Issues with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Sallah and Brody buffoonery

Sallah and Brody's portrayal is not consistent as last seen in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- in Raiders they were portrayed as competent professionals, in Last Crusade they act like buffoons.

The Brotherhood is chasing after Indy & Elsa, shooting guns and trying to kill them. A few of their members die in the effort. And then Indy and Kazim, the apparent leader of group, suddenly come to an understanding and all is well. WTF? They tried to burn Indy alive and machine gun him! Clearly they needed some temporary antagonists for Indy while the Nazis were waiting to be revealed.

Recycling the Nazis from Raiders to Last Crusade is like recycling the Death Star from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi to The Force Awakens.

Adding a run-in with Adolf Hitler was the beginning of Lucas' Gump-ification of Indy. From this moment on, Indy would have gratuitous encounters with historical figures and events, just like Forrest Gump does in his encounters with Elvis, JFK, Nixon, John Lennon, etc. As if being a globe-trotting hero wasn't enough to make Indy interesting, George now insists on inserting him into historical encounters with Adolf Hitler or fighting in the Mexican revolution. This adds nothing to the story. Just stop the historical tourism.

glissando is defined as "a continuous slide upward or downward between two notes." Last Crusade's score has too many notes that sustain or slide from note to note. Previous Indiana Jones movies were scored with more percussive, distinct non-sliding notes. See Keeping Up With the Joneses as an example of how the opening notes slide from one to the other.

There's a moment at 7m42s into the movie when young Indy extricates himself from the redhead goon's clutches on top of a train and looks back. We cut to his POV of the neighbouring train's door. A gunshot fires through the lock of the door. A cloud of smoke rises from the gunshot. Then the other pursuing goons open the door and being to crawl through. The problem is that we are presented with the thing Indy is reacting to (the gunshot) after he's reacted to it. That's why it seems all off-kilter and awkward.

This is all over a shot of Henry Jones house:
- BRODY: "Your father and I have been friends since time began. I've watched you grow up, Indy. And I've watched the two of you grow apart. I've never seen you this concerned about him before."
Now, because we don't see Brody speaking and because of the way the dialogue recording of Denholm Elliott sounds, I strongly suspect this to be Additional Dialog Recorded in order to paper over some scene problem. Only thing is that the additional dialogue sounds like such bland blah blah blah that it is difficult to figure out what story point the audience is supposed to glean from it. That Indy is concerned? He appears concerned when looking through Henry's rummaged house. So why do we need Brody telling us that Indy is concerned before we visually see that he is concerned? Nothing in that Brody line adds anything that we don't already know or won't learn later. It just feels like bland filler dialogue and it's recorded so cleanly that its smacks of an ADR add. Perhaps this unfinished/unpolished quality is a symptom of the script being rushed in order to meet the 1988 Writer's Guild Strike deadline.

Yawn. Is Indy an archaeologist or a museum security guard? And when did such dull platitudes start pouring out of Indy's mouth? What's next?
- "My hat fits my head."
- "My whip is very long but coils conveniently to my belt."
- "Nazis are bad."