Raiders of the Lost Ark Themes
Religion
There's religion… and then there's RELIGION. Raiders tends to use all-caps when referring to its theology, seeing as how it ends with an actual deity doing actual smiting of people who richly des...
Exploration
Hey, it wouldn't be a discussion of Indiana Jones without a little exploration, would it? It's kind of his thing: finding a place that no one has touched for thousands of years and taking the stuff...
Transformation
We use transformation as a catchall for one of the movie's most important themes: healing. Indy has to change on his adventure; specifically, he needs to recognize his misdeeds in the past (jerky b...
Wisdom and Knowledge
One of the reasons we loves us some Indiana Jones here at Shmoop is because he's a smart guy. More importantly, he values learning and wisdom as essential survival tools out there with the snakes a...
Politics
It's awfully hard not to look at the characters in this film as the embodiment of their respective governments during this period. Indy's an American, but he's acting out of mercenary motivations r...
Good vs. Evil
This isn't a subtle movie and it demands an equally unsubtle theme. The good guys and bad guys may have their little quirks that make them similar, but at the end of the day, we know who's batting...