A truckload of observations about "Raiders"...(Please respond)

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Posted by ROB T. from 162.10.138.28 on July 07, 1999 at 01:58:55:

Saw "Raiders" tonight and I thought I'd post some observations about the film. Some of these are things I just noticed and some are things I've always thought about but didn't vocalize. So here they all are in one post. I'd appreciate any input about this that you care to make.

1. When Indy and Satipo are going into the temple you can see a silhouette of the spiders on Indy's back in one shot (before he parts the spiderweb) then they show a long shot from behind and there are no spiders, then they go back to the first shot and Satipo alerts Indy to the spiders.

2. When Indy hands over his gun to Belloq they don't show but he also gives up his whip. Belloq has it in his hand when Indy takes off and Indy clearly doesn't have it when he swings out on the vine towards Jock's plane.

3. In Indy's class, do you notice the strong resemblance between the girl who flashes her eyelids at Indy and Marion Ravenwood? They could almost be sisters.

4. Here's a film flub I never noticed before. In Indy's classroom the students change seats from one shot to the next and at the end when they file out of the classroom, eyelid girl is nowhere to be seen.

5. I totally dig the way Marcus seems to be playing around with the Army guys as he helps explain what happened to the Ark. He knows they don't buy the whole "wrath of God" thing so he rubs their noses in it.

6. Indy lives on the Eastern seaboard so why does the map that shows his route to Nepal start in San Francisco?

7. During the barfight in Nepal does Indy change guns? It looks like he starts the fight with a revolver and then he's using a semi-automatic.

8. Toht screws up right at the beginning of his talk with Marion. He comes in all heavyhanded when he probably could have had the medallion if he'd sweet talked her a little.

9. Marion is not much of a barkeep. She takes three trips to clean off one table. If Indy hadn't burned the place down she'd have been cleaning all night.

10. Marion complains about losing her 5000 dollars but she only lost 3000 in the fire; Indy was going to give her the other two when they got to the states. I know she also lost the nights receipts but that couldn't have been more than a hundred bucks or so.

11. In Cairo, I never noticed til tonight but Sallah's oldest daughter is very pretty.

12. When Sallah says the French archeologist is called Bellosh how does Indy know he means Belloq? Is there only one French archeologist in the world?

13. When Indy and Marion are walking thru the marketplace with the monkey, Marion starts by referring to the monkey as a he then switches over in midsentence to calling it a she. Is it a boy monkey or a girl?

14. Why didn't Marion just stand up when they were carrying her in the basket? She could have jumped out at any time.

15. When the truck blew up why didn't Indy check the wreckage for Marion's body?

16. Sallah sends his children into a bar full of armed men to protect Indy. Is he crazy? I'd never endanger my kids like that even for my best friend.

17. When Indy tells Sallah about Marion's death Sallah seems very nonchalant about the whole thing.

18. In the tent in the desert where Marion and Toht meet again he chides her for being overdressed. This is ironic since he's even more overdressed than she is.

19. In the Well of Souls Sallah tells Indy to hurray because the torches are going out but they seem to be brightly lit to me.

20. When Belloq and the Germans discover Indy in the Well of Souls Sallah is with him and is taken prisoner but is not punished for helping Indy. Shouldn't he have been shot or at least thrown into the Well like Marion?

21. After Indy kills the giant German and rescues Marion from the Flying Wing the plane explodes and seems to be blown to smithereens but in the next few scenes the plane is intact and just on fire.

22. When Indy steals the truck and gets shot in the arm his anger level goes way up. He takes out his anger on the guy who shot him and I used to imagine that Indy's interior monologue was screaming, "Damnit, you shot me." Now that I've been on this forum for awhile I think maybe he's really thinking, "Damnit, you put a hole in my Wested."

23. Aboard the Bantu Wind when Deitrich screams, "Where is Jones?" The German soldier who says, "There's no trace of him sir." speaks in a distinctly British accent.

24. When they take Marion prisoner on the Bantu Wind and she's standing there in the breeze in that satin dress you can see that Karen Allen is not wearing any underwear and in some shots you can make out the shape of her pubic hair.

25. When they show the map that traces the voyage of the German U-boat it shows that they intercepted the Bantu Wind out in the middle of nowhere but when we see Indy and Katanga talking on the bridge there is definately land a few hundred feet away.

26. When Indy tells Marion to shut her eyes and not look at the power of the Ark it seems to me that he gives this advice too late. The spirits have already started flying around and the fog has started and it seems to me that they've already seen too much. I think they'd have gotten roasted along with everyone else.

27. When Indy comes out from talking to the Army guys and meets up with Marion, is he wearing a different fedora from the one we usually see him in? This one looks darker like maybe this is his dress fedora and his other one is for messing around in. I don't know.

Well, those are the things I noticed. Little things all and they don't take away from my enjoyment of the film at all. I didn't mention things like Indy's staff being even longer than Belloq's or the fact that the map shows Iran even though the country wasn't called that in 1936. These things and other have been debated on this forum before and I just wanted to keep to things we haven't really discussed before. I'd really like to hear some feedback on the observations I've made. Whether you agree with me or disagree and maybe some things you've noticed that you've never mentioned before.


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