Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

Visible crew/equipment: After Elsa gives Donavan the false Grail, he turns and you can see the reflection of the camera lens in the cup. (01:51:45)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When we first see the knight guarding the Grail, his cloak is tied off with a braided rope, which hangs down on his right side. It stays this way until he says "You have chosen wisely," where the rope has somehow shifted to his left side. The rope goes back to normal when the knight waves goodbye at the end of the movie. (01:49:10 - 01:54:05)

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.

Continuity mistake: When the white robed men ambush the Nazis just after they blow up Salah's car, there's a shot over a Nazi's shoulder as he fires at one of the white robed guys running up a hill. The Nazi's machine gun is held straight out and doesn't move but the dust that flies from the squibs suggest that he fired as he moved the gun right to left which he did not do. The odd thing is that AFTER the squibs go off, the Nazi turns his gun to the left. (01:25:55)

Factual error: When Hitler signs the Grail Diary, in the screen and VHS release he signs Adolph, not Adolf. This mistake was corrected in the DVD release. (01:07:35)

Factual error: When Indy and his Dad are in Berlin, there is a big book burning going on. But the only book burning that was held in Berlin was May 10th in 1933 - 5 years before the Joneses visit it in search for the Holy Grail. (01:07:50)

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

Continuity mistake: When Indy and Elsa are wading in the petroleum looking for the knight's tomb, Elsa unbuttons and opens her jacket and starts to take it off. In the next shot she opens her jacket and takes it off again. (00:34:15)

Lynette Carrington

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

Suggested correction: I watched this part five times, and Indy is not mouthing his father's lines. You can see slight movement in Indy's mouth when Henry is saying "when you were..," but that's not indicative of Indy mouthing the lines.

Phaneron

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the beginning where Indy is young, he fights some guys on that zoo train. When he's on the crate with the rhino in it, the background changes in each shot. Once there are trees behind and a split of a second later there are rocks, once there's a cliff and once a plain, and it all changes in splits of seconds as they change shots. (00:07:25)

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).

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Indiana and the Protector of the Grail are fighting in the boat that is about to be chewed up by the giant screw/propeller, when the angle changes to the top point of view, you can see the rope pulling the front of the boat around to position the rear for destruction... (00:39:10)

Continuity mistake: While Indy and his father are talking in the zeppelin, the amount of flowers in the vase keeps changing between shots.

Sacha

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.

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

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.