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It takes a lot to scare a man likeIndiana Jones. He’s faced Nazis, The Red Baron, Cults, hostile indigenous tribesmen, ancient Templars, entities from another dimension, and of course Time Travelling White Supremacists. But there’s one thing that terrifies him more than anything else in the world. Well, two if you count being a committed husband and father figure, and that’s Snakes.
It’s a common fear shared by many and it’s a bit of Indy lore that first popped up in Raiders of The Lost Ark when Indy had an encounter with his friend Jock’s pet Snake Reggie. Later movies would continue to reference Indy’s phobia, but where did it come from? To help answer that, here’s everything you need to know about why Indiana Jones hates Snakes.
What Is The Fear Of Snakes Called?
The fear of snakes is called Ophidiophobia,and approximately half the population of America has a form of it to one degree or another. Extrapolate that to the globe and you may see thatit’s a fairly common fear.
In most cases,Ophidiophobia is caused by a traumatic event involving snakes, usually at a young age. When around their trigger animal, an Ophidiophobe will experiencesymptoms of heightened or extreme anxietyand in some situations, it can cause someone to completely pass out.
Indiana being an Ophidiophobe that’s subjected to snakes so regularly and yet still takes it on the proverbial chin is quite an impressive feat.
Warning: Spoilers For The Indiana Jones Movie Franchise Below
Why Does Indiana Jones Hate Snakes?
Because the Indiana Jones movies are so approachable and easy to understand, it’s pretty easy to point exactly at the point whereIndy had a traumatic run-in with a snake. It happened inthe first Act of The Last Crusade,and those familiar with it will definitely agree that it was a pretty rough time for Jones.
At the beginning of the movie, we see young Indiana Jones and his friend out patrolling on their horses as part of theirBoy Scout duty in Utah. They come acrossa cave containing the lost Cross of Coronadoand unfortunately, there are some men inside looting the place.
Ironically, in this part of the movie,Indy’s friend gets spooked by a snake, whilst Jones himself just picks it up casually and tosses it with a mocking comment of “It’s just a snake”. Somethinghe’ll regret saying in about ten minutesfrom that point.
Young Indiana Jones in this part of the movie isplayed by the late River Phoenix.
Indy of coursesteals the cross in order to make sure it gets into the hands of a museumwhere it belongs and he’s chased by the looters, eventuallyjumping onto a moving train. The locomotive in question is owned byDunn And Duffy Circusand it’s currently transporting all their animals,including the very dangerous ones, across the country.
There’s abig bombastic chase sceneacross the roof of the locomotive which culminates in Indy falling into the Reptile Car of the train, and thenthings take a turn for the traumatic. Afternarrowly avoiding a massive python in one enclosurewhen the platform above it collapses, poor young Indiana then dives out of it directly intoa pen full of hundreds of smaller snakes.
These slither all over his body and his face, and they even get inside his clothes. Which of coursehorribly traumatizes the young Indiana Joneswho simply rises out of the mass screaming bloody murder. And that, at the time, was the scene that showed whereIndiana Jones’s fear of snakes came from.
Technically Jones’s first encounter with a huge snake was in theYoung Indiana JonesTV Series episodePassion For Life. Though there’s some debate as to whether the show is canon anymore.
Every Indiana Jones Movie Encounter With Snakes
At first, Indiana’s rough encounter with his new slithery friend wasjust a bit of setup for a payoff of helping build tension in a later sceneof the movie, and it worked perfectly. Indy doesn’t like Snakes, andnow he’s stuck in a room with a ton of them, he’s tense, we’re tense — it just works.
But as the series went on,Indiana’s fear of Snakes would eventually be given its origin, but it would quickly become almost flanderized and turned into a way to do some tick-the-box storytelling. With it being itsmost embarrassing in the fourth and fifth films.
But we’ll get to those as it’s worth going through each movie, other than Last Crusade to seeevery time Indy starts shriekingafter seeing something slithering.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Our first foray into Indy’s fear is first found inthe final part of the Temple Escape scene in the First Actof the film. Here he’ssprinting down a lush green jungle hillside, followed in hot-pursuit by hostile natives. His one escape route, Jock, fishing off his small seaplane nearby.
Indy swings onboard, the plane takes off, and he looks down to see “Reggie”,Jock’s pet Python. A massive lad of a reptilecurled up happily around Indy’s feet. Indiana of course naturally reacts to this as calmly as you would think, in that he freaks out andmomentarily considers tossing the snake over the side.
He of course can’t do that because it’s his friend and source of escape’s pet. And so Jones, given nowhere to run to, settles in for what possibly felt likethe longest flight in his life.
The next time we see Indiana grimacing about being amongst some slithering new friends is around the midway point of the movie, just before he’scaught by the Nazis whilst recovering The Ark of the Covenant. He and Sallah had just opened the Well of Souls when they noticed the floor moving, only to discoverthe entire room was covered with Snakes.
It’s made even worse when Indy is joined by Marion Ravenwood who’s unceremoniouslytossed into the tomb by the Nazisafter the Ark has been removed. The room, which already had a ton ofdangerous Asps and Cobrasin it before, starts to fill up with even more snakes.
They escape eventually but it’s a rough time for everyone involved,especially Marion.
The opening of the Well Of Souls scene is where we get the iconic Indiana Jones line: “Snakes, why’d it have to be Snakes?”.
Temple Of Doom
Temple of Doom has a fewblink-and-you-’ll-miss-it-type encounters with Snakesfor Indy, but they are there. The first is duringthe camping scene with Willie Scott, where she’s having a hard time adjusting to being close to nature.
Eventually, a large snake wraps around her and she tosses it near Indy whorecoils and climbs up a big boulder in fear.
Then there’s theinfamous and controversial feast scenewhere we see the likes ofChilled Monkey Brains and “Snake Surprise”. The surprise being that it’s agiant snake, filled with lots of smaller Eelsthat ooze out when it’s cut into. It’snot the worst thing to happen to Jones in that movie, but it’s Grade-A nightmare fuel for Ophidiophobes.
The last little bit we get is when Indy isrecovering the Sankara Stones and gets spooked by a statue of a Cobrajust above his head and he gives it a little glare in return.
The Crystal Skull
There are a lot of things Crystal Skull did wrong. But we’re keeping our focus on Snakes and unfortunately,it’s as cartoonish as you would think. Whilst trying to escape the Russians in the Jungle, Indiana and Marion accidentally and “comedically”stand on Quicksand.
Mutt rescues Marion pretty quickly but Jones simply sinks up to his armpits whilst watching the whole thing play out before a now-freeMarion and Mutt toss him a lifeline.
A suspiciously thick and hissing “Rope”.
According to Dial of Destiny,Mutt died in Vietnam after Crystal Skull.
The rope is of course a snake, and Indiana panics and pleads for them to say: “Grab the rope”. He eventually convinces himself that theangrily hissing, and surprisingly non-biting Snake, is in fact a rope.
He grabs it andthe snake stretchesfar beyond what a reptile supporting the weight of an elderly Harrison Ford should be able to, and he’sunceremoniously pulled out of the mire.
The first snake tossed at Ford is real with a bit of CG thrown in, but the one he grabs is of course a big rubber puppet that’s stretched almost to breaking point.
The Dial Of Destiny
Just when you thought they were done with Snakes in an Indiana Jones movie, it seems they can’t quite stop beating thatseverely dead horse. In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, they kick things up a notch bynot using snakes, but Eels.
The reason we bring this up is that in the movie Indy’s new friend Teddy Kumar makes the observation thatthe Eels in the ocean they’re about to dive into look like Snakes, to which Indy immediately tries to shut down with a stern “No they don’t”.
It’s agroan-inducing introduction to an underwater nightmare of CGI, and that’s before the Eels show up. When they do,they swarm Indiana, who can’t seem to save himself once again as he tries to scare them off with a flare, but gets a bit muddled and trapped. Only forHelena to once again come to the rescue. And that’s all we get about Indiana and Snakes asthe movie lurches onwardsto another disaster of a scene.
This particular scene was felt by many asone of the more blatant attempts to shoehorn in old Indiana Jones momentsfor tick-the-box nostalgia points.
