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Indy IV - 57 mistakes and counting
Not that I care. In fact, the mistakes probably make the film even more endearing to me since it makes the Indiana Jones serials even more similar to it's inspirational predecessors from the early 20th century. I have to wonder if or how many of the so-called mistakes are intentional.
Moviemistakes.com has updated the count from 48 to 57 in the last 24 hours (at the time of this posting). Hey, at least it means these people are really watching. And how appropriate is it that the amount of errors coincide with the year the film takes place? One of the most frequent errors in fact seems to be that certain props and other facts did not come about until the years after 1957.
Here are some of my favorites, with my ever-optimistic notes:
"Continuity: Throughout the whole movie, Irana's hair seems to be kept absolutely pristine, even when she is flung from cars. This is very noticable at the car chase in the military base when she is thrown from the car by Indy. One minute, a few strands of hair are slightly messed, then they are fixed again."
jk - In pretty much any movie from the 50s and before, the female characters have perfect hair.
"Factual error: In the scene when Indy and Mutt are flying to Peru, a Pan American Aircraft is shown. It is an Antonov AN-2. Pan Am never flew this Russian aircraft! Also, the shot is backwards; the writing on the aircraft (airline name and registration) read backwards."
"Continuity: When Mutt slams his fist on the table in the Diner the Ketchup and Mustard bottles fall over, the shot pans to Indiana's back and the bottles are standing up again, he tells Mutt to sit down, the camera pans back to Mutts back and the bottles are as they were after Mutt slammed the table and Indiana picks them both up."
"Plot hole: We are told in the film that the Conquistadors stole the skull. However, since Indiana has to use the skull to open the tomb that it came from, it would have been impossible for the Conquistadors to have opened the tomb to steal it in the first place."
jk - Um, perhaps the Conquistadors got the skull some other way?
"Factual error: In the scene where they are flying to Peru from US, they fly over a "map" of a Central America region and the country of Belize is shown. That country was the British Honduras until 1973. It was then renamed to Belize."
"Factual error: There is a shot of the exterior atomic test homes where we see child dummies playing on a slip-n-slide. That toy was not introduced by Wham-O until 1961."
"Visible crew/equipment: When Indy is tied to the chair and Spolka comes in to talk to him, in some shots of Spolka, to the lower left there is a crew member with headphones that is crouching down. He can only be seen in that shot of Spolka, but disappears in some of those as well."
"Factual error: During the fight in the rocket engine testing facility the countdown timer is of a type with electronic digital numbers. In 1957 the countdown timer would have been of a type of flipping numbers, which are mechanically changed as the timer counts down. See films like Fail Safe and Goldfinger for such clocks or timers. LED's weren't even invented until 1962."
