It is a great historical find even if Indy doesn’t really believe in it. No archaeologist of Indy’s caliber could turn down the chance to find it.
Yeah, and then Shia LaBeouf wouldn’t have been born and there would be no Indy IV.
And that would have been even better than just the killing Hitler thing.
And let’s not even get started on the whole “Egypt was a British Protectorate at the time and I’m sure the British Government would have had something to say about heavily armed Nazis staging digs for Biblical artefacts and instigating running gun-battles through the streets of Cairo” thing, either.
The great thing is despite these flaws, it’s still a brilliant movie.
Not another Indy thread, Star Wars is already taking all the breathing room.
Would you really want to risk that an Old Testament, Job-tormenting, kill the firstborn style God wouldn’t be happy to help Hitler? Would you really want to take the risk that it isn’t just a power source, a weapon made by God or something else that anyone can use? It isn’t like Indy had an Ark instruction manual on hand that said “Warning: Do Not Open In The Presence Of Nazis Or Face Melting May Occur”.
Titanic.
Heh, I’m having a positively Monty Python-esque vision here, of the Ark melting one after another group of Nazis … sort of like the Nazi version of an ant trap. 
How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
JP2 is much more watchable if you accept the dinos as the protagonists.
Funny, I flashed to the scene with the light grenade in Mom and Dad Save the World.
Well, it wasn’t the room they all woke up in, only one of them was in there to start, the others were just in the rooms next to it and found there way there. So all but one would have had to do something to get out…plus, the only reason they discovered the algorithm about how the rooms move is by going between them all and the math nerd noticing the ID numbers on the rooms.
Plus, the stress of everything caused the office guy to reveal that his company made the shell, and by giving the size, that also helped the math nerd know how big the grid was, how long it would take to do a complete “cycle,” and where to go to get to the bridge room.
How about The Big Lebowski? If the Dude simply said “You know what, that rug really did tie the room together- but I can get another one from the discount rugs place in town” and went bowling with Walter and Donny for the rest of the film, then Bunny would have come back on her own anyway and the Nihilist’s plot would have fallen over anyway.
My own w.a.g. fanwank about the Ark: Belloq and the Nazis presumed it was some sort of “Ancient Astronauts” artifact, and didn’t really believe it was intended by God Himself to be for the Israelites and nobody but the Israelites. They thought if they just went through the motions it would work for whoever had it. BTW: if nothing else, Indy’s involvement saved Marion from being tortured to death.
The Nazis at least may have assumed it was created by God and that God would be perfectly happy to help them. After all, they were the apex of humanity as far as they were concerned.
There’s quite a few other possibilities between, “It doesn’t exist/isn’t magical,” and “It’s the instrument of Yahweh, God of the Hebrews,” some of which have already been suggested. It could, for example, have been supernatural, but not actually linked to any Earthly religion: the ancient Hebrews simply assumed it was their God powering it, and there’s no reason the Nazis couldn’t have done the same thing. Or it could be supertech instead of supernatural, which amounts to about the same thing. (One roleplaying game I used to play suggested that the Ark was actually the engine salvaged from a crashed UFO) Or it could be that it is the Ark of the Covenenant, just as described in the Old Testament, but God has turned his back on the Jews and no longer cares what happens to them. Any of those possibilities equals bad fucking news for the Allies if the Germans get their hands on the Ark.
Indy himself, I am sure, didn’t expect the Ark to have any actual supernatural powers, and was only going along because the Ark represented an unprecedented archaeological find. After all, he knows first hand from his adventure a few years earlier that it’s the Hindus who have been right all along.
Not necessarily. The Nazis found Marion by following Indy in the first place. If he hadn’t intervened, her bar might not have been burned down.
The only thing that Indy got a good look at in Temple of Doom was the stones becoming hot to the touch at the end. Everything else has a reasonable explanation or can be waved away as suggestion or effects of the drugging.
Well, except chariots of iron, apparently.
He also saw Molah Ramm pull someone’s heart out with his bare hand, once from a distance, and once up close and personal when Ramm almost did it to Indy. Luckily for our guy, he didn’t get more than a couple fingers into his chest. Indy also didn’t merely witness the stones heating up, he directly caused it to heat by invoking a prayer to Shiva - and than caught one of the stones, bare handed, without harming himself, after watching it burn through a leather satchel.
Smiting people is a lot easier when they don’t bring their own lightning rod.
Indy had just swung on a ripped-in-half foot bridge and crashed into the side of a cliff. He probably had no idea what was happening (see also: the tank crash in Last Crusade).
As for Mola Ram’s heart ripping, the first time he couldn’t be sure what he saw and the second was little more than a kung fu grip on his chest. It would be easy enough, years later, to convince himself that nothing supernatural actually happened.