Continuity mistake: On the ship near the beginning, after Indy drops the cross, water comes up and washes it towards the edge of the ship. It goes over a lip on the deck, inches away from falling over the side. However, when Indy goes to grab it, it's not over the lip. It's half on and half off.
Continuity mistake: When Elsa picks up the Holy Grail and tries to remove it from the Temple, Henry places his tie around the collar of his shirt, but in the next shot, he is now holding on the tie and places it around the collar a second time.
Continuity mistake: When Elsa says "How dare you kiss me!" and starts kissing Indy, her hand is under Indy's ear, but when the camera angle changes to behind her in the next shot, her hand is now pressing his ear.
Continuity mistake: During the boat chase in Venice, one of the boats blows up. A small piece of it with a motor comes flying out. In the next shot which is a wide shot, that piece of boat is gone.
Continuity mistake: The tank turret is at a completely different angle when it shoots at Jones when riding his horse.
Continuity mistake: Indy brings the carbon copy to Markus who says "The name of the city is Alexandreta", and a close-up shows the paper with no hands on it; a shot later Marcus' hand is on the paper.
Continuity mistake: The holes produced by the rhino's horn on the roof of the train carriage disappear in the wide shot when young Indy grabs onto the swinging pole.
Continuity mistake: When young Indy fights a baddie, the rhino sticks his horn through the roof and the baddie is pushed to the right. When the angle changes he is falling on the opposite side.
Continuity mistake: When young Indy confronts the lion, the way the whip is rolled changes between shots. The second time a small loop appears.
Continuity mistake: During the rhino scene, the roof of the carriage swaps from dark grey to blue before the rhino's horn goes through the roof.
Continuity mistake: When young Indy falls on the rhino carriage, there's two banners whipping by each of his legs. When the angle changes (to an obvious chroma background) the banner on the right is gone.
Continuity mistake: When young Indy breaks the lion's carriage ceiling and falls inside, a wooden plank falls on his stomach. When the angle changes the plank is gone.
Continuity mistake: When the movie beings, the Boy Scouts at the end of the row dismount the horses, then the angle changes and they dismount the horses again.
Continuity mistake: When the brotherhood member aims his gun at Elsa whilst she is driving in the boat, Elsa ducks downwards to avoid the shot, but in the next angle, she is sitting upright.
Continuity mistake: When Indy breaks through the window of the room where his father is locked up, you can see that it is cloudy and raining outside. However, after Henry says, "Junior, you did it!", in the next shot, there is a very intense and constant brightness (not the instantaneous brightness of lightning) coming through the broken window, as if it were sunny. This brightness disappears two shots later. (00:50:00)
Continuity mistake: When Indy climbs onto the circus train, he begins to be chased by Half Breed and Fedora. However, in the next shot, when Indy enters the reptile car, it is now Rough Rider who is behind Half Breed. (00:06:22)
Continuity mistake: Henry pulls up Indy with both arms, but when the shot changes he is pulling him up with one arm only.
Continuity mistake: When Indy is in the cliff reaching for the grail, his hand swaps between clean, dusty and sweaty, between shots.
Continuity mistake: Henry tells Indy "let it go" and Indy takes his left arm to where his father is. Half a second later his arm is away and he repeats the previous movement.
Continuity mistake: When the grail falls down the cliff and Elsa and Indy try to grab it, the ground it lies on is either yellow or brown. This changes back and forth and has nothing to do with lighting.
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