Characters are 2 dimensional That's the great twist of the movie though. Indiana is presented as an American Nazi-hating playboy thrill-seeking heroic professo

Characters are 2 dimensional That's the great twist of the movie though. Indiana is presented as an American Nazi-hating playboy thrill-seeking heroic professor...who is also into history or something. Belloq is presented as a French backstabbing Nazi-sympathizing schemer multilinguist...who is also into history or something. You're given all of this information upfront by the end of the first sequence. But then, it turns out you had it backwards. These characters were actually men who are obsessed with history that are also some other stuff I guess. Indy basically gives the ark's power over to the Nazis just to see the truth of its history inside (but gets lucky lol). Belloq is shown not to care about the Nazis or getting rich. He really only wanted the knowledge inside[1]. Indy spends the film falling in love with Marian, fighting off reprehensible Nazis, and enjoying at least some of the immense glory coming his way. You expect him to grow as a character by the end and bazooka (or not bazooka) the ark for one of those reasons. Instead, he's swayed by Belloq's appeal of history and it turns out you never really knew who Indy was despite being given all of the information upfront. [1]The original script provides more of the context for Belloq's character at the end