I hadn't given it much thought. After all, they have been dead for two billion years. It's probably a shortcoming on my part, but I haven't spent much time thinking about whether the Java Men were good lacrosse players either. It has to be. If it weren't, nobody would come.
People demand escalating action in movies.
It is all we seem to care about. No, the pilot would turn out to be a Nazi spy, and Rick would have to kill him with a machete, and then fly the plane himself and crash-land in a football stadium during the Super Bowl. And they'd toss the bomb back and forth between the chariots. And Demi Moore would be tied to one of the wheels. Her toga would be shredded.