Lazo - The Last Crusade

The Indiana Jones trilogy as a whole depicts the three stages of a knight's quest: mercenary, indentured, and Grail quest. There is, however, a depiction of all three stages in The Last Crusade. The condensing of the knight's journey into one film highlights the shift in authority figures as the knight transitions from mercenary to Grail quest.

Indy is first scene as a mercenary knight on the boat by the Portuguese coast. This is best shown by the transition that precedes this scene. The mercenary gives Young Indy his hat, and the film immediately shifts to 1938, underscoring that Indy is, on some level, imitating that rogue who gave him the hat so many years prior. Further, Indy is stealing. No matter how much he says, "It belongs in a museum," he is exercising his own rogue interpretations of right and wrong by stealing the Cross of Coronado. Even though he is getting the cross for a museum, he is answering to no one but himself.

Indy reclaims his position as an indentured knight when he answers the government's call to find his father and seek the Holy Grail. Here, he is serving two master: his father and his government. Indy must save his father because, well, he's his father. He is also once again helping his country by seeking the Grail to keep it from the Nazis, who would use it for evil. His motives are greater than that of money or his own interests; instead, they serve a greater authority in the forms of his father and government.


One of the most significant scenes comes after Indy has rescued Henry Jones, Sr. Father and son arrive at a physical fork in the road that represents the two paths Indy can take. He can either go to Venice and try to save Marcus, making him an indentured knight (interested in a greater good, but not a spiritual one) or head to Berlin to retrieve the Grail diary, becoming a Grail knight. Henry convinces Indy of the importance of the diary, saying that the quest for the Grail is bigger than any one man and emphasizes the spirituality of discovering it. They go to Berlin. Indy accepts the Grail quest with an understanding and faith in a greater power above humanity in the form of God.