The quest for the grail is not archeology, it's a race against evil.
No 306 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Director Steven Spielberg When watching the films as a set in succession (as I have just done) - the qualities of this film (which I always remembered as the weakest of the original trilogy) really shine through. After the darkness of face melting and nightmare tribes, the far more jokey vibe of this film seem a lot more appropriate. There is a lot of good in The Last Crusade.... lets check it out. Really - what we're doing with the trilogy is building and then - to a certain degree - deconstructing a legend. So where Raiders of the Lost Ark gave us the hero and a romantic foil who is his equal, the sequels begin to look at how he behaves with people less suited to his adventurous lifestyle. Whether they be children and civilians (Short Round shows Indy's paternal streak far more beautifully than his relationship with Mutt... but I'm jumping forward a film) or whether they be his own estranged family. The films show us just enough...