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The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.
1912 (young Indy prologue) and 1938 (the rest of the film).
The box was part of the "magic" car on a traveling railroad circus. It had a trap door in the bottom which dropped Indy onto the tracks below the train, where you see him running away.
Indy believed the man with the white hat did not deserve the golden cross because, as he says, "It belongs in a museum."
When Indy falls through one of the steps, you can see the floor from underneath. Some long, thin columns can be seen in the front, but contrary to what may be the initial thought, these do not support the correct tiles. Just compare: when Indy enters the room, freeze the frame. You can see the correct tile with the 'I' is actually bordering on the top-left side of the 'J' that Indy steps on. However, when he falls through, no column or support is seen anywhere close to him or underneath any tile within a 6 ft radius or so. Also, as Indy falls, he quickly grabs the ledges of the surrounding tiles. If only the correct tiles were supported, then many more tiles would have collapsed under the sudden force caused by his weight.Instead, watch closely when Indy steps on the 'O' and crushes the tile behind it; a metal pin can be seen inside the stone along the edge of the tile. The entire floor is probably reinforced with a metal framework, which keeps the floor together but allows indidual parts of the floor to collapse. The correct tiles are made of solid material, and the 'wrong' ones are meant to break easily.
There are two theories as to why Indy didn't see the bridge.Theory One: The bridge was textured to perfectly match the adjacent cliff wall and the blackness from the plummet below. This is supported by the fact that when the camera turns to the side we clearly see the solid structure, but when it turns back to Indy's point of view it blends right in with the wall. This is the most likely theory as Elsa and Donovan are also able to cross. It is also how the actual film effect was achieved with the model chasm that was used.Theory Two: Going with the mystical possibilities, the bridge wasn't actually there until Indy took his leap of faith. If Indy 'conjured' the bridge by the power of his faith, perhaps the bridge remained for some time before disappearing (explaining why Donovan and Elsa were able to cross it).
In real life, no. The illusion works in the film because a camera has monocular vision. In real life, a human, having binocular vision, would have been able to perceive a difference in depth between the bridge and the far wall.
The likely explanation for this plot hole is that the filmmakers may have intentionally left anachronistic scenes with the ancient surviving Crusader knight speaking modern English because having subtitled scenes with Indiana Jones (who is fluent in Latin and perhaps Old or Middle English) and the knight communicating in the knight's tongue (said to be French) would be stylistically against the grain of the series, as well as a factor which could lessen the drama of the scene.It is perhaps for this purpose George Lucas and Steven Spielberg chose to focus on visual storytelling regardless of plot holes and inverted logic that force the audience to suspend disbelief, consciously or not. If the film were to adhere to the laws of logic, it would be impossible, so compromises had to be made to clarify the story without demanding too much of the audience's attention.
Most likely, with a high degree of certainty. You can seen Elsa becoming increasingly shocked by Donovan's acts (especially after shooting Henry Jones). Before she chooses the cup, she gives Donovan a quick forced smile, which is probably meant to give him a false sense of security that she will pick the right cup. When Donovan starts to feel sick from drinking from the wrong cup, her expression is not surprised at all, as if she thinks this is exactly what he deserves. Additionally, after Donovan's demise, Elsa tells Indy that the Grail would not be made of gold, as the cup she gave to Donovan was.
At the heart-pounding hanging moment in the film where Indy is reaching for the grail, he stops because his father, for the first time in the entire movie, calls him "Indiana," instead of "Junior." Indy just got caught up in the moment of wanting the grail, which he didn't really seem to desire previously. Indy realized at the moment when his father called him "Indiana" that his own real search in the film was not for the holy grail, but for the relationship he'd always wanted with his father. It wouldn't have been worth it for Indy to have kept on striving for the grail just as the Nazis and Elsa had done and failed, risking his life and his father's; the grail just revealed each person's own greed.
Simply put...no. The easiest way to think of the Holy Grail is not as the cup of immortality, but as the fountain of youth. One sip won't make you immortal; you have to keep drinking from it. That would explain why the knights who left the cave after drinking from the Grail eventually died of extreme old age. Nothing in the film states that one becomes immortal by drinking from the Grail one time, and that were the case, it would be difficult to explain those knights' deaths.The grail knight does say that the grail itself cannot pass beyond the great seal, for that is the price of immortality. Therefore, they are not immortal. Additionally, we see in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that Henry Jones, Sr. has indeed passed away in the time since the events of Last Crusade.
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