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1!!FridgeBrilliance
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3* There was another reason to Fedora's calm and laid-back attitude toward Indiana during the chase scene in the beginning, apart from him [[WouldntHurtAChild being unwilling to hurt a child]] unlike his cronies. He realized almost immediately that the person taking the Cross of Coronado was not some adult graverobber but a kid, and a local one, to boot, as he wore a boy scout uniform and was on horseback. As the resolution of the chase scene showed, they had legal sanction for their dig the whole time. Hence, when they failed to catch Indiana at the dig site and he rode off, Fedora knew that all they would have to do is call the Sheriff and he would get the kid to hand over the Cross, thereby making the whole chase itself completely unnecessary. Had he been the one to call the shots, that's likely what would have happened. However, Panama Hat was the one in charge, and from what we see of him, he is just the kind of petty, mean-spirited asshole to sic his men on someone who took what was "rightfully" his, even if he could just let the Law do all the work.
4* When the Grail Knight says, "He chose... poorly", he's not referring to Donovan's selection of the Grail - he never picked the Grail, Elsa did. The Knight is stating Donovan's choice of ''allies'' was poor. The {{Irony}} was that Walter told Indy to trust no one. He didn't take his own advice.
5** He also chose to believe Elsa, and then chose to drink from the false grail right then and there. He also never considered asking Indy (the actual expert) for confirmation. ''Every'' choice he made was wrong.
6* Henry Sr. talks Indy out of trying to get the Grail by calling him Indiana. Not only is he recognizing him as an equal, by calling him his preferred name, but Henry Sr. had spent his whole life looking for the Grail, and he's decided it's time to go on without it. And afterwards, when Indy asks him what he found at the Grail temple, he says "Me? Illumination.", which is a CallBack to the beginning, as when Henry [[NotNowKiddo ignored him while working on the Grail diary]], he said "May he who illuminated this, illuminate me...".
7* When Donovan recruits Indy to look for the Holy Grail, he says "Find the man, and you will find the Grail.". He not only speaks of the Grail itself, but Indy's relationship with his father, with whom he's been estranged for years. It's this search for the Grail that brings them together.
8** Steven Spielberg said it himself in behind-the-scenes interviews, "the search for the father is the search for the Grail".
9* Indy hates his father because he was never there for him growing up, because he was working on his grail diary. But as an adult, despite his PapaWolf reputation from [[Film/IndianaJonesandTheTempleOfDoom the previous film]], Indy's never there for his children (his students) either! As a professor, he has dozens of students wanting to speak with him about his stacks of ungraded exams and papers and numerous phone messages, because he was focused on his own pursuits, such as the Cross of Coronado. And even in his adventuring life, he apparently sent his KidSidekick Short Round to boarding school and seldom if ever saw him again.
10* The results to choosing poorly with the Holy Grail is a no brainer for Catholics & Orthodox. This is why they are so picky about Communion. They aren't being unwelcoming. They are trying to protect those who don't know the dangers. To wit:
11-->''So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep [in death].'' (1 Cor 11:23-34 NIV)
12* Indy is implicitly or explicitly portrayed as a knight multiple times throughout the film, such as when he uses an improvised lance against a Nazi motorcycle-trooper, or when the grail-knight refers to him as such during the film's climatic scene. The scene with the tank takes on increased significance in light of this, as it portrays Indy as a lone hero on horseback fighting against a massive, unstoppable, firebreathing (in a manner of speaking) monster.
13** Also, tanks replaced armored knights on horseback, so this is Indy fighting against another, stronger knight, relying on his wits to outmatch his opponents superior strength and arms because his cause was just.
14** Sallah even refers to the tank as a 'steel beast', and that Indy's father is trapped inside it's 'belly'
15* Why Henry was able to hold up Indy from falling despite early on not being able to take on a Nazi around the same age in a fight? Because after drinking the grail, he wasn't just healed, the grail made him younger and stronger.
16** Well, it also probably takes skill and strength to fight a soldier, and it only takes some strength and leverage to hold up a younger man's weight. Plus, Jones Senior seems to be in pretty good physical condition for his age.
17** Henry Sr was braced, and even with that added advantage, he couldn't bring Indy's slack weight up -- he needed Indy to co-operate.
18** It's also quite possible that the whole dangling over the pit thing was carefully arranged to let the Joneses mend their relationship and become FireForgedFriends by providing a bit of fire to do the forging - after showing exactly just ''what'' would happen if someone fell into the chasm by driving Elsa mad enough to basically all but rip it open and jump into it. And almost [[CruelToBeKind brutally]] visualising what it would be like for Henry to lose Indy, to boot. Just as with Henry's gunshot wound being healed earlier: it's quite [[HealItWithFire an ordeal]], but it ''does'' sustainably "cure" them of their estrangement.
19* At the end of the movie, Henry's hat comes off after he's been shot, and he ends up leaving it behind in the temple. He has to improvise a new hat to protect his head on their ride into the sunset--this changing of hats represents Henry becoming a new person as a result of the "illumination" he experienced in the Grail temple.
20** Watch Henry's hat throughout the movie. Whenever he's being his gruff normal self, he's wearing his hat. EVERY single time he has an emotionally vulnerable moment, the hat comes off.
21** When Indy's hat gets blown off in the tank battle scene, Indy only gets it back after the wind blew it straight at him, almost miraculously. Since this takes place after ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', it wouldn't be too much of a stretch that [[GodWasMyCopilot God was watching and giving His blessing to Indy]].
22* The whole subplot between Indy and his father becomes this to those familiar with Grail lore as a big part of the Arthur legend was the reconciliation of Sir Galahad with his own estranged father, Sir Lancelot.
23** Such is also pointed out in the ''Graphic Adventure'' just before entering the Grail Temple.
24* Henry being wounded by Donovan allows him to fulfill the role of another figure in Grail lore, that of the Fisher King.
25* "This belongs in a museum!" "So do you!" Indy is a professor of archaeology, and really probably ''does'' belong in a museum. This line lampshades some of the more outlandish elements of the AdventureArchaeologist genre.
26* When Donovan crumbles to dust, the dust blows away and all that's left of him is his swastika pin. He claimed that he was just working with the Nazis and thought of them as allies of convenience, but like Elsa, when it counted he stood up with the enemies of everything the Grail stood for: beneath his excuses, justifications, and delusions, he was just another Nazi.
27** Further driving home this point, the pin in question appears to be a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Party_Badge Golden Party Badge]], awarded by the Nazis for either early and longstanding party membership or meritorious service to Nazi Germany. This means either Donovan was a Nazi before Nazi Germany even existed or (most likely) that his efforts in searching for the Grail earned him recognition from Hitler himself.
28* After Indy's fight with the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, their leader Kazim asks him "Why do you seek the cup of Christ? Is it for your glory or for His?" Indy doesn't answer one way or the other because he's just looking for his father at this point. After finding his father, they go after the grail to keep it from ending up in the hands of the Nazis. So, you could interpret this as seeking the grail for Christ's glory.
29* The choosing of the grail makes a lot of sense when you consider each of the trials to reach the grail was based on illusions, deceit, misconceptions, and misunderstandings. All in all, it brings a bit of weight to Henry Jones Sr's line about bringing "illumination":
30** The first trial is a corridor filled with dusty cobwebs, obscuring any and all sight into what lies beyond. There's an eerie sound, a movement of light behind the webs... and then you're dead. But really, it's just a mechanism with a saw-blade. If you're quick enough, you can just avoid it, there's no magic to it at all
31** The second is 'the word of god', in which you need to spell out the name 'JEHOVA', but as the film points out, in Latin it would be spelled with an I instead of a J. But Indy, despite all his knowledge, makes that very mistake, as virtually anyone else would do.
32** The third is the most literal example of an illusion, it literally is just an optical trick that anyone could get past if they looked at it from the right angle.
33** Donovan even says that the fancy, bejeweled gold cup Elsa picks is the cup of 'the king of kings', the cup you'd ''expect'' the glorious and holy Son of God to drink from. But this is just an illusion- in reality, Jesus was a humble carpenter who, despite being the Son of God, famously ''rejected'' fame and power for himself. In fact, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus ''ever'' call himself a king - that's what everyone ''else'' called him at the trials before his crucifixion; the most common epithet he used for ''himself'' was the Son of ''Man''. What makes this work is that the cup Indy picks is the only cup that's ''not'' grand and glorious; it's plain and unassuming, yet glowing within, representing who Jesus ''truly'' was- a ''man'' who used his power not for his own glory but to help others. Anyone who only cared about the more flashy parts would be lost amongst the glittering, gleaming fakes.
34*** An extra point: it's not even just picking the right cup from all the available ones, the grail itself is actually ''hidden'' behind the mounds of gold and silver. Look at the exact moment when Indy chooses a cup, and see how hard it is to actually ''see'' it among the others. The entire point was to obscure your vision with shiny treasures that would so naturally draw the eye while creating a visual barrier to hide the real cup, which is so plain it almost perfectly blends into the background of the cave. All along, it wasn't just a test of picking the right cup, it was ''another'' illusion.
35** Indy drinking from the grail was [[SecretTestOfCharacter another trial]]: his reason to drink was that he didn't want to put his father (for whom he was seeking the grail to cure him) in danger of dying of drinking from the wrong cup, and the only way to reliably exclude that was trying it on himself - in other words, he was putting his life on the line for his father. ''If'' the grail tests motivations, then Indy's would get him a pass with flying colors; so Indy can take the grail (to take it to Henry) - unlike Elsa later who just wants to be famous and is driven mad and thrown into a pit for it.
36--> There's only one way to find out.
37* The first trap in the temple seeks to kill people who don't kneel before God, so why does a second blade erupt from the floor? Since this was a trap built during the Crusades to protect a ''Christian'' artifact, it is designed to kill ''Muslims'' who bend forward after they kneel.
38* It would seem rather ironic for a renowned adventurer like Indiana Jones to ask his class to forget about "lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world" while saying that most of the work of all archaeology is done in the library by research and reading. Later we discover that Henry Jones Sr. is precisely that, an all-around professional "bookworm" who does all his research in the library or his personal study. The [[Heartwarming/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade heartwarming]] fridge brilliance comes here: for archeologist adventurer Indiana Jones his father, despite their estranged relationship, is the finest example of what an archeologist is supposed to be.
39* There's a clever little visual allegory with the false Grail. Look closely after Donovan carries it over to the water basin. The shot reveals that the base of the chalice, which is normally intended to be fairly heavy to keep such a work of art from falling over and being damaged, is instead hollow and made of a very thin layer of metal. This is probably thanks to the prop department using a prop chalice, but also implicitly gives away that it is a false Grail, as ''there is no substance in it.'' Conversely, when Indy selects the True Grail and drinks from it, the base of the cup is exactly as it appears, a simple strong support made of whole wood, with the gold glow ''inside'' the cup itself rather than outwardly flashy. This shows that indeed, it is a cup with holy substance to it.
40* While the exterior of the true Grail is a humble carpenter's cup, the interior glows as though coated in gold, befitting the cup that held the blood of the Son of God.
41
42!!FridgeHorror
43* Elsa Schneider knew that the grail she chose wasn't the right one. Even though Dr. Donovan was the BigBad, she still murdered someone in the presence of the Cup of Christ.
44** Murdered, or executed?
45** So she killed one Nazi. [[WhatMeasureIsAMook How many Nazis did Indy kill in this film?]]
46** The Cup of Christ can't object all that strongly to killing people who try to claim it for the wrong reasons, considering it's guarded by deathtraps and an armed warrior.
47*** See FridgeBrilliance above regarding "choosing".
48*** See also the fact that no one forced Donovan to drink from a strange cup that someone had picked from a whole range of strange cups in a dusty cave in the middle of the desert. He could have just taken it home and kept it on his mantlepiece as a nice souvenir. It was his choice to drink.
49** Why does Donovan continue to cling onto her screaming even after he's almost entirely rotted away? Because on some level at least, whatever's left of him realizes what she did and is probably giving TakingYouWithMe a try.
50* Given the location (the final resting place of the Holy Grail) and the reason for the pit's opening (greed/lust for power) it's entirely plausible that the pit Elsa fell into leads directly to Hell itself.
51* While the famous "No ticket!" scene is considered a funny moment, it can have some horrifying elements. Observe how quickly the other passengers reach for their tickets, and consider the scene from their eyes: You live in a country that has been forcibly seized by fascists who begin to do terrible things to people that you may have known for decades. You book a luxury trip (maybe an escape...) on a vehicle that ''should'' be safe, when a large man throws another man out to his death. This man turns and explains that the unfortunate evicted had no ticket. Is he a Party member in disguise? Is this another SS trick? No wonder they were so eager to show off their right to be on the blimp, they didn't want this soldier to kill them as well!
52** That will work only if you willingly forgot, that by the 1938, Hitler was an internationally-recognized legitimate ruler with enormous popular support in Germany, and even those who weren't NSDAP members perceived him as effective leader, that brought Germany back to military might and prosperity. Passengers were simply scared, that a steward who is ready to knock an SS officer out for not having a ticket is a violent lunatic no-one wants to confront.
53* Donovan's line about the treasures brought to bribe the king being "donated" by some of the finest families in Germany becomes much much darker when you're an adult with an understanding of history and you realize exactly what he means.
54** Donovan's original line was "some of the finest JEWISH families in all of Germany". Luckily for the editors, the king walks right in front of him right as he says the word "Jewish", so it was easy to edit out without lip sync issues.
55* While Donovan's death is pretty horrible for Elsa and Indy, it must have been much worse for Mrs. Donovan. The film never specifies whether Walter's wife was aware of his connections to the Nazis, and due to her only appearance in the film, whether she was aware of her husband's allegiances or not, it can be said that it looked that they loved each other. Assuming she didn't know about Walter's plans, Mrs. Donovan is now widowed and most than likely will never discover what happened to her husband, whose death will possibly go undiscovered given that nothing but dust remains of him now.
56** And that's just if Indy, Henry Sr. and Marcus keep it secret. If they report to the State Department that Donovan was a Nazi collaborator, it's very likely Mrs. Donovan and her friends and family will be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (which had just been formed that year to investigate fascists and their sympathizers).
57* Something that is very rarely addressed is exactly what happened to the Grail Knight's brothers, and how exactly he knows what happens to those who do not have the proper understanding of the Grail when they make their choice. The clues leading to the Grail are from the OTHER Crusaders, not someone who left, which is why there is no final clue for the Grail. The Grail Knight drank from the correct Grail. His brothers did not. They chose poorly.
58** The clues that lead to the Grail were given by the two brothers. Earlier, Indy recounts that according to legend 150 years after the three set out to find the Grail, the two brothers returned. Sir Richard was buried in Venice with the shield. The other brother returned to France, where, before dying of extreme old age (over 180 years old), he told a friar the story of himself and his brothers.
59* The movie takes place in 1938, one year before World War II breaks out. Which means Indy will frequently encounter Nazis for six more years during his archaeological travels. How terrifying… [[BaitAndSwitchComment for the Nazis.]]

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