History Headscratchers / IndianaJones

** You are forgetting that [[SocietyMarchesOn these movies take place in the 1920s and 30s]]. Things were [[ValuesDissonance much different back then]] - it wasn't uncommon for people in Indy's generation to hold jobs that nowadays require a master's degree or higher. As for how he got in, remember that the most common way to get into college was to have connections. What do you know, his father's a renowned historian and [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections that's a good way to get your foot in the door]].

** A big problem from a narrative perspective are that the discoveries Indy makes in those movies are simply too big. Like yeah, they can have them returning with the cross of coronado because ultimately it's just a cool relic. On the other hand, the Ark, the Grail and the Sankara stones are proof that the supernatural is real, with the first two being proof that the Abrahamic God is real AND the stones indicating that he is not the only God out there. On top of that you have the brouhaha with the crystal skulls which is proof that there are beings from another dimension and thay have visited earth. Each one of those would profoundly change society as we know it, and his career would be basically over because all the fortune and glory would go to Indy.

** A big problem from a narrative perspective are that the discoveries Indy makes in those movies are simply too big. Like yeah, they can have them returning with the cross of coronado because ultimately it's just a cool relic. On the other hand, the Ark, the Grail and the Sankara stones are proof that the supernatural is real, with the first two being proof that the Abrahamic God is real AND the stones indicating that he is not the only God out there. On top of that you have the brouhaha with the crystal skulls which is proof that there are beings from another dimension and thay have visited earth. Each one of those would profoundly change society as we know it, and his career would be basically over because all the fortune and glory would go to Indy.

** Indy's that lampshaded this really well with his "you call this archeology?" remark.

** I know this is kind of an old query but where would Shiva fit in? He presumably exists since his artifacts (the stones) really glow.) Maybe Shiva is just another "face" of the Judeo-Christian God?

* INFURIATING: This troper, with more than a little guilt/misplaced sympathy, finds herself feeling really sorry for the Redshirt Germans and Russkies. They were likely conscripts, and don't deserve horrible burning/crushing deaths. Furthermore, the general labeling of all the Germans as Nazis drives her up the wall.
** [[ComicBook/AtomicRobo "Dammit, I don't even]] ''[[ComicBook/AtomicRobo like]]'' [[ComicBook/AtomicRobo Hitler]]."
*** It's during WWII. Did you ''really'' expect this general who's been fighting the Nazi to be all calm and understanding to every German?
*** Technically it's set before WWII. The OP meant "general" as in "widespread", not general as in a military officer.
** It could be argued that only the most loyal and/or fanatical supporters of the Nazi/Communist regime would've been chosen to undertake such a prestigious and important mission.
*** This is true. In the case of the Nazis, at least, it seems more likely most troops used would be from the Waffen-SS than the Wehrmacht, which Hitler never fully trusted (and [[Film/{{Valkyrie}} as demonstrated later]] for good reason.)
*** Hitler didn't trust the Waffen-SS? Didn't they start off as his own private bodyguard? I may be wrong, but wasn't their first divison '''named''' ''Adolf Hitler''?
*** I think that troper means Hitler didnt fully trust the Wehrmacht, not the Waffen. Also, I know it's a German word, but Waffen sounds quite silly to me.
*** The troops appear to be the Afrika Korps, based on uniforms and DAK insignia (which wasn't formed until 1941) which was Wehrmacht, but in 1936, fanatics/fiecely loyal supporters wouldn't be hard to come by, even in the Wehrmacht.
** WhatMeasureIsAMook? By the standards of the [=1930s=] and [=1940s=] serials that Indiana Jones is based on, not much.
** It's 1936, not 1945. The German soldiers were unlikely to be conscripts that early. This was also when things were just starting for the Nazis, so German troops tended to be volunteers, fiercely loyal, and more often than not fanatics. Being actual Party members was not uncommon, either.
** Taking a look at this, at least in the first three movies (well, the first and third, being the ones with the Nazis), there isn't really a full-scale slaughter of 'conscript redshirts'. Sure, there are soldiers killed in battles with the heroes, but that happens anywhere, with any war. As for supernatural deaths - that's mainly chalked up to Raiders and the Ark. However, the reason why Indy and Marion survived is because they never looked at the Ark once it was opened. Just about any good German conscript soldier who knows a thing about the Old Testament (or just has misgivings about the whole thing) could avoid looking at the opened Ark, whether from knowledge or respect, and (judging from the Ark's history) would totally have survived. But we would not know for sure, because not a single one of them looked away.
* This may be potential blasphemy, but here goes. Why does he use a whip? OK RuleOfCool, and the plot contrives it so having a whip frequently comes in handy, but is their ever any concrete reason given why Indy favours a whip as a weapon? I know the intro to Last Crusade gives a pseudo origin story for the whip, but even then, how does "once used a handy whip to fend of a lion" translate into a whip becoming his IconicItem?

** Didn't the guy that apparently inspired Indy's choice of hat in the entire introductory segment of Last Crusade have a whip also? I may be misremembering, but I distinctly recall one being on his hip.

* So, am I the only one who finds it weird people are complaining about real-life physics (ie, nuking the fridge) yet nobody seems to find anything wrong with a lost ark melting peoples' faces? How come people're willing to suspend the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief for crazy moments like those (or the whole raft scene) yet they can't for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?
** Because WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief only goes so far, and it requires the creator of the text to actually put the work in to establish ''why'' the reader should apply WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief to the situation in question. As far as the Ark and the fridge comparison go at least, they're completely different; the Ark is explicitly constructed and presented by the makers of the first movie as being a supernatural and mystical object supposedly constructed by God Him-or-Herself. Ergo, it's hardly a stretch for the viewer to accept that that it would therefore be imbued with certain strange qualities and abilities that might seem to fly in the face of natural physics; we can make that leap because the movie is clearly set up to enable us to do so. The fridge, however, is as far as the makers of the later movie tell us -- and therefore, as far as the reader is concerned -- nothing more than a perfectly ordinary fridge, so unless the text clearly establishes that this fridge just so happens to be God's Own Refrigerator, Crafted By His-Or-Her Own Hands To Keep His-Or-Her Brewskies Chilled (which as far as I'm aware it doesn't), as far as the viewer's concerned it should not be capable of doing anything that a perfectly normal fridge in RealLife would also not be capable of doing. Such as, for one example, providing adequate shelter at near-ground zero of an atomic bomb detonation. Of course, by this logic the raft scene in "Temple" arguably fails the same test, but then again "Temple" comes in for a fair bit of flack as well.
*** Crystal Skull shifts the genre from 1930s pulp hero fiction to 1950s science fiction. Nuking the fridge seems off to us, but I think it plays to those rules: hiding under school desks, etc.
*** Maybe, but the point is that the creator nevertheless needs to put the work in to justify why the reader should apply WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, which ''Crystal Skull'' doesn't really do in respect to the fridge. Okay, the movie is intended as a homage of 1950s science fiction, but that doesn't mean the creators can just throw in any old nonsense and expect the reader to buy it without setting it up beforehand. That's just laziness, especially since the audience for an ''Indiana Jones'' flick isn't necessarily going to be intimately familiar with 1950s science fiction.
*** Duck and Cover was meant for an ''in''direct hit, and ''would'' protect from falling glass and debris caused by the blast. A direct hit is not survivable, as testing showed, so it was never actually intended to protect from one.
*** The raft scene doesn't stretch the imagination much, when you think about it: As ''Series/MythBusters'' showed, a raft can stay stable for a while, and it overturns at a certain height (although they didn't test a lower height since we don't know the plane's altitude, or if the raft were inflated while falling), and it falls off a cliff and into a river - we don't know the exact height, but it's probably not all that high, so it doesn't stretch one's WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.\\
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The fridge's only HandWave is just a manufacturer's placard that says it's lead lined "for superior insulation", which both didn't exist, would serve no commercial purpose (it's not military because of the manufacturer's placard - it wouldn't need one if military), and lead is a horrible insulator (there's small office-sized fridges for radiopharmicuticals around today, but they only have a shielding to prevent radiation from leaking out; there's conventional insulation). On top of all that, a refrigerator is not going to withstand a nuclear bomb; it would be destroyed along with everything else in the town, and it certainly wouldn't go flying for over a mile.
** Indiana Jones always does things that defy physics - like how in ''Raiders'', he is at one point dragged behind a truck and emerges with no clothing damage or friction burns.\\
There are also no hand waves as to why Indy is dragged behind a truck with no clothing damage so much as friction burns, the ducks Henry Jones scares so ''happen'' to fly right at a Nazi Plane (30s plane or no), or Temple of Doom's famous inflatable raft scene.
*** The clothing damage and friction burns in ''Raiders'' aren't as problematic because those omissions are usual in the film industry. What makes the fridge so troublesome is the fact that it's the [[{{Asspull}} rather goofball solution]] to the most spectacular scene in ''Crystal Skull''. The raft is almost as silly as well, but it's not what everyone remembers from ''Temple of Doom'' (everyone remembers the heart ripping scene or the bug chamber scene); at worse, with the raft you'd have the carachters dead by impact upon touching ground. The refrigerator should've been ''vaporized'' the moment the A-bomb went off. Not only it didn't but it was the only thing that survived the whole blast, the fact that it was explained by the lead lining thing makes it even more egregious. Short of making the plane land safely, the raft seemed as the only remaining way to save Jones & Co. from the problem. The bomb scene could've been written in such a way that put Indy at a far safer distance upon ignition, but for some reason the creators were bent on putting him in that fridge at any cost. To be fair, ''Crystal Skull'' did come out in an era when film mistakes and ass-pulls were more vulnerable to fan over-analysis, so the fridge is much more noticed than the raft in ''Temple of Doom''.
* So, with Disney owning Lucasfilm, if Disney makes an ''Indy'' film, will they distribute it through Paramount so that they can do the mountain LogoJoke? Or will they replace it with the Disney castle fading into an ancient temple or somesuch?
** [[MathematiciansAnswer Yes]].
** Then the Millennium Falcon will fly over the castle, and the opening credits of ''Han Solo and Indiana Jones starring in: Twin Furies'' will begin.
** This troper is calling it: Disney's gonna eventually do an Indiana Jones reboot starring Alden Erenreich. (Solo: A Star Wars Story, anyone?)
* I always found it odd that Idiana being a highly successful and respected archaeologist was more of an informed attribute than anything, at least going by his success rate on the movies. In Raiders, he lost the golden idol to Belloq, and while he does return witht he Ark, that was never made public. In Temple, he fails to return with the Sankara stones. In Last Crusade, he gets his only real hit by returning the golden cross of Coronado, but by the end of the movie the Grail and everything involved to it was lost. And finally, in Crystal Skull, he once again fails to return with the titular Macguffin.

** Since Christianity is descended from Judaism,Christians accept that the the God of Christianity is the God of Judaism, so there is no conflict at all between Raiders and Last Crusade.

** As far as Crystal Skull goes, no problem there either. Alien life is no problem for most Christians;
Pope John Paul II said in 1996, “truth cannot contradict truth. If aliens do exist, then Catholics should have no problem accepting it. We do not have to fear their creation as God is behind it." As far as them demonstrating supernatural power. How do we know it was supernatural? Arthur C. Clarke famously said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." So maybe the magic we saw in Crystal Skull was nothing but very advanced technology.
** So, in answer to your question, it would seem that in the Indiana Jones universe Judeo-Christianity is the correct religon.

** The ''Raiders'' novel has Indy recalling how he developed his fascination for the bullwhip, seeing a whip-act in a travelling circus when he was seven years old. .

The fridge's only HandWave is just a manufacturer's placard that says it's lead lined "for superior insulation", which both didn't exist, would serve no commerical purpose (it's not military because of the manufacturer's placard - it wouldn't need one if military), and lead is a horrible insulator (there's small office-sized fridges for radiopharmicuticals around today, but they only have a shielding to prevent radiation from leaking out; there's conventional insulation). On top of all that, a refrigerator is not going to withstand a nuclear bomb; it would be destroyed along with everything else in the town, and it certainly wouldn't go flying for over a mile.

* ''Headscratchers/YoungIndianaJones''

** Considering what RealLife archaeologists were doing to each other and to locals back in TheTwenties and [[TheThirties Thirties]], Jones' good standing among his peers may be FairForItsDay.

* So what is the deal with religion in the Indiana Jones universe? Raiders seems to prove the Abrahamic God exists, Temple of Doom seems to prove Kali exists, Last Crusade seems to again prove Christianity, Crystal Skull seems to prove that there are aliens with supernatural power. How can this all be true? Which religion is correct in-universe?

* Indy's that lampshaded this really well with his "you call this archeology?" remark.

** If he's farsighted, not having his glasses wouldn't impede his ability to judge distances. Most of the writing we see him read in the field is in the form of inscriptions on walls or artifacts, which probably use a larger font and/or can be seen from a sufficient distance that he doesn't need his glasses; it's the much smaller print in ''modern'' books that his spectacles help with.

* ''[Headscratchers/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis Fate of Atlantis]]''

* Headscratchers/RaidersOfTheLostArk
* Headscratchers/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom
* Headscratchers/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade
* Headscratchers/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull
* Headscratchers/YoungIndianaJones

*** Technically it's set before WWII. Also the OP said "general" as in "widespread", not general as in a military officer.

*** The clothing damage and friction burns in ''Raiders'' aren't as problematic because those omissions are usual in the film industry. What makes the fridge so troublesome is the fact that it's the [[{{Asspull}} rather goofball solution]] to the most spectacular scene in ''Crystal Skull''. The raft is almost as silly as well, but it's not what everyone remembers from ''Temple of Doom'' (everyone remembers the heart ripping scene or the bug chamber scene); at worse, with the raft you'd have the carachters dead by impact upon touching ground. The refrigerator should've been ''vaporized'' the moment the A-bomb went off. Not only it didn't but it was the only thing that survived the whole blast, the fact that it was explained by the lead lining thing makes it even more egregious. Short of making the plane land safely, the raft seemed as the only remaining way to save Jones & Co. from the problem. The bomb scene could've been written in such a way that put Indy at a far safer distance upon ignition, but for some reason the creators were bent on putting him in that fridge at any cost. To be fair, Crystal Skull did come out in an era when film mistakes and ass-pulls were more vulnerable to fan over-analysis, so the fridge is much more noticed than the raft in ''Temple of Doom''.

* What's the purpose of Indy's glasses? We see him wearing them while teaching in college or at the dinner scene in ''Temple of Doom'' and he puts them on to translate the Latin text in Donovan's house at the beginning of the ''Last Crusade''. Yet he doesn't seem to need them to read while doing field work during the whole series and he seems to be able to calculate distances. Plus he's not a particularly bad shooter without them, so we can infer he's got no sight problems. We know he's not [[ClarkKenting hiding behind them]] since everyone knows he's an archaeologist and the Nazis could never connect him to their loss of the Ark. We can see that Jones' girl students [[{{Adorkable}} fawn over him]] anyways so we may rule out that he uses glasses to shield himself from girl-lust. Also, he didn't need them at all the dinner scene in ''Temple''. Moreover, he doesn't wear glasses when he's a lot older during the whole ''Crystal Skull'' film. So, why would he use the glasses?

*** The clothing damage and friction burns in ''Raiders'' aren't as problematic because those omissions are usual in the film industry. What makes the fridge so troublesome is the fact that it's the [[{{Asspull}} rather goofball solution]] to the most spectacular scene in ''Crystal Skull''. The raft is almost as silly as well, but it's not what everyone remembers from ''Temple of Doom'' (everyone remembers the heart ripping scene or the bug chamber scene); at worse, with the raft you'd have the carachters dead by impact upon touching ground. The refrigerator should've been ''vaporized'' the moment the A-bomb went off. Not only it didn't but it was the only thing that survived the whole blast, the fact that it was explained by the lead lining thing makes it even more egregious. Short of making the plane land safely, the raft seemed as the only remaining way to save Jones & Co. from the problem. The bomb scene could've been written in such a way that put Indy at a far safer distance upon ignition, but for some reason the creators were bent on putting him no that fridge at any cost. To be fair, Crystal Skull did come out in an era when film mistakes and ass-pulls were more vulnerable to fan over-analysis, so the fridge is much more noticed than the raft in ''Temple of Doom''.

*** The clothing damage and friction burns in ''Raiders'' aren't as problematic because those omissions are usual in the film industry. What makes the fridge so troublesome is the fact that it's the rather goofball solution to the most spectacular scene in ''Crystal Skull''. The raft is almost as silly as well, but it's not what everyone remembers from ''Temple of Doom'' (everyone remembers the heart ripping scene or the bug chamber scenes); at worse, with the raft you'd have the carachters dead by impact upon touching ground. The refrigerator should've been ''vaporized'' the moment the A-bomb went off. Not only it didn't but it was the only thing that survived the whole blast, the fact that it was explained by the lead lining thing makes it even more egregious. Short of making the plane land safely, the raft seemed as the only remaining way to save Jones & Co. from the problem. The Bomb scene could've been written in such a way that put Indy at a far safer distance upon ignition, but for some reason the creators were bent on putting him no that fridge at any cost. To be fair, Crystal Skull did come out in an era when film mistakes and ass-pulls were more vulnerable to fan over-analysis, so the fridge is much more noticed than the raft in ''Temple of Doom''.

* What's the purpose of Indy's glasses? We see him wearing them while teaching in college or at the dinner scene in ''Temple of Doom'' and he puts them on to translate the Latin text in Donovan's house at the beginning of the ''Last Crusade''. Yet he doesn't seem to need them to read while doing field work during the whole series and he seems to be able to calculate distances. Plus he's not a particularly bad shooter without them, so we can infer he's got no sight problems. We know he's not [[ClarkKenting hiding behind them]] since everyone knows he's an archaeologist and the Nazis could never connect him to their loss of the Ark. We can also see that Jones' girl students [[{{Adorkable}} fawn over him]] anyways so we may rule out that he uses glasses to shield himself from girl-lust. Also, tehy were unnecesary for the dinner scene in ''Temple''. Moreover, he doesn't wear glasses when he's a lot older during the whole ''Crystal Skull'' film. So, why would he use the glasses?

*** The clothing damage and friction burns in ''Raiders'' aren't as problematic because those omissions are usual in the film industry. What makes the fridge so problematic is the fact that it's the rather goofball solution to the most spectacular scene in ''Crystal Skull''. The raft is almost as silly as well, but at worse, you'd have the carachters dead by impact upon touching ground. The refrigerator should've been vaporized the moment the A-bomb went off. Not only it didn't but it was the only thing that survived the whole blast, the fact that it was explained by the lead lining thing makes it even more egregious. To be fair, Crystal Skull did come out in an era when film mistakes and ass-pulls were more vulnerable to fan over-analysis, so the fridge is much more noticed than the raft in ''Temple of Doom''.

* What's the purpose of Indy's glasses while teaching in college or at the dinner scene in ''Temple of Doom''? While he does put them on to translate the Latin text in Donovan's house at the beginning of the ''Last Crusade'', he doesn't seem to need them to read while doing field work during the whole series and he seems to be able to calculate distances. Plus he's not a particularly bad shooter without them, so we can infer he's got no sight problems. We know he's not [[ClarkKenting hiding behind them]] since everyone knows he's an archaeologist and the Nazis could never connect him to their loss of the Ark. We can also see that Jones' girl students fawn over him anyways so we may rule out that he uses glasses to shield himself from girl-lust. Moreover, he doesn't wear glasses when he's a lot older during the whole ''Crystal Skull'' film. So, why would he use the glasses?