Goofs for
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) More at IMDbPro »

• Errors in geography: Supposedly in India, Sri Lankan language can be heard spoken by the natives.
  
  
• Continuity: Positions of the sailor and the girl in the rickshaw during the chase.
  
  
• Continuity: In the first Thuggee ceremony scene, the skull in the center is alternately lit and unlit.
  
  

• Continuity: Positions of the Thuggees on the rope bridge.
  
  
• Continuity: When Willie steps out of the cave onto the edge of the rock after the water pours out of it, she has bare feet. In the next shot on the rope bridge she has sandals (flip-flops) on.
  
  
• Continuity: The river below the rope bridge appears to be nothing more then a rocky stream in some shots, but once we see people falling, the stream suddenly turns into a large river.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Willie and the kid are hanging from the bridge and they start climbing up, a small, modern, private plane can be seen flying (briefly) to the right.
  
  
• Continuity: In one shot of Short Round hopping up and down on the wooden bridge he is only a few steps ahead of Willie. In the very next shot, when he falls though, he is much further down the bridge.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt player when Indy is climbing up the broken bridge.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy flees from the gang of Thugees after the swordfight, he is dragging his whip behind him. Yet in the next shot when he reaches the bridge, it is rolled up neatly even though he doesn't have a free hand or time to roll it up.
  
  
• Continuity: Indy, whip in right hand, disarms the Thuggee swordsman and picks up the fallen blade with his left hand. In the very next shot the sword is in his right hand and the whip in his left.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: As the trio is about to jump out of the plane, Shorty says, "Lady, I can't breathe," but his mouth doesn't move.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the mine, when Shorty uses the ladder as a pole vault, he holds the bag with his mouth yet we hear him scream.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious Dummy, when Indy is picked up and thrown into the Minecart by large Thuggee Guard, as his arm flings back in an unnatural position.
  
  
• Continuity: On the bridge, close-up shots of Indiana Jones show an overcast sky, while other shots indicate a clear and sunny day.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The alligators which supposedly live in the river below the bridge are only found naturally in the US southeast.
  
  
• Continuity: The height of the rope bridge that spans the gorge varies from about a hundred feet (as seen in a view of both sides and the riverbed) to much, much higher, as Mola Ram plummets to his death.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious dummy models of Indiana and Willie during the runaway mining-cart sequence.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: While fighting on the hanging bridge, Indy's safety cord is clearly visible.
  
  
• Continuity: During the climactic fight scene when Short Round tackles the Maharajah, the Indy doll and the hairpin clearly separate as the young prince falls to the ground - the pin, with its feathery handle, remains in his right hand and the doll in his left. Yet, when the Indy doll is next shown lying on the ground, the hairpin is still stuck into it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the Shanghai car chase, one of the villains' cars crashes and the two henchmen hanging onto it have turned into very obvious dummies.
  
  
• Continuity: After falling from the airplane, while rafting down the river in the yellow inflatable boat, during each of the closeups, Indiana Jones is on Willie's right, but in some of the long shots, their positions are reversed.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the escaping Indian boy is leaning against a boulder to rest, the sounds of his breathing do not match the actual rise and fall of his chest.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: As Indiana Jones is lying down in the cargo plane, a crew member's hand can be seen to the right, above him.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy tells Short Round to "stop fooling around with that", Short Round doesn't have his hat on. Yet in the close-up he is wearing his cap.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As Indy is shot at with arrows while climbing up the bridge, it is very clear that many of the arrows hit and bounce off him.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Dr. Jones and Willie first crash into Short-Round's car, he says, "Hold on to your potato!" but his mouth clearly does not match this.
  
  
• Continuity: In the fight between Indiana and the two swordfighters, Indiana whips one of the fighters' swords down the mountain. In the next cut he picks up the same sword.
  
  
• Continuity: The flowers on Willie's head and around her neck disappear and reappear every time she is plunged towards the molten lava.
  
  
• Continuity: The bridge slat through which Short-round falls is still in place when Indy runs onto the bridge
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the mine a guard jumps and hits the ground and you can see his rubber sword bend backwards.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the spears are thrown at Indiana in the club, the wires they are connected to are visible.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Indie and Willie dive through the rapidly closing door, the supposedly solid stone wall jiggles like flimsy foam rubber.
  
  
• Continuity: The necklace in the opening scene appears and disappears on the table.
  
  
• Continuity: During the battle in the temple, Mola Ram removes his helmet, but as Indiana lunges towards him with a club, Mola Ram is seen with his helmet on. In the following shot, before disappearing through a trap door, the helmet is off again.
  
  
• Continuity: When the man is being lowered into the fiery pit, Short Round's hair changes positions under his hat between shots. Also, the red glow on Willie's face disappears in the side shots.
  
  
• Continuity: During the sequence where Indy and Short Round rescue Willie from the sacrificial pit, Chattar Lal's body disappears from its position next to the winch, once Willie has been released from the cage (a sequence was storyboarded, but not ultimately filmed, where Lal was thrown into the pit, which explains why his body wasn't originally intended to be in the shot).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious dummy or stunt double when the backside of Willie's head is becoming infested with centipedes - the hair doesn't quite match between shots.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the cockpit, a close-up of the instrument panel shows a VOR (VHF Omni-directional Radio Range) with glide-slope indicator, navigational equipment that wasn't invented until the 1960s.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Indy points to some bats and says that they're vampire bats. Although true vampire bats are indigenous to South America, the bats he is pointing at are Indian Flying Foxes, binomially called Pteropus Vampyrus. So given their size it is not unthinkable to refer to them as "Giant Vampire Bats" Also he was trying to frighten Willie.
  
  
• Continuity: Indy's shirt is torn all the way to the shoulder in his fight with the guard, but at the end of the film you can see the sleeve.
  
  
• Factual errors: The type of pike held by the guards at the palace dinner, is not Indian, it is a Chinese "Kwan Do".
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Indie lights a match to look at the wall in the passageway in the palace, his arm casts a shadow on the was even though the light source (the match) is in between his arm and the wall.
  
  
• Continuity: Willie's position relative to the rolling gong changes suddenly during the quick scene. The gong first passes in front of her; cut to behind the gong and she is well in front of it; then after a shot of the gunman, Jones grabs her behind the gong.
  
  
• Continuity: After the pilots jump from the Ford Tri-motor 4AT, Willie looks through the curtain into the cockpit. The next scene is her view out the cockpit window and the nose engine is clearly stopped with the stationary prop clearly visible at the 1:00 position before they start running out of fuel. After Indie starts checking the instruments another shot through the windscreen shows the nose prop at the 11:00 position. In yet another shot as the airplane clips a mountain ridge, the nose prop is back at 1:00 again.
  
  
• Continuity: After the Chinese pilots jump from the Ford Tri-motor 4AT, Indy and Willie watch the propellers shut down as the plane runs out of fuel. When the plane brushes the mountaintop, the non-operational props are clearly visible. Yet when Indy, Willie, and Shorty bail from the plane in the emergency raft, we can see that all three props are fully operational.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: In the opening credits Philip Stone's first name is misspelled "Phillip". Similarly, in the closing credits Roshan Seth's first name is misspelled "Rushan". Both these spelling mistakes are corrected in the DVD release.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The cymbal that Indy throws at a gangster is obviously made of rubber. You can see this as it hits the man's face.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The carving fork that Indy pokes Willie with is inexplicably stuck into the table in some shots.
  
  
• Continuity: While Indy is fighting to not be flattened under the rock crusher the distance between his head and the stone wheel gets larger between shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Short Round is being pulled between the two mining carts in the overhead shot they're obviously pulling on a dummy.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indiana is hanging from the bridge holding one half of his bag and the other guy is holding the other half the bag catches on fire as the stones fall. When they are walking to the village after that he is wearing the bag behind him with clearly no burn marks. Then in the next scene it disappears and reappears.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy is fighting after being awoken by the fire, he is attacked by a man with a spear who is pole-vaulted into the lava. In one shot you can see the V for the pole in the next shot it is gone then comes back.
  
  
• Continuity: The position of the water changes as Indy and the others are fleeing the mine.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Indiana Jones and Short Round were caught in the room with the ceiling coming down at Pankot Palace, spikes come out of the ceiling and we see a wide shot of Indiana Jones and Short Round in the corner of the room. In the very next close-up, Indiana yells, "This is serious!" But in the wide shot, his mouth moves, mouthing, "This is s - !" but no audio is heard. He also slightly slouches while saying the line, the way he does in the closeup. All this indicates that the footage of Indiana Jones yelling, "This is serious!" was used twice... for some strange reason.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indiana is attacked in his room at the palace as Short Round sleeps, we see Shortie wake up in the background, then a few moments later he wakes up again.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the wide screen DVD version, a light reflector is visible for a split second during Indy's duel with the swordsmen in the jungle. This occurs just before the third swordsman shows up.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Willie is on the elephant yelling "I can't go to Pankot, I'm a singer!" her lips don't match the audio.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When Lao Che says "You never told me you spoke my language, Dr. Jones"; while closed-captioning is on, the caption would say "You never told me you spoke Chinese". This has been corrected in later TV versions and the DVD version.
  
  
• Continuity: As the Ford Tri-Motor flies over the Great Wall and as it strikes the mountain top, it has no number on the tail. Other scenes show the tail number.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The altimeter in the plane's cockpit is controlled by someone turning the pressure setting knob. This is clearly visible after the engines run out of fuel and the plane starts to descend. The closeup of the altimeter shows the pressure indicator spin with the hand of the altimeter, although it should remain still as the hand is normally moved by the change in the outside atmospheric pressure only.
  
  
• Continuity: When Mola Ram is trying to get off of the suspension bridge, multiple slats break through. In later scenes as others go across the same location, there are no broken slats.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Willie is in the room with the bugs, it is very obvious that she is holding her thumb under her hand to hold in the stick bug as she turns her hand over. With this being a real bug for the scene, they were not able to stick it to her hand or anything like that.
  
  
• Factual errors: Twice in the movie, the Thugee torture Indiana Jones with a Voodoo Doll. However, the Thugee cult (which was a mixture of Islam and Hindu) never practiced Voodoo. In fact, neither Islam nor Hinduism practice Voodoo, either.
  
  
• Factual errors: The alligators, when shown from above, accelerate and move at speeds far too high to be believable, even in water.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The film is set in 1935, but Indian troops at the end of the bridge scene are firing British No4 Enfield rifles, which were not issued until 1939.
  
  
• Errors in geography: In the beginning Lao Che's freight plane is seen flying over the Great Wall of China. Then there is a map with a straight line from Shanghai to Chungking. The wall is no where near that but further north and west of Shanghai closer to Mongolia.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the establishing shot of the village without children, Indy's hat disappears under the matte painting as he walks down the hill, left of frame.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When we see the British Rifleman firing at the thuggee's from across the ravine for the second time, it is clear that the bolt on his rifle jams, yet we continue to hear his rifle fire several times.
  
  
• Plot holes: When Willie is to be sacrificed in the lava pit and the fight breaks out at the top, the distances she is alternately lowered and raised are entirely at odds with the turning of the wheel.
  
  
• Continuity: As Indy dodges the weapons thrown at him by Laos' men in the club, you can see the band right next to him, still playing. However, a second later when he throws the cymbal at one of the men (the one who knocks over the ice), the band has disappeared.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Lao barks at Willie to "Sit Down!" after she complains about the two holes Indy has made in her dress. In the wide shot of Willie sliding onto her seat, you can see a crew member's head lift very briefly to the right of her chair, as he is obviously helping Kate Capshaw shift the chair across the floor as she sits.
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning of Willie's sacrifice scene, take note of the many necklaces she is wearing when she is first brought to the altar. However, in the very next shot the necklaces have all disappeared.
  
  
• Continuity: During the fight scene at Club Obi Wan, Willie is wearing a red glove on her right hand as she looks at the ice cubes spilled on the floor. A second later, as she searches for the diamond among the ice cubes, the glove is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indiana, Short Round, and the girl are riding to the palace on the elephants they all start out on their own elephant. In the next shot where Indiana tells Lily they are going to the palace, Short Round is on Indy's elephant and his elephant is tied behind Lily's. In the very next shot where Lily is blown off the elephant, Short Round is back on his own elephant.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the Chinese pilot activates the fuel dump, we can see a gauge in the cockpit with the front shape of a bimotor plane, and 3 red lights to show if the undercarriage is up or down. The Ford Tri-Motor is not tricycle, as shown in the gauge, but a taildragger. Also, her undercarriage is fixed, not retractable.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Indiana says that Short Round's parents were killed in the Japanese bombing of Shanghai. The bombing occurred in 1937, two years after the time in the film.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Indy refers to the giant bats as vampire bats. Vampire bats are found in Central and South America.
  
  
• Continuity: After Indiana is burned by the torch and returns to his normal self, he goes to attack Mola Ram. The camera cuts to Mola Ram and he is standing there with a grin on his face. Immediately in the next scene when Indiana steps forward to attack him, he is lying down on the ground and disappears through a trap door.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Indy's plane is shown flying over part of the Great Wall of China. However, its route goes from Shanghai to India, across southwest China. The Great Wall is far to the north of this route.
  
  
• Continuity: The Thugees place three Sankara stones in the center skull during the ceremony and one of the stones has three lines across it, which is placed in the nose of the skull. Then when Indy removes the stone from the right eye hole of the skull, which is the one with the lines. Only one of those three stones has lines across it.
  
  

• Plot holes: SPOILER: The lava is unique. Initially when Willie, Indy and Short Round witness the first sacrifice, the metal cage is brought up again after being dipped in the lava. The metal cage does not retain heat like it should. After Indiana Jones "wakes up" from his stupor, he rescues Willie who was being sacrificed into the lava. The metal cage got very close to the lava more than one time. Yet, when Indy rescues her, he is able to touch the metal cage without burning his hands.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When the Ford Tri-motor 4AT plane hits the hillside of the mountain, it explodes. But there's no fuel left in his tanks to explode. Also, hitting such a hillside full of deep snow would merely cause the plane to break apart, not to mention to explode.
  
  
• Anachronisms: SPOILER: Indy manages to get the Shankara stones to turn red hot by uttering the incantation, "Tum Shiva ke vishwaas-ghati ho!", which is Hindi for, "You are a betrayer of Shiva." Considering that the stones are supposed to be ancient, any incantation that would make them do anything should be in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, not Hindi, a language that reached its modern form in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
  
  

Related Links