Raiders of the Lost Ark- Questions

Rewatched this for the umpteenth time the other day and have some nagging questions that probably have been answered decades ago but I never got the memo on.

-What kind of time elapsed while retrieving the ark from the well of souls?
When they start digging it’s daylight and then there is a shot of the sun going down behind them and when they find the opening it’s nightime. Okay, fine.
But not much later Belloq spots them and it’s broad daylight outside. Were they really in there all night?

-To escape the well of souls Indy tips a statue over to break through a thin wall. He knows the wall is hollow because snakes are coming through holes in it. This leads to small chamber that leads up to a small turret on a hillside. Has no one ever explored the inside of this turret? Wouldn’t they have been inside there too and noticed a hollow wall and all the old dead bodies?

-Indy has saved the ark and has it aboard a ship. Until the Nazis arrive on a gun bearing submarine. Indy decides to follow the ark, jumps ship, and catches a ride on the outside of the sub. Did he know the sub wouldn’t submerge? If it did submerge wouldn’t he have been totally screwed? And the next scene we see the sub pulling into a hidden cove but somehow Indy is already ashore. How did he get off the sub and onto the dock before the sub even arrived?

-And lastly when the ark is opened Indy shuts his eyes and tells Marion to do the same. Their lives are spared while everyone else dies instantly. Was it written somewhere that if you don’t look you’ll be spared? Any reason why he’d keep his eyes shut? Not to mention how did he get the ark off that island after that? Wouldn’t there still be Nazis on other parts of the island? How did he contact anybody to get off the island?

I read the novelization as a kid and I believe he didn’t plan that far ahead wrt the sub submerging, but he got lucky and it didn’t. Also, he jumped off when it entered the cave and swam to shore before it docked to avoid detection.

I seem to recall something in the Bible about how Moses was only able to see God’s “hindquarters” because anyone who looked upon the face of God would die. Also, unauthorized personell who touched the ark in the Bible tended to die.

He used his whip to tie himself to the periscope when the sub submerged and swam to shore before the sub got into the cove.

Source: Marvel Comic adaptation of the movie.

We have top men working on your questions.

Back then diesel subs tended to run on the surface or just below except in emergencies or whatever to save the batteries.

It’s pretty clear that they were supposed to be there all night digging, entering the tomb, fighting snakes, crating up the Ark, and pulling it up. You seem to have the impression that they didn’t spend much time digging, but I would’ve thought they were digging well into the night.

Anyway, the real point was that the following action had to take place in daylight. Best not to think about it too much.

This one always bugged me, ever since I first saw the movie. And it’s not an insoluble problem, not a typical It’s-Only-An-Action-Movie-Don’t-Worry-About-It. They could’ve fixed this with a single line, a reference to some ancient tradition or inscription telling you not to watch, or something. The way it is in the movie just makes it look as if they weren’t really paying attention or trying. “Oh, yeah. If you don’t look you won’t get killed. We really shoulda warned you about that earlier. Sorry.”

Wasn’t there some artwork (maybe in a bible) that Indy saw that depicted rays coming from the ark striking people in the eyes and killing them? I think when he saw the light coming from the open ark, it clicked and he told Marion to shut her eyes…I don’t remember if the Nazis started screaming first though.

Indiana Jones has been established as an archaeology professor with all kinds of arcane knowledge about the relics he hunts; I don’t think it’s a stretch to just assume that he’s aware of Ark “tricks” that the Nazis aren’t. It doesn’t need to be explicitly stated.

I believe it is supposed to be the next morning… so When daylight breaks Bellock is able to spot the digging… sure the lighting isn’t quite right for morning but I asssume it took them many hours to get the snakes out of the way, and the Arc crated up

Look at the photo in the Bible Indy shows the Government guys in the opening. I believe the Rays are shown hitting the nonbelievers in the eyes. (I wonder if the bearers are portrayed with their eyes closed) perhaps that is the hint.

Nah, it’s pretty standard. You don’t look upon the face of God or he totally messes your shit up. Maybe being Jewish helps understand that bit… but it’s a rather old bit of tradition that, actually , still sort of survives in modern times.

Sorry, guys – even if those things are true, they’re miles away from the sort of foreshadowing I’d consider essential to a movie like this. The suggestion seems to come out of left field, at the last moment.

You don’t need any foreshadowing.
You need to know about the Jewish religion.

Jews aren’t supposed to ‘look at the face of God’.
Jews don’t actually use the name of God (tetragramaton is not the Name) and more observant Jews even write it out the placeholder-noun as G-D.
Jewish tradition is filled with examples where God had to communicate via intermediaries or where those who were going to be chatting with Him first had to ‘fall on their faces’.
Some sects even feel that you aren’t supposed to look at the Rabbi during certain blessings, because those rituals contain the power of God.

Knowing that, it makes perfect sense that when an artifact that’s been described in the movie as a ‘radio transmitter to God’ is opened, you avert your damn eyes. :smiley:

Good point!

If so does that mean God was talking out of his ass to Moses? Would explain a lot about religion if so. :wink:

Isn’t it also Jewish tradition that only the high priests were supposed to open the Ark, and only do so in a secluded part of the temple, so others could see what was in it?

I always just assumed that not looking at the Ark was a sign of humility and a signal saying “We’re just innocent bystanders here”. After all, it’s not as though the Ark was filled with plutonium or something that melted faces. I’d guess that angels of wrath or whatever can tell the difference between tied up folks saying “Eep! Please don’t kill me…” and soldiers from a people-who-are-the-Chosen-of-God hatin’ political movement.

Miller, yeepers.
The Ark resided in the Holy of Holies, and only the High Priest went there and, IIRC, only on one single day of the year (Yom Kippur).

But much like Levar Burton, you don’t have to take my word for it.

[

](The Ark of the Convenant)

So yeah, looking into the Ark and/or misusing it for Nazi rituals = a bad, bad thing. :wink:

Apparently Monty Python thinks it’s bunk.

Heh, I was looking for a video of that clip.

In any case, it’s actually kind of weird to me that the question was even asked. Coming from the cultural/religious heritage that I come from, it’s so obvious that I didn’t even imagine that it’d need to be clarified, before I read this thread at least.
Curiouser and curiouser.

The idea was not entirely Judeo/Christian. Dionysus’s mother was supposed to have died because her jealous sisters tricked her into asking Zeus to show her his true face. And he had promised to grant her request, so he had to do it.

The story is slightly different in that he had a way of appearing that kept her safe, but maybe g-d can do that too and just doesn’t.