Corrected entry: When a second "volunteer" gets to the first challenge, he looks down and sees a body lying on the floor with its head lying next to it. Yet when he gets decapitated, his head flies off and rolls about 10 meters, before finally being stopped by a rock. (01:40:55)
Craig BryantCorrected entry: When Indiana finally breaks through the giant 'X' on the library floor, he simply pops out the remaining marble in that area. In reality, the marble "tiles" would have been held together by some sort of cement joint, rendering it impossible for him to remove a neat square of marble without using some sort of cutting tool first. (00:29:55)
JustJudyCorrection: the pieces were meant as a secret door.
Corrected entry: Elsa states that the knights came from France at the beginning of the Crusades. The original Crusaders came from Spain. France didn't get involved until later.
Correction: The first Crusade was Frankish in origin (http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/firstcrusade/Overview/Overview.htm). The Spanish had been fighting Moslems before, but not in the way of a Crusade.
Corrected entry: In the library scene, the Grail Protectors hit Marcus in the head and drag him. What kind of spies/soldiers/agents are they if they didn't find the grail diary on Marcus's pocket? Surely the book would be interesting to them, since it contains lots of directions to find the grail...
Correction: The Protectors have a much higher priority - eliminating Indy and Ilsa before they can find the directions to the Grail. They've got no reason to search the unconscious Marcus - it would simply waste time. There's no indication that they know about Henry's Grail diary, so they wouldn't know to look for it.
Tailkinker
Corrected entry: Both this movie and the first one revolve around Hitler's fascination with the occult. In reality, Hitler only had a mild interest with spiritual matters. Heinrich Himmler was the one with the strong interest in such things.
Grumpy ScotCorrection: We never see that it is literally Hitler ordering these missions, though the non-German characters generalize that Hitler is pursuing them. Someone within his administration, like Himmler, could be carrying these out without specific approval and the Americans would assume that it is Hitler's orders. Actions of a country are attributed to that country's leader.
PhoenixCorrected entry: How did the Coronado-guys manage to come after Indy so quickly? He had a horse, while they had a car, and they certainly couldn't drive it in that rocky landscape, so they would have to run some distance on foot.
Corrected entry: When River Phoenix first finds the whip in the car with the lion. He uses the whip, hits himself in the chin and is bleeding, the camera flashes to the lion, and when it flashes back, he is bleeding down the other side of his chin.
Correction: In both of these shots, and the others in the lion's car, he is bleeding from a diagonal cut that runs down the left side of his chin.
PhoenixCorrected entry: While Donovan and Indy are looking at the tablet, if you freeze the movie while it shows the tablet, you can clearly see the word "deorum", meaning "of the gods". Not something you would expect a Christian to be carrying around, considering they are monotheistic. (00:17:50)
Correction: Firstly if you have to pause the movie then it's not a mistake but aside from that, some early Christian theology believed that the holy trinity was to be interpreted literally and hence Christianity was not monotheistic.
tw_stuartThe tablet simply should not speak of gods, plural, because the Crusaders were monotheistic. The trinity (although a confusing concept) is not referred to as three gods. And other, obscure and far away versions of Christianity have nothing to do with it.
Spiny NormanActually it says "rex deorum nostrum" which means "Our king of the Gods." Meaning the one true God, above all other gods. If you read the few words before it left of the cross it fully says "The army of the king of the Gods.", meaning the templars I think.
lionheadCorrected entry: In the scene in the castle, the weather outside is changing dramatically. When Indy enters his father's room, it is very dark and pouring rain. When in Elsa's room, the sunrise is shining brightly through the windows. When in the large hall, we can hear thunder again and see reflections of water running down the windows.
Jacob La CourCorrection: This is actually very natural. I've been in the middle of terrible storm and suddenly it stopped for a few moments and she sun shone through. Then it started up again.
Corrected entry: Why is there a sea of petroleum below Venice - and how can it be below the water line? (The basement is deeper than the distance from the surface of the ground to the surface of the water in the next scene).
Jacob La CourCorrection: Petroleum has seeped into the sewer/catacomb system and is just floating on the surface of the water. It being below the water line is a simple matter of the basement being sealed off from the surrounding water.
Phixius Corrected entry: The Joneses leave Berlin in the Zeppeliner. After supposedly no more than 1-2 hours flight they escape in a biplane and crash after a few minutes. Nevertheless they have reached the Mediterrenean. That would have taken a lot longer.
Jacob La CourCorrection: We do not know how long the Zeppelin was under way when the Jones's escape with the biplane. It might actually have been four to five hours - there's no real indicator of the passed time.
Corrected entry: There is a problem with the following scene: The Nazi plane crashes into the tunnel, slides past Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and explodes when exiting the tunnel. The problem is that the plane shouldn't explode since its wings (filled with gas) were torn off. It couldn't have been a bomb attached to the plane either, since, as it is seen only seconds afterwards, a bomb would leave a big crater in the street and make it impossible for the car to go on. Yet, Harrison Ford has no problems at all driving through what's left of the plane.
Correction: The engine and hosing that delivers the gas to it is attached to the fuselage.
JC FernandezCorrected entry: When Indy and his father come to the crossroads after having escaped the Nazis the sign says "Berlin" and "Venedig". When they leave it says "Berlin" and "Venice". It's the same side of the sign both times.
Corrected entry: In the library scene Indy spots the Roman numeral X on the floor. The X is a dark green and the marble around it is a light green colour. When Indy eventually smashes through it the camera pans back to show that the X has gone and that all the marble is dark green. (00:27:50 - 00:28:45)
Correction: The X has not disappeared- it is just barely visible. Part of the challenge is that the X is only visible when looked upon at a height.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Indy and Dr. Shneider are looking for the Roman numerals in the library, look closely at the signs specifying where to go to find a specific category. You may need to use the Zoom button, but they are printed in English. They are in Venice: the signs should be in Italian.
Correction: Many public buildings have English signs in addition to the native language. The only airport I have ever been to that had signs only in its country's native language was in England, every other country having signs in more than one language. I've been to libraries, museums, restaurants and shopping centers in Russia with signs in both Russian and English.
Airports? Hardly relevant. I'm sure that in this century there are many places with English orientation. But an Italian library in 1938 (an extra nationalistic time, even apart from normal chauvinism)? At the very least the signs should have been bilingual.
Spiny NormanCorrected entry: When Indy has crashed into the lion's house on the train, he takes the whip in his left hand. In the next shot after seeing the lion you can see the whip is in Indy's right hand just before he hits the lion and makes his chin bleed. (00:08:25)
Correction: The switching of hands does not occur in consecutive shots. In the first shot Indy takes hold of the whip as we hear the familiar music. The second shot is a closeup of the lion roaring, and it's not until the third shot we see the whip in Indy's right hand before he uses it for the first time. There was ample time for the whip to merely change hands, while he was offscreen.
Super Grover Corrected entry: The two first frames of the shot when the German bike flies after Indiana obstructs the front wheel with a stick show a dummy in a motorcycle that never moves.
Correction: It has been established that if you have to use freeze frame or slow motion to see a mistake - it needs to be something such as a cameraman in the picture or something of that nature. The fact that they used a dummy that you can see for two freeze frames and is not really noticeable in real time cannot be contributed as a mistake.
Zwn AnnwnCorrected entry: That camouflage bridge at the end is in fact just a rock bridge painted to blend in with the other side of the canyon. Fair enough. That doesn't alter the fact that when Indy looks down into the void there is nothing there, just blackness. Camouflage or not, the bridge should be visible when looking straight down.
Correction: The bridge is actually invisible. The special effect used when the movie was made was a real bridge cleverly painted, that's true, but the effect was made to show how the bridge is invisible until you have the courage and the faith to step out onto it. So when Jones is looking down, he is actually seeing through the stone slab, and when he manages to step into the void and hits the bridge it becomes visible to him.
TwotallCorrected entry: When the flames are shooting down the tunnel, they overturn the coffin for protection. Just before this, however, Elsa is holding the torch, the next second it's gone. (00:35:45)
Correction: Well, obviously since she was in a state of panic, she dropped it. Or, since she knew they were going under highly flammable petroleum, she could have thrown it away from herself.
Corrected entry: When the tank driver has been shot, he leans on one of the levers. The tank slews round, saving Indy. In the next shot it shows the tank heading straight forward. This would not happen if the driver is still leaning on the lever. Even if one of the crew takes over, they would see the canyon up ahead and steer away from it.
Correction: The force of the turn could have made the driver fall off the lever, making it return to its normal position.
Correction: Considering that this "Booby Trap" was built about 1000 years ago and was powered by gears, you could assume that it wouldn't be precise enough to cut at the exact same speed each time it was tripped. So, each time someone walked through the trap and their head was sliced off it wouldn't land in the same place each time.