Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

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: 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 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.

Continuity mistake: When Elsa's hand slips from its glove whilst Indy is holding on to her, Elsa falls and she is holding the glove in her right hand, but when she falls into the chasm, the glove has gone.

Continuity mistake: When Elsa is looking out over the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, the sun is low - it is close to sunset. However when Indy is riding through the very narrow canyon, the sunlight reaches the bottom. It is not the same time of day (or later the same day).

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: When Senior is rescued from the tank with a whip around his ankle, the whip dissappears a split second later, when he is being mounted on the horse.

Sacha

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When they are first looking over the cliff at the tank, Sean Connery's beard is quite full, and in a shot moments later, still looking off the cliff, it has been trimmed. This is due to the fact that this scene was filmed after principal photography had ended.

Continuity mistake: The back of the boat gets chewed up by the prop in the same place twice.

Continuity mistake: After Indy exits through the sewer with his hair all wet, he escapes Kazim's men. When he turns around a block his hair is nicely combed and loose, instead of sticky. Not too plausible when you're running for your life and your head is soaked in petrol.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the zeppelin, after Indy says "no ticket", everyone searches for their tickets and waves it at Indy. When the angle changes, a frame later, the people are searching for their tickets, no one is showing one.

Sacha

Video

Continuity mistake: In the library scene Indy discovers the "X" high up on the balcony. The X is green with a grey background. When he breaks the tile to find the tomb the X has become a faint outline on the floor. (00:27:40 - 00:28:45)

Allanmceneaney

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

Suggested correction: You still can see one "leg" of the X on the floor, it's only darker than viewed from above because the camera angle and illumination set used.

I think it is meant to be an optical illusion.

The "X" is first shown as a dark green "X" on a beige background. Next, we are shown the same dark green "X" that is barely visible over a green background. I think we are meant to understand that the beige square tiles were lifted away in a cut scene.

I see no reason why they would replace the floor just for the higher shot, it's the same floor throughout the scene. When they enter it's the same floor we see later as they are going into the hole. It's probably not a real marble floor, so they can use a styrofoam or plywood tile that Harrison can lift, one that matches the surrounding tiles. They don't shine as much as the rest of the floor. In the shot up high there is different lighting, so that could explain it. It just appears to be different. Of course, sudden different light can be seen as a revealing mistake.

lionhead

Suggested correction: Not a mistake, just a different viewing angle.

It's not just the viewing angle. The "X" is gilt-colored and bright but becomes extremely muted, almost a shadow when viewed at the lower angle. Another possible reason for the different appearance is the patterned perimeter. It too appears to be a very different color and muted. It's possible that in post-production, the scene processing done by the cinematography team adjusted the lower angle scene for a change in light levels due to close-ups, the time of day, or some other factor.

kaevanoff

More mistakes in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

[Henry has activated a secret lever which rotates him and Indiana from a room on fire to a room full of German soldiers.]
Henry Jones: Our situation has not improved.

More quotes from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
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

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