the torch is runnning ouuuutttt

“what was the point in trying to beat the Germans to unearth the Ark? Belloq opened it and he was killed. What was the point?”

“what was the point in trying to beat the Germans to find the Grail? Donovan drank from it and he was killed. What was the point?”

I don’t mean to pick on Ken F. – I mean, he was spot on about the ‘eternal life/great seal’ explanation, which so many of the above posters don’t understand… from a film that’s been around since 1989!

But there would have been exactly the same hue & cry from netizens over the movie-logic and great feats in this adventure serial over the first 3 films… had the Internet been in existence during their release. In fact, I notice that there are a ton of misremembering of details from posters, which is the natural symptom of so many seeing the film once, wanting to join in on the ‘net-bound bashing to be ‘tre cool’, and then coming up with ‘plot-holes’ and half-remembered points, which AREN’T actually FROM THE FILM.

Look at the original questions – they’re not really relevant or thought-out questions or they are easily answered:

1. Happy ending: although not-at-all required by the film experience, it can pretty easily be assumed that after fighting with a Russian secret police/army contingent (which did exist in RL in the 50s-60s) and preventing them from achieving their imperialist goal (with three witnesses. including one who had been a US gov. consultant,) Indy was cleared, reinstated and given a better title. Because it is made clear and stated that he had been a trusted US agent in WWII, this would be relatively easy – the ‘doubts’ over his loyalty came from particular FBI agents early in the film, and it is no stretch that by the end of the events in the film, saner heads at the FBI prevailed. This happened in RL, and it happens today. How in the world is THIS any sort of big issue?

2. – That lock was shown being rigged and blown, not ‘psychic-ly opened in a shower of sparks.’ Irina is described and shown as a mind-reader, not a user of ‘powers’. She is a succubus of knowledge as a mind-reader. Its pretty clear (if you’re smarter than a mold-spore) that she is ‘mind-reading’ the alien, and the vast amounts of knowledge overwhelm her human capacity, and she is destroyed – undone by the sheer amount of ‘knowledge’ of the alien being, like a flood when she was expecting to drink a glass of water. Really not complicated, kids.

3. – “Un-mapped” does not mean “Unexplored” or “Un-traversed”. The Russians were cutting a more direct route through the jungle with the RL jungle-brush-cutter, which would be desirable to prepare a direct path for a motored convoy, which the Russians would want to create in case they were to decide to excavate or transport whatever they found in the alien ruins (which, at that point in the film, they knew was the destination). The path that the dueling trucks took after the cutting craft was destroyed was a narrow and winding dirt road that followed the bend of the river and the crest of the mountains, which are what almost all ancient-civilizations’ roads did. The temple was a place where the aliens ‘landed’ and rested, but the natives built the edifice further *around* the alien craft, and lived there for generations afterwards, watching over the ‘resting’ craft. I would have assumed that there would have been ancient-style dirt roads approaching the grounds where these natives lived – and there was never any indication to the contrary in the film. In fact, the explanation is clear when we actually see that there *are* still native living there…. which makes Question #5 pretty silly too.

#5. – As if there weren’t old tribes of natives guarding their sacred treasures in the 3 previous films. Heck, in “Crusade”, there were even 2 groups – the Order of the Grail (which was only slightly more effectual than the natives in ‘Skull’) and the 900-year-old Knights (2 of them had perished before). At least in “Skull”, they were portrayed as actively hiding, lying in wait as part of the ‘danger’ of the chamber itself, distinguishing them from the ‘natives’ in the previous films.

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All in all, its a damn good thing that the Internet wasn’t around from 81-89. We’d *still* be bitching about: “God-powered lightning, melting, exploding and electrocuting all those that He found ‘evil’”, “reaching an island via tying one’s self to a submarine”, “Heil Hitler-saluting Monkeys”, “anthropomorphic rats that go “Uh-Oh!” when the “power of God” causes a Nazi symbol to self-burn”, “An entire tribe of over a hundred Hovito Indians chase him with spears, bows and arrows, and blow-darts —- and *not one* hits him?!?”, “a man is dragged for at least a mile behind a speeding truck – and he *survives*?!?”.

These, and more, are from the first film only. And that one’s unquestionably the best one – there are even more examples in the next two, but there’s only so much time.

Unless, of course, there’s thousands of sour nitpickers, with *lots* of time on their hands, who want to be kewl and bash away, and – these days – a way to do it. Then there’s plenty of time.

But it certainly does miss the point! Good luck with all that!

4. – As many have noted correctly above already, dumb question. Such theories were being expounded upon by the 40′s, and any brilliant researcher into the paranormal and religious beliefs of ancient civilizations would be quite familiar with them. [Also pretty sweet is that the "spaces in-between" is the popular way to describe the very-modern "string theory", of other, unseen dimensions co-existing in our plane, but that we are too limited by human capacity to observe and/or describe.] It is also not odd in the least that a ‘spaceship’ would be required to ‘visit’ such ‘space between spaces’: its entirely speculative to describe or show what type of craft or mechanism one would need to use to get to this ‘other dimension’. We never actually see this “spaceship” go into space – it vanishes between edits. For all we know, the implication is that this craft/machine is what is required to travel between dimensions, and earthlings have just been assuming that “UFO sightings” were from outer-space and not ‘between-space’. Either way, there’s nothing at all “wrong” about the theory or the ‘spacecraft’.

To answer the person’s question above, Indy’s father died even after drinking from the grail because the grail gave eternal life to everyone who drank from it so long as they never crossed the great seal in the temple. Crossing that seal was the price of immortality as the Knight said.

yeah, ants actually do that. they can span cracks in the ground to get from their hills to food. They also gather into balls of ants and float across water. Ants are ka-razy.

Further more to give attention and validation to a hack that makes a serious field look bad like Von Daniken is irresponsible to the film makers. Comon while we are at it lets write A Beautiful Mind Two and make it about TimeCube and have Jar Jar Binks be the main character.

So I think the rule here is, “odd-numbered Indiana Jones movies = Win, even-numbered movies = Suck”. I’m holding out for Indiana Jones and the Retirement Home of the Raiders of the Temple of the Crusade of Did I Ever Tell You About That Time In The Jungle?

Why did this film make me vomit into my popcorn?

I just saw this last night…Did i miss something? Did he not have his whip the entire time? I guess so because that would’ve been a better tool to use to escape that sand pit than a snake.

What was all that “treasure” doing down in the alien tomb? Was it mentioned HOW it got there and WHO put it there? Was it implied that the Aliens went booty collecting all over the world and throughout time before they were sealed in there somehow? So confused!

Also…the relationship between Marion & Indy was so strange. I mean she was REALLY pissed in the first movie about him leaving and that’s before she was engadged and pregnant. But then I remember Lucas has had something to do with this script and then I remember the love scene dialog and chemistry between Padma & Anakin. It makes me wonder what Lucas’s home life is like.