Written by Mr. Mouseburger 29th Jun 2005
Donovan is an American who has joined forces with the Nazis to uncover the Holy Grail. They have found the final resting place of the Grail, but have reached an impasse as a series of fiendishly cunning traps keep dispatching his men. Donovan realises his only hope is Jones, but Jones is not prepared to play ball. When Donovan shoots Henry, Indy’s father, Jones realises that only the healing power of the grail can save his dad.
Suffice it to say, Jones negotiates his way though the traps and ends up in a room with a centuries old crusader knight and a smorgasbord of grails. Donovan and Elsa have sneakily followed behind Jones and enter the room too. However, the knight explains there is one final puzzle to negotiate. Choosing the real grail bestows eternal life on the drinker; a false grail takes their life away. Donovan is at a loss to choose, but Elsa is supremely confidant and offers to choose for him.
The knight looks after the precious things of the cave
Now, bearing in mind that Jesus was a humble man, born into a poor family it is hard to imagine that the grail would be the emerald, ruby and diamond encrusted gold chalice that Elsa chooses, but Donovan agrees with her choice saying, “this really is the cup of the king of kings”. Donovan puts the chalice into the font and drinks from it.
Anyone who drinks from a stagnant, 700 year old font is bound to feel unwell
At first, nothing appears to happen, then Donovan gasps in pain. We then watch as Donovan ages rapidly and, as he clings on to Elsa, we see him decompose in front of her. Elsa screams in horror at the sight until Jones intervenes and releases Donovan’s grip on her. This results in Donovan’s skeleton being blasted across the room where it smashes to pieces against the wall.
Elsa has a thing for older men, but draws the line at corpses, much to Donovan's dismay
The stoic knight, who has been silent until now, points out the bleeding obvious when he says ”he chose poorly”.
You fail to note that Elsa quite obviously deliberately gave Donovan the wrong cup. For one, the camera shoots a shot at a knowing Elsa as Donovan has his first convulsion. And when helping Indiana find the real Grail, she says unprompted, "It would not be made of gold."
Hi Jonah, I am not sure i agree with you, it is an interesting theory though.
If she was actaully trying to kill Donovan, which would be incredibly callous to say the least, then why did she wait until now to help Jones? Also, why did she completely disregard the knights warning about not taking the cup beyond the great seal too??
In my opinion, i just think she was a poor archaeologist. She couldn't even find the knights tomb in Venice without the help of Henry and then Indy.
I think that "it would not be made of gold" comment was Elsa having a blonde moment
What do other people think??
Mouseburger
This may be an example of "old age" that isn't dull, boring and sad. One of the only ones in cinema history may I add!
I may just be whining but I believe my post was pushed down by other topics before anyone had a chance to read it, I don't mean to complain, I just believe that I have a point about the old age thing, seeing that old age is a bit of a new category and that mouseburger or bluffer usually at least responds to a category request even if they don't accept it.
thanks for the point Mr Briggs inc. - i see what you mean about it being old age, and it is certainly not a dull old age death either!!
I think i will add the old age category to the death as he is indeed dying of extreme rapid aging.
Mouseburger
Yeah,even his CLOTHES were aged into ancient rags by the False Grail.
However,is this the death that is meeted out by EVERY False Grail,or does each one have a different effect on the blasphemer in question?
Like for instance,Donovan's Grail took his life by basically ''fast-forwarding'' him to the state he would be in in 800 years.
So,what would one of the others do,do you think?
Kill him by regressing[youthening] him past the point of birth?
The possibilities are as many as there were ''grails'' in the temple.
heh Don,
that is an interesting point - it would have been fun if they shot different false grail drinking sequences with Donovan being destroyed in a variety of entertaining ways. Alas though, the film was shot before the days of DVD extras!!
I would like to have seen one regress him too - i think something similar happens in an episode of futurama doesnt it?
You mean the fountain of aging one? Perhaps you should turn "Old Age" into just "Age" seeing as someone could suffer a fate worse than death, PRE-LIFE! Now, I'm pretty sure that the other grails had the same effects seeing as how the promise of the true grail is eternal youth after all.
p.s. Doesn't he look just like Christopher Lloyd in one of those pictures?
This show had the exact opposite put into play.
Character: Mad scientist,
Character: Sexy immortal woman,
Killing Object: Her blood
Rating: 75%
Categories: Age.
Description:Extremely graphic rejuvenation.
Well,I don't remember the year that this episode was made,but it was very well done and really takes the erotic element OUT of being rejuvenated.
It was an episode of the new Outer Limits called ''Last Supper''.and it detailed the interaction of a WW II soldier and an immortal woman that he helps to escape from a Government research facility.
Apparently ,she had been tracked and captured by this one scientist and he was trying to find out why she hadn't aged in over 500 years.
He injected lab mice with her blood and they stayed the same age as they were for over 30 years.
but then the soldier helps her to break out and in the process the lab gets destroyed,burning the scientist horribly.
She disappears,only to turn up 20 years later as the soldier's son's fiancee',with the scientist hot on her heels.
After a few heated run-ins,the scientist foolishly injects himself with her blood,immediately healing all of his burn damage.
But it doesn't stop at that,as he becomes noticeably younger,moment by moment,his clothes beginning to hang off of his diminishing frame.
He continues to rejuvenate,the effects accelerating,with him getting even ytounger and smaller,by this time his age is somewhere around mid-puberty.however it keeps making him even younger,taking him past childhood and into infancy.Further back he goes and by the time the sequence is done his form collapses inward on itself,and he further regresses into a fetus,then----
Well you can infer the rest......
Kind of makes you think twice about these age-regression fantasies ;
You might go too far back.....
The Futurama episode in question was called ''Teenage Mutant Leela Hurdles'.'
I loved how Zoidberg would turn into the various forms of underwater embryos every time he'd go through a stage. And how the rags of clothing hung off of Amy...
Ahem.
Yeah, I kind of thought that the second picture looked a lot like a super-aged Doc Brown, as if he hadn't gotten the All Natural Overhaul. ^_^
Did anyone notice that, while getting older and older, Donovan's hair grew longer, but nothing happened to his facial hair???
Yeah, I thought that was a major goof. Sure it wouldn't look as decent a death if they made his beard grow while he was dying, it would've completely hidden his wrinkled disfigured face, and the whole special effects and make up work would have been almost pointless. I think it would have been nicer and more plausible if his hair had just fallen off instead of growing. What do you think???
how could Indy tell which Holy Grail was real and which Holy Grail isn't?
Indy remembers that Jesus wasn't treated differently at th Last Supper and had the same cup has everyone else had. The means he picks a very crude looking cup, as opposed to Donovan's, which is covered in a shedload of jewels.
Did anyone notice that, while getting older and older, Donovan's hair grew longer, but nothing happened to his facial hair???
Yeah, I thought that was a major goof. Sure it wouldn't look as decent a death if they made his beard grow while he was dying, it would've completely hidden his wrinkled disfigured face, and the whole special effects and make up work would have been almost pointless. I think it would have been nicer and more plausible if his hair had just fallen off instead of growing. What do you think???
Why on Earth are you double posting the exact same message?
Can we delete the 'killed by' line? It's not really needed.
Elsa does kill Donovan intentionally, because she wants the Grail for herself (and I think the filmmakers want us to believe she is in love with Indy and would rather share immortality with him than Donovan). She has played both sides throughout the movie at this point. Elsa double-crosses Donovan thinking that rejoining Indy somehow absolves her of her prior actions.
If she had helped Indy earlier (aside from the fact that she helps him by not exposing him during the book burning), then his father wouldn't have gotten shot and he wouldn't have gone after the Grail. Remember, Indy isn't seeking immortality... he just wants to keep the Grail away from the Nazis and save his dad.
Dammit, this did "Elsa mean to kill him?" argument makes me want to watch the film again.
After the knight tells them of false grails taking life, Donovan reveals that he has "no idea what it looks like." Elsa does not hesitate in making her move to be the one to pick a grail.
"Let me choose," she says. She doesn't ask, so much as she insists; it's in the way she speaks the sentence. Since Donovan has had no reason (at least so far as he knows) up till this point not to trust her, he does not second-guess her choice of grail. He drinks, he dies.
"It would not be made of gold," she then says to Indy, in just as sure a voice as she'd first asked to be the one to choose. She knew what she was doing all along.
Remember that, at the book-burning rally, Elsa pleaded to Indy: "I believe in the Grail, not the swastika." Her goal from the very beginning was the Holy Grail, and nothing else. She sided with whatever party could get her closest to it, and discarded that party when it no longer worked in her favor. So as it was with Indy in Castle Brunwald, so as it was with Donovan in the grail room.
Trivia:
- Conceptual art show Walter growing facial hair. This was obviously scraped at some point.
- Three different puppets were created, in different stages of decay, that ILM then edited together.
- For the skin decay, pieces of shrinkable plastic were pasted on a puppet, which then had hot air blew onto it. It was shot in time lapse. (a lot like how they did Toht melting).
[quote Mr Mouseburger]Comments for death : Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Walter Donovan (Julian Glover).[/quote]He earned it.
[quote Isfahan]She sided with whatever party could get her closest to it, and discarded that party when it no longer worked in her favor. So as it was with Indy in Castle Brunwald, so as it was with Donovan in the grail room.[/quote]Ironically, Donovan was the same. "Tha Nazis? Is that the limit of your vision? The Nazis want to write themselves into the Grail legend. Take on the world. Well, they're welcome. Hitler can have the world but he can't take it with him. I'm going to be drinking my health when he's gone the way of the dodo."
So he, too, eventually intended to betray and discard the Nazis (and possibly Elsa, too) after they'd served their purpose. Every time I watch that I scene I think he's lucky none of the German soldiers present speak English. XD
Actualy, If she helped indiana jones then, she would have been killed by donovan. She did try to help him when his father was shot but when donovan told her to get back with a gun in his hand she obviously obeyed.