History Headscratchers / IndianaJonesAndTheDialOfDestiny

** Neo-Nazis during the 60s were a lot into weird "Esoteric Nazism" stuff that believe all sorts of crank pseudoscience like that the Third Reich had contact with Aliens, used UFOs, was making superhumans etc. Convincing them of time travel isn't that far fetched. As for killing Hitler, that part of the plan might be left out and he would just say they will be helping the Reich in one particularly crucial battle.

** The loop itself initiated it. All the Dial ever does is pointing towards where the rift to 212 BC, the ''only'' rift that Archimedes ever witnessed and could tune the Dial to when he built is, is located, nothing else. The continental drift played zero part in any of this at all.

** Indy states in the climax of the film that he still doesn't believe in magic, but he started to believe that anything that happens has a rational explaination: it's just that he doesn't know yet of it.
** Additionally, there would be a distinction between proof of divinity and proof of magic/highly advanced technology/whatever the basis for the unexplained. Just because the magic rocks and special box had very real effects consistent with written documents does not mean that the explanations or forces associated with them are in any way accurate. This very movie highlights that - there WAS a dragon at the Siege as far as the people understood it at the time. It just wasn't actually a dragon nor possessing of anything impossible; only impossible and unexplanable by those of the time.

* Still, on a Doylist level, why introduce the concept? Indy might be spitballing, but continental drift is a real thing, and that it was discovered later is a fact, you could usually handwave it but once it's pointed out it demands an explanation. That the movie doesn't give, instead contradicting itself by stating that Archimedes rigged the compass, and not reconciling the two things in any way. It feels like a very weird move and mostly padding and trying to manifacture tension, which isn't necessary since the action on the second plane could work for that.

** While Indy has over many years built up a reputation as a noted archaeologist (albeit one with a somewhat dubious reputation from his younger, fortune-hunting days and in all probability the subject various rumours about some of his "fieldwork" and what he got up to in both world wars), he's probably not so famous as to be recognized on sight outside of academic and archaeological circles.

** It is a StableTimeLoop since all we see of the dial back in 214 B.C is just the outer shell of it. Archimedes needed Voller's wristwatch in order to figure out and complete the ''inner'' workings of the dial in order to make it function. The loop still holds.

** It's not a StableTimeLoop, though. Archimedes is shown being ''already'' working on the dial when they arrive, so he had set things in motion of his own volition before, the plane arriving from the future didn't initiate anything but merely confirmed to him that his plan was going to work, but then he finishes the dial on his own and both his and Indy's life proceed linearly forward. It was a succesfsfull plan on his part exploiting temporal rifts and time travel, no actual loop involved.

'''All Spoilers on this page will be unmarked!''' YouHaveBeenWarned

** Additionally, maybe with everyone else Indy is dealing with, Sallah didn't want to trouble Indy further with news about his goddaughter getting up to shady dealings until it became relevant.

** Additionally, maybe Sallah didn't want to trouble Indy with news about his goddaughter getting up to shady dealings until it became relevant.

** Neo-Nazis during the 60s were a lot into weird "Esoteric Nazism" stuff that believe all sorts of crank pseudoscience like that the Third Reich had contact with Aliens, used UFOs, was making superhumans etc. Convince them of time travel isn't that far fetched. As for killing Hitler that part of the plan might be left out and just say they will be helping the Reich in one particularly crucial battle.

** Also, the CIA didn't even exist when Indy brought the Ark to the USA in 1936 -- it was founded in 1947. So whichever US government agency was responsible for hiding the Ark in Area 51, it wasn't the CIA -- and in any case, secretive government agencies being what they are, it's unlikely that said agency would have told that many people elsewhere in the US government [[note]] heck, sometimes in [[Film/IndependenceDay movies that feature Area 51]], even ''the President himself'' has no idea what's going on there [[/note]]. The CIA is in any case primarily concerned with ''foreign'' intelligence gathering and so would not have been primarily involved with the Area 51 break-in in ''Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'', after which it's the FBI that goes after Indy. Additionally, Indy served in the CIA's predecessor organisation, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), during [=WW2=] so the high-ups in that particular agency could well hold him in high regard in an case -- although it would stand to reason that not everyone who works there would have necessarily heard of him, especially operatives like Mason who would've joined a couple of decades after the war finished.

*** Perhaps. This movie is set in 1969, Crystal Skull was 1957. The flashback to Indy taking the dial is stated to have been 18 years earlier (this having been the length of time since he last saw Helena) which would date it to 1951. It is not stated when exactly Basil died, so it could have been before 1957. Alternatively, if he was still alive by then, his mental state (following his breakdown over his obsession with the Dial) and the fact that they didn't part ways on the best of terms, plus Indy's possible guilt over disregarding his instructions, may have been factors in not inviting him. Plus, trans-Atlantic travel was not easily affordable in the 1950s, even for an Oxford academic, so he may not have been able to go for financial reasons (in which case he would have probably just sent a congratulatory telegram).

** Even beyond what's been shown not just in the movies, but in various spin-off material, there could have been several other off screen adventures where he could have been shot.

** One for the WMG page perhaps, but maybe Sophie was in a relationship with Mutt and had children by him prior to his getting killed in Vietnam. Indy would not have known of this due to him and Mutt becoming estranged (and that estrangement could have lasted for several years, depending on how long he was in the army before his death; time enough to start a family). As a struggling widowed single mother, quite possibly with no surviving parents of her own, she finds out about Mutt's parents shortly after the events of ''Dial of Destiny'' and reaches out to them, following which they take her and her kids (their grandchildren) in. Over the next few years, she comes to regard Indy and Marion, who after reuniting find that they've been given a new reason to enjoy life thanks to connecting with grandchildren they never knew they had, as not so much in-laws as surrogate parents, explaining why (by the early 1990s) she more or less treats Indy like he's her actual father.

[[folder:What Sallah knows]]
* After meeting up with Indy, Sallah shows that he doesn't just know about Helena engaging in criminal activity, he has newspaper clippings about it. Given that he must know that Indy is Helena's godfather (he's a family man and an old friend of Indy's, so it can't ''not'' have come up in conversation at some point over the years), why has he not told Indy about Helena before?
** Maybe Indy's disillusionment with life in general following Mutt's death extended to him not keeping in touch with Sallah; just because they both live in New York, doesn't mean they'd necessarily see each other regularly if one of them wasn't making the effort to do so. Sallah could have only gone looking for Indy after seeing the news of the murders on the TV and realising that his old friend was in trouble.
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*** Or maybe Voller realised that the time fissures ''only happen'' in the vicinity of Syracuse; they may take someone back in time (to [=213BC=], specifically — not that he realises ''that'') but it will take them to the same geographic location. Note that he has ensured that he doesn't just have a fully-functioning [=WW2=]-era bomber, he has it loaded with enough fuel to fly from Sicily to Munich. Regardless of whereever he might have to go to acquire the pieces of the Dial, he would've been aware that he'd need to be at Syracuse and ready to go at the exact time when the fissure happens in order to travel back in time.

[[folder:Voller not recognising Indy]]
* He acts like he doesn't recognise Indy at the auction scene, which is the first time they've laid eyes on each other in 25 years. Granted, Voller may not remember what happened on the train due to his falling off it after being whacked on the head with the pipe from the water tower (of which more below), but immediately prior to going to Tangiers he sees a government file on Indy which includes a (relatively) recent photograph, so when they meet he should know exactly who he is.
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* Can someone clue me in how the chase around the globe, that arbitrarily terminated in Syracuse, had a Nazi bomber and actual German batallion prepared and waiting for Voller and his American goons on an airfield, when one of his goons still had to shoot the groundskeeper? I know Voller kept lugging his SS Standartenführer uniform around. I have no idea where the other Nazis sprang from.

[[folder:Why was Voller involved in the events of the prologue?]]

** Voller is shown to be very good at identifying different types of metal (he knows the Lance is a forgery because he can tell that it 's made from a modern alloy) and his expertise is more on mathematics than specific rocket science. It's more likely that he convinced the United States that his mathematics and science knowledge would be useful for their Apollo Program, after changing his identity to Dr. Schmidt.

[[folder:Voller surviving the prologue]]
* The prologue has Voller get knocked off the train during his confrontation with Indy, hit straight in the head with a metal pipe from a trackside water tower. And, thirty years later, when he reappears, he's none the worse from the experience; my question is how? He took a blow from a metal pipe, straight to the face, while riding in a train that's certainly going faster than 30 or 40 miles per hour. And, even IF it was going that slow, there was still a solid piece of metal that knocked him off the train and into the woods. He should have had brain damage from that even if he survived, or at the very least some scarring, not to mention the potential injuries from the fall. Realistically, he should have had his skull cracked open and died. So how the hell is he okay without any marks whatsoever?
** Several possible reasons. The pipe was swinging away from him upon impact, meaning that the force upon hitting it went all to send it flying and not back in recoil, lessening the blow. He did suffer from the impact as upon seeing Jones again in 1969, he clearly does not recall him properly which hints that his memory got a bit blurry from the impact. How he lacks any lasting facial injury could be chalked up to having a time period of 25 years to recover and perhaps using surgery to smooth out the scarring from being visible. Also, the human skull is much sturdier than given credit for, as it requires a pressure force of 1,100 pounds to crack in the first place.
** To be fair, considering that this movie is part of a franchise where jumping from a plane with an inflatable raft or locking yourself inside a lead refrigerator to avoid an atomic bomb's radiation are both survivable, getting hit in the head by a trackside water tower doesn't sound that lethal.
** He's protected by the StableTimeLoop.
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