8 Famous Movie Plot Holes With Shockingly Simple Solutions

4. How Did Indiana Jones Survive That Perilous Underwater Journey To The Island? - Raiders Of The Lost Ark

The "Plot Hole"

At one point in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis board a ship with Indiana Jones, Marion and the Ark of the Convenant on board. They capture Marion and the Ark and take them onto an adjacent U-boat, whilst Indy watches from afar.

Just before the submarine departs, Indy leaps into the water and swims the distance, where the remaining ship crew cheer him from afar. The submarine sets course for a deserted island, but what the heck does Indy do? He can't get inside the submarine - and isn't about about to submerge itself beneath the surface?

The Simple Solution

This plot hole is particularly well-regarded for its head-scratching nature, but - thankfully - we can actually use cold, hard facts to solve this one outright. Here's some information, courtesy of Wikipedia, which nicely explains how Indiana Jones could have possibly made that hellish journey beneath the surface. Quite simply, he didn't. Consider that...

"U-boats usually traveled on the surface, propelled by diesel engines. They would dive to periscope depth to follow ships and attack. They would dive deeper only in order to avoid detection or attack by enemy ships. Speed was severely limited while submerged."

The fact that "speed was severely limited" pretty much ensures that the U-boat didn't use that method to get to the island: time was far too precious at this point in the movie. So Indy likely just hung out on top of the submarine for the entire length of the journey.

Given that said journey was supposed to be around 50 hours in length does call into question the likelihood that Indy would have made this arduous trip and still had enough energy to foil to the Nazis, though it certainly wasn't impossible - he's Indiana Jones!