General Indiana Jones Thread

And than it will be forgettn after a few decades. Like who knows maybe it's still their even in this present of the Indiana Jones world.

The scene at the end of Raiders I'd say also implies the US government is aware of the supernatural properties of the Ark, but they're actually afraid of said properties so they want to lock it up and forget about it.

They have "Top Men" looking at it

Top men.

Honestly, the great thing about the ending is how you can read into all three of those possibilities.

the 4th possibility is that someone in the Government wants to use the Ark for some nefarious scheme some day

5 was, again, those two petty bureaucrats didn't want to be the guys who claimed that God destroyed the Nazis on an island.

That doesn't justify excusing British imperialism robbing countries of their artifacts for "safety".

History isn't about justifications. History is more complex than that, and almost never black or white.

Moving on from that controversy, what would be the modern equivalent of Indiana Jones searching an artifact now? It's easy to do ancient ruins made of stones, but they used to be inhabited by people. What kind of crazy modern ruins would make for a great Indiana Jones' story?

Edited by Shadao on Jan 24th 2024 at 5:01:11 AM

I mean, it's not like we don't have the modern Indiana.

We have Nathan Drake, Lara, and the National Treasure teams.

It made sense to set Indiana Jones pre-WWII given what was going on in that period. The Nazis did have a notable organization called The Ahnenerbe that engaged in "archaeology" designed to legitimatize their racial theories, and this organization also committed nightmarish atrocities left and right (including murdering a hundred people to dip their corpses in acid and display their skeletons). The idea of an actual Archaeologist trying to protect artifacts makes sense in this era.

You could set an Adventure Archaeologist-type story in the modern day, certainly. Archaeology's still a thing, and there's even still armed conflict around it.

Indeed, the theme that we need to preserve history and scientific truth from extremist groups that want to distort the facts or erase other people's history is perhaps more relevant than ever.

I once suggested an idea for an Adventure Archaeologist-type story, but basically the idea I had was something like "the good guys need to move an artifact out of an area before an extremist group destroys it" with the extremists being expies of ISIS or the Khmer Rouge or something. Both groups did engage in a lot of destruction of historical sites.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Jan 24th 2024 at 8:17:53 AM

Which isn't a justification for colonial looting lmao.

Thing is, though, that actually was the mindset of at least some of the folks who engaged in colonial looting. Some of them actually did imagine they were preserving historical treasures that they thought the locals weren't sophisticated enough to appreciate. It was an incredibly patronizing and usually racist attitude, but there you go. Some of the greatest wrongs are done with similar mindsets.

Edited by Robbery on Jan 24th 2024 at 9:28:36 AM

I'm now thinking of one complaint I heard regarding National Treasure, about how at the end Ben says all the treasure down there should go to places like Lourve or Smithsonian, and the complaint was he doesn't seem to think to give it back to maybe descendants of the indigenous people that created all that (as the intro implied that's where they first came from).

Edited by Brandon on Jan 24th 2024 at 9:27:11 AM

I am well aware. That doesn't excuse it, though. Understanding the historical mindset and context does not provide a subsequent justification.

Saying history isn't black and white is true (albeit an oversimplification), but there's still a LOT of black.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 24th 2024 at 11:31:03 AM

I almost added a "that's not a justfication, just an explanation," and I now see that I should have...

While Indiana Jones is the Trope Namer for It Belongs in a Museum, the context of the quotes makes it less an example of colonialist entitlement. Indy's specifically saying that to an antiques collector "Panama Hat" in relation to the Cross of Coronado. And it's not even an antique Panama Hat obtained legally — he dug it up first.

The only time Indy crosses that line is in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And in a fittingly karmic twist, he almost immediately loses the idol to Belloq after risking his life taking it.

And Spielberg has said that he's supposed to look like the bad guy in the Raiders opening and grow better throughout the movie.

Belloq even acknowledges it. "We've both fallen from the purer faith."

Yeah, the movies overall are very critical of the notion of taking things from their native cultures.

At the beginning of Raiders, Indy and Belloq really aren't so different. The rest of the movie has Indy getting better and becoming more respectful of history while Belloq sinks lower and lower.

Edited by M84 on Jan 25th 2024 at 2:17:02 AM

Belloq at least has that for the most part, he legit likes Marion even though he lets her get tied up with Indy in the end for some reason… Yeah that was odd. It's not necessarily that Belloq gets worse, it's that unlike Indy, he never changes.

Yeah, the ending of Raiders is triumphant while also unexpectedly horrifying now that I realize it. Bad enough that they have this powerful item they're gonna do nothing with because it's too powerful, but a whole ass building securing what could be countless other dangerous and powerful items like it that they also don't know what to do with. Really makes you think.

Not one of the greatest adventure films of all time for nothing. That's for damn sure.

Belloq does get worse. By the end he's outright aping Jewish practices to open the Ark while working alongside people trying to wipe out the Jewish people.

Hey Belloq himself says it best

• Belloq: You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light

The treasure of National Treasure is the Knights Templar's treasure and it certainly shouldn't go to the French because they murdered the original order to steal their treasure. It's a Freemason's horde so, really, I should get part of it.

But the National Treasure TV show is about how the treasure of the Aztecs (mostly art) is protected by a Mexican American woman and returned to...Mexico. Protecting it from Catherine Zeta Jones and a crime syndicate that wants to sell it is is the plot—and pretty much exactly what a lot of people are looking for here.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 25th 2024 at 4:55:08 AM

We do establish that Belloq doesn't believe in the Nazi cause and is just a Punch-Clock Villain. With Donovan, he also just wants the Grail for the glory and his own personal satisfaction. Voller is the only Big Bad who's an outright Nazi interestingly enough.

Not saying Belloq and Donovan aren't still villains because they are. We're still definitely rooting for them to lose.

Belloq was in the first film to be a contrast to Indy, someone who was likely retrieving items for private collections while Indy wanted them to be cataloged and preserved. Still, it's curious that Belloq had a relationship and even control over the local tribe. In Temple of Doom there is some hinting that Indy was taking the stones for himself, but that MacGuffin was hardly the driving point of the film and he otherwise showed immense respect to the impoverished villagers. By Last Crusade "It belongs in a museum" was his mantra.

In reality many artifact and treasure recoveries runs into Jurisdiction Friction, national and cultural borders are constantly shifting to where even 100 years ago may not match may not match what it is like in the present day. Something like the Ark there would be claims from a dozen Jewish organizations to Egypt itself, where it was found on their land and was stolen some 3,000 years ago by a group with no modern affiliation. Last Crusade made a point of the villains bargaining with the Jordanian government for permission to enter their land and remove the Grail.

In National Treasure they made it clear they were going to share the findings with the world, the museums mentioned were just the recognizable ones and it was bound to be an immense undertaking to catalog and curate everything.