26th Jun 2019
Hard Times - S1-E3
Corrected entry: Aziraphale cites the only prophecy from Agnes Nutter that he could find as one for 1972, "do not buy Betamax" (a reference to the home video format war). Betamax was only launched in 1975 starting in Japan, so this advice should have been for then, not 1972. These prophecies were completely, even ludicrously accurate, so that excludes any explanation that she was simply a few years off, because she was never wrong. (00:19:10)
Correction: Nothing wrong with warning people in advance.
That's what prophecies are for, you say? True, for all of them. But if they come with a specific year and are infallible, then this one is a mistake.
14th Oct 2022
Continuity mistake: During the final battle, the T800 at one point is trapped but manages to free himself (losing one arm in the process). He comes back to slice the T1000 in half with a metal bar. The T1000 kicks backwards at him (karate-style) - and the metal bar is flying away! Yet in the following shot, it is still there embedded in the T1000.
Suggested correction: It doesn't fly away. It is wrestled out of the T-800's hands as the T-1000 turns around because it's stuck in the T-1000's body.
Like, to the top left of the frame? Possibly. Depends a bit on playback speed too.
10th Sep 2020
Continuity mistake: The T-1000 has the gun holster on his left side and takes the gun out with his left hand when the guard in the psych ward hits the alarm. A few scenes later when the T-800 (Arnie) asks Sarah to 'come with me if you want to live' the T-1000 walks through the cell doors, the holster is on the right hand side and the gun in his right hand. (01:10:00 - 01:12:00)
Suggested correction: The T-1000 can change shape at will so it is safe to say the he changed hands with the gun and switched its holster to suit. The T-1000 uses both hands throughout the film to hold and shoot his gun.
I am not sure if the holster has changed to his right-hand side at all - isn't that just his walkie-talkie, which was there all along? Very few clear shots of his belt in that sequence though. I hate speculative explanations but if it's just the gun changing hands, that doesn't sound too serious... Could just be for opening a door.
22nd May 2008
Corrected entry: After the motorcycle chase, Indiana drives past the road sign, which points to Venice and Berlin. He then talks to his dad before looking straight ahead at a sign which is behind him.
Correction: He's not looking at the sign, he's making a decision. The shot of the sign was for the audience's benefit.
The combination of the two shots is conventional movie language for him looking ahead at the sign (which, I agree, signifies his decision). But he drove PAST the sign.
If it's not in the same shot, he is not looking at the sign but towards the road ahead. The mistake is an assumption and has been corrected appropriately.
Indiana Jones is not some experimental, challenging movie, like Fellini Satyricon. It follows standard montage conventions for understandable viewing. Person looks ahead, followed up with a "subjective" shot. It's textbook stuff - it's called the Kuleshov effect ("a mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots"). Also, since they drove past the post, they should then be visible in the second shot.
26th Apr 2006
Corrected entry: When Indy and his father come to the crossroads after having escaped the Nazis the sign says "Berlin" and "Venedig". When they leave it says "Berlin" and "Venice". It's the same side of the sign both times.
Correction: Yes, it does. And the wavery effect in the middle of the shot is meant to be a translation so that viewers can understand where Indy is driving to.
What wavery effect? Not sure if joke or false memory. Still, stuff being in English for the benefit of the viewer isn't necessarily a mistake. In fact, the previous shot was of the other side of the sign.
Correction: It is not the same side of the sign, the last shot is from the front.
7th May 2003
Corrected entry: When Indy and Elsa are back at the hotel after the boat accident, Elsa's room is wrecked. How did Indy not know she wrecked it herself or hear her wrecking it? He was only 2 doors down. He could hear the music playing in the bathroom but not her trashing her own room. He should have known she did it when she came out the bathroom surprised. Seriously, how can you be in the bathroom and not hear someone trashing your hotel room?
Correction: If the music was loud enough for him to hear it, it would have been loud enough to cover up the noise.
It seems a bit weak, but even a wind-up gramophone can make a lot of noise, especially in a small bathroom.
11th Aug 2004
Corrected entry: In the battle with the Germanians, we see a Roman soldier killing a fallen opponent with the tip of his spear. This would not happen in reality. The spear is a javelin, or 'pilum', used for throwing. If the soldier still had his pilum, he would have used the reverse end of it, the 'shoe', for finishing off his foe. The shoe was a sharp metal point used to stick the spear into the ground. (00:09:35)
Correction: Another of those entries that is really just an "I would have acted differently" submission. Faced with a German barbarian, nothing a Roman soldier does with a weapon that stops him, is a mistake.
Except that the Romans were a highly organised killing machine on the battlefield. Not really much room for improvisation and a personal style in hand-to-hand combat.
All medieval fights are messy, all medieval fights required combatants to improvise to survive it. Doesn't matter how organized an army is (and the Roman armies were a lot less organized than they are portrayed in movies), once the fighting starts it's pretty much chaos till one side wins.
Eh... No it's not. I'm sorry but if you write "medieval Roman warfare", that sort of gives away that you're not an expert. ANCIENT Roman warfare on the other hand has been extensively studied by military history anoraks. (Anyway, are you following me around now, or what? This isn't supposed to be a personal thing).
I didn't write "medieval roman warfare" I wrote "medieval fights." If medieval fights were messy, imagine fights 300 years earlier. Extensive studies show that the way the Roman Empire legions fought in the border wars was in fact a lot of improvisation and they had some major defeats against Germanic tribes caused by overextension. These soldiers were far less trained and thus improvised. Not attacking you personally, but defending the correction. If you got a problem take it to the discord.
Romans were in fact ahead of the inhabitants of the Middle Ages in almost everything. This is common knowledge. It's sort of useful to know what you're talking about when making confident statements. (I have no interest in discord, I only reply here in the hope that people won't fall for misinformation).
11th Sep 2010
Factual error: The town in which a large part of the movie is shot is supposed to be Wismar, Germany. However the architecture of the town shows it's in The Netherlands. Delft, to be exact.
Suggested correction: Delft was used as a location, but the town square is not all that different from what an early modern North German city would look like. You can spot it if you know the place, but that applies to so many movies. In itself this is not a mistake, unless there were something that really betrayed it.
22nd May 2008
Corrected entry: There is a problem with the following scene: The Nazi plane crashes into the tunnel, slides past Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and explodes when exiting the tunnel. The problem is that the plane shouldn't explode since its wings (filled with gas) were torn off. It couldn't have been a bomb attached to the plane either, since, as it is seen only seconds afterwards, a bomb would leave a big crater in the street and make it impossible for the car to go on. Yet, Harrison Ford has no problems at all driving through what's left of the plane.
Correction: The engine and hosing that delivers the gas to it is attached to the fuselage.
Could someone elaborate on the proposed correction please?
The engine can still explode and there could hypothetically still be fuel in the hosing connected to the engine.
But there's not a LOT of fuel left there, when the tanks fell off half a minute earlier. It's not a terribly entertaining mistake, granted, because some movies really do need explosions. But it might be technically valid in a boring way.
31st Mar 2008
Corrected entry: When Indie rescues his father and shoots the Germans, the one that he pushed over stayed on the floor. Surely being pushed over couldn't have caused him that much damage.
Correction: He probably stayed down to avoid getting shot, since that's what happened to the others.
I checked the scene just now - the guard who has some lines is taken out without any sort of proper fight. I ask you, Mitchell and Webb excepted, when do Nazi henchmen EVER decide to take it easy and live to tell the tale instead? At any rate, he's taking a huge risk that the Joneses won't sway the gun on him for good measure.
8th Dec 2004
Corrected entry: At the book signing in Berlin, the camera pans from right to left and the guard at the very end of the line of soldiers (to the left) has his left hand raised in military salute to Hitler. All the other soldiers have their right hands extended.
Correction: The person in question could have an injured right arm that he simply can't lift.
Exactly. "If physical disability prevented raising the right arm, it was acceptable to raise the left." Kershaw, Ian (2001). The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192802064.
There's nothing about it in the script though. So between the two options, on the one hand (no pun intended!) that the creators were aware of that fact, and on the other hand, that it was a movie mistake that wasn't noticed, well... There's no possible reason why they'd put that in deliberately. Still, Jon decides, and the rules seem to be that behavioural oddities are not generally considered mistakes.
But not every single bit of background extra behaviour gets detailed in the script. The point is simply that based on what we see there's no way to decree something like this as a "mistake", because it has a perfectly reasonable in-universe explanation, and there's no point having an endless chain of bickering about it.
So just to summarise: the "perfectly reasonable explanation" is, then, that some random bystander has an extremely convincing prosthetic arm (which serves no purpose at all for he story); and NOT that one of the many "extras" simply made a mistake.
27th Aug 2001
Corrected entry: When the Nazi convoy enters the canyon the Nazi leader says "it must be one or two miles away from here" but if he is German wouldn't he use kilometres instead of miles?
Correction: Not in the late '30s. It took a while longer to become a standard (ie. daily usage) even in Europe.
It had been the official system since 1872... But they aren't speaking German either, so we can simply consider it translated.
12th Jun 2020
Corrected entry: When Indiana and Henry is escaping the castle, Indiana sets off a motorboat to trick the Nazis that they're in it. The Nazis falls for the trick, but Indiana initiates escaping with the motorbike way too early, being spotted immediately, rendering the boat bait pointless. If only Indiana would had waited for the Nazis to get enough far away, the following bike chase could have been avoided. (01:02:40)
Correction: They were inside the closed box (which is open in the back I reckon) so he couldn't tell if they fell for it already. It was too early though and I think his dad agreed, seeing his unimpressed face when they are underway. It did delay them.
There is a slight chance that the Nazis halfway would've noticed that the Jones' aren't actually in that motorboat. But Indiana Jones could've waited at least for the Nazis to be in the middle of the river, which he'd know by the sound of their motorboat gradually decreasing.
If they would. Or some would get in whilst others walk around the dock and discover them. You'd be dead then. The point is they can't see what they are doing, so he has to make a decision. Either trust they'll take the bait or get out of there before you are discovered. I'd make that second choice too.
You are correct! All the Nazis that chased the Jones' down to the dock did fall for the trick, but the Jones' wouldn't have known that for sure since they were inside the motorcycle-box and couldn't see the Nazis. The Nazis could've also decided to split up and have some of them search through the dock, while the remainders chase the boat, only for them who stayed on dock find the Jones' and stop their escape plan. I may be repeating what you have said just to show you that I've understood your correction. My entry is incorrect. I have upvoted your correction.
If you ask me, this isn't Indiana wanting better chances, but the writers/director wanting a more exciting movie. The whole thing isn't terribly logical - who boxed a working motorcycle? Like you said originally, "the bike chase could have been avoided" - at the cost of a few perfectly good scenes.
27th Aug 2001
Continuity mistake: When Indy and gang are racing the Nazis to the canyon of the Crescent Moon, Indy looks at the Nazi convoy with binoculars. Close-ups of Indy show the sun is clearly behind him, and the binoculars are in his shadow. But then a glare from the lens alerts the Nazis to their presence. (01:24:25)
Suggested correction: It is not clear that the glare is coming from the binoculars rather than the car behind them (after all, the Nazis target the car with the tank).
They see a glare rather than a car. But anyway, regardless, the problem remains that the sun is behind the car too.
21st Mar 2005
Corrected entry: In the tank scene, a German fires a bullet which hits the tank driver and he falls on to the controls, turning the tank. As almost everyone in the tank is dead/unconscious nobody would move the body so the tank should go round in circles.
Correction: Henry Jones Sr and Marcus Brody were in the tank when this happened and they weren't killed nor knocked out. It is likely that they moved the body.
Senior and Marcus are consistently depicted as totally useless in practical situations. They get out and there's no indication that they contributed anything like that off camera. The original mistake should stand?
Yes. They had no reason to move the body.
The body could just as easily have slid off.
Yeah, in THIS case I can see that happening. I've never driven a WWII tank, but car steering rights itself. (Although I still think that some of the other rebuttals for this movie's mistakes are way beyond generous.)
27th Aug 2001
Corrected entry: While Donovan and Indy are looking at the tablet, if you freeze the movie while it shows the tablet, you can clearly see the word "deorum", meaning "of the gods". Not something you would expect a Christian to be carrying around, considering they are monotheistic. (00:17:50)
Correction: Firstly if you have to pause the movie then it's not a mistake but aside from that, some early Christian theology believed that the holy trinity was to be interpreted literally and hence Christianity was not monotheistic.
It's visible without freezing - although the normal viewer wouldn't start reading. It's not coherent Latin to begin with, deorum is basically just one example of that. Borderline. They knew what they wanted it to say, so they could have made a better prop. But if someone is reading a newspaper headline and there's nonsense below, is that a mistake? Not sure.
The tablet simply should not speak of gods, plural, because the Crusaders were monotheistic. The trinity (although a confusing concept) is not referred to as three gods. And other, obscure and far away versions of Christianity have nothing to do with it.
Actually it says "rex deorum nostrum" which means "Our king of the Gods." Meaning the one true God, above all other gods. If you read the few words before it left of the cross it fully says "The army of the king of the Gods.", meaning the templars I think.
I feel that this is putting a positive spin on it. Nostrum by the way should be "noster" for your interpretation to work. I stand by my earlier opinion that they could have made a better prop, one with a "prop-er" Latin text without errors.
I think for a prop it's actually pretty good. Most parts of the text in Latin is almost identical to what Indy is reciting. He just happens to skip the part we are talking about. The tablet is worn down and partial too so the wrong spelling is explained by the missing words or letters, like "nostrum." They took a while to make this thing for the movie.
Oh right. Good, except that the fact that there were plenty of people just a phone call away who could have made a CORRECT Latin text. And I don't want to sound sarcastic or anything, but I didn't know stone inscriptions could develop spelling errors. It hasn't been badly copied by a monk - they are looking at the original - epigraphy is generally very reliable, when it's there, it's there. And IF there were gaps in the text, then we would see the actual gaps. (Also: If you want to connect "exercitum" to "rex" then the latter should become "regis.").
You know what? You may be right. For those few seconds of screen time, I'm OK with it though, personally.
Yes that is what I agree with as well. It's not visible long enough for any normal person to start seeing the errors.
1st Nov 2003
Corrected entry: When Indiana flips the knight's coffin over into the petrol, and they're underneath it, it should be sinking. There are holes in the top that the rats come through, yet this stone coffin floats so well.
Correction: It's not a stone coffin. It's wood. That is evident by the ease with which Indie takes off the lid then flips it in the water. A stone coffin would not have holes eaten through and termite burrows.
Isn't the point that you can't have an air pocket if there are huge gaps? A wooden boat still sinks if it's got a hole in it.
Almost all wood floats, and a wood boat, even with holes in it, will still float, unless there is other material (like metal or stone ballast) that makes its total density greater than water. A wood coffin might have a lot of metal attached that could cause it to sink, but we don't see that so it would float, even upside down and with holes in it.
31st Mar 2008
Corrected entry: When Indiana breaks in through the window, he lets go of his whip, yet he has it through the rest of the film despite us never seeing him retrieve it.
Correction: Just because we don't see it onscreen doesn't mean it didn''t happen. He could have retrieved it anytime after killing the guards.
Well... don't they immediately leave the room, before their escape is foiled?
The moment when Indy picks up his whip, it's actually shown. While Henry Jones is studying the broken jar, Indy is coiling the whip in the background.
2nd Nov 2008
Corrected entry: In the scene where Indy and Dr. Shneider are looking for the Roman numerals in the library, look closely at the signs specifying where to go to find a specific category. You may need to use the Zoom button, but they are printed in English. They are in Venice: the signs should be in Italian.
Correction: Many public buildings have English signs in addition to the native language. The only airport I have ever been to that had signs only in its country's native language was in England, every other country having signs in more than one language. I've been to libraries, museums, restaurants and shopping centers in Russia with signs in both Russian and English.
Airports? Hardly relevant. I'm sure that in this century there are many places with English orientation. But an Italian library in 1938 (an extra nationalistic time, even apart from normal chauvinism)? At the very least the signs should have been bilingual.
12th Jan 2004
Corrected entry: After the "Protectors of the Grail" set the petrol alight to kill Indy and Elsa, they must have thought that they couldn't survive it. Yet they then run out of the library fast and look around to find them, as though they expected them to escape. (00:35:30 - 00:36:45)
Correction: Perhaps their goal was not to kill them, but to flush them out of the sewers? They apparently knew the Venice system well and knew that escape was possible. It's not unlikely they knew about Jones and judged him likely to survive, at least likely enough to try to cover the exits.
Perhaps, apparently, not unlikely... While the mistake is not terribly shocking, the correction is mostly speculation.
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Correction: Aziraphale is not quoting from The Book, but an extract from a publisher's catalogue, and as a (newly) published author, I can tell you they are rotten with misquotes and other inaccurate information.
It's probably true in your case, but this was a few hundred years earlier? And she would have corrected the proofs, surely? Besides, I don't think the makers deliberately planned this (adding a misprint for more realism).
Spiny Norman