by Jason Snell
Listen to Dr. Jones
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” is one of my favorite movies (and Steven Spielberg’s best, in my opinion), but I never knew about this “loose end” until I read about it in a compilation of deleted scenes:
A plot element involving the Ark of the Covenant was cut from the film and is only hinted at during the finale when the Ark is opened. Basically, there were 2 rules about the Ark not mentioned in the final cut of the film:
- If you touch the Ark, you die.
- If you look at the Ark when it is opened, you die.
This is first explained in additional dialogue for the scene when Indy and Sallah visit Imam. Before translating the writings on the headpiece that give the height of the Staff of Ra, Imam warns Indy not to touch the Ark or look at it when it is opened….
Notice that nobody ever touches the Ark throughout the rest of the film until the finale.
This scene is screenwriting 101 in that it properly sets up the rules of the Ark, so that when Indy shouts, “Don’t look at it, Marion!” at the film’s climax (spoilers for a 43-year-old movie, I guess) we understand why.
But Steven Spielberg had gone way beyond Screenwriting 101, even in 1981. He knew there was literally no need to include these rules, which turn the Ark from an unknowable supernatural object into something more mundane. And so that scene is cut out, and at the fateful moment when the Ark is opened by Belloq and a crew of Nazi officers, noted archaeologist Dr. Indiana Jones just knows that he and Marion need to close their eyes and not look upon the fiery judgment of the God of the Old Testament.
Sometimes less is more.