Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, River Phoenix, Alison Doody, Julian Glover
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)
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)
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)
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.
Suggested correction: Not a mistake, just a different viewing angle.
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.
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.
Trivia: Harrison Ford was a Boy Scout in his youth, reaching the level of Life Scout. Steven Spielberg paid homage to this by making young Indy a Life Scout.
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.
[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.
[Over the deafening noise of ship engines.]
Indiana Jones: Are you crazy? Don't go between them!
Dr. Elsa Schneider: Go between them? Are you crazy?
Question: Are Indiana Jones and his father immortal at the end of the movie or does the grail's power become null and void when it crosses the seal? The knight said something like "The grail cannot cross the seal, that is the price of immortality." That makes it sound like they are not immortal at the end but I still want to check.
Chosen answer: They're not, no. An individual doesn't become immortal after one drink - it requires them to drink regularly in order to remain alive. So neither Jones has been rendered immortal, merely healed of any wounds that they might have. But your surmise is basically correct - as the Grail cannot leave the shrine, any individual wishing to use it to prolong their life must stay there if they wish to enjoy its effects.
Also, in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull, Henry Jones, Sr has passed away before the start of the story and therefore was not immortal.
Question: It seems that going after the grail diary in Berlin was just a plot point. Henry obviously knew about the trials in the cave by heart. The search for the holy grail has been a hobby of his for 40 years or so. Am I right?
Answer: Henry says, in response to Indy asking if he remembered the details of the trials: "I wrote them down in my diary so that I wouldn't have to remember." So, obviously he did NOT know them by heart. Also, as the other answer says, they didn't want the diary to either be in the Nazis' possession or be burned.
Answer: Neither Henry or Indiana would want the diary to remain in German hands. The Nazis wanted the Grail to exploit its power. As Elsa was a German scientist, she'd already gleaned enough knowledge from Henry and Indy to utilize the information contained within the diary. The diary also contained considerable data about the Grail and its history that Henry had researched over the years and would not have memorized and wanted to retain. He would also want to pass it on to Indy.
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.
"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.
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.
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).
The tests were made by the knights, but the seal had God's power in it. Just like the cup.
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.
Every fictional story is like that in some way. That's why it's called fictional. It's just a story.
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..." ♫);).
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.
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?).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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