Awesome / Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

"You call this archeology?"

• The opening scene with a teenaged Indy stealing the Cross of Coronado from a group of adults by making his way through a Circus Train, getting traumatized by snakes and taming lions along the way. In the end, he has to give up the cross. The fedora guy gives him his fedora, and when he looks up...
  • Better still, Indy finally completes his personal obsessive quest after that Age Cut, besting his oldest foe and closing out that chapter in his life.
• Indiana finally makes up with his father.
  • "Don't call me Junior!!!"
  • "No ticket."
• And of course, Henry Jones, Sr. gets his own.
  • Taking out a Nazi fighter plane with an umbrella and a flock of seagulls.
    Henry Jones, Sr.: I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne. "Let my armies be the rocks and the trees, and the birds in the sky!"
  • Telling Colonel Vogel exactly what he thinks about Those Wacky Nazis.
    Vogel: What is in the book? That miserable little diary of yours. [Slaps Henry with his glove] We have the map. The book is useless. And yet you come all the way back to Berlin to get it. Why. [Slap] What are you hiding? [Slap] What does the diary tell you that it does not tell us?
    [Vogel goes to slap Henry again, but Henry grabs his wrist before he can do so and glares right into his eyes.]
    Henry: It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!
  • He takes down a Nazi soldier in hand-to-hand combat with nothing but an ink pen, and then blows up an entire truckful of Nazi soldiers.
  • Also a Heartwarming Moment, but "Indiana. Let it go."
  • Doubles as a Funny Moment (and possible Squick) but "She talks in her sleep."
  • All in all, despite their (many) differences, it is very clear that Indy is his father's son.
• This moment:
  Indiana: Two selfless martyrs... Jesus Ch-
  (Henry slaps him lightly)
  Henry: That's for blasphemy.
• Indiana Jones on a horse vs. a tank and three trucks all full of Nazis. He tricks the tank into running over one of the cars, stuffs a rock down the side-cannon's barrel, jumps onto the tank, fights Colonel Vogel, shoots three Nazis in one shot, throws the gun down to his dad so he can kill the Nazis in the tank and blow up the other truckload of soldiers (all while still getting beaten on), falls off of the tank into certain doom, gets back on anyway, chucks his best friend off the tank, saves his dad from being run over by the tank while Vogel is still breaking ribs, manages to get his dad off of the tank, and manages to jump off himself just as it falls off a cliff, taking Vogel with it. And of course afterwards when everybody thinks he's dead, he climbs back up.
  • Made even more awesome by the fact that just before he realizes, "this tank is going off a cliff and I need to get the $#**% off", his trademark fedora gets blown off in the wind and we think "Oh no, is this the end?". Then when he gets back off the cliff, bruised, bleeding, and for crying out loud just plain exhausted, with a look on his face that says "Hey, you guys go on ahead and find the Holy Grail without me, I'm just gonna lie down and die", his fedora blows back onscreen, he gives it a look, and resolutely puts it on and goes to join the others. Maybe Hitler declaring war on him wasn't such of an overreaction after all.
  • At one point during the tank scene, Marcus actually managed to knock out a Nazi soldier in the tank by lightly hitting him with a used canister shell, and as the soldier was knocked unconscious, he ends up accidentally firing the pistol he was holding, which then kills the driver of the tank after the bullet ricochets around until it hits the driver's head...then his limp body ends up falling against the directional stick, making the tank veer right and saving Indy from being crushed by a rock wall.
• Those crazy Knights Templar booby traps. The fact that they're still killing fools hundreds of years later, all while adhering to Christian themes, showed that those Templars were Religious Genius Bruisers of the highest caliber.
• Hey Indy, I bet you can't joust on a motorbike with a flagpo— NO WAY!!! Well, I bet you can't jam a flagpole into one of the Nazi biker's tire's and flip it ove— WHAT THE %$@*#!!! THE MYTHBUSTERS SAID THAT WAS IMPOSSIBLE!!!
  • Indy rejects the MythBusters' reality and substitutes his own. How, you ask? By being INDIANA-FUCKING-JONES, that's how!
    • It's one of the few times his dad (a professor of medieval studies) is impressed.
  • Maybe bike-o flip-po isn't possible, but the fact that it still would've taken the Nazi out of the chase = still awesome.
• The Leap of Faith, and the accompanying music.
• Sallah gets a couple:
  • At the climax of the legendary tank fight scene, while Henry is trapped on the tank track getting his back shredded to hell and Indy is preoccupied trying to simultaneously fend off Vogel and save his dad from being thrown in front of the tank, Sallah makes an aptly epic entrance, charging in through a dustcloud, at full steam on horseback, to rescue Henry and tip the balance of the battle in Indy's favor.
  • While The Nazis and their escort are visibly freaked out after watching the Grail heal Henry. Said Cohorts run like hell out of the temple leaving only the few Nazis left. Sallah takes the chance to hold the remaining few at gun point and making them drop their guns.
    Sallah: Drop your guns... please.
• The ending ITSELF is an awesome moment. Watching the heroes ride off with the theme in full force leaves you feeling empowered! Also a Heartwarming Moment.
  • For years, Steven Spielberg was against making a fourth movie; that image was the perfect note to end the series on.
• The fight between Indy and Kazim (the man with the fez who tries to kill him in Venice) eventually devolves into the now-disabled boat they're on slowly being fed into a ship's propeller and Jones demands answers with the threat of death over their heads. Kazim is having none of it and dares him to let them die.
  Jones: Why are you trying to kill us?!
  Kazim: Because you're looking for the Holy Grail!
  Jones: My father was looking for the Holy Grail, did you kill him too?!
  Kazim: No!
  Jones: (as the boat is being turned to matchsticks just a few feet from them) Where is he?! Talk or you're dead! Damn it, tell me!! Tell me!!!
  Kazim: If you don't let go, Doctor Jones, we'll both die!
  Jones: Then we'll die!
  Kazim: My soul is prepared! How's yours?!
  Jones: This is your last chance!
  Kazim: No, Doctor Jones—it's yours!
  • And speaking of Kazim—after he and Indy part on peaceful terms, he comes back later in the movie with reinforcements to help Indy against Those Wacky Nazis. He dies fighting to protect the Grail, which is probably how he would've wanted to go.
• Even Marcus gets a nice little put-down towards Donovan, when the latter offers him a water flask in the baking hot desert climate:
  Marcus: [Calmly] I'd rather spit in your face, but seeing as I haven't got any spit...
  • And before that, too: "You are meddling with forces you cannot possibly comprehend."
  • He gets another understated moment in the tank fight, saving Henry by nonchalantly knocking out a Nazi with the closest blunt object.
• Awesome Music: Typical John Williams awesomeness:
  • The main Indiana Jones theme is always awesome, but never moreso then when it plays out during the ending when our heroes all ride off into the sunset together.
  • The motorcycle chase soundtrack is just as thrilling as the scene itself.
  • The tank fight scene is likewise backed by an epic soundtrack that compliments every individual segment of the action perfectly.
  • Williams' theme for the Holy Grail, while noticeably more subdued then the rest of the soundtrack, is a solid piece of music that instills a sense of reverence towards the Grail and its legend. Its full awesomeness is delivered as it builds to its full-orchestra rendition, when the Grail melts away Henry's mortal gunshot wound, leaving only clean, healthy flesh in its place.

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