Corrected entry: When the operators try to shoot Indy and his father as they rotate back into the burning room, the bullets flying towards and ricocheting off the rotating wall are evidently tracer bullets. Normally, tracer bullets are not normally issued for handguns; they are used more for rifles and machine guns.
Corrected entry: When Indy makes a rubbing of the knights' shield in the tomb under the library, he dives underwater with it. This would ruin the paper and make it unreadable, yet we see him later with it and it's perfect. There's no way he had time to seal it in a water-tight container before he dived.
Correction: Indy used a wax crayon to make the rubbing,and he did it on wax paper. Both are waterproof.
Corrected entry: That knight in the temple of the grail - how does he know contemporary English after spending centuries in that cave? He's only alive because of the water - he's not imbued with mystical futuristic knowledge. A Medieval English knight (assuming he even is English, since Crusaders came from all over Europe) would be speaking either Old French or Middle English, neither of which would make any sense to the modern ear; they'd both sound like foreign languages.
Correction: Remember that he is the subject of supernatural powers, namely immortality. He has been chosen by God to guard the Holy Grail. It is not a stretch to assume that part of that entails the ability to automatically understand and converse with someone in a language he did not previously know. There are such stories in the Bible.
Corrected entry: Wouldn't Indiana Jones pass out from wearing a leather jacket in a hot desert?.
Gavin JacksonCorrection: As the stuntman and Harrison Ford probably spent many weeks in the jacket in the desert, the answer would have to be 'No'.
Soylent PurpleCorrected entry: When Indy and Marcus are in Indy's father's house, one of the letters in the mail on the desk has a three cent Texas centennial stamp on it, which was 1945, not 1938. This can easily be seen in the closeup.
Correction: The Texas Centennial was celebrated in 1936 to celebrate Texas's independence from Mexico in 1836, not its statehood in 1845, which some in the state still lament. Texas Centennial stamps could therefore have still been in circulation in 1938.
Corrected entry: As Donovan and Indy are looking at the tablet, Donovan's wife enters the room to say he is neglecting his guests. Donovan answers her and as she retreats from the room, she nods at Indy to acknowledge him, although in the very next shot, Indy's got his back to her. (00:19:40)
ChiChiCorrection: Indy did have his back to her, ignoring her, but being a good hostess, she nodded to him anyway. A lady like that would not be put off her manners by Indy's boorish behaviour, engrossed as he was with Donovan's artifacts and proposal.
Corrected entry: On the zeppelin, after Indy knocks the Nazi out, everyone stares at him in horror and confusion. He says to them, in plain English, "He didn't have a ticket" and EVERYONE on the zeppelin responds by getting out their tickets. The problem is, it's a German zeppelin leaving Berlin. Even if there were some people on board who knew English, it's highly unlikely that everybody on board would.
Correction: Well, first of all, it's a joke. But also when Indy says "No ticket," you can see that some of them are confused. One woman keeps repeating it, trying to figure out what he said. Then one or two people who DID understand get their tickets out, so everyone figures it out.
Corrected entry: When Elsa and Jones are in the catacombs, Elsa says that the Christians would have dug their own passages and burial chambers centuries later, so the knight shouldn't be with those tombs. However, the Crusades spread Catholicism, so the knight should be with the Christians.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Indy and Elsa are under an overturned casket in the burning catacombs and Indy is swimming with his eyes open looking for an exit, wouldn't his eye be burning since it is petroleum he is swimming in? When he comes up for air he doesn't seem bothered by it.
Correction: Petroleum floats on water. If all the liquid in the catacombs was petroleum, the entire block would have exploded in a gigantic fireball when the guardians lit it a bit later. So Indy was under the layer of petrol when he opened his eyes.
Grumpy ScotCorrected entry: In the scene where Indy and Kasim are fighting on the speedboat while it is being chopped up by the propeller of a ship, the windscreen on the boat is upright, and just as Indy says to Kasim " why are you trying to kill us?" the windscreen is lying flat.
Corrected entry: When Indiana Jones picks up the Holy Grail, he says "That's the cup of a carpenter." Harrison Ford was a carpenter before becoming an actor.
Correction: First off, this happens to be more of a coincidence than trivia since the Holy Grail belonged to Jesus Christ, and English translations of the Bible refer to Jesus as a carpenter. Plus, Harrison Ford was an actor before becoming a carpenter. He didn't become a carpenter until the 1970's when he needed to support his family, which he felt he wasn't able to do with his acting career.
Bishop73Corrected entry: When Indy is desperately trying to rescue his father during the desert tank chase, he successfully explodes one of the tank's cannon barrels, but then becomes (impossibly) entangled on the exploded barrel by his bag strap. Indy even dangles his entire weight from the strap for a couple of shots. For the Indiana Jones films, Indy's bag is and always has been a government-issue gas mask bag, made of raw canvas with decidedly weak cotton seam stitching (the gas mask bags were never expected to last more than a few years in service). For the movies, the bag's actual canvas web strap was replaced with a 60" length of seasoned and durable bridle leather (which can easily support the full weight of an adult human). The problem is not the strength of the leather strap; rather, the problem is the strength of the canvas bag stitching. The bag's strap attachments were never designed or fabricated to support full body weight, so the bag stitching should have ripped out immediately (and fatally) when Indy dangled from the cannon barrel.
Correction: The fact that Indy has had this bag since at least 8 years before they were produced notwithstanding, it's obvious he replaced the strap himself with something more durable due to the rough nature of his work as an explorer and archaeologist. It stands to reason that he used a much more durable thread and stitch when he did this for the same reason.
Phixius
Corrected entry: You can't swim in petroleum. The human body is much denser (and thus, would sink like a brick) when you would try to swim in it. Not only that, but the fumes above it are toxic, so you would also die of poisoning.
Friso94Correction: Yes, the human body is more dense than petroleum, however it doesn't necessarily mean you'll sink like a brick. You also need to take into account a person's body mass, fat distribution, and lung capacity, all of which make it possible to swim for short periods of time in oil. As for the inhalation of the fumes, the toxic effects are not likely to manifest immediately. People have been purposely inhaling gasoline, glue, aerosols and other hydrocarbons for years, and it takes long term exposure to cause death.
rswarriorAlthough, any ingestion of petroleum can cause immediate affects, such as nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and it would intensely burn your eyes if you got any in them. Speaking from experience.
They were in Venice. It is likely the tunnel was at or below water level. The petroleum is able to float on the surface of water. It is possible they would be able to swim underneath the layer of petroleum.
Corrected entry: When Indy is using the grail to heal his father, he empties the grail on the wound. Moments later there is water in the grail.
Correction: Hmm... a holy artifact performing a miracle refilling itself... Well, that's just odd, now isn't it?
Corrected entry: In the motorbike chase after the rescue of Indy's dad from the castle, you can see how they pass the border between Austria and Germany. The guardhouse is waving the Austrian flag. Austria however ceased to exist as a sovereign state after the annexation by Germany in March 1938. Looking at the weather it rather seems to be spring than winter. Therefore there would no longer be a guard at the border nor a guard house waving the Austrian flag.
Correction: The "anschluss" of Austria didn't happen overnight, although it did happen rather quickly. However, the people of Austria were not immediately integrated into Germany, for example the Jews were first to be subjected to the Nuremberg laws. Its safe to assume border guards stayed put during all of 1938 to prevent attempts of "unwanted" people entering Germany. The flag of Austria also couldn't have been replaced by the official flag of Ostmark until later in 1938. So during spring, which the movie probably takes place, the Austrian flag is still used on various places, especially unimportant ones like a small border post.
lionheadCorrected entry: When Indy kicks the near-skeletal form of Donovan against a wall, you can see that Donovan has part of his shirt on his arm. When Donovan smashes into a wall in the next shot, there is no shirt.
Correction: As you even said, he had part of his shirt on his arm. He is very quickly decaying and you see his clothes deteriorate and fall apart. There is also a strong wind blowing, that is pushing the clothes off his body. So, it's quite plausible, that when they switch to the scene where he's flying back, against the wall, that his clothes have completely dissolved and all that remained was his skeleton.
Corrected entry: When Indy and Henry are going around in the fireplace, the Germans are firing on them. They are firing tracer rounds, as we can see them spark on the fireplace. However, tracer rounds spark orange, not blue, as in the movie.
Correction: Only one in ten bullets loaded into a magazine will be a tracer round, and some marksmen can do with as few as one in twenty. All the other bullets will be regular metal jacket ball and will produce the pyrotechnics you see in the film.
Corrected entry: When Indy gets on the plane to go to Venice, the map traces his route from New York City. But when he first set out in Raiders of the Lost Ark - when he was working with Denholm Elliot at the same university - the map showed him starting out from California.
Correction: The fact that the map starts tracking his journey from a different starting point doesn't make it a mistake. He could have gone to New York for any number of reasons before setting out.
Jason HoffmanCorrected entry: Three people involved in this film have won the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. They are George Lucas, Harrison Ford, and Sean Connery.
Correction: So what? I'm sure that it's not unique in that regard. Trivia is about the film, not about coincidences relating to those who made it.
Tailkinker Corrected entry: When Indy and Elsa are back at the hotel after the boat accident, Elsa's room is wrecked. How did Indy not know she wrecked it herself or hear her wrecking it? He was only 2 doors down. He could hear the music playing in the bathroom but not her trashing her own room. He should have known she did it when she came out the bathroom surprised. Seriously, how can you be in the bathroom and not hear someone trashing your hotel room?
Correction: If the music was loud enough for him to hear it, it would have been loud enough to cover up the noise.
Correction: The Germans in the film also carry MP38 sub-machine guns, which are chambered for the same 9mm Parabellum round as the Lugers that are being fired in the scene in question. Being sub-machine guns and therefore fully automatic, they would invariably have been issued with tracer rounds.