History Headscratchers / RaidersoftheLostArk

** Yep, Indy's simply done with this shit before it even starts.

** The Cracked article is a perfect example of hindsight being 20/20 and the audience having a different perspective to the characters; its criticisms are based from the (somewhat over-confident and pedantic) perspective of people declaring that the problems Indy faces are easily solved because they know what the ending is and have ''seen these problems being solved''. To wit:

*** Essentially, the Cracked article is a rather long-winded and slightly pedantic way of asking "Why doesn't Indy act like he knows he's in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''?" To which the answer is, of course: [[FourthWallMyopia because he doesn't]].

*** Essentially, the Cracked article is a rather long-winded and slightly pedantic way of asking "Why doesn't Indy act like he knows he's in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''?" To which the answer is, of course: because he doesn't.

* Why did the US government put the Ark in storage instead of studying it? Were they disbelieving of its power or simply knew not fool with powers beyond them.

** Also also, the United States government is generally not in the habit of handing off massively powerful objects to religious sects from other countries that it has no direct control or influence over. As far as the Americans are concerned, finders keepers; they gots the magic box that melts people, they's keeping the magic box that melts people.

** Also also, the United States government is generally not in the habit of handing off massively powerful objects to religious sects from other countries that it has no direct control or influence over. As far as the Americans are concerned, finders keepers; they gots the magic box that can melts people, they's keeping the magic box that melts people.

*** Most importantly, Indy ''doesn't know about'' the Ark's face-melting secret for most of the movie. He literally only realises that the contents of the Ark should not be looked at when he and Marion are tied to a stake right in front of it and it's been opened up -- as in, five minutes from the ending. As far as he knows for most of the film, the Ark is a potentially unfathomably powerful weapon that must be kept out of the Nazis' hands at all costs. Claiming that Indy should have just let the Nazis take the Ark is, essentially, criticising him for not being omnipotent or precognitive or aware that he's a fictional character in a story, which are hardly fair criticisms to make.

*** Because to all practical intents and purposes Egypt was ''not'' independent at the time; rightly or wrongly, it was a British-controlled protectorate. Considering whether or not an independent Egypt would have ''also'' opposed the Nazi incursion is pretty much irrelevant to the question about this movie, since the British were the ones calling the shots at the time and so are the ones who are in a position to officially respond to the Nazi incursion.

*** The Nazis ''are'' digging in the wrong place -- but the wrong place is still, essentially, just over the road from where they're currently digging. They might not have the exact correct location, but they are still too close to locating it for comfort. There is no guarantee that Belloq or the Nazis will give up upon not finding anything at the current location, and they may in fact still locate the true location of the Ark independently. If Indy's purpose is to keep the Ark out of the hands of the Nazis, then it is better to at least ''try'' to steal it out from under them and slip away before they realise rather than just leave it where it is and hope they don't find it.

** Isolationism was influential in the United States pre-1941, but it was hardly universally accepted. The agents meeting with Indy work for a [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt president]] who, although faced with significant isolationist opposition in Congress, was personally convinced that war with Germany was a matter of when not if, a view shared by many in his administration. And heck, if you were trying to stop a rival power from gaining a military advantage but wanted to do so without incurring public opposition from your political opponents, covertly farming the job out to some academic with no official links to the government would be a pretty good way of doing so.
** Also, any agents of the US State Department or military intelligence who are likely to be in a position to be trusted with a clearly important mission like this are almost certainly going to share the President's viewpoint that isolationism and ''not'' preventing Nazi Germany from acquiring powerful super-magic weapons are crappy ideas.
** Notice how the entirety of the government's involvement is two guys who essentially hand Indy(a private citizen) a fistful of cash, tell him to go find the ark, and pinky-swear that the museum will get to display it if he's successful. There was not exactly a bill in congress needed to make this happen.

** Also, there’s the propaganda piece. If it's the real deal, the Nazis could put a spin on it, just by having their ark in their possession.

*** Hitler actually wasn't obsessed with archseology, he considered it a waste of time. ''Himmler'' was obsessed with archseology.

*** Well...not really. Or, rather, kind of yes, and kind of no. The connections between the Nazis and Christianity, especially, are pretty complicated. On the one hand, more than a few Nazi supporters ''did'' think they were doing God's work and were Christians of the 'Jews are the Christ killers!' variety. The Third Reich even had an 'Aryan' Church which tried to advance the idea that Jesus was not himself a Jew. On the other hand, another large chunk were extremely hostile to Christianity and sought to eliminate it from German life, and as time progressed that was the group which clearly held the most influence. It's largely accepted that had Hitler won the German church's days were numbered; it was to be systematically isolated and destroyed as a competitor ideology to Nazism. Too much SeriousBusiness, I know.

** Basically, as touched upon by certain posters above, the only reason the Nazis going after the Ark of the Covenant doesn't make sense is if you know absolutely ''nothing'' about the history of anti-Semitism. It's not something Hitler and the Nazis invented, it's something that Christians invented and propagated for centuries earlier; Hitler merely took advantage of what was taken for granted by "good" German Catholics and Protestants alike, that Jews were heretics and inherently inferior to Christians, having broken the Covenant between God and humans by refusing to accept the coming of Jesus. Hitler in many cases quoted nearly ''word for word'' opinions published by Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Reformation, in a book called "On The Jews And Their Lies", and multiple Nazis are quoted on the similarities between Hitler and Luther's visions. With this in mind, it's only natural to realise that the Nazis (or, indeed, pretty much every mainstream Christian German of the time) would think of the Ark as a ''Christian'' relic and not a Judaic one. Hitler's troops marched into battle with "Gott Mitt Us"[[note]]"God [is] With Us"[[/note]] on their belt buckles; why wouldn't such an order have every reason to think that the Ark would work for them rather than against them? Hell, even their destruction can be attributed more to breaking other Ark-related laws from the Old Testament (mortals must never touch the Ark, bearing the Ark into battle without God's express permission brings only disaster) than to their anti-Semitism.
** Also, there’s the propaganda piece. If its the real deal, the Nazis could put a spin on it, just by having their ark in their possession.

* Why is there so many people convinced that this takes place during [=WW2=]? The movie legends are clear: 1936, 1935 and 1938. 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 (as long as they don't see him murdering people).
** Because most people equate the Nazis to 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.

*** Where is that implied? The Nazis sent expeditions similar to the one shown in the film to quite a few places looking for artifacts. Had war actually been going on, I'm pretty sure we would have known about it.

*** The actual digs were only the archeologists, without a Werhmacht or Waffen SS detatchment for the very reason that troops entering another nation's protectorate is an act of war. The North Africa Campaign was started (by Italy) for almost the same reason.
*** It could be assumed that their "massive archaeological team" was a cover to smuggle in the military elements, and the British authorities were deceived. There was also (unless I am mistaken) Italian-dominated territory in Ethiopia which could have been used to bring German troops in overland, again possibly 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, the Indyverse's version the Afrika Korps 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 theater of operations as to retrieve the Ark.

*** The markings on the floor do indicate where to place the staff based on the time of year. The markings on the headpiece tell how tall the Staff of Ra has to be. Since Belloq only got a copy with one side, his staff was too long and the beam lit up the wrong building on the model city. He was digging in the wrong place. Indy's staff was the right length. We can assume that the Germans did not get the same mystical light show that Indy got when they took their staff down to the Map Room, since only Indy was projecting a beam onto the correct model building. That one was probably covered in [[AWizardDidIt special magic reflecting paint]] or some such, just to let you know you had done your homework correctly.
** Further point on the markings--when the Nazis created their copy of the medallion, they did so from the imprint on Toht's hand. Meaning they had no choice about including the markings, because they would appear automatically when whatever they used to make a mold for the copy was poured over his hand.

* How the hell did that chick write "I love you" on her eyelids? Eyeliner smears and smudges very easily!
** People do crazy things for love, and crazier things for childish infatuation.

*** A renowned FRENCH archaeologist, so from a friendly country

*** 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 artifacts 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.

** We don't know which part of Egypt Tanis was in. It's possible that it was outside of the 1936 Egyptian borders, like say in what was technically Libyan soil - they'd have had no problem operating there (supported by Belloq's claim that "the desert is three weeks in every direction.") Notice that when they're in Cairo, they're a lot more discreet: they wear civilian clothing and leave the killing and bruising to local thugs.

*** Who said the Ark had to be in the center of they Egyptian empire? If I were the Egyptians, I'd think back to what happened to the Philistines when they captured the Ark and do my level best to keep it a safe distance from any population centers.

* Why did the US government put the Ark in storage instead of studying it? Were they disbelieving of it's power or simply knew not fool with powers beyond them.
** The latter.
** Indy can testify 'Yeah, despite the part where Belloq flawlessly followed the ritual as laid out in Leviticus, everybody who opened the box with intent to use it still died.' At this point, the US research staff would feel an understandable reluctance to open the box.

** Indy's jacket is unquestionably made of leather. Motorcyclists prefer leather clothing because you can take a fall at speed and get dragged/rolled across asphalt without getting torn up. His pants are harder to figure out, but they are probably either heavy canvas or wool (which is not actually as bad an idea in the desert as one might think - most of the natives would have been wearing linen or wool). The next time we see him, his pants do have rips all over them, and a scene follows shortly after (on the ship) where he complains that everything hurts (except for one of his elbows) and falls asleep mid-kiss.

* How did Indy get off the island at the end? Was there a plane on the island? Did he call in the United States government?

*** Even if you just sailed them on the surface, U-boats weren't one person craft. Most likely he found a radio, sent out an S.O.S. and the two were picked up by a merchant or fishing vessel.

*** Biblical stories of the Ark tend to follow a pattern of: a) God tells people not to use the Ark in battle, b) people use the Ark in battle, c) God smites them. It would suggest that only the people who dared to use the Ark in such a blasphemous (old testament definition of blasphemy) way would receive the punishment.

* Why does the Ark even ''work'' in the modern era. It's the Ark ''of the Covenant'', very specifically the sign and seal of the Mosaic covenant between God and the Jewish nation. And that covenant is gone, Christ's death and resurrection ended the Old Covenant and established the New. Wouldn't that make the Ark just a box now?

** The “official statements” do exist, is part of the Catholic Church’s official doctrine for example, and from several Orthodox and Protestant churches (although not all Protestant churches as some, especially of the Evangelical variety, do consider that Jews are still the chosen people), is not about antisemitism as even Christian Jews of those faiths believed that, and basically what they say is that Christians are the chosen people now and not Jews (as in practitioners of Judaism, technically if an ethnic Jew converts to Christianity would be as chosen as any other Christian), is more about (well, sometime very common among all religions) that your religion is the only one that is valid or at least the best of the bunch, thus it makes no sense for most churches to think that other religious community is the real deal. That said, obviously Jews don’t think so and believe to still be the chosen people, thus what you can take from the movie is that in-universe Judaism (and not Christianity) is the one true religion (may have something to do that Steven Spielberg is Jewish).
** For all we know, the Ark normally ''is'' just a box now. It only blew up in the Nazis' faces or burnt their mark off the crate because the divine force it represents - regardless of what faith, if any, is valid in the Indyverse - was ''pissed'' that a formerly-empowered artifact was being abused by genocidal dicks.

** Not only that, but without his favorite hat, which he would sacrifice an arm to keep with him, and he gets it back by the end of the movie.

*** I highly doubt it was alternate universe. That was NOT the Afrika Korps. That was an artifact 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 archeological 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.\\

*** 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 entire villainous plot strikes me as more than a little bit daft, even viewed from the very start before anyone knew melting faces would be involved. There are two possibilities: either the God of the Bible is not real and therefore possession of the Ark is meaningless, or the God of the Bible ''is'' real and the Ark has immense power. If it's the latter, what ''remotely sane'' individual actually thinks the Creator of All Things is going to just sit back and let it be used by the ''foremost enemies of His chosen people'' to conquer the world? It's really hard to imagine just what they ''expected'' to happen when they opened the Ark. The whole thing is properly buried under RuleOfCool and doesn't diminish the awesomeness, and it's also an satisfying Take That from Spielberg to the Nazis, but it's one of the bigger [[VillainBall Villain Balls]] around.
** The churches in Germany were, generally-speaking, not very theologically astute. Most of the Lutheran and local German Catholic church had been corrupted into an uber-patriotic farce ("To be a good Christian is to be a good German"), with some even combining the Swastika and the Cross! More to the point, not as many of the Nazi top brass were actively practicing Christian as you might think They nominally held onto the religious affiliation, but didn't bother with practicing it. Combine a lack of time spent really studying a religion that was messed up and watered-down, and you have an army who just didn't think through their Ark defilement.
** Many Germans were Catholic and many were Lutheran - Hitler himself was an altar boy and still considered himself Catholic late in the war (he has in fact never been excommunicated so the Vatican still considers him to be a Catholic as well). Think of what the Catholic Church taught about the Jews for almost 2000 years. Yes, they WERE God's chosen people until Jesus came along and they betrayed and killed him. The official Catholic doctrine was that the Catholic Church was now the only way to God and the only true faith therefore any relic of the God of the old testament would be a boon to a Catholic country and its armies - not to Jews. To me, it makes less sense that Beloche would attempt to perform a Jewish ceremony.

** The two American agents who assign Indy say that Hitler is a nutter on the subject of religious artifacts. In real life the Nazis did in fact pursue knowledge about religion and the occult, and they even went so far as to place the swastika at archeological digs (picture cutting and pasting hieroglyphics in Egyptian temples) to make it looks like they were predestined to rule the world.
*** Hitler actually wasn't obsessed with archeology, he considered it a waste of time. ''Himmler'' was obsessed with archeology.

** TakeAThirdOption, captain. The Nazis though the Ark was a powerful artifact that wasn't associated with God in any way. They believed it was simply a weapon anyone could use.

** Certain anti-semetic Christians believe that when the Jews refused to follow Jesus they forfeited their place as god's chosen people, with Christians taking their place. Hitler's own religious beliefs were a rather weird mixture of Catholicism and Germanic myth, but it wouldn't surprise me if he believed something like this.

** It wasn't anywhere near Cairo. When Marion goes to flee from his tent, Belloq tells him that the desert is "Three weeks in every direction." True, he may have been bluffing, but then Indy has that long, protracted fight scene with the Nazi convoy on its way to the Cairo airfield so it was clearly a significant drive.

[[folder: Isn't Fire Supposed to be Hot, Herr Toth?]]

** Um. Pretty much ''every archaeologist ever'' has cared more about the artifacts themselves than the mechanisms to protect them. When you read about the Pyramids, you read about two things: Graverobbers having gotten to them first, and the marvel that King Tut's tomb was still intact. Also, because he can, you know, ''actually take'' the gold idol. How do you propose he was going to bring a temple full of traps to a museum?

** This Just Bugged the filmmakers too. That's why they added the scene where Dietrich says he's "uncomfortable with the thought of this... Jewish ritual" and Belloq talks him into it (apparently, this was the last scene to be added to the script before filming). And the dialogue in that scene seems to imply Belloq had already talked the Nazis into this and that Dietrich was getting cold feet at the last minute, so they must have known ahead of time that he was bringing the outfit and what it was for. Of course, considering how much the Nazis hated Jews, this is still a pretty big HandWave, but at least they tried.
*** 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.) In that light, Dietrich's discomfort looks more like he's starting to suspect they're making a horrible, horrible mistake.

** If worth something, I thing one of the (crazy) Nazi theories is that modern Jews are descendants of converted Khazars and that the ancient Israelites were Aryans or something like that, therefore, an “Israelite Rite” wouldn’t be entirely contradictory to Nazis, at least not for those that held that belief.
** Belloq was always planning to "test" the ark before it was taken back to Berlin; firstly, he wants to be the one to open it and see what's inside first (he tells Indy that Hitler can have it "after I'm finished with it"), and secondly, as he points out to Dietrich, it's probably a good idea from their perspective to make sure that the ark actually ''is'' an all-powerful magical superweapon and not just a gaudy stone box with a lot of dust inside before they try to show it off to their bosses. Hence, Dietrich was likely always aware that this was going to be a thing and Belloq was going to need some authentic Jewish ceremonial garb in order to perform it, but that doesn't mean he had to like it. He was just taking an opportunity to express his discomfort with the situation once the time came.

** This movie is set before WWII. The UK wouldn't be fighting it until 1940s, the US a year later. And why would the US, with isolationist policies still around, have anything to do with Egypt?

*** The UK declared war on Germany after their invasion of Poland in September 1939.

** The Cracked article is a perfect example of hindsight being 20/20 and the audience having a different perspective to the characters; its criticisms are based from the (somewhat over-confident and pedantic) perspective of people declaring that the problems Indy faces are easily solved because they know what the ending is and have ''seen'' them being solved. To wit:

** As for Marion, she's running a tavern that's popular mainly because it seems to be the only place to get a drink in what is clearly a small, remote and out-of-the-way place, it's not like she's running Studio 54. She's pretty off the grid. Furthermore, she's pretty much got no money and thus no way of getting to anywhere which might a decent boat, air or train service to somewhere else, much less have a US consulate (the nearest one is probably hundreds of miles away). Given how eagerly she latches onto Indy's quest despite their history and almost getting killed, the answer to the question of "couldn't she arrange to get back to the States?" is pretty clearly "she would have if she could have."

** Most Germans were Catholic - Hitler himself was an altar boy and still considered himself Catholic late in the war (he has in fact never been excommunicated so the Vatican still considers him to be a Catholic as well). Think of what the Catholic Church taught about the Jews for almost 2000 years. Yes, they WERE God's chosen people until Jesus came along and they betrayed and killed him. The official Catholic doctrine was that the Catholic Church was now the only way to God and the only true faith therefore any relic of the God of the old testament would be a boon to a Catholic country and its armies - not to Jews. To me, it makes less sense that Beloche would attempt to perform a Jewish ceremony.

** The Cracked article is a perfect example of hindsight being 20/20 and the audience having a different perspective to the characters; its criticisms are based from the (somewhat over-confident and pedantic) perspective of people declaring that the problems Indy faces are easily solved because they know what the ending is and have seen them being solved. To wit:
*** Most importantly, Indy ''doesn't know about'' the Ark's face-melting secret for most of the movie. He literally only realises that the contents of the Ark should not be looked at when he and Marion are tied to a stake right in front of it and it's been opened up. As far as he knows for most of the film, the Ark is a potentially unfathomably powerful weapon that must be kept out of the Nazis' hands at all costs. Claiming that Indy should have just let the Nazis take the Ark is, essentially, criticising him for not being omnipotent or precognitive, which is hardly a fair criticism to make.

*** Most importantly, Indy ''doesn't know about'' the Ark's face-melting secret for most of the movie. He literally only realises that the contents of the Ark should not be looked at when he and Marion are tied to a stake right in front of it and it's been opened up. As far as he knows for most of the film, the Ark is a potentially unfathomably powerful weapon that must be kept out of the Nazis' hands at all costs. Claiming that Indy should have just let the Nazis take the Ark is, essentially, criticising him for not being omnipotent or precognitive.

[[folder: Indy's facial expression before the Giant Mechanic Part II]]
* Also, a related question: What exactly is Indy's expression and body language when he first see's said mechanic meant to indicate. I always took it as something like "Oh, you've gotta be fuckin kidding me", but I don't know.
[[/folder]]

*** The Nazis ''are'' digging in the wrong place -- but the wrong place is still, essentially, just over the road from where they're currently digging. They might not have the exact correct location, but they are still too close to locating it for comfort. There is no guarantee that Belloq or the Nazis will give up upon not finding anything at the current location, and they may in fact still locate the true location of the Grail independently. If Indy's purpose is to keep the Ark out of the hands of the Nazis, then it is better to at least ''try'' to steal it out from under them and slip away before they realise rather than just leave it where it is and hope they don't find it.

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

*** The Nazis ''are'' digging in the wrong place -- but the wrong place is still, essentially, just over the road from where they're currently digging. They might not have the exact correct location, but they are still too close to locating it for comfort. There is no guarantee that Belloq or the Nazis will give up upon not finding anything at the current location, and they may in fact still locate the true location of the Grail independently. If Indy's purpose is to keep the Ark out of the hands of the Nazis, then it is better to at least ''try'' to steal it out from under them and slip away before they realise rather than just leave it where it is and hope they don't find it. For comparison's sake,