Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

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.

manthabeat

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: After Indy and Henry have escaped from Castle Brunwald, Indy jumps into one of the boats, pulls the motor starter cord and jumps back out, then just as he bends over to release the boat from the piling, right between Indy's legs the black covered arm of a hidden crewmember appears from under the tarp taking hold of the throttle, steering the boat away from the pier. (01:02:40)

Super Grover

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)

Video

Continuity mistake: In the library scene Indy discovers the "X" high up on the balcony. The X is green with a grey background. When he breaks the tile to find the tomb the X has become a faint outline on the floor. (00:27:40 - 00:28:45)

Allanmceneaney

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Suggested correction: You still can see one "leg" of the X on the floor, it's only darker than viewed from above because the camera angle and illumination set used.

I think it is meant to be an optical illusion.

The "X" is first shown as a dark green "X" on a beige background. Next, we are shown the same dark green "X" that is barely visible over a green background. I think we are meant to understand that the beige square tiles were lifted away in a cut scene.

I see no reason why they would replace the floor just for the higher shot, it's the same floor throughout the scene. When they enter it's the same floor we see later as they are going into the hole. It's probably not a real marble floor, so they can use a styrofoam or plywood tile that Harrison can lift, one that matches the surrounding tiles. They don't shine as much as the rest of the floor. In the shot up high there is different lighting, so that could explain it. It just appears to be different. Of course, sudden different light can be seen as a revealing mistake.

lionhead

Suggested correction: Not a mistake, just a different viewing angle.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Plot hole: When Indy is stepping on the letters at the end, trying to spell out God's name, he steps on J, incorrectly, causing it to collapse. When he falls through, however, he grabs onto another letter so as not to fall down. The letters he grabs onto and pulls himself up are an L and a Y, which are not in the word Iehova, so should have collapsed too. (01:46:20)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Indy has just climbed the stairs in the library and is leaning over the rail to look at the X below, directly behind him is one of the worst props I've ever seen - a flat fake book case. (00:29:00)

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)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the tank goes over the cliff, the turret detaches upon impact. But in a subsequent shot, the tank is shown rolling over with the turret still attached. (01:36:35)

Continuity mistake: When Indy and gang are racing the Nazis to the canyon of the Crescent Moon, Indy looks at the Nazi convoy with binoculars. Close-ups of Indy show the sun is clearly behind him, and the binoculars are in his shadow. But then a glare from the lens alerts the Nazis to their presence. (01:24:25)

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Suggested correction: It is not clear that the glare is coming from the binoculars rather than the car behind them (after all, the Nazis target the car with the tank).

They see a glare rather than a car. But anyway, regardless, the problem remains that the sun is behind the car too.

Spiny Norman

Audio problem: When Indy confronts the butler at the castle, we hear the butler say, "If you are a Scottish lord then I am Mickey Mouse." But his lips say something else. He actually said "then I am Jesse Owens." This line was changed because they thought that a lot of the audience wouldn't know who Jesse Owens (the black athlete who won at the Berlin Olympics) was. (00:46:00)

Continuity mistake: In the temple in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, Indiana Jones rushes to his father's aid with the Holy Grail filled with water. He is shown pouring every last drop onto his father's wound by turning the Grail upside down, yet another camera angle shows his father clutching the grail to his chest, and there's still a bit of water in it.

Factual error: In this film, and in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the German vehicles are marked with the DAK (Deutsches Afrikakorps) symbol (a swastika over a palm tree.) The DAK and its symbol were not created until 1941 when Hitler tried to rescue his Italian allies in North Africa. (00:56:15)

Factual error: At the end of the classroom scene, Indy gives Marcus the Cross of Coronado. There is a pile of books on Indy's desk that he laters picks up and takes with him. One of the books (with the whitish spine, under the red book) is "Living Egypt", written by Paul Strand and James Aldridge. This book wasn't published until 1969, over 30 years after this movie takes place (1938). (00:15:20)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At one point Indiana's father blows the tail of the plane in which they were flying to pieces in an attempt to shoot at the Germans. This is obviously in a close-up studio shot. The next moment the plane is shown flying in the distance with its tail still intact. (01:17:45)

Revealing mistake: During the "What happens at 11 o'clock?" joke, Jr. counts down ("12, 11, 10!" or something like that) with his hand, matte lines surround his hand to the point where it almost disappears.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When the lead bandit opens the magic cart door to find young Indy running away on the track, a crew member wearing a white shirt can be seen reflected on the door.

Casual Person

Factual error: Jehovah is spelled Iehovah in Latin. However medieval languages (Latin or vernacular) had neither official rules nor the letter 'J'. It was not until the sixteenth century that the French humanist Pierre de la Ramée proposed to use the 'J' as a separate letter distinct from the 'I'. The 'J' could therefore not have been a trap at the time the test was constructed. (01:46:20)

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Suggested correction: The concept of what looks like a "J" was sometimes used when writing numbers in Roman numerals, originating sometime in the Middle Ages. While "J" did not exist as a letter at that time, what visually looked like a "J" did exist at the time the Trial was made. The purpose is to weed out those who can't spell the word of God...there's nothing implying that whoever created it meant for all the tiles to be understood as just letters.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: While Indy and Marcus are in the apartment in Venice, after Marcus says, "He knew everything, except the name of the city", he slams the diary shut. Then it's shown open, and he closes it a second time. When Indy takes it, it's once again open. (00:42:15)

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)

Henry: Come on, Junior.
Indiana: Will you please stop calling me Junior?
Sallah: Please, what does this mean? Always with this Junior?
Henry: That's his name: Henry Jones, Junior.
Indiana: I like Indiana.
Henry: We named the dog Indiana.
Sallah: The dog? You are named after the dog.
Marcus: Can we go home please?
Indiana: I have a lot of fond memories of that dog.

More quotes from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

Trivia: When Indy asks his father how he knew Elsa was a Nazi, Henry replies, "She talks in her sleep." Sean Connery ad-libbed this line. The cast and crew burst out laughing, which resulted in the scene being re-shot. The ad-libbed line remained in the film.

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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