# 'Why did it have to be snakes?' - the 40th Anniversary 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [June 12, 2021, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114 "2021-06-12T14:09:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/81 "2021-06-16T22:34:07Z")
Also, the villains in Temple of Doom weren’t as good as Belloq and the Nazis in Raiders. In fact, the Chinese gangster at the beginning was a much more colorful and compelling foe for Indy than the temple cultists. I would’ve preferred it if he had been the main bad guy in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/82 "2021-06-16T22:49:55Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > See also [Warehouse 23](http://basement.warehouse23.com/box/index.html), where you can randomly open different boxes. Very cool link, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/83 "2021-06-16T23:21:26Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > See also [Warehouse 23](http://basement.warehouse23.com/box/index.html), where you can randomly open different boxes. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Very cool link, thank you. Warehouse 23 the website is named in honor of a tabletop RPG book from the site owners of the [same name](http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-classic-warehouse-23). It’s a sourcebook giving information on the history and contents of the warehouse where the Conspiracy stashes all the stuff that’s Too Cool To Reveal - basically the warehouse we see at the end of _Raiders_. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/84 "2021-06-16T23:36:46Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > > > I mean Raiders ended with the Ark of the Covenant literally shooting a beam into the sky and melting the faces of Nazis, so if they want to have a Thuggee cult leader be able to reach into someone’s chest and remove his heart, doesn’t seem that outlandish. > > The first was actually God Almighty. I can accept that, in the context of the movie. The second was the equivalent of some random Christian pastor performing miracles. (plus of course, the fact that, in the Indy universe, the Christian God is the one true god. The Thugees are pagan blasphemers, and cannot rely on the fundamental powers of the universe.) Harder to accept. It amuses me that the first film features an Old Testament artifact, while the third features a New Testament artifact (best to ignore the second film). They could have had the next one feature a Koranic artifact (perhaps the legendary missing piece of the [Black Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stone)). That would have made an Abrahamic faith trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/85 "2021-06-18T17:04:11Z")
I always felt that the Gubmint showed real wisdom burying the ark in a warehouse. Through sheer luck, the genie got put back in the bottle and someone knew better than to try to open it again. Even if it was the result of overly-conservative bureaucratic thinking, it was the right course of inaction. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/86 "2021-07-05T15:36:24Z")
My memory is failing over the years. Did they ever state exactly _how_ Indy and Marion 1) got off the island, 2) got the Ark off the island, 3) kept it out of the hands of the British, since American presence in the Med was non-existent? Was there a scene I’m totally forgetting, or did the movie go from “Lid slamming down on Ark” to “Top men.”? We won’t even mention the question of how they explained all the dead Nazis to whoever showed up to rescue them. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/87 "2021-07-05T16:38:56Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Did they ever state exactly _how_ Indy and Marion nope. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/88 "2021-07-05T16:44:07Z")
We can speculate. For example, assuming that everyone else on the island was obliterated, they could have made their way back to the sub base, and either used the radios there or taken a boat from there. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/89 "2021-07-05T16:55:16Z")
Would the British even want the Ark? If Indy radioed for help from a nearby British ship I assume they would have just picked him and his package up and taken him to an American embassy somewhere. They might not even know what the thing is, just assuming since Indy is a legit archaeologist that it’s just something else he’s taken back to a museum. Also he could bargain for safe passage from the British by telling them there’s this big empty German U-Boat base and a potential enigma machine and code-books in there. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/90 "2021-07-05T17:02:11Z")
What would Indy know about codes and Enigma? Plus, if the British find the base during the rescue, there is no freaking way they let Indy and Marion walk. Too many questions that need to be answered to let them go. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/91 "2021-07-05T17:24:27Z")
My fanwank is that the _Bantu Wind_ was still in the area, and Captain Katanga picked them up and took them to the US. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/92 "2021-07-05T17:29:54Z")
Or at least to someplace they could contact an embassy and arrange transport back to the states. Good wank. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/93 "2021-07-05T21:38:44Z")
Watched _Raiders_ the other day, for the first time in a few decades. It held up as well for me as it did for everyone else here, IOW, terrifically. One question: once Indy & Co. have figured out that the Nazis are digging in the wrong place (and the right place is just far enough from where they’re digging that they’re not likely to stumble into it by accident), why don’t they just get the hell out of there, get back to Cairo and send a telegram to the intel types who hired Indy for this gig in the first place? Once the Nazis clear out (the movie makes it appear they’re getting ready to throw in the towel on the prospect that the Ark is there), they can either let the Ark just remain there in perpetuity, or get some unofficial U.S. Army armed support while they dig now, or wait until after WWII and dig up the Ark then. But the idea that they’re going to dig within sight of where the Nazis are digging, _while_ the Nazis are digging - that never made a lick of sense to me. (Yeah, I know - _lots_ of the plot twists make no sense. Why this one is the one that I can’t let go of, I can’t tell you. Still an outstanding movie, though.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2021, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/94 "2021-07-06T12:43:09Z")
I want to know why no one ever picked up on the opto-sensor technology that those ancient South American tomb-builders had. Talk about Lost Technology. It’s pretty impressive that their pressure-sensitive devices continued to work after such a long time in a hostile jungle environment, even with moss growing on it – those pressure-triggered darts (what WAS propelling them through hose holes? I suppose it could’ve been bent natural springs or tiny crossbows, although you’d think that those would deteriorate quickly. And they _sounded_ as if they were pneumatic. But no matter) and the platform the golden idol was sitting on\* . But I’m really impressed that they had that bamboo-spear grate set up so that breaking a beam of light triggered it. “Stay out of the light”, Indy cautions Alfred Molina, and shows how it got Forrestal. They must had primitive selenium cell technology, because I can’t picture them using some other combination of semiconductors. Too bad their descendants lost the technology. - As another thought, it’s always bothered me that the platform the idol was sitting on went _down_ after Indy misjudged the weight he replaced it with. I woulda thought, naively, that the platform would go _up_ if you removed the weight, thus triggering the mechanism. The fact that whatever balance it was sitting on was so sensitive that it could detect a weight too heavy suggests incredibly detailed technology. And also that their priests must have been real careful not to drop anything on that platform. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2021, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/95 "2021-07-06T13:42:09Z")
I’ve always noted that were Indiana Jones a real archeologist he’d be a lot less interested in a few gold idols than he would in the existence of extremely sophisticated pre-Colombian stone-based trap technology. That’d be a gamechanger for the whole profession, but he’s more interested in trinkets. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2021, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/96 "2021-07-06T13:48:10Z")
And, sure, the Ark of the Covenant would be interesting, but the entire city of Tanis, buried and undisturbed for centuries, would be fascinating to study. The map room alone would be very cool. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2021, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/97 "2021-07-06T17:51:23Z")
I always thought that the pneumatic darts could be propelled by a weight falling in a semi-sealed chamber pushing air out of a tube. The chamber might not even need to be sealed that well if the weight fell fast enough. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/98 "2021-07-06T17:55:35Z")
The capability of lost civilizations with limited resources to fabricate flawlessly functioning devices that stand up to periods of long neglect never ceases to amaze me. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2021, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/99 "2021-07-06T18:09:01Z")
What neglect? Perhaps the Peruvian tribespeople who were chasing Indy were responsible for upkeep of the mechanisms? (Kidding, sort of.) ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2021, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114/100 "2021-07-06T18:25:50Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The capability of lost civilizations with limited resources to fabricate flawlessly functioning devices that stand up to periods of long neglect never ceases to amaze me. You didn’t notice the traps that failed, only the few that survived. The tanks of sharks with lasers were filled with algae. The deathbots got too much sand in their gears. Ultrasonic disintegrators went out of tune. Even the contact poison on the golden idol had sublimated off. Only the last few traps remained. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-have-to-be-snakes-the-40th-anniversary-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-thread/944114.md?page=6)