Goofs for
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The spiders on Indy's back appear and disappear.
  
  
• Continuity: Amount of hair in Marion's gag in the tent.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Indy pushes a stone block out of a wall to escape from the crypt, it bounces as it hits the ground.
  
  

• Continuity: Position of medallion's chain when Marion pulls it out of her blouse.
  
  
• Continuity: During the encounter with the massive, sword-wielding Arab in the market, Indy's shirt is untucked/tucked between shots and his holster disappears/reappears.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The exploding truck has a pole launched out of the bottom of it to make it flip over.
  
  
• Continuity: The staff is supposed to be 60 inches tall (6 kadams = 72 inches, minus 1 kadam). The pole that Indy inserts into the hole in the map room towers over his head, indicating (incorrectly) that Indy is less than five feet tall. The laserdisc edition disproves any claim that he's standing on a lower step.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene in Marion's bar, when Indiana ducks behind a corner, the type of pistol he is shooting changes with every cut.
  
  
• Continuity: During the basket sequence, the sweat marks on Indy's back shrink and grow from shot to shot.
  
  
• Continuity: After trapping Indy in the Well of Souls, Belloq's hat jumps from his hand to the ground.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Glass wall between Indy & Marion and the snakes. Some, but not all examples have been erased in the 2003 DVD edition.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Indy is holding onto the front of the truck with the wheel between his legs after being thrown out of the window, a shot of his back reveals the small wooden seat he is sitting on.
  
  
• Continuity: Blood on the truck windshield when Indy is shot in the shoulder.
  
  
• Continuity: Following being chased by the natives through the jungle outside the temple, when Indy escapes on the airplane, it is clearly the middle of the day. Just one frame later, the time of day has become sunset.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Indy is imprisoned in the underground ruins there is far too much light in the room. The only source of light was Indy's torch, which could not have emitted nearly enough light to fill the entire room. Furthermore, the room remains well-lit even after the torch goes out.
  
  
• Continuity: When Marion hides in the wicker basket, the top of the basket is on slightly crooked. In the very next frame it's totally straight.
  
  
• Continuity: Indy and Marion board the ship bound for England during the night, but right after we shift to a shot of them in their quarters, daylight is coming in through the shutters.
  
  
• Continuity: In the gunfight near the end of the movie, Indy's gun is alternately a revolver and a semi-auto pistol between shots. While it's possible Indy could be carrying two guns, it's not likely he'd switch between them in the heat of battle.
  
  
• Continuity: Luggage rack detaches itself from the truck when Indy collides with the water trough, but it's fixed in subsequent shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The plane that is circling on the ground is driven by a chain around its wheels.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Indy is sliding underneath the truck, the trench that was made to prevent the stunt actor from striking the vehicle can be seen.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Indiana Jones falls from the truck (which is traveling forward at 40 mph) he rolls backward - in violation of physics. When you jump from a moving vehicle you actually roll in the direction the vehicle was moving.
  
  
• Continuity: During the truck chase scene: After the German soldier shoots Indiana in the arm, he punches him several times, Indy's blood appears and then disappears from the German soldier's knuckles.
  
  
• Continuity: The water on the driver's-side window during the truck chase scene comes and goes between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy first enters the Wells of Souls, the position of the rope Sallah is holding is at the lower part of hole but as he descends into the Well, it is positioned from the top.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the slab is being put back on the well of souls sealing Indy and Marion in the well, you can see the wood grain of the plywood that makes the "stone" slab.
  
  
• Continuity: When the slab is removed from the roof of the Well of Souls, we can see that it fits into a network of supports. When the ceiling is shown from below we should see a cross pattern of supports as well as the slabs, however we only see the slabs. There is no interior support for the slabs.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indiana Jones enters the Map Room, he first throws the staff in, and then climbs down the rope. In the next scene, the staff is leaning against the wall when he takes it back, which is virtually impossible.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: During the truck chase, the heads of the approaching German soldiers are level with the top of the truck. Just as Indy looks into his side mirror, they crouch down, so their position in the mirrors is correct.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: While tradition has it that only ritually pure members of Jewish priestly families were able to even touch the Ark, let alone carry it, nobody is seen touching it directly (except when it's opened); it's either carried on poles while covered with cloth or inside a packing crate.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy is climbing on the pontoon of the sea plane, his clothes appear completely dry, though he was just in the water and in the scene before the clothes appeared completely wet.
  
  
• Continuity: During the scene where Indy shoots the large swordsman, he arrives with his right shoulder facing the swordsman, but immediately in the next shot, his left side is facing the swordsman.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene on Mr. Katanga's ship, Indy points to his forehead, identifying it to Marion as a part of his body without pain and therefore kissable. Marion reaches for his hat with her left hand. After the cut, she is removing his hat with her right hand.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the opening sequence, when Indy is being chased by the large boulder, you can see the pole that is turning/guiding it.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy is at home, preparing to leave to search for the Ark, he unrolls a handgun from a cloth. The handgun is poised to fall into one hand but the next second it's in the other.
  
  
• Continuity: Marion's confrontation with the "bad guy" brandishing a knife in the market place. The knife stays in the same hand but curves up and down in alternating shots.
  
  
• Continuity: During the "Desert Chase" when the chase moves out into the open desert, a shot of the front of the vehicles shows the reflection of trees in the windshield.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Although filmmakers supposedly removed all antennae from the buildings in the Cairo scenes, one is visible (although out of focus) over Indy's left shoulder as he has his first conversation with Sallah. They appear in the alleyways in Cairo as well.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: As Indiana climbs the slope below the entrance to the temple in the beginning of the movie, a safety line is clearly visible and the vegetation hanging down follows the line up as he climbs.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy speaks to the government men in the lecture hall, he places his large book on the table. One of the two straps holding it closed is undone. When he takes the book to show them a picture of the Ark, both straps are again closed.
  
  
• Continuity: The students in Indy's lecture hall change positions in various shots. The student with the apple, seen coming down the far aisle when the lecture ends, is clearly sitting in the middle of the front row earlier in the scene. The girl who has written on her eyelids is in the middle of the room when Indy first sees her but in the row by the windows later.
  
  
• Continuity: When Belloq begins to raise the gold idol in a long shot, the idol has several cobwebs stuck to it. In the next shot, a close-up, the cobwebs are gone.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the German officer tells Gobler that he wants "plenty of protection" for the Ark, we hear Gobler answer "Jawohl, Herr Oberst!" but his lips don't move.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When Indy and the monkey are getting drunk after the truck carrying Marion has been blown up, a young man in a T-shirt and jeans walks past in the background on the left side of the screen (all the other people are wearing robes).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the entrance to the Well of Souls is being sealed, you can see Marion's lips count down before she screams.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the fight in the marketplace, one Egyptian accidentally stabs another near a vendor's stall, and fruit is seen on the end of the sword after it runs through the Egyptian's back. You can see when the sword is withdrawn, that the fruit is actually held up by a stick which is dropped in the background.
  
  
• Continuity: In the "basket" scene, Indy shoots someone coming towards him holding on to the outside of a truck. However, blood is visible on his white clothes (possibly from a previous take) before he is shot.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Marcus Brody says, "The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions." The Bible makes no such claims.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Marion is shooting at the German soldiers from the gunner's seat in the German plane, the bullets clearly hit the ground at the soldiers' feet, yet they react as if they have sustained hits above the waist.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Near the beginning, the plane shown flying toward the Golden Gate Bridge is actually traveling eastward, inland away from the ocean. This is apparent because the Fort Point Arch at the south end of the bridge is visible on the right of the frame.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy is at home packing his suitcase, he is wearing a robe with a dark red collar and cuffs with some sort of stitched pattern. In the shot from above his shoulder where he pulls the gun out of the cloth, the collar and cuffs of the robe are quite different. They are a brighter red and they seem to be smooth with no stitched pattern. In the following shot where he throws the gun, he is back in the original robe.
  
  
• Continuity: Satipo has visibly crooked teeth when he smiles as Indy retrieves the golden idol. But when Indy finds Satipo dead, Satipo has perfectly straight teeth.
  
  
• Continuity: When Toht grabs the red-hot medallion, his fingers are burned. Later in the movie, the burns on are all squarely in the center of his palm, and upside down compared to the position in which he palmed the medallion.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Flying Wing begins to turn in a circle, Marion shoots the Germans arriving by truck. Then the Flying Wing clips off the top of one of the gas truck's tanks spilling gasoline toward the aforementioned, eliminated Germans. We then cut to Indy struggling with the muscle-bound German, and then to Marion shooting at some other gas tanks causing them to explode. In the wide shot that immediately follows, the gas truck's tank has not yet been clipped by the Flying Wing.
  
  
• Continuity: Indy drives the truck into Omar's, driving through a traffic circle clear of debris. The German car wheels in; the vendors crowd in to distract the Nazis; and a watermelon is grabbed, thrown, and smashed into the ground on the passenger side of the car. When the car pulls away, however, the remnants of the watermelon are on the ground on the driver's side of the car.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the truck chase, you can see a camera on the windshield inside of the convertible.
  
  
• Errors in geography: During the opening sequence, several of the birds heard in the Peruvian jungle are not native to South America, most notably the Australian Kookaburra.
  
  
• Continuity: As the Ark is being packed away as a government top secret, it is shown to have an iron bar and padlock on the outside of the crate. When the crate is being pushed to its storage area, no bars or locks can be seen.
  
  
• Continuity: As the Ark is being crated away as a government top secret, the stenciled words are painted over boards that run vertically. The next shot shows that the words were stenciled over boards that run horizontally.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): While discussing the history of the Ark, Indy refers to Mount Horeb as "Herob."
  
  
• Continuity: When, at the airfield, the bald giant is killed by the propellers, his blood splatters the plane's rudder, yet is gone when Indy rescues Marion from the doomed plane.
  
  
• Continuity: During the classroom scene, the globe on the desk is centered on the Europe and Africa regions of the Earth regardless from which angle it is viewed from.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the car chase scene, when Indiana pushes a car off the road into the trees, the driver curses in German. However, his mouth forms the English form of the word.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy attempts to commandeer the Ark at the mountain pass on the Island, before and after, the scenes switch between midday sun and overcast between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: (At 97:00) Indy is already below decks aboard the u-boat. As the ship's crew looks for him, he is spotted climbing aboard the exterior of the u-boat.
  
  
• Factual errors: Toht would need more than the imprint in his hand to replicate an approximate of the amulet. he would need to know the dimensions and properties of the crystal, including the cuttings on the surface, otherwise it would not refract and focus a beam of sunlight on exactly the right place (assuming he had the correct length of the staff).
  
  
• Continuity: When Indiana is in the map room he takes out his journal when looking at the symbols on the ground. When he takes the journal out there is a pencil in the binding, but when he closes it, the pencil is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indiana and Marion are in the cabin on the cargo ship they are each on one side of a double-sided mirror. Indy is inspecting his many wounds on his side, but Marion's side is all fogged up. She then tries to wipe the mirror clean and not being able to, she flips the mirror over banging Indiana on the chin causing him to yell. In the next scene, Indiana is inspecting his chin in the mirror, but it is not fogged up when it should have been.
  
  
• Continuity: (At 15:25) When Indy speaks to the government men in the lecture hall, the chalkboard behind them tilts back, then forward, then back.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: (At 20:50) When we see Indy's house, his fireplace is unnaturally lit from the flue, downward.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Indiana Jones fans have come to the conclusion that the movies take place in an alternate universe. In Indiana's 20th century, technology, politics, international borders, place names, and other institutions, often appeared earlier or later than they did in ours. In the "Jonesiverse," Nazis occupied Egypt, which never happened in our world. Gender politics differed as well, evidenced by the number of women studying archeology with Jones, when in reality the number of female science students in the 1930s was small or nonexistent. This consideration precludes many "anachronisms" from this list.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy and Marion leave the Well of the Souls, a person is clearly seen lying next to where they exited. He's lying very still - looks like a corpse (another rival of Indy's?) - but he's missing a few moments later during a medium shot that show the same exit (the wheels of the "Flying Wing" are in the foreground).
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Before the airplane fight, Gobler addresses Dietrich in German as "Herr Major", indicating Dietrich's rank equivalent to Major. After the airplane fight, his voice has changed (see above unsynchronized goof), and he changes Dietrich's rank to "Oberst" (equivalent to Colonel).
  
  
• Miscellaneous: There are many flaws with the U-boat sequence. The class of boat is wrong - U-26 was a Type IA, but that shown is a Type VIIC (this is because the film reused the replica of U-96 from Das Boot (1981)). Neither the Type IA nor VIIC - nor any of the principal classes - would have been capable of carrying the Ark, due to limited storage space and access hatches that were too small. The Captain clearly orders the U-boat to dive ("Tauchen"); however, a lack of a constant air supply, much reduced speed and limited capacity for the electric motor batteries meant that U-boats only submerged for defence, attack or in heavy weather - none of these apply here. Nor did U-boats sound a 'diving' klaxon. A cut scene shows Indy hiding aboard the boat by clinging to the periscope. However, as explained the boat would not in reality have dived, and even when it did it would not have run at a sufficiently shallow 'periscope depth' the whole time. On the surface, at least four men would have been on watch at all times. Thus, however Indy tried to smuggle himself aboard the boat, he would have either been spotted or drowned.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Indiana hoists himself up the front of the truck, his leather whip makes a clanking noise like it is made of metal.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Many of the snakes in the Well of Souls are not found in Egypt (see trivia).
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the Cairo diner, Belloq refers to a watch as "worthless, $10 from a local vendor." However $10 in 1936 had the spending power of $153 in 2008--hardly "worthless."
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): A "Fed" says that Adolf Hitler is "a nut" for archaeology. In fact, he considered it a waste of time.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): During the standoff in the desert gully, while Belloq is speaking a fly lands on his chin and crawls into his mouth - and doesn't come out (see trivia).
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): If the idol is made of pure gold, and the bag (which is to be a substitute) contains sand, it is way too light. Gold is about 10 times heavier than sand, thus the bag had to have 10 times more volume than the idol. Thus, Indy's trick doesn't work and the boulder falls down.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOLIER: At the very end, an old man carts the Ark down the warehouse alone to store the artifact. The Ark's weight should take at least two men to unload it from the wagon and set it on the floor.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: Obvious rubber dummy of Belloq when he explodes after opening the Ark. Note especially the fingers of his left hand, as he explodes.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: When Toht's face is melting when the Ark is opened, his glasses fall to his collar too quickly. This is due to the shot being filmed via a time-lapse technique (see Trivia entry).
  
  

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