Goofs for
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) More at IMDbPro »

• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Continuity: When Jones is forced to look at the skull, the chain that is used to tie the skull appears and disappears between shots
  
  
• Continuity: In later part of the warehouse scene, Irina's hair switches from messed up to fixed between shots.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• 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 Cuzco city; those lines are drawn in the desert in the Ica valley 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.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Tire tracks (from earlier takes) clearly visible in the university alley during motorcycle chase.
  
  
• 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 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 cerbatanas (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.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Light rig visible behind the Russian jeep just after crashing into the ant hill.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the jungle campsite face-to-face close-up moment with Oxley, Dr Spalko's contact lenses' edge lines are visible.
  
  
• Factual errors: No recoil at all while Dr Spalko fires the Russian amphibious jeep's hood-mounted heavy machine guns toward Marion.
  
  
• Continuity: During the scene where Indy and Mutt drive the motorcycle through the library, it is clearly a stuntman and not Harrison Ford who slides under the tables on the motorcycle, as Indiana's socks go from dark (when it's clearly Ford on the motorcycle) to white (when Indy's under the tables) to dark again when Ford gets up on the motorcycle.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When Indy and 'Mutt' arrive in what is meant to be Peru, outside the airport a Mexican flag can clearly be seen flying.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the disguised Russian troops attack the American gatehouse, the guns that are supposedly used are clearly not being fired but just waved around. There are no muzzle flashes, despite the sounds of gunfire and screams being heard.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Russians car hits the statue of Marcus Brody the head of it smashes through the windshield and lands in the lap of the driver. The next time we see the car the windshield has been miraculously repaired.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the warehouse scene taking place in 1957 a 50 states USA flag is shown. Hawaii and Alaska didn't join the USA until 1959, so there should be a 48 states flag.
  
  
• Continuity: The machine gun on the front of the watercraft disappears and reappears from shot to shot.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When the caravan arrives at the gate of the military installation near the beginning of the movie, there is razor wire across the top of the gate. Razor wire did not exist in 1957.
  
  
• Factual errors: There is a reference to Spanish explorers in the Amazon in the 15th century, but the Spanish did not explore so far until the 1500s, i.e. the 16th century.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The American flag flying at the entrance to the Hangar 51 facility appears to be a current 50-star flag, instead of a 48-star flag which would have been in use during the time this film was set.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Title sequence, two different numbers are seen on the left front fender of the Ford leading the convoy of army vehicles. The complete number '1B7731' is seen several times. However, in the shot showing the driver's face in the rear view mirror, a number beginning with '2763' is seen (the full number is probably 276306). In a subsequent close-up of the Ford driver and passenger, the last two digits '06' are visible briefly at the very beginning of the shot.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the rocket sled room, when Dovchenko falls through the control room glass and activates the countdown, the clock on the control panel uses Light Emmitting Diodes (LED). Red visible light LEDs wouldn't be invented for another 18 to 20 years.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the car chase through the campus, the flower pots start exploding before Indy and Mutt's pursuers' car ever hit them.
  
  
• Anachronisms: When the military convoy turns onto the side road after the drag race, it goes over a cattle guard. New Mexico, which served as Nevada Area 51 in the film, has a "fence out" law. The cattle guard shown was a modern one and not around in 1957.
  
  
• Continuity: During the opening scenes filmed in Deming, New Mexico, the light is constantly changing from noon to evening and then back to noon again.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the opening scenes the sun is high in the sky. When the convoy turns off the highway to the right, the sun is very low, either daybreak or sunset. The next scene is back to high sun.
  
  
• Continuity: In the tent scene, Indiana Jones tells 'Mac' that he's going to break his nose when he gets loose from his bindings. As soon as Mac lets Indy loose, Jones punches Mac in the face, breaking his nose, as promised. During the subsequent Jeep chase scene, however, Mac clearly has no injuries to his face.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) gear worn in the nuclear test site scene looks like the M17A1 mask (with hood) worn in service in the mid 1980s.
  
  
• Continuity: Mac is first pulled out of the trunk of the car in the opening section. A couple of Russians hustle him near the front right fender of the vehicle. In the next scene, Mac should still be near the fender, but he and the two Russians are gone.
  
  
• Factual errors: The Ford roadster seen at the beginning of the film has a Chevrolet small block engine. While it is common to find one in more recent vehicles due to its large production and subsequently lower cost, it is not conceivable that some youngsters could have modified one into a car at the time the movie was set.
  
  
• Anachronisms: At the fake town designated for atomic testing, model children can be seen playing on a "Slip n' Slide". This toy, made by Wham-O, was not introduced until 1961.
  
  
• Continuity: In the atomic bomb test scene Indy opens the refrigerator and pulls out the shelves before he climbs in. There is a small freezer compartment visible inside. After the blast that propels him and the refrigerator out into the desert the fridge door opens and he rolls out. There is no freezer compartment anymore.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the film, Mutt picks up a camera and is about to take a picture. Then, the doors blow open and Indy's hat lands at his feet. He picks up the hat, but the camera has vanished.
  
  
• Continuity: During the warehouse treasure hunt at the beginning of the movie, Indy uses handfuls of gunpowder and shotgun pellets to try and locate the highly magnetic item the Russians are after. However, as soon as the box is discovered and moved, all of the light fittings within ten yards start leaning towards it. Given that wood is non-magnetic and hence would not have interfered with the magnetism of the item, the lights would have been leaning towards it even before it was taken out of the box, making the search a lot easier.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the end of the motorcycle chase scene through the library, the student's chair is pushed back. Initially, the student himself appears to push back with his feet, but the chair keeps moving well after he puts his feet back down. The floor is visible between the bike's front tire and the chair, so the bike is not pushing the chair. In the next shot, the tire is shown touching the chair. It isn't clear what the intent was (bike or student).
  
  
• Factual errors: At the warehouse scene, the Soviet soldiers carry the box that is supposed to be highly magnetic. Yet the (metal) guns they have shouldered are not attracted by it.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the transition-map scene when Indy and Mutt fly to Brazil the locations on Brazilian Amazon are appropriately written in Portuguese language but 'Río Juruá' is misspelled. In Portuguese the correct spelling is 'Rio' (without the acute accent on the letter 'i').
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Leipzig, the city Indiana says he will go searching for a teaching position, was part of the Eastern Bloc in 1957, and it would not have been likely he could have been given access to a Communist country at this time. However, Indiana is joking, since he's accused of being a Communist.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the chase following the diner scene, the motorcycle is clearly shown to have a modern tread pattern on the back tire. This is most visible in a low, rear shot just prior to the chase through the library.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indy is first seen bound into the chair at the Russian camp, the tape recorder supplying the music for the soldiers' party has played nearly all of its supply reel. When Spalko comes in for the interrogation, shortly after this scene, the supply reel has more, not less, tape on it.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Indy uses the word "nukular" instead of the correct form "nuclear". However, since the concept was a new one in the 1950s, many people (including President Eisenhower) used this incorrect form of the word.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When inside Indiana Jones' house, Indy states how his father and Marcus have passed away. But in "The Last Crusade", his father drank from the cup of Christ, which was reported to give eternal life. However, the grail was only supposed to have healing powers and prolong life. The centuries old Knight in "The Last Crusade" was still alive because he stayed with the grail and didn't "cross the boundaries of the seal". Additionally, because the cup itself was removed, it's power was broken.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The Russian RPG-7 shown being used by Indy in the jungle chase was not used until 1961.
  
  
• Anachronisms: During the Amphibious vehicle/Jeep chase in the jungle, several times we are shown the pedals of the amphibious vehicle. The first time, we are shown a wide brake pedal, indicating an automatic transmission. The second time we see a clutch pedal and matching narrow brake pedal. The anachronistic part is that they are modern pedal designs from the AMC/Jeep family of cars.
  
  
• Factual errors: Indy uses the metal in gunpowder to find the magnetized coffin. The only metal in gunpowder is potassium, which is not ferro-magnetic.
  
  
• Factual errors: Indy refers to the attacking ants as "Siafu" ants. The Dorylus ant AKA siafu is native to Africa, not South America. And they do not live in mounds.
  
  
• Factual errors: At various times during the movie, metal objects are seen sliding toward the skulls due to "magnetic" attraction. However, those objects never seem to actually finish their journey and reach the skull. This violates the laws of physics, because a large force is required to overcome the inertia of a body at rest. Once movement has begun, less force is required to maintain the movement, and the objects would accelerate toward the skull until they reach it.
  
  
• Continuity: The opening scene is indicated as being in Nevada, but Col Dr. Spalko explains later in the Amazon Forest that her team found the alien in New Mexico.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the warehouse in Area 51, we see 'gunpowder' from American pineapple hand grenades being tipped out. In reality, hand grenades like these would have contained 'high' explosive in a solid form.
  
  
• Factual errors: The machine gun mounted on the hood of the 'Russian' amphibious jeep is in fact a variant of the US .30in Browning M1919.
  
  
• Continuity: In the jungle chase scene Indy, Mutt and Marion are tied up in the truck and they knock the guard out and escape. Indy is seen many times after they escape and Indy has no weapons. When he gets behind the wheel of one of the vehicles his whip is on his left hip.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When searching the warehouse, Indiana uses pellets from shotgun shells to help find the magnetic box the Soviets are searching for. Shotgun pellets in 1957 were made of non-magnetic lead. A later scene shows that other non-magnetic metals, such as gold, are attracted to the crystal skulls.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As Indy and Mutt enter Oxley's cell at the sanitarium, Mutt's hands are in his jacket. As the scene shifts and we see them step in, his arms are hanging free - and then he puts them in his jacket.
  
  
• Factual errors: Jones throws gun powder in the air claiming that it contains metal which will be attracted to the magnetic crate in the warehouse. Normal military ammo does not contain any metal. Special pyrotechnic ammo does, but it is not magnetic.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: 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). However, Orellana was only looking for the city the Nazcas built, not the Nazcas themselves, and it is stated that he vanished while doing so. The movie is supposing that the Nazcas are not actually extinct, and that Orellana did find them and their city.
  
  
• Factual errors: Indy states that the conquistador who turns to dust immediately after being unwrapped has been "wrapped up for five hundred years". But Orellana and his conquistadors disappeared in the 1540's, only about four hundred years before the movie takes place.
  
  
• Continuity: In the jungle chase scene, in one shot Ox is sitting in the jeep's back seat, and nobody is behind him. But when Indy jumps onto the jeep, there are three soldiers sitting at the end of the jeep behind Ox.
  
  
• Continuity: Right before Dean Stanforth interrupts Indy's class to tell him that the FBI had ransacked his office and that he was being given a leave of absence, as he approaches the classroom he walks down a hallway filled with pictures and paintings. As they are leaving the classroom, in the hallway very close to the classroom door is a large painting of Marcus Brody, Indy's dear old friend and colleague. However, moments earlier when the Dean is shown passing by that same spot on his way to the classroom, the painting isn't there. In it's place are two indistinct photographs.
  
  
• Continuity: Indiana puts his hat on a Marshall college guy during the bar fight, after Indy and Mutt escape, they leave to go to Peru with Indy's hat.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Indiana Jones is sinking into the sand pit, his son tosses him a snake and Jones' uses it as a rope to pull himself out. Even a very large snake has a fragile spinal column. In reality Jones' weight should have torn the snake in half.
  
  
• Continuity: When Indiana, Mutt, Ox, Marion and Mac begin to fall of the final waterfall Marion is driving the duck and as they fall they are all shown letting go of the duck and free-falling most of the way. However, when reconvening on the bank of the river Marion is clutching the steering wheel of the car with both hands as if she had not let go.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the scene where Indy teaches his students, he tells them Skara Brae is off the west coast of Scotland. It is in fact off the north coast of mainland Scotland.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: If the Crystal Skull were solid quartz, as explained early in the film, the characters wouldn't be able to hold or throw it easily with one hand. However, the skull isn't quartz. Though it looks like fine quartz crystal, the skull is light, magnetic, flawless, and carved more finely than even modern techniques could easily do. Calling it quartz wasn't a mistake - it was a plot device to keep the audience wondering.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: At the house at the atomic test site, the water doesn't run in the sink, even though water is running through an outside hose and sprinklers. Since the neighborhood was built to be destroyed, we can't assume every house was completely plumbed. Even so, the builders could have forgotten to open the line under the sink, and no one lived there to notice.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: At the end of the wedding, camera flashes are seen, but when Indy and Marion leave, no one is holding a camera.
  
  
• Errors in geography: SPOILER: The cemetery where Indy finds the Crystal Skull is revealed on a mountaintop overlooking the Nazca Lines during a thunderstorm. There are no mountains close enough to the plains of Nazca to allow for such a view as shown. Also, being an arid desert, there is no weather to speak of (wind or rain, much less thunderstorms) in Nazca, which is the reason why the drawings have not been eroded over the centuries.
  
  
• Continuity: SPOILER: When the skeletons of the Inter-Dementional beings are coming together as one, only 11 of the skeletons are shown combining with the first. This makes 12; in previous scenes however, it is stated, and shown that there are 13 of these creatures. Which thus, leaves us all to ponder the question: What happened to the 13th alien?
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: Marion tells Indy that Ox stopped speaking to him for leaving her a week before the wedding. If he knew them when they planning to get married he would have known that Mutt was Indy's son, yet when Mutt calls Indy "dad" he seems surprised. However, we do not know when Marion became pregnant with "Mutt". Marion herself may not have found out until after Indy left.
  
  

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