Actually, if you carefully consider I.J. and the Lost Ark, you’ll see that Indie had no effect on anything. The Nazis would still have taken the ark to the island and would still have destroyed themselves. Indie’s presence in the movie was of absolutely no importance, other than the people he killed.
I disagree. Indy’s actions alerted the Nazi diggers to the Ark’s location, letting them get it sooner than they would have otherwise (if at all!). And Indy being on site and able to avoid being melted allowed him to escape with the ark to the U.S., where it sat and did nothing – including helping either side win the war. Without Indy the Nazi’s may never have found the Ark , and if they had, and done the test and all died on the island, a followup Nazi team would have investigated, probably deduced what happened, and then brought the Ark to Berlin to opened under different circumstances that might have been successful.
That was actually my take on the movie: the “ark” was a stand-in for nuclear weaponry, or a subconscious representation of it. The special handling, the climactic scene with the pseudo-mushroom cloud, everyone melting… and then the stockpiling by “top men” once the troublesome scientists were out of the way. Spielberg did this in some of his early movies, with plot elements being stand-ins for popular boogeymen of the day (like, Poltergeist’s graveyard was a stand-in for toxic waste dumps ala Love Canal – “You moved the graves but you didn’t move the bodies!”)
MeGoNow Premium Member almost 8 years ago
Actually, if you carefully consider I.J. and the Lost Ark, you’ll see that Indie had no effect on anything. The Nazis would still have taken the ark to the island and would still have destroyed themselves. Indie’s presence in the movie was of absolutely no importance, other than the people he killed.
Beale_Knight almost 8 years ago
I disagree. Indy’s actions alerted the Nazi diggers to the Ark’s location, letting them get it sooner than they would have otherwise (if at all!). And Indy being on site and able to avoid being melted allowed him to escape with the ark to the U.S., where it sat and did nothing – including helping either side win the war. Without Indy the Nazi’s may never have found the Ark , and if they had, and done the test and all died on the island, a followup Nazi team would have investigated, probably deduced what happened, and then brought the Ark to Berlin to opened under different circumstances that might have been successful.
Yeah, I’ve overthought this. :-)
InquireWithin over 7 years ago
That was actually my take on the movie: the “ark” was a stand-in for nuclear weaponry, or a subconscious representation of it. The special handling, the climactic scene with the pseudo-mushroom cloud, everyone melting… and then the stockpiling by “top men” once the troublesome scientists were out of the way. Spielberg did this in some of his early movies, with plot elements being stand-ins for popular boogeymen of the day (like, Poltergeist’s graveyard was a stand-in for toxic waste dumps ala Love Canal – “You moved the graves but you didn’t move the bodies!”)