Corrected 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.
Corrected 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 Nazi convoy enters the canyon the Nazi leader says "it must be one or two miles away from here" but if he is German wouldn't he use kilometres instead of miles?
Correction: Not in the late '30s. It took a while longer to become a standard (ie. daily usage) even in Europe.
It had been the official system since 1872... But they aren't speaking German either, so we can simply consider it translated.
Corrected entry: When the Nazi drives the tank off the cliff and the turret falls off, the top of the tank body has no opening into, as Sallah would put it, "the belly of that steel beast". Obviously, a very cheap prop model tank with a turret glued on top.
Correction: The entrance is the dark spot on the top of the turret. It is visible as the tank falls off the cliff, in the closing shot on the Nazi, and when the tank hits the ground.
Corrected entry: During the scene in the Zeppelin, Sean Connery is reading his newspaper upside down. (01:11:30 - 01:12:40)
Correction: The paper is upside-down because Connery doesn't have his glasses on. He can't tell it's upside-down. That's why he squints when the German pulls the newspaper down.
Corrected entry: In the catacombs under the library in Venice (again) there is a mess of wrong historical references. Leaving aside the obvious difficulties of building catacombs in a city which is a LAKE, Venice was not founded until several centuries later (previously it was an empty swamp). Moreover, the sepulchre they find is obviously medieval (that is, even several centuries older than that) and the inscription on it is done in "romantic" XIX Century gothic style.
Correction: Venice was founded in the 5th century on a group of islands. By the Medieval era, it was a thriving republic. Venice having catacombs is unlikely due to geography- but not history. Venice was founded way before the middle ages- near the time of Rome's fall and in a time when Rome's catacombs were used.
Corrected entry: When Indiana Jones bumps into Adolf Hitler. Hitler takes the book from Indiana's hand, gets a pencil and signs his autograph. The signature finally used in the Close Up was readable. The real Hitler signature was unreadable. They originally had a signature expert to do this, but they decided to change it so that the audience could read it.
Correction: Not quite right. Hitler's autograph changed through the years, in 1938 it still was readable. See: http://www.simnet.is/gudnib12/gudnib12/hit1d.htm.
Corrected entry: For the first challenge "only the penitent man will pass", Indy realises that he must kneel. The first blade does miss him, but what about the second blade? Anyone else who kneeled as the instructions pointed out would have been killed by the second blade coming through the floor (which Indy somersaulted over after kneeling).
Correction: But if you're kneeling, then you're probably facing the floor, meaning that you can see the slot the blade comes out of and you can avoid the trap. That IS how Indy knew to avoid it, after all.
Corrected entry: After being pursued by the protectors of the grail in the streets of Venice, Indy and Else Schneider leap into a boat. As it's gaining momentum to speed off, we see one of the protectors hurl himself onto the back and roll over - we see him just about to fall off the edge. The shot then cuts to Else and Indy, and when the back of the boat is filmed again, the protector is securely gripping the rear of the boat.
Correction: He's "securely gripping the rear of the boat" because he never had an INSECURE hold. He grabbed onto something solid with his left hand when he first leaped onto the boat. The momentum of the leap swung the lower half of his body around, but he never lost his grip. The delay between this shot and the succeeding shot gives him plenty of time to swing his body back around for an even more secure purchase.
Corrected entry: The biplane attached to the airship is obviously meant as fighter support in case the zeppelin is attacked (after all, it is armed with a rear machine gun). The only problem is that it is an aged German D-VII from World War I. These planes were no longer built after 1918, and all common military planes of 1938 were vastly superior to the old biplanes. Why would you try to protect an airship with a 20-year-old biplane?
Correction: Actually the biplane is a Belgian Stampe S4. Looks a bit like a Tiger Moth. I doubt any real DVIIs are around and in any event, the Germans weren't flying them. As a footnote, in the 30s the US was experimenting with biplanes attached to dirigibles because of their slow stall speed- they could hook up to the big mother ship by matching the relatively slow air speed.
Corrected entry: Indy is being chased through Venice by the Brotherhood of the Fez. At this point he assumes they are bad guys and thinks nothing of killing a few of them. Then he has a fight with Kazeem and finds out that they aren't actually baddies. Kazeem seems quite happy to leave it at that and doesn't appear to mind that half his colleagues have in fact just been killed for no good reason.
Correction: Indy wasn't responsible for any of the deaths that occurred during the boat chase. The only man he had any interaction with was the man he punched in the face to throw off the side of the boat. The Brotherhood members who died chose, on their own, to drive through a space that was too narrow for their boat. What's Kazim going to do about it? Kill Indy in retribution? Especially when he's been disarmed and is now outnumbered two to one?
Corrected entry: Why doesnt Elza just drink from the cup while they are still in the room with the knight before Indy takes it to his father?
Correction: The Grail doesn't grant immortality after one drink - it requires the owner to drink regularly to maintain their life. Ilsa needed to take the Grail with her, hence the collapse of the cave and her subsequent demise.
Corrected entry: When Indy & his father first sit down in the airship, Henry picks up a paper and starts to read it. Look closely and you can see that it's upside down.
Correction: He doesn't have his glasses on; you even see him later squinting to read the paper. It's very likely that he didn't realise the paper was upside down because of his lack of glasses.
Corrected entry: When Indy opens the coffin under the library in Venice, the grail tablet is covered in dust, even though it has been covered by the lid for centuries.
Correction: The majority of dust is created by dead human skin. The decaying body would provide ample enough amounts of dust to cover a shield.
Corrected entry: Indy and Marcus seem to have no problem getting into Italy. Italy at this time was already a Fascist country, which would have made it quite difficult for two Americans to get in.
Corrected entry: When Indiana Jones is told about the tablet discovery by Donovan, Indiana says the three knights who find the grail during the first Crusade are French. When Indiana meets the last knight at the end of the movie, he speaks perfect English, and with an English accent.
Correction: He's also almost 900 years old and imbued with power by God Himself. I think a simple language would be no big deal at all.
How is he imbued by power from God?
How else do you explain him being almost a thousand years old?
Drinking from the cup. How does that make him speak English?
The Grail is imbued with the power of God because it held the blood of Christ. One would think that since he is essentially the God-appointed guardian of the Grail, he would have any knowledge needed to guard it.
Thats a lot of assumptions. The cup grants immortality, that's it. It doesn't make you a polyglot.
He's the appointed guardian of the Holy Grail, an artifact that grants eternal life and is protected by miraculous and physically impossible traps. The guardian is given whatever power needed to keep the Grail in the chamber.
He doesn't have to do anything to keep the cup in the chamber. The seal does that.
I suppose you can make the case about God giving the knight the ability to speak English, but why in an English accent? I would think he'd speak in a French or American accent.
Why? An American dialect is no more neutral than an English one. People who speak with a French accent do so because they are still using rules and habits learned speaking French when trying to speak another language.
Because languages and the people who speak them change over time, especially that long of a period, by the immigration and emigration of people, influence of other languages, etc... What he would have spoken then would have been Old French, not modern French. While they do share a modicum of similarity, they are not mutually intelligible due to changes in grammar, syntax, and word use. Old French, for instance, contains far more influence from the Germanic Frankish language and Celtic Gaulish than modern French.
A French accent from 900 years ago would sound nothing like a modern French accent. In the same way, what we consider to be a modern proper English accent is actually a fairly modern phenomenon designed to distinguish upper from lower class people.
Corrected 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.
Correction: Yes, it does. And the wavery effect in the middle of the shot is meant to be a translation so that viewers can understand where Indy is driving to.
What wavery effect? Not sure if joke or false memory. Still, stuff being in English for the benefit of the viewer isn't necessarily a mistake. In fact, the previous shot was of the other side of the sign.
Correction: It is not the same side of the sign, the last shot is from the front.
Corrected entry: At the book signing in Berlin, the camera pans from right to left and the guard at the very end of the line of soldiers (to the left) has his left hand raised in military salute to Hitler. All the other soldiers have their right hands extended.
Correction: The person in question could have an injured right arm that he simply can't lift.
Exactly. "If physical disability prevented raising the right arm, it was acceptable to raise the left." Kershaw, Ian (2001). The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192802064.
There's nothing about it in the script though. So between the two options, on the one hand (no pun intended!) that the creators were aware of that fact, and on the other hand, that it was a movie mistake that wasn't noticed, well... There's no possible reason why they'd put that in deliberately. Still, Jon decides, and the rules seem to be that behavioural oddities are not generally considered mistakes.
But not every single bit of background extra behaviour gets detailed in the script. The point is simply that based on what we see there's no way to decree something like this as a "mistake", because it has a perfectly reasonable in-universe explanation, and there's no point having an endless chain of bickering about it.
So just to summarise: the "perfectly reasonable explanation" is, then, that some random bystander has an extremely convincing prosthetic arm (which serves no purpose at all for he story); and NOT that one of the many "extras" simply made a mistake.
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.
Corrected entry: When Indy and his father are captured in the castle and the Germans leave (with Donovan) it's rainy and dark outside, yet when Indy and his father escape a few moments later and take the motorcycle it's clear daylight.
Correction: When the Joneses are tied up in the hall, light is streaming through the windows and making strong shadows on the floor. When Donovan leaves, it is shadowed but obviously not raining, therefore probably in a garage or covered area.
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.
Twotall