# A Raiders of the Lost Ark question **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [November 11, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991 "2023-11-11T17:54:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/1 "2023-11-11T17:54:57Z")
Jones is fighting the Nazis in their trucks. He’s thrown through the windshield and hooks his whip to the front bumper and slides the length of the truck. He then prevails. The question is: for the rest of the flick was he reconnected to his whip, or did they forget it was on the truck? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2023, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/2 "2023-11-11T18:02:25Z")
Here’s the sequence [https://youtu.be/yqQD8sVtfA4?si=BM35u\_lr4ukoLFyK&t=330](https://youtu.be/yqQD8sVtfA4?si=BM35u_lr4ukoLFyK&t=330) He gets back control of the truck at the end, and you see him drive into the village and into concealment from the pursuing Nazis with the whip clearly still trailing off the back of the truck. So why wouldn’t have been able to recover it? ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2023, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/3 "2023-11-11T18:03:21Z")
Oh crap, I was thinking it went over a cliff 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/4 "2023-11-11T22:28:29Z")
Nice touch that the whip was still visible in the shot. Now tell me how he got back into the truck whilst being drug behind. 👋 ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/5 "2023-11-12T02:03:02Z")
Drugs? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/6 "2023-11-12T03:18:03Z")
Well, this surely isn’t the biggest plot hole in Raiders… ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/7 "2023-11-12T03:26:02Z")
Does Indy use the whip in the movie after the truck chase? He and Marion get on the boat with Katanga, clean up a bit in their cabin, Nazis show up, submarine, and Indy steals and changes into a Nazi uniform. I can’t remember any scenes with the whip during that interval. Someone could watch it and let us know if Indy has the whip after the truck chase. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/8 "2023-11-12T03:31:35Z")
Where there is a whip, there is a way. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/9 "2023-11-12T05:15:09Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I can’t remember any scenes with the whip during that interval. He’s got the whip holstered (or whatever the term is for a whip) by his side when he and Marion meet up with Sallah and Katanga as they board the ship. He doesn’t have it with him when he boards the Nazi sub. So, hey, free whip for Katanga. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/10 "2023-11-12T05:38:45Z")
In a deleted scene he used his whip to tie himself to the periscope of the Nazi sub ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/11 "2023-11-12T05:53:15Z")
In the novelization he uses the whip to lash himself to the periscope. The deleted scene from the movie just shows him hanging on to it with his hands. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/12 "2023-11-12T18:55:00Z")
He hijacks a truck filled with German soldiers. Where the hell is he going to go? All they had to do was sit tight until he was out of gas or otherwise forced to stop, ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/13 "2023-11-12T18:59:59Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Now tell me how he got back into the truck whilst being drug behind. [“Kid, this ain’t that kind of movie.”](https://youtu.be/onMm0DLg8CE?si=k0hV4DREAa0_AWdQ&t=55s) > [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Well, this surely isn’t the biggest plot hole in Raiders… I think the largest plot hole is the German Army conducting a massive archeological dig in the Nile Delta despite the fact that Egypt was under British military occupation, which could not have been secret given the scale of the operation, the corps of uniformed soldiers (apparently doing nothing but sitting around eating because they certainly didn’t secure the site), and the reputation for having “…hired or shanghaied every digger in Cairo…They hire only strong backs and they pay pennies for them.“ There is, of course, the issue that if Dr. Henry ‘Indiana’ Jones had just stayed home drinking herbal tea and reading an H. Rider Haggard novel, Belloq would not have found the Ark at all, or if he did would have had his face fried off just the same. He arguably accomplished less than James Bond in _Goldfinger_, save for firmly establishing the international image of the “Ugly American” who wantonly destroys property, raids historical sites for valuables, and leaves without care for the damage he’s caused in far flung locations from South America to East Asia and North Africa, in essence, a precursor to the neoliberal politics of globalization. _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ is a great movie that makes absolutely no sense, from the opening which has Jones hiking in through days of jungle only to escape in a conveniently close seaplane, to the end where he somehow sneaks into a secret Nazi submarine base on an island in the Mediterranean, gets ahold of a Russian anti-tank grenade launcher, and then get captured but somehow not immediately executed, so that he can survive until the end. I think we must conclude that the entire movie was either a fabulation of milquetoast associate professor of archeology Henry Irwin James, daydreaming about his exciting alternate life while cataloguing a vast array of 19th Dynasty of Egypt pottery shards, or else a Rekall simulation that was experienced by the guy in the next room over from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/14 "2023-11-12T19:19:57Z")
The U-boat presumably doesn’t dive once, in contrast to what they often do. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/15 "2023-11-12T19:24:00Z")
And Indy survives on what for days, seawater and fish caught by hand? And no German sailor ever enters the lookout? There’s not much space on the deck of a submarine for hiding. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/16 "2023-11-12T19:42:06Z")
Also, the part where that dude rips the beating heart out of that other dude, who doesn’t die? No way that could really happen, except maybe in Florida. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/17 "2023-11-12T19:45:59Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Also, the part where that dude rips the beating heart out of that other dude, who doesn’t die? …Different movie… ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/18 "2023-11-12T19:56:49Z")
Even if the Ark itself wasn’t there, I imagine that the buried city of Tanis would be of enormous interest to _real_ archaeologists. In the real world, most ruins aren’t that well preserved. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/19 "2023-11-12T21:16:25Z")
Well, that’s another ‘problem’. Jones and Marcus Brody make a big deal about the cable from Abner Ravenwood, with Indy concluding with amazement that “The Nazis have discovered Tanis!” In reality, the location of Tanis has been well-known since the 1800s, and although there was some dispute over whether it was the same as the Biblical city of Zoan (and confusion over whether it was the same as Per-Ramesses), it was not waiting to be discovered and excavated by Germans or Ravenwood. Of course, the entire story about the Ark being taken to Tanis by the Egyptians and stored in the “Well of Souls” by the Biblical pharoah _Shishaq_ (presumably the actual historical Egyptian pharoah Shoshenq I, although the mentioned dates don’t match Shoshenq’s rule), along with the map room activated by a magical light beam from a crystal embedded in the headpiece of the Staff of Ra, Tanis being buried by a sandstorm that lasted an entire year, Brody’s claim that “The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste in entire regions”, et cetera, are all fabrications by screenwriter Lawrence Kasden which fit in nicely with the pulp adventure theme of the movie but have no basis in historiography of the Ark. The scene in _Raiders_ where Indy and Marcus discuss the (fictional) history of the Ark with the Army Intelligence men is a great example of unforced exposition (and does the courtesy of treating Brody as an intelligent and learned archeologist rather than played for bumbling comic relief as in _Last Crusade_), but it is almost completely fiction without even mythological basis. I don’t think that really qualifies as a plot hole, because it is true within the world of the movie in which the Ark brands over Nazi emblems and emits seraphim that make grown men scream like little girls and then cause their heads to literally explode, but it certainly isn’t based upon real history or Biblical myth. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991/20 "2023-11-12T21:27:00Z")
Looking at the Wikipedia pictures of the _real_ Tanis, it’s not nearly as well-preserved as the buried city in the movie, so if one was buried in sand while still that intact, I expect it would be hugely interesting. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-question/992991.md?page=2)