Cheffie Nitpicks The Mummy (mild spoilers)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Mrs Chef, Shadowmaster and I were watching The Mummy on DVD last night and enjoyed it a lot. The bonus materials were first-rate, especially the special effects/visual effects stuff on the second disk. We also thought the storyboard-to-final-scene comparisons were interesting. Then the pizza arrived and we settled in to watch the movie itself. Great fun, but several annoying inconsistencies popped up.

(A BUNCH OF MILD SPOILERS)
Towards the end, Beni (the weaselly guy who throws in with Imhotep to save his own skin) drags a huge bag of treasure out of the bowels of Hamunaptra and slings it across the back of a waiting camel (one of several), then is trapped before he comes back out. Our three heroes emerge empty-handed and grab two camels on which to ride off into the sunset - one of which is the one with the treasure on it. So okay fine.

Shadowmaster remarked, “Oh sure… out of all the camels out there, they just happen to grab the one with the treasure on it.” We all nodded, and then another thought struck me.

“What the hell were all those camels doing there in the first place?”

Think about it. Imhotep brought Beni and Evelyn to Hamunaptra Dorothy-style, riding in a magic sand-devil. O’Connell, Jeremy and the Majai warrior arrive by plane courtesy of Winston, the Royal Air Corps pilot.

[sub](sidebar: we all howled when the crashed plane began to sink and Jeremy shouted, “it’s quicksand!” Uh, dumbass, quicksand is water-saturated. Not the sort of thing you’ll find in the desert. Was this supposed to make Jeremy look stupid, or the screenwriter?)[/sub]

So, one way or another, all of the people at Hamunaptra at that point of the movie arrived by air. so why are there a dozen camels there, all saddled and ready to go?

Sure, Our Heros arrived on camels when they were at Hamunaptra before, but one assumes they took those camels along when they left the first time. And besides, only four people were riding camels… the American party were riding horses. (sure, the diggers may have been riding camels… but they fled in terror and, again, presumably would have taken their camels along when fleeing.)

Perhaps they belong to the Majai? If so, where are their riders? I know a bunch of them went to hunt the Mummy (and presumably were slaughtered) before the white folks went back to Cairo, but that was at least a couple of days, movie-time, before the riding-into-the-sunset thing. Why would those camels still be patiently standing there dying of thirst? Besides, the Majai warrior played by Oded Fehr would surely have objected to Our Heros helping themselves to “free” camels that presumably belong to friends of his. Even if they were all turned into Mummymeat, I would think he would want the camels returned to their families.

(Side quibble: Why take just TWO camels when there are three people and plenty of camels to go around? Sure, it lets O’Connell and Evelyn snuggle as they R.O.I.T.S. but how stupid is it to deliberately lessen your chances of making it across the desert?)

pant, pant.
Here ends the rant.

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But not everyone that arrived there the first time made it out alive. A lot of diggers bit it between the salt acid, the gun fight and the ravening horde of locusts and I imagine everyone else was too terrified to collect all the camels in their flight out of there.

Besides, you can’t nit-pick that movie. I forgive all descrepenices (even the glaringly bad ones) because they had the good sense to put Oded in the movie. :smiley:

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Another thread I posted to and nothing is here. GRRRRRRRR!

I have the Mummy on DVD so I’ll have to rewatch it again because I’ve never really paid attention to the camels at the end. I don’t know why because what you say makes sense.

Imhotep flew them in his little sand cloud/tornadoey looking thing. They landed not too far from Hamunaptra because when Evie saw it, she said something about it. Ardeth Bay, Jonathan (not Jeremy, BTW), and Rick walked after the plane disappeared.

The Majai weren’t riding camels. In the few scenes they showed with the Majai warriors, they were all riding horses. I don’t think the camels belonged to them.

If, for some reason, the camels did belong to Majai, I don’t think Ardeth Bay would’ve had any problem giving the camels to Jonathan, Rick, and Evie. He did say they had earned the respect of his people. I think he could’ve given the camels to them as a token of gratitude (even though they were the ones that unleashed Imhotep). Still, I don’t think the camels belonged to the Majai. Maybe Imhotep conjured them up from dead camels left from one of the battles.

Incidentally, Ardeth Bay is the one who cried out the warning about the quicksand. It was a stupid line and even more stupid that he had to say it twice.

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You betcha! That man is gorgeous! He’s definitely on my laminated list. :smiley:

Did you ever see the VH1 show The List where Oded Fehr was a guest in one episode? I think the other celebrities were Nester Carbonell (Suddenly Susan), Thora Birch (American Beauty), and some comedianne. Shayna knows I have a crush on Oded and taped the show and sent it to me. Oded got up and danced to Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It and the boy has two left feet. I don’t care. He’s still hot.

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Perhaps. But remember, the survivors did not flee in terror the first time… they slunk away after being verbally spanked by Ardeth Bay. Surely they would take the camels with them, since they’re valuable…

Grace, you are of course right that Evelyn’s brother was named Jonathan. Where the heck did I get Jeremy? Maybe I was thinking of RON Jeremy.

It’s possible Ardeth Bay would have given them some camels, although I’d like to have heard him say the majai equivalent of “yo, I’monna hook you up wit some walkin humpy-humps.” Your theory of camel reincarnation, however, is tripe. TRIPE, I say.

(Wow. Oded Fehr AND Nestor Carbonell? Talk about Dueling Flared Nostrils.) How did he look without the flowing mane and facial tattoos?