The Warehouse
After everything, the Ark of the Covenant winds up nailed shut inside a wooden crate and hauled inside a massive government warehouse stuffed with the nation’s other secrets. So it may as well has ever never been raided at all except for all the people Nazis and other bad guys killed on the way to getting it.
The Shooting
The most ironic single moment in the film also brings one its biggest laughs. After building up the tension by having the giant swordsman show off his talents for wielding the saber in what seems to be leading to a prolonged showdown between the two men, Indy rather anticlimactically (even, arguably, cowardly) just pulls out his gun and shoots him in cold blood from a distance.
The Hanger
The film’s funniest moment, however, also involves an ironic undercutting of rising tension. When Toht first arrives in the tent in which Belloq is holding Marion hostage, the mood suddenly turns very dark as the music cues a shift in tone. Toht—invested with all the historical resonance of being a Nazi—casts a cruel eye toward Marion as she hides behind Belloq and brings out what looks to be some implement of torture only to have it revealed seconds later as simply a collapsible hanger.
The Action Hero?
Raiders of the Lost Ark introduced a new kind of action hero who stood in stark contrast to those of the past most iconically embodied by actors like John Wayne and characters like James Bond. For really the first time in a dramatic action film, the hero was shown to be afraid (of snakes) as well as get badly bruised and feel pain. Most shocking of all, however, is that the film reaches its climax without the hero’s involvement. In fact, the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark takes its cue from the most ancient of all dramatic effects: the deus ex machina in which the gods suddenly reach down from the heavens to wield their power to resolve a plot which cannot be resolved by the hero. Indy and Marion are tied up and helpless and the Ark is going to be opened up. So the action hero does not even save the day. But, wait, if you think that’s ironic, consider what’s next.
Indiana Who and the Raiders of the Lost Ark?
Famously brought into the mainstream by a character on the TV show The Big Bang Theory, a small cadre of critics of Raiders of the Lost Ark had long secretly proposed that the biggest irony of not just the film, but arguably in film history is that the story would have turned out almost exactly the same even if Indy had never gotten involved. This premise is based on the idea that by thwarting Toht’s attempt to get the medallion from Marion, Indiana Jones only postpones the inevitable: either way, the Nazis wind up in possession of the Ark of the Covenant and either way they would still have opened it and either way everyone present would have become victims of the wrath of God. At best, Indy’s role in the story thus becomes potentially saving Marion from being murdered by Toht and even that is mere supposition. Thus, the film which introduced the most iconic adventure hero of the 1980’s tells a story that, ironically, would not significantly change whether he was involved in it or not.
