https://screenrant.com/indiana-jones-why-elsa-picked-wrong-cup-last-crusade/
Elsa Schneider may have once betrayed Indiana Jones and his father in Last Crusade, but she purposely chose the wrong Grail in the film’s ending.
Was that ever in doubt? Everyone knows Elsa threw Donavan to the wolves by picking the wrong cup.
The arrogant smirk on her face after she chose the wrong cup gave her away.
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Exactly - that's why they did the close up of Elsa's reaction.
I didn't feel sorry for that greedy, lying bitch when she fell into the crack, screaming all the way down.
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Clearly not a sympathetic death, but to her credit she did flip on Donovan and helped Indy save Henry Sr.
Yes, but she was primarily a bad guy. Her act with the grail was not completely selfless. She wanted it for herself. While she was a well-developed character with a somewhat complicated personality, in the end, she still was a greedy slut, a liar, and a fanatic that deserved to die for what she did.
shareTell us how you really feel!! LOL
I didn't hate the character (well I did until she flipped sides and helped Indy) and didn't think simple collaboration with the Nazis or Donovan meant she deserved to die necessarily, particularly how she redeemed herself. I think it was just a clean way of having an interesting character set up for a death that Indy seemed destined to duplicate until Henry's intervention.
Maybe they thought Donovan's demise wasn't climactic enough.
You forget that Elsa was attracted to men with power. She had slept her way up in the ranks, and probably fantasized about sleeping with the Fuhrer. She claims not to stand for the Swastika, and yet she does everything she can to help the Motherland. She never sided with Indy. She used him and his dad to help her and her Fuhrer, including getting a hold of magical artifacts that could help Der Fuhrer win the war. Anyone who actively works in a regime as cruel and evil as the Nazis were, is no less guilty than the people running the organization. And she didn't do it under duress. She CHOSE to join the Nazis and work as one of them.
People merely keep making excuses for her because she is pretty and is good at pretending to be innocent, which she is not.
She had slept her way up in the ranks..
Anyone who actively works in a regime as cruel and evil as the Nazis were, is no less guilty than the people running the organization.
There are two reasons I think she used her body to get what she wanted.
One, think about the culture she grew up in over in Germany at that time. It was a very aggressive, patriarchal culture that didn't respect women very much unless the woman in question could find allies among powerful men. It wasn't enough that she was an archeological expert. The regime (and Donovan himself) wouldn't have given her the time of day if she wasn't pretty, charming, and had other services to offer as well as her brains. Part of how she could manipulate men into getting what she wanted was to sleep with them. Donovan also chose her because she was loyal to Germany and a good spy.
Two, Dr. Jones Sr. hinted to Indiana that Elsa had also slept with him, which also suggests she doesn't care who it is she sleeps with so long as she gets what she or her bosses want.
I think this story takes place at the very beginning of WWII, because Hitler was already in power, and Dr. Jones Sr. had a very low opinion of the Nazi Party. A lot of people outside of Germany were totally in the dark about just how evil Hitler and the Nazi Party was, and thought they were cool until they invaded Poland. Then every fan of Hitler (including powerful people in America, mind you) suddenly walked back everything they said and jumped on the "Nazis are evil" bandwagon while burying all stories about being fans of the national socialist party as fast as possible.
This has been well-known for a long time. It's in the 1989 novelisation if there's any doubt about Elsa's motivations.
Personally, I'd love to read/hear a contrary theory suggesting that Elsa was actually a dummy who really made a mistake. That would be much more revolutionary and interesting, but simps have got to simp. *sigh*
She clearly does select the wrong chalice and we see a villainous glare from her as Donovan takes his last gulp. It’s not exactly clear why, but presumably she wants the grail for herself.
Interestingly, she has sympathy for the Cruciform Sword guy as he dies, she’s tearful during the Nazi book burning, and I seem to recall her being shocked and disgusted when Donovan shoots Jones Sr.
She’s clearly an evil bitch but isn’t without a conscience, a very interesting and memorable love interest/villain… and unbelievably hot.
Yes, she's unbelievably hot, which is why it annoys me that Spielberg and co felt the need to soften her character. In an earlier draft of the screenplay I believe she came across as more unrepentent, and akin to Donovan in terms of her evil, plus she was always snacking, which was a sexy detail I wish they'd retained. But, like I say, simps have got to simp. A beautiful woman is NEVER allowed to be 100% evil and irredeemable, even if she is in an *early* draft of the screenplay. Some pathetic simp always has to get in the way of the translation from screenplay to film to soften the character (probably to impress their wife or girlfriend. *sigh* ) PATHETIC. Let EVIL SEXY WOMEN be *EVIL* without any misgivings and mitigations FFS.
Reminds me of the whole Amber Heard case. No-one can believe this Ayn Rand loving, gun-loving, adulterous woman who allegedly struck a former girlfriend, could be a POS, and a possible liar, cos, how could a beautiful blonde white woman possibly be anything but a kind-hearted, sweet, virtuous, innocent victim? Right? I mean that's the LIE Cinderella brainwashed us all to believe, and it appears that many of who read/watched Cinderella have yet to FUCKING GROW-UP. 😠
Oh I don’t have a problem with Elsa’s moral complexity, it actually added to her character and makes for a great bit at the end where Indy tries and fails to save her (which is then mirrored for the excellent ‘Indiana... Let it go’ moment)
If she was pure evil Indy would have just let her die, or tossed her into the crevice himself.
In A View To A Kill a few years earlier she was a pretty cold bitch.
"If she was pure evil Indy would have just let her die, or tossed her into the crevice himself."
That's not necessarily true. In TOD, Indy tried to save the big brute who was whipping kids, from being killed in the rock crusher, by attempting to use his rope as a pulley, and hinch the big guy up. Obviously, Indy failed, but at least he tried, and that guy was a POS, but Indy still didn't want to let him die in such a terrible way.
As for Elsa, Indy was trying to save her because he was, understandably thinking with his dick...
Henry Jones Sr. has Elsa's number, and the wise elder Indy knew that she was a greedy, self-centred minx who didn't understand the significance of the Grail, but just wanted its power.
As an aside, it's good to see that Alison Doody has 'redeemed' herself for the soft-peddling of Elsa in TLC, by playing a COMPLETELY unrepentent racist BITCH in the recent smash-hit Indian film, RRR.
Yeah but Indy has a special hatred for Nazis and kills them by the bucketload, and he was ready to snap Elsa’s neck in Berlin - her treachery combined with her Nazi complicity puts her on Indy’s blacklist.
While Indy is of course thinking partially with his dick, Elsa’s compassionate streak is what makes sense of his sincere rescue attempt at the end while the building collapses, putting Indy at risk.
The Indian brute was just a henchman who needed to be taken out, but Indy was like ‘fair play, you need to go down but being slowly ground alive by a roller is a steep price. Here’s a helping hand… oh didn’t work, at least I tried. See ya’
Jones Sr had Elsa’s number insofar as he knew she was a Nazi because he’s been fucking her and she likely already had a mask-off moment with him.
Elsa was 'so compassionate' she knowingly gave her *COLLEAGUE* (i.e. the man she'd KNOWINGLY aligned herself with, alongside the Nazis), the wrong grail cup, surely aware that there was a possibility something terrible would happen.
No, if anything, she was THE WORST, because she wanted to have her cake and eat it. She didn't want to be regarded as an evil Nazi BITCH, whilst choosing to align herself with NAZIS. Fuck her. 😠
Who are you quoting when describing Elsa as ‘so compassionate’?
shareYes, she's unbelievably hot, which is why it annoys me that Spielberg and co felt the need to soften her character.
It’s not exactly clear why, but presumably she wants the grail for herself.