Indiana Jones/Trivia

• Banned in India: Temple of Doom, briefly, for obvious reasons.
• Fake Nationality: John Rhys-Davies as an Arab begs to be mentioned.
  • Julian Glover plays an American, and Michael Byrne plays a German. Both are British.
  • Terribly British Paul Freeman as terribly French Belloq.
  • Alfred Molina ain't South American, señor.
  • Irish Alison Doody plays Austrian Elsa Schneider.
  • Australian Cate Blanchett as Ukrainian Irina Spalko.
  • Indy's failed attempt to impersonate a Scottish laird in The Last Crusade is an in-character version, if not a Lampshading of this trope, which originated with Harrison Ford attempting to mimic Sean Connery's accent while playing around.
• Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Donovan is played by Julian Glover, who also played Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only and General Veers from The Empire Strikes Back.
  • The Janitor as G-man Smith.
  • Indy's guide when the film starts is Alfred Molina of Spider-Man 2 fame.
    • His first movie role too.
  • Adolf Hitler in The Last Crusade is perpetual "that guy" Michael Sheard, who was also Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back, Mr Bronson in Grange Hill, and various roles in Doctor Who.
  • Apparently Galadriel embraced Communism, cut her hair, and is now a brunette. Bit of a shift for Cate Blanchett.
  • Khan and Nehru are Mola Ram and Chattar Lal, Prime Minister of Pankot, respectively.
  • Short Round is Data. No, not that Data, the one in The Goonies.
  • Kane is Professor Harold "Ox" Oxley.
  • Gimli is Sallah.
  • The Janitor thinks Indy is spying for the Russians.
  • Henry Sr. and Marcus Brody were a couple of Merry Men.
• Real Life Relative: Isla Blair, Mrs. Julian Glover offscreen, played Mrs. Donovan in Last Crusade.
  • In Crystal Skull, the girl who punches Mutt in the diner is Sophie Spielberg, daughter of Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw (Willie Scott in Temple of Doom).
• Refitted for Sequel: Temple of Doom included several sequences originally planned for Raiders of the Lost Ark:
  • Much of the original sword fight that would have been between Indy and the swordsman he shot instead made it into the sword fight at the end of Temple of Doom (where Indy tries the same thing, but his gun is missing).
  • The minecart chase was originally planned for Raiders (and even storyboarded) but had to be cut for pacing reasons.
  • Indy hiding behind a rolling gong from machine gunfire and the life raft escape from a plane and down a mountain slope were in the original script for Raiders.
    • The rolling gong went as far as being storyboarded.
• Trope Namer:
  • George Lucas Throwback: When combined with American Graffiti and the original Star Wars trilogy.
  • Indy Escape
  • Indy Hat Roll
  • Indy Ploy
  • It Belongs in a Museum
  • Temple of Doom
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
• What Could Have Been:
  • Had Sean Connery declined to appear in The Last Crusade, Gregory Peck was Spielberg's second choice to star as Henry Sr.
  • Tom Selleck was Spielberg's original pick as Indy, but Selleck was unable to get out of his contract to Magnum, P.I., thus paving the way for Harrison Ford. Take a look at High Road To China (1983) to get an idea of what Selleck might have been like. We dodged a bullet there. Not to mention Ford's acting career might have ended with Star Wars just like most of his costars if George Lucas hadn't gotten him a second iconic role.
    • The DVD features include a screen test of Selleck, where he certainly doesn't display the charming badassery Ford brought to the role.
  • There were loads of unfilmed scripts written for Young Indy episodes before the series was canceled. One involved Indy meeting a young Rene Belloq and unearthing a crystal skull in South America, an idea Lucas reused (obviously) for the MacGuffin of Crystal Skull.
  • If The Other Wiki is to be believed about the production history of the fourth movie, we could've gotten it some fifteen years earlier with a very different plot if Lucas had not insisted on it involving extraterrestrials.
• You Look Familiar: The taskmaster and the Nazi Giant Mook in parts 1 & 3 (the latter in a deleted scene) Indy kills were played by the same, late stuntman Pat Roach.
• The Wiki Rule: Indiana Jones Wikia