Goofs for
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

photos

board

trailer

details

• Crew or equipment visible: After the giant ant scene and Irina is hanging off the cliff by a rope with the other soldiers, a silver wire that is holding her up is seen leading down to Irina's waist right next to the rope she is holding onto. It is seen for only a few short seconds.
  
  
• Continuity: During the scene in the diner when he is talking to Mutt, Indy's shirt collar repeatedly moves from behind to in front of the lapel of his jacket.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in the diner scene with Mutt and Indy have the wrong label for the late 1950s. The red strip did not appear for another few years.
  
  

• Continuity: In the scene where Indy and Mutt are in the café talking, Indiana is drinking coffee. When he sets down the mug the handle is pointed to Indy's left hand side. From Mutt's point of view the handle is pointing to Mutt's left hand side.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy and Mutt are in the restaurant, Indy's left hand alternates between holding the coffee cup and resting on the table, depending on the direction of the view.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: It can be said that Indy is incorrect in his geography when, in the scene where Indy teaches his students, he tells them Skara Brae is off the west coast. However, Indy is most likely referring to the fact the ruins are off the west coast of the island of Orkney, which is off the north coast of Scotland.
  
  
• Continuity: During the jungle chase (jeep vs. amphibious vehicle), in one shot, the pursuing vehicle is accelerating towards the other, the following shot, it is very far away, and in the third shot, it hits the fore-running vehicle.
  
  
• Continuity: The machine gun and windscreen on the amphibious vehicle during the jungle chase scene disappear and reappear between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: During the chase scene in the streets, one of the KGB agents loses his hat in the scuffle with Indiana, but towards the end of the chase he is seen clad in his hat again.
  
  
• Continuity: In the car chase scene just after Mutt is swinging through the trees it cuts to a shot showing him looking at the cars colliding with each other. You can clearly see that Jones' car is on the inside away from the cliff and when it cuts back it's on the outside being pushed off the cliff.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: During the sequence showing Mutt and Indy flying to Peru, one shot of a Pan Am aircraft is shown reversed (the decals and registration on the aircraft are mirror image).
  
  
• Factual errors: In the transition scenes showing Indy and Mutt flying from the United States to Peru, we see a single-engine biplane in Pan American colors. That plane is a Soviet-built Antonov An-2, which never would've flown in PAA colors, particularly in the politically charged climate of the 1950s.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Obvious floodlights in the ceiling in the underground tomb/grave scene just before Indiana and Mutt find the Crystal Skull.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the background of the "Nevada suburb scene" (set in 1957), there's a Slip 'n' Slide. However, Wham-O didn't market this toy until 1961.
  
  
• Continuity: While Mutt and Indy are in the chamber where they discover the crystal skull, Indy is holding the skull in his hands. During a series of cuts as they discuss the skull, it changes direction in Indy's hands, first the mouth is in his right hand, then it is in the left and back again, with no indication that Indy is flipping the skull during his conversation.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Indy is walking along with Mutt, the position of the bags over his shoulder varies continually -- in one shot his trademark gas mask bag will be hanging in front, then in the next shot it's behind his back and then in the next shot it's back in front again. This is made more obvious by the position of the buckle moving up and down as the bag is moved around.
  
  
• Continuity: When Mutt and Indy are in the diner, Mutt suddenly stands up and jars the table, knocking over the condiment bottles of ketchup and mustard. When the shot changes angles, the bottles are both upright again and when it changes back, Indy reaches out to right the bottles that are lying down again.
  
  
• Continuity: During the motorcycle chase, when Indy goes into the KGB car, a bus is moving right beside them, in the next shot it is far behind, then right next to them again.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the opening sequence with the car chase, the camera/camera vehicle is visible in the reflection on the non-army car's bumper.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Nazca Lines are NOT located in Cusco city, actually those lines are drawn in the desert in ICA valley, on the coast of PERU.
  
  
• Continuity: During the scene of Mac speaking to Indiana Jones in the Tent after his second catch, his bottle of assumed Vodka appears on and off the desk.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The Harley-Davidson that Mutt is riding has a disc brake on the front wheel, dual throttle cables, a "Twin Cam" engine and possibly belt drive. All these things were not available until after 1974. The motorcycle also features modern hand controls, including a starter button, even though it is seen being kick-started in an early scene.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Jones and the Soviets encounter ravenous ants in the Amazon, which Indy refers to as siafu. Siafu, also known as driver ants, live in Africa, not South America.
  
  
• Factual errors: The scenes in supposedly Peruvian towns feature Mexican music, dialect, and iconography, although Peru and Mexico are 3000 miles apart and have little in common besides the Spanish language.
  
  
• Factual errors: The ruins Indy and his crew find in the Amazon forest are unmistakably Mayan and Professor Oxley speaks Mayan to communicate with the locals. Even at their peak, the Mayans never reached the Amazon.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: During the A bomb neighborhood scene, in the front yard, a reflection in the glass in front of the lens can be seen when panned backwards.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the motorcycle chase scene around the college campus the street lights are modern.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the opening scenes when the Russians, dressed as US Army officers, gun down the guards, if you look at the Russian on the lower left side, he's raking his machine gun back and forth even though he doesn't appear to be firing the gun (he's not pulling the trigger, no shell casings are ejected, and there's no muzzle flare).
  
  
• Factual errors: Indy says that the Nazcas elongated their skulls to imitate their gods. Actually the Nazcas didn't do that. The Paracas, a culture that existed in the same location but before the Nazcas, did, but for aristocratic reasons.
  
  
• Factual errors: Buildings in the Nazca culture used adobe, not stone as depicted in the movie. Tombs were excavated in the ground, on flat areas, not on the top of the hills and the mummies were not wrapped in the fashion depicted with Orellana, but hunkered with the knees against the chest and then wrapped.
  
  
• Factual errors: The movie places Orellana buried in a somewhat Nazcan fashion and in what supposedly is a Nazcan tomb. The Nazca culture was already extinct (aprox. 800 AD) when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived to Peru (1532 AD).
  
  
• Factual errors: The portrait of Orellana shown by Indy is not Orellana's. It is Francisco Pizarro, Peru's conquistador.
  
  
• Factual errors: The coastal tribes and cultures of Peru didn't use serbatanas (or blowpipes) with poisoned darts. Those are the Amazon's jungle tribes, very far away from Nazca and in the other side of the Andes.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: It is shown that the Soviets use a large tree-chopping machine to go through the dense Amazon rainforest, however after the tree-chopper is destroyed the chase scene takes place on not one, but two very clear parallel roads out in the middle of the jungle.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The map on which the plane route Indy and Mutt take to South America is traced shows a country called "Belize". Belize was known as "British Honduras" until 1973.
  
  
• Continuity: When Spalko is hanging from the tree above the ants, she crushes an ant between her legs squirting red goo all over her knees. A short time later you see her legs again and her trousers are perfectly clean - no ant body parts!
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the scene where Indy is being interrogated by the FBI agents the General's ribbons are out of order. His Purple Heart ribbon is shown above his Army Commendation medal. While in today's military this would be correct the Purple Heart was worn junior to commendation and achievement medals until 13 June 1985.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the start of the film when the Russian jeeps turn off the main road to enter Area 51, while the main road correctly has white center lines, the side road has yellow ones. Yellow 'dashed' center lines did not appear on USA highways until the early 1970s.
  
  
• Continuity: After the third waterfall, Marion's hair is wet, dry and wet again.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the first shot of Mutt's motorcycle in Peru, there is a reflection of a camera and cameraman in the bike's reflective surface.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The Mayan Indians primarily lived in southern Mexico and Belize, not in Peru. The Incan Indians lived in Peru.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The aerial view of the Nazca lines shows at least 3 very close together. In reality the different lines are separated by quite some distance. There is also virtually no high ground from which to see the lines, i.e. at the entrance to the tombs.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Jones refers to the amphibious vehicles in the South American jungle as "ducks" (DUKWs) when they are actually Ford GPAs, or "Seeps," for "sea-going Jeeps."
  
  
• Factual errors: The nuclear blast in the dry Nevada desert produces a Wilson Cloud (ice crystals condensing behind the shock wave), which would only occur in a humid environment like the South Pacific.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The shotgun shell Indiana Jones breaks apart in the warehouse appears to be a plastic shell which didn't become common until the 60's. Typically shells would have been paper during that time frame.
  
  
• Factual errors: Many of the soldiers in the early scenes are armed with Thompson submachine guns (tommy guns). These guns fire from the "open bolt" position, meaning that the cocking handles would be locked to the rear if they were prepared to fire. All the guns shown have their cocking handles fully forward in the uncocked position.
  
  
• Factual errors: Indy says that he and Oxley were obsessed with crystal skulls, in particular the Mitchell-Hedges skull, in college. Mitchell-Hedges claimed that his daughter unearthed the skull during a dig in 1927, but did not actually begin making that claim until 1943. This is after the events in all three previous films, and therefore, well beyond Indy's or Oxley's college years.
  
  
• Continuity: In the warehouse Indiana uses his whip to try to swing onto a jeep that is moving away. He fails, swings back and falls onto a truck, letting go of the whip. In one of the following scenes, while he is still on the truck, the whip is neatly folded and hangs from Indy's belt.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: In the wedding scene, Mutt's camera disappears between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: At the end of the wedding, there are flashes from cameras, taking pictures of Indy and Miriam, but when everyone leaves no one is holding a camera.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When Jones is forced to look at the skull, the chain that is used to tie the skull appears and disappears between shots
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: In the scene where Irina is in the warehouse and Indiana Jones is escaping, her hair switches from messed up to fixed between shots.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: Tire tracks (from earlier takes) clearly visible in the university alley during motorcycle chase.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: SPOILER: Light rig visible behind the Russian jeep just after crashing into the ant hill.
  
  

Related Links