Continuity mistake: After the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword members begin shooting, in the wide shot of the canyon gunfight (with Indy, Henry and Sallah in the right corner of the screen), Vogel is standing behind the tank, shooting at the Brotherhood with his Luger. In the next shot, he's suddenly running with two soldiers. (01:25:47)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie, in the shot after Roscoe says "He's got our thing!", the lamp behind him and the lamp in front of Fedora disappear. Also, just after Roscoe says that line, immediately his voice is heard saying "Get him!", but his lips don't move. (00:04:44)
Continuity mistake: The remaining Nazi biker passes among his fallen compatriots following Indy. The latter looks over his shoulder at the biker. In the next shot, the background behind the Nazi is totally different (the bodies, the motorbikes and the hut have disappeared). (01:04:53)
Continuity mistake: When Nicola Scott and her soldiers enter the room where Indy and Henry were tied, the window next to the fireplace is on fire. In the next shot, there's no fire there. (01:01:42)
Continuity mistake: The scene when the barrel falls on the TNT box and explodes is flipped (Panama Hat is on the opposite stairs). (00:13:44)
Continuity mistake: In the wide shot of the Nazi convoy, Colonel Vogel can be seen walking alongside a troop truck. In the next shot, he is no longer there. A few seconds later, the colonel appears from the right side of the screen. (01:23:49)
Continuity mistake: When the soldier walks up the steps to attempt the first trial with his sword drawn, in the shots from the front, he's holding the sword on his right side. In the shots from behind, he's holding it on his left side.
Continuity mistake: During the boat chase, after the one boat blows up, another comes up behind Jones and Elsa. Jones starts turning the boat. In the next shot, the man in the boat behind them is shooting at them. They're not turning, they're going straight.
Continuity mistake: Before they make the second fighter pilot crash, Henry hands his bag to Indy. In that shot, the handle of Henry's umbrella is closer to Indy's left shoulder. But, in the next shot from in front of Indy, the handle is closer to his right shoulder. Then, when Henry pulls the umbrella out, the handle is back near Indy's left shoulder.
Continuity mistake: In the cave, young Indy is giving instructions, his hair is down both sides of his face. When he removes the snake saying "It's only a snake", his hair style is changed.
Continuity mistake: The gap between Indy and the chasing motorbikes changes considerably between shots, close to him than far apart the close again and at the checkpoint out of sight.
Continuity mistake: The dirt road the solo motorbike rider takes heading towards Indy is completely different to the road Indy uses just after he knocks the solo rider off.
Continuity mistake: When Indy is on the boat and says "Too small for two of us!", it pans down and you can see the cross halfway out of Indy's pouch. Both of the arms and head are on the outside. Only the bottom half is in his pouch. The bad guy then proceeds to open the pouch, revealing only the top before taking it out.
Continuity mistake: When they first meet, Walter Donovan hands Indiana the glass of champagne almost filled to the brim. The next shot shows Indy's glass with much less champagne in it.
Continuity mistake: Indiana has his satchel on him at the beginning of the 3 challenges and up to the point when he is entering the resting place of the grail. As soon as he enters the cavern where the Knight is, and he stands up, he no longer has the satchel.
Continuity mistake: Young Indy escapes from the four diggers, and you can see them exit the cave after him as he pauses. He moves down to and jumps onto the horse (missing the first time). He gets on the horse and you see the diggers, starting running from the exact same place that they were. It's like they paused their pursuit while the camera was not on them. If they kept running, they would've easily caught up with him before he jumped down.
Continuity mistake: When the boat scene starts, Indy passes by an iron tower. Then he stands to fight the baddie and the boat passes by the tower again.
Continuity mistake: When Henry surprises Marcus in the tank, there is nothing hanging out of the pocket on Marcus' suit. In the next shot, there is now a pendant hanging out of the pocket, but when Marcus shakes Henry's hand in the next shot, the pendant has disappeared.
Continuity mistake: When Indy shoots the 3 Nazis while rescuing his dad, one of them falls and breaks a bench and lands on his right side. When they leave the room, the bench is intact and he's on his left side.
Factual error: When the Nazis are meeting with the Sultan of Hatay he remarks he wants their Rolls Royce Phantom II, he quips about the size of the engine being 4.5L engine with 30HP. In reality, the Phantom II had a 7.7L I-6 engine with 40-50HP. Also, the vehicle shown in the movie is a Rolls-Royce 20/25HP Barker Saloon, not a Phantom II. It also makes little sense that the Nazis would be driving a Rolls Royce since it is a British car. In the novel, the car is said to be a Daimler-Benz, which matches what the Nazis actually used in real life.
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