Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

Continuity mistake: When the military caravan with Brody is driving through the canyon towards the Joneses and Sallah, the sun is behind Brody (discernable by the shade). But when Indy is looking down on them - from the front - the sun is also behind him.

Jacob La Cour

Plot hole: After Indy discovers the knight's tomb, the men after him light the petroleum and Jones dives under the liquid with the paper he used to copy the knight's shield. How could that paper have made it through that scene without gaining damage?

Revealing mistake: When fire sweeps through the catacombs under the church, you can see that the "rats" are completely fake. At the far left of the screen (widescreen) you can see several fake rats just hanging on the wall and not moving at all. In the "special features" section on the DVD, Steven Spielberg admitted that the rats were fake - he couldn't bring himself to roast live ones so he could not make this scene appear realistic.

Factual error: There are no catacombs in Venice! There are also no natural petroleum sources - but that seems secondary to the fact that the entire city is just below sea level - there are no sewers, no subways - nothing underground.

Continuity mistake: When Old Dr. Jones is holding Young Dr. Jones while he is reaching for the grail, watch Indy's left hand. In the shot from above, it is by his side, in the shot from below, he is holding the rock. It keeps switching from his side to the rock.

Continuity mistake: Indy falls off the side of the tank and gets his shoulder strap caught on the gun - this should not be possible because his shoulder strap is underneath his jacket, as can be seen when he gets back up onto the tank.

Continuity mistake: When the Nazi is strangling Indy with the chain, Indy looks down into the porthole of the tank and yells, "Dad!" Before he throws the gun down into the tank Indy's hat comes loose, but when the next shot is back on Indy, and he yells, "Dad! Dad, get out!" now his hat is back to normal.

Continuity mistake: After Sr. says "Let it go" as Indy is trying to get the grail, Indy is swinging and not being supported by the wall. The next camera angle shows him grasping the wall near his head. Switched back to Sr.'s view, he is again not holding the wall.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indiana is drinking champagne with the businessman in the fancy apartment he holds his glass by the stem in one shot and then by the bowl in the next shot. As the conversation continues the glass goes up and down in Indiana's hand like a yo-yo.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy and Vogel are fighting atop the tank we see the soles of Vogel's boots and there is a red hexagon dot under each heel, but while Indy is hanging off the tank's side mount gun the soles of Vogel's boots are different.

Super Grover

Continuity mistake: On the tank a soldier jumps from Indy's right to attack him. The following angle shows the soldier coming from the front.

Sacha

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Nazi Colonel discovers Henry Jones sen. aboard the zeppelin, Indy asks him for his flight ticket. In the first shot, Indy is standing right beside the colonel (the camera is behind the colonel and Indy comes in from the right), in the subsequent shot, Indy is standing behind the colonel.

Christoph Galuschka

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Indy and co. leave their horses a way from the steps to the temple, but when we cut to a closer shot they're very close to the entrance.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the Grail temple, when Salah says "Drop your guns please," he is holding a rifle. When Indy instructs his father a few seconds later to get up, Salah is not holding a rifle but has his hands crossed.

Continuity mistake: In the scene in the temple after the two soldiers attempt to get past the first task, the first soldier is seen on his back holding his head beside him. When Indy attempts the first task, both dead soldiers are on their stomachs with no heads in sight.

Continuity mistake: At the airport, someone is reading a newspaper. Instead of the year 1938, the date of the newspaper is 1918 (a guess: I think this mistake happened because the art director wrote the date in a rush, stretching the "3" in a way it seemed a "1" when the people of "atrezzo" saw it).

Continuity mistake: When the tank is about to go over the cliff you can see that there is no one sticking out of it, but in the next shot, Vogel can be seen sticking out and yelling.

[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

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