[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
[ul][li]How is it that Jones is traveling to the Peruvian temple with porters and mules though Hovitos territory, but his escape plane is a short run away from the temple?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
That’s the one that’s always bothered me.
He runs from the Hovitos, and if I remember correctly, we next see him running across a field, coming up from behind a slight rise. Now I know it was probably meant to depict a fairly short three or four hundred foot run from the jungle to the river, but is there something in the shots that ABSOLUTELY shows he could not have run a mile or two through the jungle before he got to the field by the river?
Sir Rhosis
Deliberately done, as a tribute to weekly serials that often contained similar lapses of logic.
It’s still not far enough to require porters and donkeys; Jones clearly treked in from a ways. And it’s clear that the plane is his backup plan. He didn’t fly there in it, because if he did, he’d know that there was a snake in the plane.
It is a great escape scene, but it makes no sense whatsoever. Also, the Hovitos seem to be stricken with a primitive form of Stormtrooper Marksmanship Syndrome. Despite dozens of them throwing spears, shooting arrows, and firing blowguns at him, not a single one of them makes contact. They might as well have been shooting Nerf darts.
Stranger
Hmmm. Maybe they’re gatherers rather than hunters…
I always assumed that Jones somehow contacted the pilot en route and said something along the lines of “I’m gonna be hitting the temple on Tuesday, be waiting for me at the river to get me out”.
Why Jones couldn’t have simply been flown in could be any number of reasons (pilot not available until then, Jones needed to visit other sites deeper in the jungle along the way, etc).
I always wondered why the room beyond the statue in the Well of Souls wasn’t 15’ deep in snakes given that they seemed to be constantly pouring from every crack and crevice through the wall and into the Well. Once Jones & Marion bust through and into the sepulchre, there’s nary a snake to be found.
Except for the one crawling out of the mummy’s mouth.
The exception which proves the rule! 
For the longest time, I thought the pilot was just some random guy, fishing in Peru. A random guy who flew Indy to safety out of the kindness of his heart. Later, I realized that probably wasn’t the case, but it makes about as much sense as anything else.
I thought it was interesting that prior to that, Henry Jones Sr answered “illumination” when asked that question. It seemed to be a dual answer; in that he learned both the truth about the grail legend (i.e., illumination=truth) and also reconnected with his son (i.e., illumination=sun).
In the second movie, the shaman asked Indy at the end, “Now you see the power of the rock you bring back.” To which Indy replied, "Yes. I understand its power now. " I thought it was possible that the biggest problem in the village was that all the children were gone, and the “power” was tied to their return.
As for the first movie, I liked to imagine that after the end of it, the US government gave the ark as a founding gift to the new nation of Israel.
And I always preferred the Judeo-Christian mythology of the first and third movies, so I thought that perhaps the fourth movie might involve some sort of Islamic mythology (since the first involved a Jewish artifact while the third involved a Christian one).
Finally, with regard to the discussion from the earlier thread about the fictional university where Indy taught, I figured it was modeled after Yale (or one of the other schools with a big in-house museum), with Indy modeled on real professors like O.C. Marsh (a pioneering paleontologist) and Hiram Bingham, who re-discovered Machu Picchu.
The torpedo-loading hatches would have been of sufficient size. Pic (SFW)
Definitely not the case. Indy calls to him by name (Jack?) as he’s running towards the plane, ordering him to start the plane up. The guy hesitates, reluctant to let go of his fishing pole (a great little movie moment), then tosses it into the water and climbs into the cockpit.
Nice picture.
In the “Top Five Brutally Bad Plotholes in Quality Movies: Let’s Compile a List” thread here in the Cafe Society, post 260, we discuss the same plot point:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9801942&postcount=260
How big is the torpedo loading hatch on a type II German U-boat?
Per Metatron, the Voice of God:
Jock.
Jacques
Its also important to remember that this is taking place before WW2 - there’d be no particular need for the sub to submerge.
Yeah, that picture shows a huge rectangular hole in the outer hull of the sub, but the actual hatch into the pressure hull is circular and just barely larger than the diameter of that torpedo. The ark, even uncrated, wouldn’t fit
See, I don’t think this is right. Indy doesn’t need faith after the stuff he’s seen. He’s seen… er, heard the power of god, met someone who was centuries old, seen the true grail heal his father, seen a false grail dessicate a human in seconds, etc. At this point it stops being faith and starts being reality. He doesn’t need to believe in god, he knows theres something up there.
I’ve always wondered what that would be like, being handed proof that some mythology was real. What would you do if you found out the Egyptian mythology, complete with burial ceremonies & afterlife, was real? Or that the Cthulhu mythos? If you know X from some mythology is true, does it follow that everything else in that mythology is true too?
In Indy’s case, which was does he go, Christianity or Judaism? I think the power of the grail indicates that Jesus really was god’s son, so Christianity seems to be it. He drank from the grail, wouldn’t mass be kind of a let down after that?