, alien psychokinetic power. There's no way to be sure a compass would be attracted to it. But if you listen, Indy actually asks for a compass first thing. It just so happens that nobody has one.
Corrected entry: When Indy escapes on the rocket powered cart, it is slowed down by a lot of sand on the tracks, but in the next shot, all the sand has disappeared.
Correction: The rocket powered cart is slowed down by a pool of water at the end of the track, not sand.
Corrected entry: On the scene where they are at the cemetery in Nazca, they show the Nazca lines right off the cemetery. These lines are so big that you need to be in a plane to actually see them. They are about 8 kms long each, and from the top of the hill in the movie they show at least three of them.
Correction: It is a myth that you need an airplane to see the Nazca lines, a hill or small mountain is enough.
Corrected entry: Indiana Jones fires an RPG-7 from the truck they are escaping with. RPG-7 was not produced until 1961.
Correction: This is incorrectly considered to be a film goof. The RPG launcher could be an RPG-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-2 which differs slightly from th RPG-7 in the design of the rear of the launcher (no shoulder stock). The launcher is not fully shown in the movie so we cannot say if it was an RPG-7 or the earlier and very similar RPG-2.
Corrected entry: In the chase scene around the campus Mutts' motorcycle has a belt drive. Harley Davidson did not make belt drive bikes until two decades later.
Correction: Actually, Harley Davidson made the belt drive during WWII, to combat the sand in the chain problem in North Africa.
Corrected entry: The scene at the graveyard takes place at Nazca, but after the scene, when the route they fly is marked on the map, they fly out of Cuzco. Cuzco is far up in the Andes, and it is very unlikely that they'd travel by land that far and then fly from Cuzco.
Correction: They would have to if that was the only place they could fly out of. This isn't a mistake.
Corrected entry: The Jeeps used during the Russians entry to Nevada was wrong. In 1957 the Army drove the Jeep Willys (early CJ) with wing fenders on front. The ones driven in the movie had round fenders.
Correction: The Jeeps they drove were Willys M38A1 which went into production around 1953, and had rounded fenders.
Corrected entry: In the opening scene, the soviet throws Indy's hat onto the ground, one can see that the hat is out of shape and smashed in, yet when Indy picks it up to put it on it has the perfect signature shape.
Correction: Any time he picks his hat up off the ground, he gives it a 'shake' kind of motion to get it back to it's shape. Even that time.
Corrected entry: In the scene Where Indy is being attacked, in the cemetery, the sidekick is about to be shot with a dart, Indy pops up and blows into the other end killing him. That would have only been possible had the dart been pointing towards the original attacker.
Correction: Just because the dart would have gone in the attacker's throat backwards doesn't mean the poisoned tip couldn't have penetrated the thin tissue inside his mouth or throat.
Corrected entry: One of the characters says that the Conquistador took the skull in the "Fifteenth Century." The Fifteenth Century ended in 1501, while the first Conquistadors did not come to the Americas until several years later.
Correction: It's a fairly common error to call 1500s 15th century. It is wrong, but it is a character mistake.
Corrected entry: Indy blowing the poison dart back into the mouth of the attacker is almost identical to a scene in a previous Spielberg-produced (but Barry Levinson directed) film. In "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985) Sherlock dispatches Mrs. Dribb by blowing a dart into her mouth in the exact same manner.
Correction: Just because something happens in another movie is not trivia. This same stunt has occured in other movies, such as Hudson Hawk.
Corrected entry: In the scene where they travel to South America, the plane shown is an older Pan Am twin-engine aircraft (a DC-3, I believe), perhaps intended as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the earlier films. In reality, in 1957 Pan Am was flying Douglas DC-6, DC-7 and (possibly) Lockheed Constellation aircraft - all large 4-engine piston aircraft - on its Latin American routes. The Boeing 707 was only two years away.
Correction: DC-3 was in service with PanAm at the time. It might have been a less important destination, a replacement plane, a cargo flight, or a charter. It might be unexpected, but it is neither impossible nor unreasonable for them to fly in a DC-3.
Corrected entry: In the last scene when Ox is speaking to the inter dimensional being, Indy says he is speaking Mayan, however the language he is speaking sounds nothing like Mayan.
Correction: He could very well be speaking an ancient dialect of Mayan. English in the Middle Ages sounded nothing like modern English, and in fact sounds completely different (and had many differences in spelling) from English today.
Corrected entry: When Indy and company arrived at the temple containing the Crystal Skulls, they needed the key to access the stairs leading down to the temple (or whatever it was). As they descended the stairs, the steps disappeared into the wall, and they fell into the water but stayed perfectly dry. So, how did the bad guys get down with no stairs or other visible means, and also appear dry in their next scene?
Corrected entry: Professor Ox is talking Mayan in the temple in Peru. In the Peruvian jungle, they speak Aymara. Mayan was spoken in Mexico, Guatemala and all Mayan countries. Also, the stone temple shown in the Amazon was made by Mayans in such countries, not like the ones made by Incas in Peru.
Correction: He is speaking to an inter-dimensional being, not a Peruvian. The aliens traveled all over the world, as noted by their collection of artifacts. The alien language appears to be the source from which the Mayan language evolved. And since the temple was built as per the instructions of the aliens, it isn't a mistake to find a temple that doesn't look like the others in the area. It seems the Mayan architecture as well was heavily influenced by their visit from the aliens.
Correction: A character making an assumption is not a movie mistake.