Question: Why in the world does the traitor let go of Indy's hand when the ruins are collapsing? This seems like suicide, and he doesn't seem like he suddenly feels so guilty that he doesn't want to live.
Question: At the camp scene Harold Oxley is using a stick that whistles as he twirls it about his head. Does anyone know what these sticks are called?
Answer: Some sort of bullroarer, I believe.
Question: Shouldn't opening the Palace of Eternity (pulling out of the stone heads and falling in the place) only have to be done once (Oxley mentions he was there before)? Because who's gonna fill all that sand back up and replace all the stones that keep the sand in?
Answer: Oxley had been there before but couldn't figure out how to get in, so the stones were never removed by him.
That is true, but... There are dead adventurers inside... And this place is a LOT harder to reset than e.g. the one with the golden idol.
Question: Could Indy ever survive the nuclear blast in a fridge?
Answer: This universally reviled and ridiculed scene has been analysed many, many times, and the conclusion the world has come to is the obvious one: No, one cannot survive a nuclear explosion in a refrigerator. Do not attempt.
Answer: If you were far from the initial explosion, the lining of the fridge may protect you from some residual radiation, but it would not protect you from the force of the blast or the intense heat. Being thrown by the blast would kill you whether you were inside a metal box or not.
Answer: Inconceivable heat and bombardment by gamma radiation notwithstanding, the sheer G-forces of being blasted miles away in a matter of seconds (and the terrific impact of striking the earth) should have pulverized Indy to jelly inside the refrigerator. So, factually speaking, no normal human being was walking away from that one. However, of course, Indiana Jones is no normal human being, and he had already impossibly survived so many catastrophes in his life that we just accept that the guy is charmed or protected by the hand of God. That's the running gag of the entire Indiana Jones franchise.
Question: I can't quite read what book Indy's college associate friend pulls out of his desk right before his wedding and I was wondering what it was.
Answer: It is a Christian Book of Common Prayer, which contains the Marriage Ceremony, Funeral Ceremony, Baptism Ceremony, etc. The gilt lettering on the spine plainly reads "Common Prayer"; and, indeed, the shot of this book immediately transitions to a shot of the Book of Common Prayer from which the minister performs the wedding ceremony for Indy and Marion.
We might speculate that it's the same Book of Common Prayer used to perform the funeral ceremonies for Marcus Brody and Henry Jones Sr., whose deaths were briefly referenced early in the film.
Answer: He's a greedy bugger who wants to try to get the treasure.