7 "Perfect" Movie Endings That Are Way More Contrived Than You Think

6. Indiana Jones Knows Not To Look At The Ark For Some Unexplained Reason - Raiders Of The Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark tells the action-packed story of an archeologist's frantic quest to stop the Ark of the Convenant from falling into the hands of the Nazis. After successfully managing to find the secret location where the Ark is buried in Cairo, Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) finds himself on route to a mysterious island where his adversary, Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), who is working with the Nazis, has taken the Ark captive and is about to perform an "ancient ritual." He's also taken Indy's love interest, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), as hostage. Indy is ultimately captured of course, and is tied up - alongside Marion - on a pole, as Belloq and the Nazis open the Ark. In the film's infamous finale, the Ark reveals itself to be an artifact of unspeakable evil, and unleashes a variety of terrifying ghosts and spirits, before firing out a series of electric bolts that kills everybody who happens to be watching the ceremony - Belloq and his cronies get their heads melted and/or exploded in an incredibly satisfying scene. Indy and Marion escape death, however, because Indy insists they shut their eyes. The problem with this ending, of course, is that Indy seems to just pluck this sudden death prevention tactic out of nowhere - for some reason, without explanation, he knows that he's not supposed to stare directly at the Ark. So are we supposed to just assume that Indy was guessing when he suggested this? His delivery of the line, "Shut your eyes, Marion. Don't look at it," tells a different story. Alas, in a deleted scene, Indy was apparently supposed to learn not to look at the Ark from the same shaman, Imam, that we meet during the whole "bad dates" debacle. So whereas this scene is iconic and brilliant, it does lack a dash of essential logic which most people tend to overlook. A simple line of exposition would've certainly helped.