I've seen this observation and it did make me chuckle, but it misses the entire point of the film. It's true that the "big picture events" of Nazis getting the

I've seen this observation and it did make me chuckle, but it misses the entire point of the film. It's true that the "big picture events" of Nazis getting their faces melted off would have happened either way, but Raiders isn't about the Nazis. It's about Jones himself and the change he undergoes between the beginning of the film when he is dismissive of the supernatural to the end where he has at least a grudging respect for it (both turning away from the opening of the ark and his subsequent comments indicate this). The Nazis would have been the same, Jones wouldn't have been and Raiders is a movie about Jones.