Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, Harrison Ford, John Rhys-Davies, Julian Glover, River Phoenix, Sean Connery (add more)
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
Why is there a sea of petroleum below Venice - and how can it be below the water line? (The basement is deeper than the distance from the surface of the ground to the surface of the water in the next scene). [Petroleum has seeped into the sewer/catacomb system and is just floating on the surface of the water. It being below the water line is a simple matter of the basement being sealed off from the surrounding water.]
Corrected by Phixius
The Joneses leave Berlin in the Zeppeliner. After supposedly no more than 1-2 hours flight they escape in a biplane and crash after a few minutes. Nevertheless they have reached the Mediterrenean. That would have taken a lot longer. [We do not know how long the Zeppelin was under way when the Jones's escape with the biplane. It might actually have been four to five hours - there's no real indicator of the passed time.]
There is a problem with the following scene: The Nazi plane crashes into the tunnel, slides past Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and explodes when exiting the tunnel. The problem is that the plane shouldn't explode since its wings (filled with gas) were torn off. It couldn't have been a bomb attached to the plane either, since, as it is seen only seconds afterwards, a bomb would leave a big crater in the street and make it impossible for the car to go on. Yet, Harrison Ford has no problems at all driving through what's left of the plane. [The engine and hosing that delivers the gas to it is attached to the fuselage.]
Corrected by JC Fernandez
After the moterbike chase, Indiana drives past the road sign, which points to Venice and Berlin. He then talks to his dad before looking strait ahead at a sign which is behind him. [He's not looking at the sign, he's making a decision. The shot of the sign was for the audience's benefit.]
Corrected by JC Fernandez
Once Indy has found the grail, he goes back with Elsa to heal his father. But how was it possible for him to get back? Wouldn't he have to face the challenges again, but in reverse order? [Yes, but he knows what they are now, so he can pretty much just walk (or run) straight through them. The filmmakers just chose not to waste valuable screen-time showing it.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
When the Nazi officer is thrown out of the Zepellin by Indy, you can see the safety mat underneath the luggage. [What on earth is the point of putting a crash mat under anything? That's a bog standard tarpaulin used to protect the passengers' luggage from the damp ground.]
After the Grail protector is shot, his shirt covers up his chest, and then someone opens up his shirt to reveal the logo on his chest. Is this normal Nazi practice to check the chests of people after they've died? The Grail Protector gave no indication to the Nazis as to who he was, therefore it was illogical for the Nazis to check. [A character displaying curiosity is now a plot hole, is it? Do bear in mind that these are Nazis who are specifically looking for the Grail and have studied the legends surrounding the artifact in considerable detail, so they're likely to be aware of possible opposition groups. When they're ambushed and Kazim refers to himself as a messenger from God, it seems entirely reasonable that they would check his chest to see if he carries any identifying marks corresponding to the legends. Given the circumstances, it would really be pretty illogical for them not to check.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
When Indy gets on the plane to go to Venice, the map traces his route from New York City. But when he first set out in Raiders of the Lost Ark - when he was working with Denholm Elliot at the same university - the map showed him starting out from California. [The fact that the map starts tracking his journey from a different starting point doesn't make it a mistake. He could have gone to New York for any number of reasons before setting out.]
When Indiana breaks in through the window, he lets go of his whip, yet he has it through the rest of the film despite us never seeing him retrieve it. [Just because we don't see it onscreen doesn't mean it didn''t happen. He could have retrieved it anytime after killing the guards.]
Corrected by Guy Brigman
When Indie rescues his father and shoots the Germans, the one that he pushed over stayed on the floor. Surely being pushed over couldn't have caused him that much damage. [He probably stayed down to avoid getting shot, since that's what happened to the others.]
Corrected by Phixius
When Indy and his father are rotating via the fireplace into the radio room and are noticed by the female operator, she screams in German: 'Los. Die Gewehre.' and the soldiers fire their pistols. But in German, the word 'Gewehre' refers to rifles; for pistols or handguns the word 'Pistole' is used. [The operator is pretty flustered by the appearance of two bound prisoners in the secret door, and just screams out the first command she can think of. She forgets that the other persons in the room are officers who do not carry rifles, but they get the message; to shoot at the Joneses.]
Corrected by Twotall
During the airplane chase Indy is seen firing his revolver at the German planes, after he crash-lands he pulls his revolver and breaks open the action to see if its loaded. Not only is the revolver empty but there are no shell casings in the chambers. The reason this is a mistake is that unlike an auto loader a revolver doesn't eject spent shell casings, and even if Indy had fired all 6 shots, the shell casings would still be in the chambers of the revolver. In fact as Indy opens the revolver you can see the ejector mechanism operating. And there are no casings being ejected. [It's not that Indy has fired all six shots, it's that he hasn't reloaded since he last used his gun. Remember he just escaped from the Nazis and had to get himself and his father transport, it's possible he never had time to find any more ammunition. He checks it when he's being attacked because he's hoping he reloaded it.]
When the operators try to shoot Indy and his father as they rotate back into the burning room, the bullets flying towards and ricocheting off the rotating wall are evidently tracer bullets. Normally, tracer bullets are not normally issued for handguns; they are used more for rifles and machine guns. [The Germans in the film also carry MP38 sub-machine guns, which are chambered for the same 9mm Parabellum round as the Lugers that are being fired in the scene in question. Being sub-machine guns and therefore fully automatic, they would invariably have been issued with tracer rounds.]
When Indy makes a rubbing of the knights' shield in the tomb under the library, he dives underwater with it. This would ruin the paper and make it unreadable, yet we see him later with it and it's perfect. There's no way he had time to seal it in a water-tight container before he dived. [Indy used a wax crayon to make the rubbing,and he did it on wax paper. Both are waterproof.]
That knight in the temple of the grail - how does he know contemporary English after spending centuries in that cave? He's only alive because of the water - he's not imbued with mystical futuristic knowledge. A Medieval English knight (assuming he even is English, since Crusaders came from all over Europe) would be speaking either Old French or Middle English, neither of which would make any sense to the modern ear; they'd both sound like foreign languages. [Remember that he is the subject of supernatural powers, namely immortality. He has been chosen by God to guard the Holy Grail. It is not a stretch to assume that part of that entails the ability to automatically understand and converse with someone in a language he did not previously know. There are such stories in the Bible.]
Three people involved in this film have won the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. They are George Lucas, Harrison Ford, and Sean Connery. [So what? I'm sure that it's not unique in that regard. Trivia is about the film, not about coincidences relating to those who made it.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
When Indy and his father come to the crossroads after having escaped the Nazis the sign says "Berlin" and "Venedig". When they leave it says "Berlin" and "Venice". It's the same side of the sign both times. [Yes, it does. And the wavery effect in the middle of the shot is meant to be a translation so that viewers can understand where Indy is driving to.]
Corrected by Guy Brigman
While Donovan and Indy are looking at the tablet, if you freeze the movie while it shows the tablet, you can clearly see the word "deorum", meaning "of the gods". Not something you would expect a Christian to be carrying around, considering they are monotheistic. [Firstly if you have to pause the movie then it's not a mistake but aside from that, some early Christian theology believed that the holy trinity was to be interpreted literally and hence Christianity was not monotheistic.]
The two first frames of the shot when the German bike flies after Indiana obstructs the front wheel with a stick show a dummy in a motorcycle that never moves. [It has been established that if you have to use freeze frame or slow motion to see a mistake - it needs to be something such as a cameraman in the picture or something of that nature. The fact that they used a dummy that you can see for two freeze frames and is not really noticeable in real time cannot be contributed as a mistake.]
Corrected by Zwn Annwn
When the tank driver has been shot, he leans on one of the levers. The tank slews round, saving Indy. In the next shot it shows the tank heading straight forward. This would not happen if the driver is still leaning on the lever. Even if one of the crew takes over, they would see the canyon up ahead and steer away from it. [The force of the turn could have made the driver fall off the lever, making it return to its normal position.]
You may also like: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom | Raiders of the Lost Ark | Star Wars | Iron Man
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