The Mystery of Indy’s Sub Ride Solved
So waaaay back in February, I mused over the scene in Raiders where Indy apparently stows away on a Nazi submarine.
What is going on here? Are we meant to believe that Dr. Jones somehow snuck onto the sub, found a hiding place, and stayed unnoticed for however long the trip to Secret Nazi Island was? In the comments of the original post, some people assumed that the u-boat just cruised on the surface the whole time. It’s true that we never actually see the thing go underwater. However, in my sub movie experience, the only time you hear that klaxon is when you’re preparing to dive.
At the time, the Sub Controversy remained unresolved. But part of Overthinking™ is continuing to think about something well beyond the point at which any reasonable person has moved on. And recently, I had an epiphany: what the hell are those guys saying?
I contacted several German speakers and had them watch the clip above, to translate what the Nazis are talking about. They agreed on two things:
- The actors playing the Germans have thick American accents.
- A repeated word is “Tauchen,” which means “dive.”
Just to make sure, I checked out Cswap, a website which archives movie captions. Here’s their subtitles for the sub scene:
Tauchen, tauchen das uboot. (My source’s translation: “Dive, dive the submarine.”)
Tauchen das uboot! (”Dive the submarine!”)
Wier hören das periskop nach oben, Herr Oberst. (Actually, my source tells me this is most likely a mistake, since “hören” means “hear.” But basically, “We’re putting up the periscope, Mr. Oberst.”)
I have no clue how SHE makes the trip. Shoved in a torpedo tube?
Okay, so that solves the mystery of whether the sub goes underwater - it does. But we still have no idea how Indy manages to make the trip undetected. The only logical explanation is that he stows away inside the sub, even though this approaches “nuking the fridge” levels of implausibility.
And then, another epiphany: why not just consult the actual script for Raiders, which is conveniently available online?
This is a shooting script, and it actually differs quite a bit from the finished film. For instance, in this screenplay, after the Nazis open the ark, it doesn’t kill all of them on the entire island. Indy and Marion have to grab the ark and make their escape via… a crazy minecar chase.
So according to the script, how does the sub scene unfold? Well, the boat starts going under, but stops when just the top of its periscope is breaking the waves. Indy clings to the scope and gets dragged along. He then uses his whip to actually tie himself to the periscope, where he dangles for the entire trip, watching as shark fins circle him. Finally…
135 EXT. THE PERISCOPE - NIGHT
The submarine has stopped. The water is calm. The moon
is bright. A gentle swell splashes Indy awake. He blinks,
tries to regain his senses. He makes an inventory of his
body. Surprised to find himself intact, his spirits lift.
Some hidden reserve of energy flows through him. He frees
his aching arms from the wet leather of his whip, leaving
only one loop around his waist to hold him to the sub. He
rubs his hands and stretches. Once again, he has survived.
To fight again.
There are actually a couple photos that prove this sequence was at least partially shot.
Now, one could argue that since the periscope ride never made it into the film, it isn’t really “canon.” For all we know, it was left out of the final cut because Spielberg and Lucas decided it was too silly, and would rather you imagine something else. But this is probably as close to an explanation as we’re gonna get.
By the way, it turns out that someone else on the internet has already been overthinking this scene. In fact, he’s scanned the official comic book, which depicts the whole periscope riding caper as it was originally scripted. Go to the above link and scroll halfway down for a nice little nugget of hardcore geekiness.
BONUS OVERTHINKINGIT: The IMDB “Goofs” page for this movie has an excellent point - there is probably no way they could have fit the ark onto a WWII-era sub. Have you seen those hatches? Maybe if they’d taken the ark out of its crate and turned it on its side. Maybe.
lee on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 1:17 pm
My first thought was that holding onto the periscope while the sub is under water also approaches “nuking the fridge” levels of implausibility.
However, according to Wikipedia, “Because speed and range were severely limited underwater while running on battery power, U-boats were required to spend most of their time surfaced running on diesel engines, diving only when attacked or for rare daytime torpedo strikes. The most common U-boat attack during the early years of the war was conducted on the surface and at night”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_boat#World_War_II
Okay, I buy that, but as you pointed out at the beginning of article, the dialogue clearly states that the boat is diving. So I guess it dives just below the surface, and that allows the boat to run on diesel engines?
Topher on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 1:42 pm
So does this long forgotten goof of the submarine ride make up for the nuked fridge in Crystal Skull? Or does it pave the way for even more implausibility?
As for fitting the Ark on the sub… head hurts… feel an aneurism coming on!
Sean S. on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 5:59 pm
As an ex submariner (USS Bancroft) I never thought there was a mystery; there’s no way that U-Boat ever submerged: they could not have gotten the crate inside!
On my first patrol, we had a vending machine installed. We literally had to cut the machine into pieces to get it down through the hatches. Once we had it “inside” we welded/glued it back together.
This was on a fairly modern nuclear sub, can you imagine how small the hatches were on a pre-WWII German U-Boat? What? Did they cut the Ark into pieces to get it below decks? I think not. They lashed it to the deck and sailed on the surface to their island. Indiana Jones just had to hide behind the crate. During normal surface ops the crew would not have been out on the deck, it’s too dangerous and completely unnecessary.
Regardless of the comix or the script, they never could have submerged. What’s the German for “Belay that Order”?
lee on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 11:17 pm
We should also consider the length of the ride. From what I can tell in the video clip, Indy starts in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Sicily. He then heads towards some islands in the Aegean Sea, between Greece and Turkey.
Using Google Maps (http://tinyurl.com/5rnupt), I estimated the length of the ride to be about 530 miles. If U-Boat’s average surface speed is 12 knots (13.81 mph), then the journey would have taken about 38 hours, which is a long time to hang onto a periscope with sharks snapping around you. With no food or fresh water.
Matt on Thu, 20th Nov 2008 11:04 am
Sean -
First of all, thank you for your service! At first I was amused by the idea of a vending machine on a submarine. Where do you go to get change? Then again, maybe it’s a good solution to the problem of letting the boys have the occasional Snickers. So what kind of things were in the vending machine? Just candy?
Lee -
That is some very clever Overthinking. 38 hours is a rather long time to be dragged through the ocean.
I wonder if we could pinpoint exactly WHERE Secret Nazi Island is? Remind me to do that sometime.
Trevor on Thu, 20th Nov 2008 1:02 pm
The minute I saw the title for this article, I thought “I’ve come home.” ;-p
Considering Lucas and Spielberg’s fondness for going back and digitally ruining their previous masterworks (i.e, Greedo shooting first), wouldn’t it be possible that they decide for “Raiders” 30th anniversary to add something in which Indy’s sub ride is plausible and therefore ruined? I think it’s a very entertaining gap in narrative development and a perfect homage in a way to the implausibility of the serial movies that Lucas and Spielberg were using as inspiration.
Mads on Fri, 21st Nov 2008 9:40 am
Well it’s an old trick to just cut to a new location and just let the imagination of the audience work out the connection. Reminds me of something i heard in a Pod-cast from Creative Screenwriting the writer of Jumper (That silly boring film about Hayden Christensen film). There is a scene i the beginning after the hero has made a bank robbery without leaving any trace the bad guy just pops up at the hero’s apartment. The interviewer asked the writer how the bad guy found the hero and the writer said that they wrote it like that because then they didn’t have to worry about how he did it and i that way just making the villain seem more frightening,
Sean S. on Fri, 21st Nov 2008 1:26 pm
The vending machine had sodas; a quarter each as I recall. Most folks don’t need change for a quarter. The money was used for various off-patrol crew-entertainment activities. Not surprisingly, when you spend 105 days underwater, you gotta have a marketplace for guys to spend their money. At patrol’s end, cigarettes were WAY pricey.