Ghost

CREATURE
Ghost
Type	Supernatural entity

Ghosts, also known as wraiths, were supernatural beings encountered by Indiana Jones on his adventures.

Adventures with ghosts

Wrath of God

In 1936, as the French mercenary René Emile Belloq and the Nazis opened the Ark of the Covenant through a Jewish ritual, expecting to find the Ten Commandments there only to find tons of sand once the lid was removed, spirits emerged from the chest after Belloq looked into an apparent portal inside the artifact and flew around and through the awestruck soldiers. When they flew near the American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his companion Marion Ravenwood, who had been tied to a pole by the Nazis, they simply bypassed them because their eyes were closed.

At first appearing to be benevolent and in Belloq's words "Beautiful!", the spirits suddenly transformed into sinister angels of death, effectively sealing the fate of Belloq and the Nazis. The spirits went back into the Ark and combined to form Holy Fire, a fiery ball of lightning that shot all the Nazi soldiers dead, imploded Herman Dietrich, melted Arnold Ernst Toht and exploded Belloq. The Ark then swept their remains into the air with the Holy Fire to have their souls judged, before the holy fire returned into the Ark, as did its cover. Only Jones and Ravenwood survived the ordeal having not looked at the spirits and showed proper respect to God.

Legacy

As all filming equipment was destroyed by the electric currents unleashed by the Ark, nothing was recorded. As noted by Belloq's son, Indiana Jones later described in a transcript what sounded like "wailing spirits" and "screams of agony" coming form those around him until the supernatural forces were sucked back into the Ark.

Sometime later that year, upon being captured alongside Edith Dunne and both tied up back to back, Indy assumed that he and Marion were back to that night at the Tabernace around the ghosts again and told her to close her eyes, only for Edith to ask him if he was alright, leading Indy to realize he was in another type of danger. Days later, while on their way to the Devil's Cradle, Jones confided to Prospero's grandson that he was open to believe in his grandfather's Elixir of Immortality given how he didn't believe on the Ark of the Covenant's power until he "saw" it destroy a whole Nazi regiment.

By 1993, the older Jones preferred to act up like a stereotypical ghost to scare trick-or-treaters during Halloween night.

Behind the scenes

For the Ark of the Covenant's opening in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the ghosts were created by Industrial Light & Magic model maker Steve Gawley through silk puppets with little bits of a head, an idea Lorne Peterson accepted. To achieve the effect, which according to Joe Johnston could have even been achieved fifty years ago from 1981, ILM had a big cloud tank filled with water and a camera looking into the tank's window, with Richard Edlund having a film clip from the set to know how the ghosts would move. To make the effect of the ghost's facial transformation from human to screaming skull, ILM shot the scene in live-action due to animation proving to be untenable, thus hiring receptionist Greta Hicks to the stage, dressing her in a white outlat, laying flat on a big trapeze, picking her up like a big swing and then letting her fall away from the camera. This made the silk trail toward the camera, which when running the film backward, made it look like an object with hands going out and drawing forward coming toward the spectator. For the angelical ghost that comes up toward René Emile Belloq, a Playboy model was in a made-up body pan with subsequent lots of diffusion and material on the lens to make the model look fuzzy without being out of the focus, only to then turning suddenly into a skull, achieved by the water tank using a puppet.

When brought into the development of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, James Mangold found that several different screenplays for the film included ghosts and apparitions, but basically felt that all of them were just "reduxes" of the Raiders climax and everything that Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan and David Koepp had already done successfully in other films so instead opted to start a new script.

Appearances

• Young Indiana Jones and the Ghostly Riders
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles – "Transylvania, January 1918" (Bookends) (Impersonation by Indiana Jones)
• Indiana Jones and the Interior World (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates (Mentioned only)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Raiders of the Lost Ark novel
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Ikons of Ikammanen" (Indirect mention)
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Devil's Cradle" (Indirect mention)
•  The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones – "The Sea Butchers" (Mentioned only)
• Indiana Jones and the Monkey King (Cancelled)

Non-canon appearances

• LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
• LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues

Sources

• Indiana Jones Adventure Heroes
• Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
• The Complete Making of Indiana Jones
•  Indiana Jones Heritage trading cards (Card: The Ritual's Gruesome End)
• The Greatest Adventures of Indiana Jones

External links

• Ghost on Wikipedia