Eli and Raiders

I don't know if anyone ever really picked up on this, but my movie THE BOOK OF ELI is really one big fat homage to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, my all-time favorite movie.

In both movies, the forces of good and evil battle for possession of a sacred religious artifact. The hero understands its intrinsic worth and wants to preserve it for the right reasons. The villain is only interested in using it to control the world.

In both movies, the hero is to some extent protected by God, who has a vested interest in the artifact reaching its intended destination. By the end of both movies the existence of God is pretty much undeniable (although in Raiders it is more overt).

In both movies, the villain eventually manages to steal the artifact from the hero while the hero is captured, but the villain ultimately realizes that the artifact is not what he expected and he and all his henchmen are killed.

In both movies the artifact reaches its intended destination and is put in storage, its future uncertain.

There are a bunch of other parallels but I can't remember them right now, will edit them into the post if they come to me later.

And no, I am not religious.