Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
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

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Plot hole: When Indy is stepping on the letters at the end, trying to spell out God's name, he steps on J, incorrectly, causing it to collapse. When he falls through, however, he grabs onto another letter so as not to fall down. The letters he grabs onto and pulls himself up are an L and a Y, which are not in the word Iehova, so should have collapsed too. (01:46:20)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Indy has just climbed the stairs in the library and is leaning over the rail to look at the X below, directly behind him is one of the worst props I've ever seen - a flat fake book case. (00:29:00)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Other mistake: At one point, Indy rolls off of the side of a tank, and somehow gets a strap around one of the guns pointing out from the sides. The end of the barrel has already been blown open by the rock he shoved in earlier. How did the strap get around that big cluster of metal, and then back again so he could climb back on the tank? (01:34:15 - 01:35:05)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the tank goes over the cliff, the turret detaches upon impact. But in a subsequent shot, the tank is shown rolling over with the turret still attached. (01:36:35)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At one point Indiana's father blows the tail of the plane in which they were flying to pieces in an attempt to shoot at the Germans. This is obviously in a close-up studio shot. The next moment the plane is shown flying in the distance with its tail still intact. (01:17:45)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When the lead bandit opens the magic cart door to find young Indy running away on the track, a crew member wearing a white shirt can be seen reflected on the door.

Casual Person

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: While Indy and Marcus are in the apartment in Venice, after Marcus says, "He knew everything, except the name of the city", he slams the diary shut. Then it's shown open, and he closes it a second time. When Indy takes it, it's once again open. (00:42:15)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Young Indy is trapped in the train car with the lion, he tosses up the whip to Fedora, and as he's being pulled up in the interior shot, he's wearing a stunt apparatus around his waist above his beaded belt. [The stunt double is also wearing a glove on his right hand holding what looks like skewered meat, to presumably draw the trained lion, but that's a lot harder to see without pausing]. (00:08:35)

Super Grover

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the speedboat scene where Dr Schneider rescues Indy and Kazim from the boat that is chopped up by the propeller of a ship, she driving the speedboat with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. Seconds later as she drives the speedboat away, the steering wheel is on the left-hand side, obviously a flipped shot. When the speedboat slows down to allow Kazim to alight at the jetty, Indy is at the wheel which is now back on the right-hand side. (00:39:55)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the beginning, when Indy is fighting aboard the Coronado ship, the very first time we see Indy in this scene (before we see him get punched), he is bleeding from the right side of his mouth. Throughout the remainder of the scene, he is bleeding from the left side of his mouth. (00:11:50)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Sean Connery drops his lighter while trying to burn the ropes, the lid is flipped to the right. When he blows on it the lid then changes position slightly relative to the pattern on the rug, then when the rug catches fire the lid's suddenly flipped completely to the left. (00:56:40)

Jon Sandys

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Factual error: As Indiana Jones opens the door to Dr. Jones' house, note the light switches just inside the front door. They are the kind developed in the late 1970s and still in use today, not consistent with the film's setting of 1938. (00:22:30)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: As Indy swings through the window to rescue his father, he gets hit on the head by a vase. His hat is all crumpled and tipped quite far back, then in the very next shot his hat is neat and level.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy takes the mail out of his pocket in the beginning of the film, he keeps the "Grail Diary" in his hand, but puts the letters down twice. Once before he opens the package and once after with the wrapper. (00:23:00)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy and the protector of the Grail are in the boat about to be destroyed by the rotors, there are panels on the top of the boat that pop up and are destroyed when the boat is moving backwards into the rotors. In the next shot, they are intact, then in the next shot, they are destroyed again. (00:39:20)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy and his father are being pursued by German soldiers on bikes, right after they break through the barrier, the barrier guard comes out of his post and waves the pursuing German soldiers to slow down in the background. In the next shot he's no longer there, and the barrier's quite far away, then in the following shot he's back, and Indy's not so far from the barrier again. (01:04:35)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Indy comes face-to-face with Hitler he hands over Henry's diary with its black elastic around the back cover, but in the closeup as the signature is being signed the elastic is around the front cover, then it's around the back cover again when Indy takes the diary back.

Super Grover

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

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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.

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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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