Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Other mistake: At one point, Indy rolls off of the side of a tank, and somehow gets a strap around one of the guns pointing out from the sides. The end of the barrel has already been blown open by the rock he shoved in earlier. How did the strap get around that big cluster of metal, and then back again so he could climb back on the tank? (01:34:15 - 01:35:05)

Other mistake: When they go under the coffin you see the flame of the torch in the background. How could the flame go under the petroleum with them without either setting light to the petroleum or being extinguished itself? (00:35:55)

Other mistake: When Marcus is knocked out at the library, look at his legs when he is dragged away - they are purposely crossed in a way which couldn't have happened naturally for a body being dragged - the actor did it to keep himself comfortable.

Life700

Other mistake: When Indiana Jones first enters the castle and speaks with the Nazi officer he is mouthing the Nazi's dialogue as the Nazi is speaking. (00:45:55)

Other mistake: In the catacombs, Indy flips over the casket with the skeleton and dives underneath together with Elsa. If you watch closely, the skeleton gets trapped inside the casket, however Indy and Elsa are alone inside the casket. If the skeleton had sunken, there wasn't enough time, nor did Elsa or Indy bump into it when they dove underneath.

Sacha

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Suggested correction: I watched this part five times, and Indy is not mouthing his father's lines. You can see slight movement in Indy's mouth when Henry is saying "when you were..," but that's not indicative of Indy mouthing the lines.

Phaneron

Other mistake: When Indy and Kazim are fighting on the the boat as it is being chewed up by the giant propeller, the propeller is more than half way out of the water; if the ship was in dry-dock the smaller boats wouldn't be able to go up to the larger ship, on the other hand if it had run aground it would not be running its engines.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Other mistake: While Indy and Henry are aboard the zeppelin Indy tosses Vogel out the lounge window, and when Vogel shouts up to the departing airship, in the next exterior shot we see the zeppelin airborne against a scenic view. Later, when Indy realises the zeppelin is turning around it cuts to another exterior shot of the airship, and the scenic view is identical to the earlier shot, only it's been flipped. The images of the zeppelin facing two different directions were composited onto the same scenic background.

Super Grover

Other mistake: Indy has been very careful to hide from everyone that Alexandretta is the city where the trail starts, only to give away all the essential info. He did not tell Elsa. Only Marcus (who has the rubbing of the crucial inscription) and Sallah knew. The only way that the Nazis find out is because he tells his dad, in a room which he KNOWS to be wired, i.e. bugged. (The Nazis also find the diary, but we know that the city isn't in there.) Stupidity doesn't quite cover it.

Spiny Norman

Other mistake: In the scene with the tanks, Indy rides up beside one with a rock. Watch the gun closely. The end of the one that he is supposed to shove the rock into is wobbling inconsistantly with the rest of the gun, or the tank for that matter.

Other mistake: In the motorbike chase scene there is a lot of flying road dust even in front of the bike in the lead. Probably from the camera vehicle.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Other mistake: After Young Indy runs out of the cave with the Cross of Coronado, when he whistles for his horse and jumps down, note the horse's facial marking and leg marking. When Indy mounts the horse it's a different horse, note its markings, and as he rides toward the circus train the horse has changed again. (00:04:55)

Super Grover

Other mistake: 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 check if he's got any ammo left. He doesn't, but the issue is that a revolver doesn't eject spent shell casings, and there aren't any empty casings in his revolver, despite him firing his gun earlier and having no chance to empty the casings since.

Other mistake: After getting on aboard the dirigible, Henry is holding a German newspaper when addressing Indy. But he'd have a hard time reading it as it's upside down.

Movie Nut

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Suggested correction: Henry Jones Sr. doesn't have his glasses in this scene. He can't really see anything on the newspaper, that's why he is holding it upside down.

Big Game

Other mistake: When Indy is atop the tank with his father, he is facing his father. Suddenly, they show a close-up of Indy's face, head-on, with the Nazi leader behind him swinging a shovel towards Indy's head in the background. Indy gasps, and ducks. How did Indy see the shovel being swung at his head if it was completely behind him?"

Revealing mistake: In the catacombs of the library, Indy and Elsa are waist deep in petroleum. Indy has a torch, and if you look carefully, you will see burning pieces of the torch fall and hit the petroleum. Wouldn't this start a fire as Kazim later on sets the cavern alight with a single match? (00:34:05)

More mistakes in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

[Henry has activated a secret lever which rotates him and Indiana from a room on fire to a room full of German soldiers.]
Henry Jones: Our situation has not improved.

More quotes from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

Trivia: Hitler was played by the actor Michael Sheard, this was the third time he had played Hitler for film and TV. Ironically, Sheard's wife was half-Jewish.

More trivia for Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

Question: They didn't make it out of the cave with the grail because they dawdled... I wonder, would someone be able to make it out running at a dead sprint once they crossed the seal? And if so, does that mean that they're home free? Or would disaster follow them outside of the cave?

Answer: The implication is that disaster would follow them outside of the cave as well. It wouldn't make much sense if you could simply outrun the disaster.

BaconIsMyBFF

"Followed by disaster" is a kind of curse, a thing not common in Christianity. It doesn't make much sense anyhow. A seal is just a dot - OK, so let's at least grant that the seal represents a circle that the grail has to stay in. Who decided where those borders are? The grail was taken there during the first crusade. That was closer to 1938 than it was to 33 AD. The three knights could move the grail about then. Why not afterwards? The knights could have built the traps. But the borders could only have been set by god, in an unusually late and completely atypical miracle.

Spiny Norman

There are several examples of curses in the Christian Bible: Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom, the plagues visited upon Egypt, Adam and Eve are cursed for eating fruit from the tree of knowledge, etc. The knights did not move the grail around after finding it, they stayed in the temple for 150 years and then two left leaving the third behind. The great seal and it's restriction was already in place when the knights got there.

BaconIsMyBFF

Where in the movie is that stated? I interpreted the knight's story as them having made that place. Looks like it isn't actually specified. But if God made it, then I submit that he would have used Greek, not Latin, for the stepping stones. (All of those curses are from the old testament. The book where god kills firstborn children as long as they're Egyptian. Grail is by definition new testament where you turn the other cheek. There simply are no curses in the gospel, that's just not how Jesus rolled).

Spiny Norman

The tests were made by the knights, but the seal had God's power in it. Just like the cup.

lionhead

It's still a bit dodgy. What if you take a shovel and dig yourself a back door? Basically this film really excels at stuff that makes no sense but helps the storytelling, or to be precise, creates dramatic effects.

Spiny Norman

Every fictional story is like that in some way. That's why it's called fictional. It's just a story.

lionhead

Not a particularly convincing argument, "stuff happens for no reason all the time", if I may say so. Why is this website even here then? The fact is that some stories are more coherent than others. (♫ "In olden days, a hole in the plot, would seem to matter, quite a lot. Now heaven knows, anything goes..." ♫);).

Spiny Norman

It's the difference in what story they want told. Is it a fairy tale or based on actual events? A huge difference in plausibility between the two. The site is there to look at mistakes, not how believable the story is.

lionhead

It is not set in another universe so plausibility isn't somehow suspended. Maybe take a look at the categories recognised by this website. Plot holes, factual errors, even stupidity. (They? Who are they?).

Spiny Norman

It is set in a fictional universe because it's not a true story. With "they" I mean the writers/director. Mistakes in a plot (plot holes) have nothing to do with how believable the story is. As long as it's plausible, it's not a mistake.

lionhead

Pretty sure it's the same universe, just with some added characters/events. What about the total lack of spaceships or orcs or talking animals for example? The seal business is not a mistake YET, but it's very dodgy because no-one knows how it works or why. Like all Indys "trapped" secret places, it's (among other things) unclear who resets the traps for the next visitor. We can't brush it ALL off as "the hand of god" every time.

Spiny Norman

Huge amounts of stuff in films isn't exhaustively explained. Doesn't mean there isn't an explanation that's perfectly believable. There's zero evidence either way to say how "followed by disaster" would manifest, and just because there's not a thorough explanation doesn't mean that it's "dodgy", and it's not worth bickering about either, because there's no concrete answer either way.

Jon Sandys

OK but I would like to note that not everyone who offers creative explanations has recently seen the movie; some people just invent their own. E.g. "followed by disaster" is not an actual explanation from the movie, it was just one of the suggestions made here and only here. Or the ones on my own question below. All I'm saying is, it's very hard to tell what the "rules" / "logic" of this place are supposed to be, so I understand what the OP was driving at.

Spiny Norman

More questions & answers from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

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