History Headscratchers / RaidersoftheLostArk

*** If the Ark interpreted 'opposing army' as 'everyone who is a member of and subscribes to the ideology of this particular armed force, no matter where they are', then the entire Third Reich, up to and including Hitler, would have melted overnight. Since that almost certainly didn't happen, we can safely assume that the Ark only attacks those who are in its direct vicinity and directly interacting with or attacking it. So whether he's a die-hard Nazi or just some hapless kid who got drafted, if Fritz von Hypothetical is just at back at base lying in his bunk reading a book and nowhere near the Ark then he's probably fine.

** Indy says outright why he's going after the Ark: He wants to find it not because he thinks that if the Nazis find it they will take over the world, but because it's a find of incredible historic significance and he wants to be the guy who found it. He doesn't believe in magic or superstition (at least, he ''says'' he doesn't to Marcus). Plus it apparently pays well and is a chance to reconnect with Abner Ravenwood and Marion. And it's a good thing for Marion that Indy ''did'' get involved, as otherwise she would have been tortured to death by Toht.

** Another reason could be that the Americans in charge of that decision weren't too fond of giving the ark to the Jews for safety reasons. WW2 is almost around, and Nazis were known to have problems with Jews in 1936. Better to keep the ark in safe America than risking a hunt for it as soon as it's given back to the Jews.

** Indy says outright why he's going after the Ark: He wants to find it not because he thinks if the Nazis find it they will take over the world, but because it's a find of incredible historic significance and he wants to be the guy who found it. He doesn't believe in magic or superstition (at least, he ''says'' he doesn't to Marcus). Plus it apparently pays well and is a chance to reconnect with Abner Ravenwood and Marion. And it's a good thing for Marion that Indy ''did'' get involved, as otherwise she would have been tortured to death by Toht.

** Indy says outright why he's going after the Ark: He wants to find it not because he thinks if the Nazis find it they will win the war, but because it's a find of incredible historic significance and he wants to be the guy who found it. He doesn't believe in magic or superstition (at least, he ''says'' he doesn't to Marcus). Plus it apparently pays well and is a chance to reconnect with Abner Ravenwood and Marion. And it's a good thing for Marion that Indy ''did'' get involved, as otherwise she would have been tortured to death by Toht.

*** And those same Nazis who carried it around are killed later at the opening ceremony. God is prescient in addition to being wrathful. God will punish those who have defiled His ark on His own terms, and His own schedule.

** You also have to remember, this was the 1930's; the bad old days of archaeology. Just a few years before, you had dozens of so-called archaeologists looting Egyptian tombs for gold trinkets.

** You also have to remember, this was the 1930's; the bad old days of archaeology. Just a few years before, you had dozens of so-called archaeologists looting Egyptian tombs for gold trinkets, and using those dirty old mummies as fuel for the boiler on the ship ride home.
*** Using mummies as fuel is an apocryphal tale: a desiccated mummy wrapped in centuries-old linen would burn like gunpowder in a fire.

*** I think what the first troper was trying to say is that Indy's focus on the gold idol is totally misplaced. Any podunk civilization can smelt gold into a small religious statue, but the ones that built that temple were using light-sensitive traps, pressure plates, and then the rolling boulder thing centuries before other peoples could have pulled them off. Studying those would be * much, much* more valuable to understanding that culture than simply taking the idol and sticking it in a glass museum case. In a way, its an unintentional critique of the way we learn history, just grabbing the pretty stuff and showing it off.

*** Since this is an AlternateUniverse, plain and simple (how else do you explain Afrika Korps in Egypt in 1936?), so in this AlternateUniverse, the schnorkel was undoubtedly invented several years before it actually was, so the U-boat could easily have remained submerged the entire voyage without once using battery power, with Indy lashed to the periscope.
*** I highly doubt it was alternate universe. That was NOT the Afrika Korps. That was an artefact-finding expedition of the kind Hitler sent out to find stuff, in many cases supposed proof of Aryan superiority. Having a very tiny German presence in Egypt is not exactly something that would worry Britain in 1936, especially since its whole purpose is not (as far as the British government would be told) militarily related.
*** The uniforms were definitely Afrika Korps uniforms, which were not issued until 1941, and they are shown almost universally using MP 40s (not developed and issued until 1940), even though submachine guns were secondary and most used rifles, but, considering such an event never actually occurred - actual archaeological expeditions had only the archeologists, no soldiers, for the reason that troops entering a foreign country's protectorate was and is an act of war - it would seem like an example of ArtisticLicense.\\
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The Afrika Korps symbol (a swastika over the trunk of a palm tree) is also visible at least once here and also in ''Last Crusade''.
*** It's not an AlternateUniverse, it's just ArtisticLicenseHistory meets RuleOfCool. Most vaguely historically literate people, they think of Nazis who are getting up to no good in the desert, they associate it with the Afrika Korps, so the filmmakers used the iconography of the Afrika Korps despite the anachronism. Similarly, the U-Boat has a schnorkel despite any anachronism because, again, people associate them with submarines. There's no need to over-complicate everything.

** The series is implied to be an AlternateHistory, with Germany already at war with Britain, but is not yet at war with the US because of isolationist policies still in place. This explains how they have a large number of troops in British territory, troops who are apparently Afrika Korps (formed 1941), and have free rein with regards to excavation therein. This also explains how German soldiers use MP 40s and P38s years before their development and production.
*** Where are you getting alternate history from? The MP40 was preceded by the extremely similar-looking MP36 and MP38, each a simplified version of its predecessor. Also, the Luger P08 looks a lot like the P38. Hence no problems with the guns. The Nazis actually did send expeditions to look for artefacts in different countries. The one we see was apparently trying to disguise itself as a legitimate excavation, as said above. I guess reality is stranger than fiction.
*** Yes, problem with the guns. While the [=P38=] shares a vaguely similar shape as the Luger, they do not even remotely look similar, and while the MP 40 was based on the MP 38, the two do not look alike, and the MP 36 has even less of a resemblance (at least when you actually know what you're looking at; to some, the M3 Grease Gun, MP 40 and [=PPSh=]-41 are all the same gun), and that's not even getting into the anti-tank weapon Indy finds - the actual prop was a modified Type 56 ([[OneSteveLimit not that Type 56]]), or RPG-2 copy, standing in for a Panzerfaust - Indy should not have such a weapon (the Germans had no anti-tank weapon in 1936; the Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck weren't developed until 1942). The actual digs were conducted by archeologists, without any Werhmacht or Waffen SS detatchment, for the express reason that troops entering a nation's protectorate is an act of war. While it is reasonable for them to be trying to look like a legitimate dig, they're not exactly doing anything that either requires a detachment or would attract unwanted attention, bringing that many troops, trucks and aircraft into a neutral territory would not go unnoticed (exactly what they don't want; besides which, the US government seems to know exactly what's going on the whole time), and would still be unnecessary for a dig (the soldiers don't really do any digging since Belloq and Toht hire or coerce locals to work for them).
*** If they were in a war, there would have been more signals about it. Also, a Germany holding Tanis during the war would either have already beaten the Brits in Egypt or would still be attacked by the British to push them back. The former would mean that victory in the war was near, the latter would mean that all those soldiers would have been sent somewhere else.
*** Plus the film DOES specify it's 1936. Germany and Britain still had rather normal peacetime relations back then.
*** And the German soldiers use P40s and Lugers simply because, well, those are the guns that rightly or wrongly are often associated with the Wehrmacht in the 1930s and 1940s. For similar reasons why pretty much every 1930s Hollywood gangster ever has carried a Tommy gun. It's just what people expect (and likely just what the production crew had access to).

** It's not an AlternateHistory, that's just overcomplicating things (and being a wee bit pedantic). This all falls under ArtisticLicenseHistory meets RuleOfCool. It's an adventure film. You're not supposed to be bogging yourself down in pedantically charting the logistics of pre-war geopolitics, German military firearms and the accurate geography of the Ancient Egyptian civilization, you're supposed to thrill to the old-school pulpy thrills of Indiana Jones fighting Nazis in a buried Egyptian temple. And if you are, in as much as it's possible to watch a film wrong, you're watching the film wrong.

*** This troper never really questioned it, just assumed Belloq was more or less sincere (or at least genuinely thought it was a just a "say the secret word and the duck will come down" situation where all he had to do was wear the right hat and say the right lines to make the magic box work) while the Nazis justified it to themselves as taking the ritual to use the Ark "back" as its rightful owners, as THEY are obviously the rightful rulers of the world and Jews are just underhanded Christ-killing subhumans who aren't entitled to ritual pomp and circumstance. That or they viewed it as just another way to mock Judaism (Toht obviously finds the entire situation hysterically funny, although that may be because he's sceptical about the whole thing). In that light, Dietrich's discomfort looks more like he's starting to suspect they're making a horrible, horrible mistake.

[[folder: This is Not WWII]]
* Why is there so many people convinced that the Indiana Jones films take place during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII? The captions in each movie that state the year in which they're set are clear: 1936 (''Raiders''), 1935 (''Temple'') and 1938 (''Crusade''). So really, there should not be any problem for the Nazis to dig in Egypt or for an American to move freely through Italy and Germany.
** Because most people equate the Nazis with WWII (for blindingly obvious reasons), and forget that they were around ''before'' they decided to start their conquest of Europe. Hitler didn't just go, "Okay, let's invade Poland" the moment he seized power.
** There still would be a problem with digging in Egypt. While nominally independent, it was still basically run by the British, and they would not have allowed a full-on German military operation there.
** The series is implied to take place in an AlternateHistory, where Nazi Germany is already at war with Britain, which would allow them to dig in British-held territory and the Afrika Korps is created that much sooner, and with US isolationism still in place, the US government is unwilling to get involved with another foreign war, at least in 1936, but are not above covert operations.
*** Where is that implied? The Nazis sent expeditions similar to the one shown in the film to quite a few places looking for artefacts to 'prove' their theories about Ayrian racial superiority, etc. Had war actually been going on, I'm pretty sure we would have known about it.
*** That "AlternateHistory" theory seems more like a WMG than canon, as there's nothing in-universe that suggest such a thing, especially not in taking to account the prequel series ''Series/TheYoungIndianaJonesChronicles'' that clearly happens in our history.
*** The actual digs were only the archaeologists, without a Werhmacht or SS detachment for the very reason that armed troops entering another nation's territory/protectorate is an act of war. The North Africa Campaign was started (by Italy) for almost the same reason.
*** It could be assumed that the Nazis' "massive archaeological team" was a cover to smuggle in the military elements, and the British authorities were deceived. They could have got in through Libya (at the time controlled by Fascist Italy) and then snuck across the desert without the British knowing; depending on how many were involved and how long they took to come in. It seems as if the dig site was far enough from anywhere to avoid notice from the authorities.
*** For all we know, in the Indyverse the Afrika Korps could have based their uniforms and so forth on designs that had ''first'' been whipped up for this archaeological expedition. The military vehicles may even have been employed as much to test their capabilities in a future theatre of operations as to retrieve the Ark.
[[/folder]]

** Belloq even specifically says to Dietrich that they should confirm it firm to get him to go along with the ritual.