Nah, “Jock” is just ashamed of his Aussie-Quebecois heritage, and hides it when spelling his name. That’s it, yeah. 
[PDOOMA]They just lashed it on outside of the pressure hull and that’s why they didn’t submerge.[/PDOOMA]
Stranger
oooop :smack: The shot of the drawing.
Unless that Ark has even greater Kodak powers
Yeah, whenever I watch Raiders, I just imagine it’s there, just outside of the camera shot.
And that’s why there was no lookouts posted on the bridge, right?
The U-boat captain knew not to look into the box if it accidentally opened. Somehow, word didn’t reach the army on that Greek isle in time.
The “Indy is a Big Dick” Solution:
How about this: Indy hires a bunch of guides then they trek into the forest and are ordered to meet him by the River. They travel for days and a few die along the way and in bitterness start plotting against the guy who hired them. They get to the riverbank where the water plane arrives dropping off our hero.
“C’mon guys why are you all just standing around?” Off they trek for fifteen minutes or so…
(A little over three weeks doesn’t qualify as a “zombie” thread, right? Dang, I hope not…)
This thread what was what got me to rent this movie and watch it for the first time ever. It’s a great adventure that holds up even now; except for a youthful Harrison Ford, this does not look like an almost-3 decades old movie at all. (Being about a historical era helps, though.)
Anyway, I wasn’t too bothered by the fictitious airplane, the lack of any British presence, the submarine base, etc. I understand the concept of creative license, and for a slam-bang adventure like this, cool-looking trumps realistic any day. All the convenient last-second escapes were a little annoying, but that’s no doubt how they played out in the source material.
The thing I found the most glaring was Indy’s incredible durability. Never mind being able to throw something like 75 full-bore head punches without getting so much as a bruised knuckle, never mind taking a bullet in the upper arm and only wincing a little. Look at the beatings he takes. The hard landings. The wild rides. Crashing through walls, slamming into tables. And yet the most dressing we ever see on him is a little bandage where the bullet hit, and in the final debriefing scene, he’s showing no ill effects whatsoever. After the ordeal he’s been through, a normal person would require, at the very least, a trip to the hospital, lots of pain medication, and several weeks of recovery. Honestly, I don’t understand how he was ever skeptical of the existence of the supernatural, as he has the perfect proof…himself!
I thought that there was an amazing amount of violence for a PG movie. Everything from bullets drawing blood to the brawler who got chopped up by a propeller to the climactic Power-of-the-Ark scene (everyone remembers the melting, but what about Belloq’s head EXPLODING?). This is the kind of stuff that would draw an automatic “Animated Violence Strong” in a video game. I’m genuinely astonished that it slid by with a PG; at the very least I thought the ratings board would have asked that it be toned down.
Re. Indy knowing not to look at the Ark and being spared: Great discussion, everyone (and nice essay, ArchiveGuy, but I think you missed the mark a bit…as hotflungwok said, no faith is required for what’s plain to see). I’d like to offer my own hypothesis, a very simple one: He’s terrified. All his life, he’s been dismissing God and Judaism as baseless myth. Silly Jews and their silly rituals. And all of a sudden, the all-powerful and extremely bloodthirsty God of the Old Testament turns out to be real. And so, knowing that this God can squash his lousy infidel hide like a bug, Indy does the only thing he can…submit. Renounce his hubristic quest, show his fear of God (which is all too real now), and hope to Heaven that it’s enough. And it is. (I have the feeling that had he not been chained up, his directive to Marian would’ve been much simpler: “RUN!” Of course, the effect would’ve been the same.)
In all, a fun ride. I’ll try to have a proper IMDB review sometime.
Stranger on a Train - You bring up an interesting point about Indy’s actions ultimately changing nothing (the same is true for Last Crusade), and I honestly wonder why this isn’t debated more often.
Personally, I think it’s pretty cool that for Indy’s unbreakable bones, elephantine stamina, and divine luck, there are limits to what he’s capable of. He can be beaten down, worn out, and even captured. He’s a mighty man, but not God. And because of that, when it comes down to a final confrontation which he cannot win, he realized that God is his only salvation. A bit heavy-handed, to be sure, but it does a lot remind us that the guy is only human, after all.
As for the Hovitos’ accuracy…the Principle of Evil Marksmanship (coined by Roger Ebert) rears its ugly head. When facing an ordinary opponent, bad guys’ marksmanship is what you’d expect from a real-life person with that level of training, expertise, dexterity, etc. Against the hero, forget it, no chance.
As for Last Crusade, it’s not true to say that his actions changed nothing. He wasn’t after the Grail, he went to save his father. Without his intervention his father would have been killed by the Nazis. Or at least tortured until he gave them the book.
Egypt around 1935 is very politically unstable and corrupt.
wiki:*In December, 1921, the British authorities in Cairo imposed martial law and once again deported Zaghlul. Demonstrations again led to violence. In deference to the growing nationalism and at the suggestion of the High Commissioner, Lord Allenby, the UK unilaterally declared Egyptian independence in 1922, abolishing the protectorate and establishing an independent Kingdom of Egypt. Sarwat Pasha became prime minister. British influence, however, continued to dominate Egypt’s political life and fostered fiscal, administrative, and governmental reforms. Britain retained control of the Canal Zone, Sudan and Egypt’s external protection.
Representing the Wafd Party, Zaghlul was elected Prime Minister in 1924. He demanded that Egypt and Sudan merge. On November 19, 1924, the British Governor-General of Sudan, Sir Lee Stack, was assassinated in Cairo and pro-Egyptian riots broke out in Sudan. The British demanded that Egypt pay an apology fee and withdraw troops from Sudan. Zaghlul agreed to the first but not the second and resigned.
In the pre-1952 revolution period, three political forces competed with one another: the Wafd, a broadly based nationalist political organization strongly opposed to British influence; King Fuad, whom the British had installed in 1922; and the British themselves, who were determined to maintain control over the Canal. Other political forces emerging in this period included the communist party (1925) and the Muslim Brotherhood (1928), which eventually became a potent political and religious force.
King Fuad died in 1936 and Farouk inherited the throne at the age of sixteen. Alarmed by Italy’s recent invasion of Ethiopia, he signed the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, requiring Britain to withdraw all troops from Egypt, except at the Suez Canal (agreed to be evacuated by 1949).
*
In 1935 the Germans could well have bribed a faction to look the other way.
Which is clearly wrong. He was and remained a man of evidence. He was skeptical that the ark was anything other than a human artifact until it became evident that it was associated with some sort of other power. Having for the first time located evidence to support biblical stories, he acted accordingly.
This was before PG-13. I had thought that they created that rating in response to one of the Indiana Jones movies, but since Last Crusade, the mildest, is the only PG-13 one I have to wonder why they felt the need for that one and not the previous two.
It’s the whole army vs. navy thing. “Here’s your box, Colonel. Hope you like it. snerk” <Sails rapidly away>
In re: Hatches. There are others in the deck besides the torpedo loading hatches. When they provision the boat, they don’t man-handle crates through the conning tower. II’ve looked and can’t find anything on their dimensions, but I could see a spec on the crate: No bigger than X by Y by Z so it can fit through a provisioning hatch. If nothing else, there are a couple big-ass hatches over the engines, although I imagine they’re bolted down and meant for dockyard use.
It would have made more sense if a cruiser had been dispatched instead.
Besides the fact it had just committed an act of piracy against a British ship and that subsequently the entire Mediterranean Fleet would be looking for it? 
I’ve posted in other threads about how Indiana Jones is at least partially responsible for WWII (Had he not stopped the Ark from being loaded onto the Flying Wing, it would have gone straight to Berlin and been opened in front of Hitler, with the attendant wailing spirits and the face melting and general Wrath Of God-type stuff), and like other posters I’ve either handwaved the lack of British presence in Egypt away via bribery or people not looking too closely at what the Nazis were up to, but there’s no way that a running gun-battle through the streets of Alexandria or Cairo is going to go un-noticed. Between that and the U-boat attacking the British ship, you’ve got a Major Diplomatic Incident at best and at worst, World War II starting a few years early…
The little thing that always bugs me is in ROTLA - the big rolling ball thing descends comes at Indy down a pair of ramps - if he’d only thrown himself flat between them, the ball would have passed harmlessly over him.
I’m not sure why this bugs me - I know the whole running-away-from-the-big-ass-ball scene is an important bit of action - I think I’m just miffed that they constructed the set that way - it just feels wrong that they built it with such an obvious ‘out’ that was ignored by Indy - who we are meant to understand to be wily and quick-thinking.
The not-looking-at-the-ark thing doesn’t jar me at all. They’ve found the true Ark, weird shit starts happening - Indy would be sufficiently grounded in about Jewish mythology to know you’re not meant to look - and the weird shit would be enough to convince him that the mythology had some basis in reality.
Doesn’t the Boulder end up blocking the temple’s entrance? That would mean that if Indy simply threw himself flat between the ramps, he’d end up trapped inside the temple…
Maybe, but he wouldn’t have known that when it first rolled into sight.
Yes he would, he’s wily and quick-thinking.
I’ve heard that R2 and 3PO are on the walls inside the Well of Souls.
Has anybody seen them?
I don’t think they’re actually visible in the film, but they were carved in the cwall. Playboy had a picture of them, way back when the movie came out.
Vacuum sealed? How do you know that? And if it is, isn’t that a plot hole in itself (how the hell would people over a thousand years ago manage to build something that big that a) was vacuum sealed and b) remained vacuum sealed until the present day?)?