Earlier in the day, I decided to watch a favorite of mine "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (None of that "Indiana Jones AND The Raiders of the Lost Ark" bullshit! It was originally called "Raiders of the Lost Ark" go to hell!) and while watching it this time around, I thought of something that I hadn't thought of before.OK, so the plot of the movie, in a nutshell, is the U.S Government heard the Nazi's are digging around in Cairo for something but they don't know what. It involved some friend of Indy's and Indy tells them they're probably looking for the Ark of the Covenant. After hearing what all the Ark could do if it fell into Nazi hands, the U.S Government decides to send Indy after it before the Nazi's can.
So my question is: why didn't the U.S Government send some type of agent/cop or even some military person to go with Indy? I mean the Nazi's are involved, shouldn't our military get involved somehow? To put it in modern terms, it's like finding out Al-Qaeda is digging around in Afghanistan for some reason and the CIA sends in some history teacher from Harvard to find out why. By himself.
Now, the easy answer to this is because Indiana Jones is a motherfucking badass who doesn't need any help or protection. And yes, you're right. But in "Raiders," Indy and Marion get captured I don't even know how many times. I think a LITTLE help would've been needed.
And don't mistake this as me ranting, I still love the movie and this little question didn't ruin anything for me, nor do I mean to ruin it for you reading this. It was just one of those small thoughts that popped up. Kinda like Randal's rant about the Death Star blowing up the second time in "Clerks." Kinda like that.
Jason, they did send the great John Rhys-Davies to help. He did save Indy from getting the same fate as that poor monkey. Besides that he was pretty useless.
ReplyDeleteI object to that. Sallah is never useless. He also got Indy into the map room and got him out, sent in his children to save Indy in the bar, went down into the Well of Souls, and secured passage on the pirate ship for Indy, Marion, and the Ark.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it was the '30s. Government was just getting over its laissez-faire attitude. Makes perfect sense to me.
But the main thing to take away from this is that Sallah should never be discounted.