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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
File:Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade A.jpg
Directed bySteven Spielberg
Written byGeorge Lucas (story)
Menno Mejes (story)
Jeffrey Boam (screenplay)
Produced byRobert Watts
StarringHarrison Ford
Sean Connery
Denholm Elliott
Alison Doody
John Rhys-Davies
Julian Glover
Music byJohn Williams
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
May 24, 1989
Running time
127 min.
LanguageEnglish
Budget$48,000,000

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, Alison Doody, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies. This film is the third released, though the twenty-fifth chronologically, in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (played by Connery) vanishes while pursuing a life-long search for the Holy Grail, Indiana must retrace his father's steps in the hopes of rescuing him – and the Grail – from the clutches of the Nazi military machine.

Production

After the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg returned to previously possible concepts of the Monkey King and a haunted castle, before Lucas suggested the Holy Grail. Spielberg had previously rejected it as too ethereal, but then came up with telling a father-son story. He thought, "The Grail that everybody seeks could be a metaphor for a son seeking reconciliation with a father and a father seeking reconciliation with a son."[1] This resonated with Lucas having used the story of Luke Skywalker trying to redeem his father Darth Vader in the Star Wars films.[2]

Spielberg suggested Sean Connery as Henry Jones Senior, feeling no one else but the first James Bond could pull off the role.[1] Further exploring Indiana as a character, something Harrison Ford wanted to do,[1] Lucas came up with a flashback of Indiana as a teenager to begin the film.[2] Menno Mejes, who worked on The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun with Spielberg, co-wrote the story with Lucas while Jeffrey Boam wrote the script's final draft. Filming began on May 16 1988 with a budget of $36 million, shooting in Venice, Almeria, Jordan, Austria, Germany, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Texas. Three weeks later River Phoenix, coached by Ford, shot his scenes. After viewing a rough cut, Spielberg added the motorbike chase which was shot at Lucas Valley.[2]

Plot

The film begins in 1912, with young Boy Scout Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr. trying to save the Cross of Coronado from grave robbers. This early adventure explains his use of a whip, his fear of snakes, and the scar on his chin, as well as his fedora and overall taste in clothes. Although he rescues the cross, the robbers tell the police that Indiana was the thief, and he is forced to return it, while his oblivious father is working on his research. The story then segues to 1938, with an adult Indy on the robbers' ship, the Coronado, off the Portuguese coast, finally retrieving the Cross and donating it to Marcus Brody's museum.

Later, he is summoned to meet the wealthy Walter Donovan, who informs him that his father, Henry Jones Sr., vanished while searching for a clue to the location of the Holy Grail, which has the power to grant immortality. The clue was an inscribed tablet containing the Holy Grail's exact location; however, the tablet had not survived intact and a more complete version would be needed. Indy and Marcus travel to Venice to meet Dr. Elsa Schneider to retrace his father's footsteps. Inside the library where his father was last seen, Indy finds that an "X" (inlaid in the floor) literally marks the spot. When he smashes through the floor, he finds ancient catacombs whose floor is filled with oil several feet deep. In particular it is the tomb of Sir Richard, a knight of the First Crusade, whose shield holds an inscription containing information needed to find the Grail (the inscription is identical to that of the tablet shown earlier to Indiana by Donovan). Indy's entry to the catacombs is seen by six members of The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secretive and fanatical religious cult that protects the Holy Grail. Initially, the cultists set fire to the oil in the catacombs to kill Indiana and Elsa. They survive when Indiana overturns Richard's sarcophagus such that he and Elsa can take refuge inside from the flames. They find a way to escape underwater (oil), and emerge from a sewer grate in Venice outside the church/library with Cruciform Sword cultists running out. Indiana and Elsa commandeer a motorboat to escape. In the ensuing chase, Indy fights off all except the leader, Kazim. After Jones convinces Kazim that he is looking for his father, not the Grail, Kazim tells him that his father is being held in Castle Brunwald near the Austrian-German border.

Indiana finds his father, but they are betrayed by Schneider and Donovan, who are working with the Nazis. His father's kidnapping had been staged to get him to solve the mystery of the Grail for them. Indy and Henry escape together and travel to Berlin to retrieve Henry's diary, which contains all he has learned of the Grail. The Joneses need the diary because it contains details of three "trials" (booby traps) and Henry has forgotten them. They arrive at a pro-Nazi book burning rally. Indiana attacks a guard for his uniform and dons it. He manages to corner Elsa, who has the diary, and convinces her to return it to him. While leaving the rally Indiana encounters Adolf Hitler who thinks the diary is an autograph book, takes it, opens it to the front cover, and signs his name.

Indy and Henry travel to an airport and steal aboard an LZ-138 Zeppelin. After traveling some of the distance to its destination, Indy notes the airship is turning around and presumes the Nazis have realized he, Henry, and the diary are onboard. Indy and Henry escape the ship by commandeering an attached fighter plane, Indy piloting and Henry in the gunner's seat. After evading Nazi dogfighters, Indy instructs Henry to fire the machine gun at the pursuing craft, and Henry accidentally shoots out the tailfin. Indy crash lands the plane and with his father steals a car from a motorist, continuing the escape. One chase plane is destroyed when it tries to follow the car through a tunnel. On a beach, when Indiana realizes his only remaining recourse is to shoot the pilot of the remaining plane (or possibly the plane's engine) with a small revolver and two bullets, Henry gives Indy his Victrola and uses his umbrella to stir up a flock of seagulls. The seagulls cause numerous bird strikes on the plane, crashing it. Meanwhile, the Nazis capture Brody in İskenderun, Turkey, and learn the starting point for the quest.

Al Khazneh ("The Treasury") at Petra, Jordan, location of the Holy Temple in the movie.

Donovan and Schneider take Brody with them, and are tracked down by Indy, Henry, and Sallah (Rhys-Davies), bent on rescuing their friend. Eventually their paths cross and lead to a confrontation, which also involves Kazim and the other members of the Brotherhood. They attempt to stop the Nazi caravan, but out-gunned and outnumbered, they are defeated. Henry attempts to rescue Brody from the tank he is being held in, but is himself captured. Indy jumps onto the tank and rescues the captives before it drives off a cliff, killing Donovan's aide, Colonel Vogel.

The quest reaches its climax at the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, in Hatay near İskenderun, the site of the temple housing the Grail. Donovan captures Indy in the temple and shoots Henry, forcing him to retrieve the Grail to heal him and save his life. Indy, guided by the diary, circumvents the deadly booby traps, reaching a room where a knight of the First Crusade, kept alive by the power of the Grail, has hidden it amongst many false cups. Donovan and Schneider follow. The knight informs them that, if they wish for the Grail, they must choose wisely for it, for while drinking from the true Grail will bring them everlasting life, a false Grail will take it from them. Schneider identifies a golden, bejeweled cup as the Grail, and Donovan impatiently drinks from it. However, he suddenly realizes that the Grail is false and dies in a gruesome manner, aging rapidly into dust.

Indy picks out the true Grail, a plain wooden cup with a gold interior, worthy of a humble carpenter, and proves it by drinking from it without harm. Indy fills the Grail with water and uses it to heal Henry. Despite a warning from the knight not to let the Grail go past the Great Seal (in accordance with the Law of God), Schneider ignores the advice and tries to leave with the Grail. As a result of crossing the Seal, the interior starts to collapse, and she loses her balance at the edge of a newly-formed crevasse. Indy grabs her hand, but she greedily reaches for the Grail, tantalizingly just out of reach, and falls into the abyss. Then Indy loses his footing and finds himself in the same situation, with his father keeping him from following the same fate as Schneider. He also tries to get the Grail, until Henry says simply, "Indiana...Indiana...let it go." (Until now, Henry had been calling Indy "Junior.") Indy reluctantly obeys, and the Grail along with the old knight are left in the ruins as they escape the crumbling temple.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ends with Henry Sr. revealing that "Indiana" was the family dog's name, relating the real origin of the character's name (much to the amusement of Sallah), and that Indy's real name is Henry Jones, Jr. Indy, his father, Sallah, and Marcus then ride off into the sunset.

Reaction

This installment in the Indiana Jones series has more humor than the previous two films. The humor is mainly shown through the relationship between Indiana and his father. Marcus Brody is also a much less serious character than his previous appearance in Raiders of the Lost Ark, being described as a museum curator who "once got lost in his own museum". The lightheartedness of the movie especially contrasts to its predecessor Temple of Doom, which is usually cited as the "darkest" in the trilogy.[citation needed]

The Last Crusade is estimated to have grossed over $197 million in the United States and $277 million elsewhere. These sales figures put the film second to Batman in the United States and first globally for 1989.[3] The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing.

As of March 13, 2007, it was ranked as #119 on IMDb's list of the Top 250 Movies of All Time.[4]

The stunt where Indy jumps from a horse down onto a tank — performed by legendary stunt man and coordinator, Vic Armstrong — was voted one of the 10 best stunts of all time by Sky Movies viewers in the UK in 2002.

Cast

File:Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade B.jpg
Alternate promotional poster of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Actor/Actress Role(s)
Harrison Ford Indiana Jones
Sean Connery Professor Henry Jones
Denholm Elliott Dr. Marcus Brody
Alison Doody Dr. Elsa Schneider
John Rhys-Davies Sallah
Julian Glover Walter Donovan
River Phoenix Young Indy
Michael Byrne Vogel
Kevork Malikyan Kazim
Robert Eddison Grail Knight
Richard Young Fedora
Alexei Sayle Sultan
Alex Hyde-White Young Henry (scenes deleted)
Paul Maxwell Panama Hat
Isla Blair Mrs. Donovan (as Mrs. Glover)
Vernon Dobtcheff Butler
J.J. Hardy Herman
Bradley Gregg Roscoe
Jeff O'Haco Half Breed
Vince Deadrick Sr. Rough Rider
Marc Miles Sheriff
Ted Grossman Deputy Sheriff
Tim Hiser Young Panama Hat
Larry Sanders Scout Master
Will Miles Scout #1
David Murray Scout #2
Frederick Jaeger WWI Ace
Jerry Harte Professor Stanton
Billy J. Mitchell Dr. Mulbray
  • Harrison Ford and Pat Roach are the only actors to appear in all three films in the trilogy (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). In Last Crusade, Roach appears only briefly as the Nazi running alongside Vogel towards the Zeppelin. He was to fight Indy as he and Henry Sr. try to steal the biplane from the belly of the zeppelin, but the scene was cut as Spielberg felt it made the film run too long.
  • River Phoenix, who plays the younger version of Harrison Ford's character, played Ford's character's son in The Mosquito Coast. Ford personally recommended Phoenix for the part, citing that of all the young actors working at the time, River Phoenix was the one who looked the most like himself when he was around that age. Ford had also offered advice to Phoenix on how to stay grounded in the high pressure world of Hollywood and was reportedly grief-stricken when he heard of Phoenix's death four years later in 1993.

Soundtrack

Main article: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (soundtrack)

Video games

In 1989, Lucasfilm Games released Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game, both based on the film. In its era, the adventure game is generally considered one of the best of its genre, right along with Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, which are all also produced by Lucasfilm Games. There are also two completely different games for the NES called "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", with no subtitle to differentiate the two versions. The newer game of that title is a port of the action game, while the older game was a different action game. There was also an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game released for Game Boy and Game Gear. Lucasfilm games are also currently producing a new Indiana Jones game for the next-generation games consoles, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

The last part of the video game Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, released in 1994 by JVC for Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System, is based entirely on the film. Several sequences from the film are reproduced (the biplane dogfight and battle in the tank against Vogel for example); however, several scenes of the film such as the boat chase in Venice, the start of the movie where Indy appears as young boy, Indy getting the Cross of Coronado in the Portuguese coast, the motorcycle chase and the "Word of God" and the "Leap of Faith" tests in the Grail Temple level were not featured in this game. LucasArts and Factor 5 developed the game.

DVD release

File:Lastcrusadedvd.jpeg
DVD cover of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released on laserdisc and VHS in 1990 and on DVD in October 2003. A VHS release in 1999 and the DVD release was packaged with the previous two theatrical films in the series: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". Empire. 2006-09-29. pp. 96–100. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ a b c Marcus Hearn (2005). The Cinema of George Lucas. New York City: Harry N. Abrams Inc. pp. 162–5. ISBN 0-8109-4968-7.
  3. ^ "IMDb: Business Data for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".
  4. ^ "IMDb Top 250".
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