Everyone always wants to fight the hypothetical of The Cold Equations.
I like the story for its “the universe doesn’t care if you are a cute, innocent girl. If you’re stupid, you die”. It’s a good lesson that needs to be said.
But…I wish they’d done a better job of it.
eta I still don’t like the story for “cute girl is worth more than skilled pilot”, and the story itself expecting him to sacrifice himself to save the Plot Idiot. The days of “women and children first” are long gone, and should never have existed in the first place.
Exactly what I said. And any person that blind would have a second pair at home anyway.
I really hate that episode- there is no good reason for Burgess Meredith to "get his comeuppance’ ala most Twilight zone episodes. He is not a bad guy at all. Maybe TV writers just hate readers?
Good one!
Campbell insisted there be no solution, and in fact the story is pretty bad- only a sign? No locks> No guards? No- and this is critical- preflight checks? Its stupid and Campbell had it written just to infuriate his readers- the short got more mail than any other- and that was Johns goal.
Yep.
Nope. Since if you DO anything, you will be sued, charged with manslaughter, and other bad things. The trolley dilemma does not- at least the version I have read- claim that it is your job/duty to man that switch. Just walk away - then call 911.
Nice one!
Yep- if you have stunners- then you can (and should) shoot first and ask questions later. The same thing happened over and over on Warehouse 13- they had a stun gun- just shoot dammit!
We have covered this well and solidly in several threats- if Sauron sees you coming- you are toast. And other reasons, because Gandalf would have to drop Frodo into the pit.
Sure- but then survivors figure out NOT to open it or look at it, then they put the Ark at the head of a Panzer army which becomes unbeatable. Amy was wrong.
Subs have hatches where torpedoes, and even whole engines can be brought inside.
Or the ships computers which tell you how to take over the ship. Sure, they are guests- give them a nice stateroom, and two redhirts are “guides”.
There is that. I have to assume the U-Boat was in contact with Command so someone would have known where to look for their missing submarine. If Jones wasn’t there to get the Ark into US hands, some smarter Nazi would have scooped it up and potentially figured out how to utilize it.
Again, the plan when dealing with some super weapon shouldn’t be “Let’s just hope our enemies kill themselves with it”.
Torpedoes are smaller than the Ark, and if something large needs to be added, like an engine, they cut the hull open. You know how big a U-boat diesel engine is? Big!
Which shows a complete lack of understanding how the Ark works. Aside from the fact that the Israelites were not unbeatable, and as a matter of fact, no longer possess the Ark, do you think G_d would let the Nazis use it?
Besides it didn’t even work all the time for the Israelites.
“According to the biblical narrative, a few years later the elders of Israel decided to take the Ark onto the battlefield to assist them against the Philistines, having recently been defeated at the battle of Eben-Ezer.They were again heavily defeated, with the loss of 30,000 men. The Ark was captured by the Philistines.”
Yeah, especially since it’s not like Indiana Jones knew what would happen when they opened it. It would only be an “easy answer” if he could foretell the future.
Aside from those figures being way smaller (just search for a photo of Indy and Sallah carrying it!*) there’s the whole “square peg in a round hole” problem. You can’t get a 2’ square peg into a 2’ diameter round hole.
Don’t we see the crate containing the ark being raised vertically out of the submarine in the sub base? That suggests it’s going in and out through a hatch on the top surface.
Yeah, this. The Ark isn’t a machine, it’s an instrument of God’s will. The Nazis aren’t going to find a way to “trick” God into working for them. If they think they’ve figured out a way to game the Ark into being a weapon for them, then God’s just going to change the way the Ark works, so it either does nothing, or it backfires and melts a bunch of Nazi faces.
Sure but, again, during the meeting with the military, Brody tells the government guys that an army possessing the Ark is invincible. Jones doesn’t contradict him or say “Well, only if it’s a God-fearing Jewish army”. The closest they come is saying that the pharaoh who took it from Jerusalem had a year-long sandstorm consume the city where the Ark was taken to. So the government has no reason to assume that the Ark is Death to Nazis. The Nazis aren’t going to say “There’s an artifact that makes you invincible but, I dunno guys, maybe we shouldn’t go after it”.
Heck, there’s an argument to be made for thinking that the Ark is some super magic win-box because, if it’s just God making his favorite armies win, then you don’t need the Ark at all versus “An army carrying the Ark before it would be invincible…” Plus Hitler is deeply into the occult and mysticism and I’m sure there’s extra-scriptural works in various Gnostic and pseudepigraphical writings talking the Ark up as an engine of destruction.
So it seems reasonable to me that (a) Hitler wants the Ark and (b) the US Government doesn’t want Hitler to have the Ark rather than just saying “Haha, Hitler’s gonna melt his face”.
Everyone points out the problem with Raiders but nobody points out the problem with Last Crusade.
Yes you’re immortal but you can’t leave the temple, so even if the Nazis got it the best they can do is have Hitler put his bunker there so he can be “immortal” at the cost of being in a place that’s super easy to surround and lay siege to for the Allies. So if Indy had just let the Nazis find the Holy Grail the war would have ended sooner!
I’m not talking about what the characters know about the Ark, I’m talking about what the Ark actually turns out to be. Nobody at the beginning of the film has any reason to think the Ark will auto-kill the Nazis. Certainly, the Nazis wouldn’t think that, because they think God is on their side. The US government apparently doesn’t have a clue about the Ark, they just know its something Hitler wants, so why not get it before he can? They don’t seem to think that it’s that serious a threat, though, given that they just send some college professor to fetch it, instead of a squad of marines, or a pack of OSS agents, or even just a handler to go with Jones and write reports back to Washington. Indy himself never really treats it as a supernatural threat until the very end, just as an extremely valuable historical artifact.
By the end of the film, we know that the Ark is pretty much exactly what the Bible says it was, which implies the Bible is also largely right about the nature of God. And if that’s the case, God isn’t going to let the Ark be used by the Nazis.
Well, it can also heal injuries. So it would work as a medical center for serious problems.
It’s also unclear if it works as a rejuvinator. You won’t get infinite life if you leave, but what if it removes all of your pre-cancerous cells, fixes organ damage, etc.? You’re going to live longer on average even if you aren’t totally preserved.
