Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

Continuity mistake: When Young Indy is hoisted from the lion's carriage on the train, one of the baddies is holding a gun at him, in the next shot, the gun is down by his waist.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy gives his father water from the grail to drink, the grail glows from inside, and the gold inside it is bright and even. But when Indy pours water over the wound, the grail is dark inside and there are dark patches in the gold. Obviously, they had to take the light that made the grail glow out so it wouldn't be seen when Indy pours the water over his father.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: The 109s that are animated are shaped like the original German fuel injected ones. The shots where it's a real plane show the modified one with a RR Merlin engine that gives it a weird square nose.

Continuity mistake: As Sallah pulls Dr. Jones senior off the tread of the tank, Indy lets go of his whip and turns towards the German colonel and they continue fighting face-to-face. You can see that Indy punches the colonel so that he loses his balance and stumbles backwards. A split second later, the colonel is standing behind Jones with his arm around Indy's neck. They did not have nearly enough time to so radically change positions. (01:32:15)

Twotall

Continuity mistake: When Indiana pushes the Nazi colonel out of an open window, if you look carefully, the colonel fell a few metres out of the zeppelin before landing on a pile of suitcases, but when the colonel looks up, the zeppelin is several hundred metres above him, in too short a time to ascend that much.

Thumpback

Continuity mistake: When Indy enters the beach he steps on dry sand and then on the wet part. A frame later, in a wide angle, he is still stepping on dry sand.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Indiana is fighting on top of the tank, he kicks the periscope. It spins counter-clockwise, but the handles inside spin clockwise. (01:32:45)

Continuity mistake: Indy pours water from the grail into his father's mouth. Between two consecutive shots, the position of Indy's hand changes and the direction he pours changes 90 degrees.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: The shape of the exploded canon barrel on the tank changes a lot in the different shots. Especially between the scene right after the explosion and the scene where Indy is hanging under the barrel.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: When Indy meets Hitler, there is a shot over Indy's shoulder that shows his lips are slightly parted (relaxed). Cut to Indy's face and he closes his mouth tightly. In the very next shot, with no elapsed time, we see from Indy's shoulder again that Indy's mouth is relaxed as before. (01:10:15)

Phoenix

Continuity mistake: When Indy shoots the three soldiers on the tank they fall sideways but not off the tank, a few seconds later all three bodies have disappeared.

Video

Continuity mistake: When Sallah pulls his rifle and overtakes the Nazis at the Great Seal he is in the forefront with the Nazis in front of him and Indy and his father are behind him. Within the next scene he is now in the background with his rifle resting in his arms.

TD9898

Continuity mistake: When Indy is pouring the water from the Grail onto his father's wound, we see him pour all the water out. When his father takes the Grail, there's now water left inside.

Bishop73

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Automatic refilling seems to be the least of the miracles the Grail has performed.

LorgSkyegon

There was no evidence of this, plus we never see it refill before or after. How would it be empty when they first find it if it miraculously refilled itself? This is a poor correction just to make a correction.

Bishop73

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.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

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.

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

More mistakes in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
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

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.