Continuity mistake: Onboard the ship at the end of the prologue, after Indy grabs the cross before it falls over the side, the guy in the white suit climbing up the steps. He's only reaching the top as the shot changes. In the next shot, he's already a few steps away from the top of the steps, telling his men to stop Indy.
Continuity mistake: During the temple quake sequence towards the end of the film, Elsa fails to maintain her grip on the rising earth and falls onto tilted ground, sliding towards the chasm. At this point, Sallah is kneeling on the ground, but in the very next shot, he is now grabbing hold of Henry.
Continuity mistake: When the Hatay soldier is decapitated in an attempt to navigate the temple's defences, his head rolls along the ground and Elsa turns her head around and looks over her shoulder. In the next shot, she has now turned her full body around, and in the shot after that, she is looking over her shoulder again.
Continuity mistake: When Elsa's hand slips from its glove whilst Indy is holding on to her, Elsa falls and she is holding the glove in her right hand, but when she falls into the chasm, the glove has gone.
Revealing mistake: When Sallah rides up to the tank to help, just as Indy shouts, "Get Dad!" in the closeup and wideshot of Henry we can see that he's actually lying on protective support, and not lying directly on the moving tank treads. (01:35:40)
Visible crew/equipment: When Indy tries to reach the Grail his father convinces him to "Let it go" and Henry pulls his son to safety, then in the next wideshot of Indy, Henry, Sallah, and Marcus a crewmember wearing a short sleeved, white shirt and blue pants can be seen at the right side of the screen, just before it cuts to Henry's closeup. This crewmember can be seen again after the closeup of the knight. (01:57:45)
Continuity mistake: While Henry and Marcus are being held inside the tank, Indiana rides in circles and baits the tank to ram into one of the cars. In a following shot when we see Vogel walking toward the window inside the tank it's a flipped shot, note everything is backwards. Then two shots later, when Vogel shouts "quick" in German it's another flipped shot, and about five shots after that again flipped. (01:29:30)
Visible crew/equipment: After Young Indy locks the two treasure hunters in the reptile train car he pulls a snake out of his shirt, and just as the third young treasure hunter tackles Indy we can see a crewmember's arm and equipment at the left side of the screen, before it cuts to the long shot. (00:07:00)
Revealing mistake: When the car is chased by a plane and enters a cave, check the rocks above the entrance and you'll notice that both the entrance and exit are the same location and the final shot has been flipped.
Factual error: When the soldier from Hatay attempts to pass through the booby trap and his head is chopped off there is no blood. Any wound to the head or neck tends to bleed profusely but the head rolls by without a drop.
Revealing mistake: At the end a shadow appears on the cliff under Indy's shoe when he steps to the edge. This would not have happened if a solid but camouflaged bridge were there. (01:47:30)
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)
Continuity mistake: During the boat chase, after the one boat blows up, another comes up behind Jones and Elsa. Jones starts turning the boat. In the next shot, the man in the boat behind them is shooting at them. They're not turning, they're going straight.
Continuity mistake: Before they make the second fighter pilot crash, Henry hands his bag to Indy. In that shot, the handle of Henry's umbrella is closer to Indy's left shoulder. But, in the next shot from in front of Indy, the handle is closer to his right shoulder. Then, when Henry pulls the umbrella out, the handle is back near Indy's left shoulder.
Continuity mistake: In the cave, young Indy is giving instructions, his hair is down both sides of his face. When he removes the snake saying "It's only a snake", his hair style is changed.
Continuity mistake: The gap between Indy and the chasing motorbikes changes considerably between shots, close to him than far apart the close again and at the checkpoint out of sight.
Continuity mistake: The dirt road the solo motorbike rider takes heading towards Indy is completely different to the road Indy uses just after he knocks the solo rider off.
Continuity mistake: When Indy is on the boat and says "Too small for two of us!", it pans down and you can see the cross halfway out of Indy's pouch. Both of the arms and head are on the outside. Only the bottom half is in his pouch. The bad guy then proceeds to open the pouch, revealing only the top before taking it out.
Continuity mistake: When they first meet, Walter Donovan hands Indiana the glass of champagne almost filled to the brim. The next shot shows Indy's glass with much less champagne in it.
Continuity mistake: Indiana has his satchel on him at the beginning of the 3 challenges and up to the point when he is entering the resting place of the grail. As soon as he enters the cavern where the Knight is, and he stands up, he no longer has the satchel.
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