Continuity mistake: In the Well of Souls, Indy and Sallah place the Ark in the box. Indy closes the box with a wooden lid and looks up. In the next shot, a torch has appeared in Indy's hand, a rope has appeared, tied to the four sides of the box, and Sallah has appeared next to Indy's left shoulder. In addition, the box is already several metres above Indy and Sallah in the second shot. (01:09:43)
Super Grover
9th Feb 2025
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
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Suggested correction: There is an obvious time jump between the shots. They simply decided not to spend ten minutes showing all the details of sealing the box and tying the rope around it.
I wouldn't say this was a deliberate time jump, as they show Indy carefully and slowly placing the Ark in the box, then sealing it. In addition, when he looks up, he immediately says, "All right... take it up! Easy!" so it's clear this is a continuity mistake.
He says, "All right. Take it up." After the cut. Yes, he does look up before the cut, but since everything else is different, we are supposed to interpret it as a jump in time.
In fact, almost nothing changes between these two scenes, except for these small but clear details.
There's a deliberate jump in time between these two shots, and this transition is done creatively. First, we're below with Indiana as he places the lid on the crate and looks up toward the top entrance; it then cuts to the entrance POV, and now we're looking down as the tied-up crate is being lifted. The jump in time between these two shots is transitioned using a type of match cut. Absolutely no mistakes regarding these two consecutive shots.
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