This has always irritated me just a tiny bit:
One of Indy’s three tests is “Only the penitent man shall pass”, which means he must kneel to avoid the blade that goes over his head. Fine, but what about the next blade, which he has to roll over dramatically to avoid? Penitant man would have gotten his knees chopped off!
Has there ever been a really good fanwank about this? I am willing to accept an explanation if it’s a good one.
Last Crusade, you mean.
ETA - and the first one was just to get your attention. After that, you’re on your own, Mr. Wants the Grail So Bad.
Dammit! If a happening mod passes by, can you please change the title?
The second comes up from the floor to prevent further passage. In other words, the penitent man stops and kneels before he gets to it. Indy is still walking forward when he realizes what he needs to do. So he ducks down. But he doesn’t have time to stop. Instead, he rolls forward to dodge the headchopper. In so doing, he manages to roll right past the stopper blade.
(This fails to cover exactly why the second blade comes up after the first one).
I’m still waiting for an explanation of why he thought that Jehovah starts with an I in Latin, when it does not.
Yeah, this is one you have you kind of shrug off or go through some contortions to make sense of.
I always saw that the second one came up where the top of his head might be if he were bowing down “properly”. Maybe they had some prayer standards when the trap was designed? Maybe the second one is just in case a midget was trying to steal the grail? Or to stop people who were just ducking through because they say heads come hurtling back?
ETA: That’s probably a transcription from later on. Latin, and I think things like Greek, actually didn’t have a letter J, but were modified in later transcriptions for clarity between i and j.
Dammit. Now I want to know why there was even a J there at all? Was it just to trip up later scholars? The fact that they included it in the puzzle means they had started using the Letter J, but someone just wanted to be a butt hat and use the traditional spelling?
IANAE but I did take latin in college for two years, as well as Roman history. There is no J in Latin. This is from the Caesar times of Latin, which is what is taught in college, at least where I went. I think it’s the “Golden Age of Latin” but I need a cite for that. (Maybe this will do: Classical Latin - Wikipedia)
Further, the text you link to is a medieval text and they changed the pronunciation of Latin by that time and also used a different alphabet, which had C, K, S and J. Before then, Cs were all hard, like an english K. I was used for J and there are probably more I’m not remembering.
(Minor digression: In the book, not movie, of Timeline, when they go back in time, they can only use Latin to talk to them as none of them are good enough with the French of that time period. One of the people they talk to says that they pronounce Latin like “Cicero” or something like that. This is why. Language evolves.)
Edit: Teufelblitz - yes, done later at the time of the crusades, they would have had J and done it to trip up people who didn’t know Latin, which probably would have been peasants and others “unworthy.”
If Latin had evolved by that time to the point where they distinguish I and J, shouldn’t Jehovah then start with a J in Latin? If not, then there shouldn’t be both a J and I block. I don’t get that scene
Oh dear, look what I have started. Funny, the I/J conundrum doesn’t bother me at all. 
Yeah, that bugs me every time too. Oh well!
I suppose the I/J bit isn’t any worse than the crusader speaking passable modern English, as opposed to sounding like Beowulf.
The Crusades were well after the period when Beowulf was composed. But, yes, a 12th century crusader would have spoken pre-GVS Middle English.
As long as we’re cataloging the unbelievable parts of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, let’s add in the fact that Henry Jones was only twelve years older than his son.
Well, as Indy says, it’s not the years, but the mileage.
Of course, the crusaders weren’t completely isolated from civilization, and could have picked up evolutions in language.
Norman French, I should have thought.
.Meh.
Sean Connery is 12 years older than Harrison Ford, yes, but it’s never bothered me. Believe it or not, it* is *possible for an actor to play a character of a different age than himself.
/Hijack…
My favorite is Robert Redford at age 48ish playing a 19 year old in the opening act of The Natural.
Estelle Getty, you little slut. You had Bea Arthur six months before you were conceived.
Steve McQueen in The Blob was supposed to be a teenager. What was he, about 27 or so?
Well, there was John C. Reilly and Kristen Wiig playing Dewey Cox (14) and his girlfriend Edith (12). They were 42 and 34, respectively, at the time.
