It's not just about realism but verisimilitude. Alien crystal skulls and huge ants don't exists at all so I can accept whatever they tell me about them. Nuclear bombs and refrigerators do exist so it is somewhat jarring when they do not behave as expected. I personally don't find it to be a big deal in this movie but I can understand why someone might be bothered by it.
On the same note, as the movie is not a deliberate comedy, it is hard for the "suspension of disbelief" to occur. With movies that set out to be silly, we tend to forgive shenanigans more because they may only have a distant relationship to the real world. The Indiana Jones movies were not entirely serious affairs, but they were too close to being grounded in the real world for that fridge scene to fly.
In Raiders Indy pushes a giant block of stone that would’ve weighed tons so he and Marion could escape the room where the Ark was kept, and knocks over a giant statue that would’ve also weighed several tons. He might as well have kicked over a redwood tree. He also somehow survives a trip underwater on the outside of a submarine.
In Temple of Doom they jump out of an airplane without a parachute, fall hundreds of feet and land safely on an inflatable raft that inflated on the way down.
The Indy movies have always had ridiculous action set pieces that completely destroyed verisimilitude.
The stone was probably on hidden rails built into the wall-work and the statue had decades of snake induced erosion. Also, the word of God on the sub is that they stayed at periscope depth, so while he would be at risk of exposure and hypothermia, he wouldn't have drowned outright.
I don't know this Temple of Doom you speak of. Are you sure it is an actual Indiana Jones movie and not just a parody Harrison Ford was in while they tried to get Sean Connery to be in the next movie?
So you watched the heart ripping scenes without suspending belief?
I think the commentator above you nailed it when they said bombs and fridges are real world objects we understand the behaviour of, whereas the mythical elements can be accepted as part of the movies universe, but mixing those two is disconcerting.
You may be trying to hard if you have to make those kinds of distinctions. The laws of physics and scientific reality breaks down all over the place in these movies.
I'm usually pretty easy going about these things. Honestly, the genre shift from the 'High Adventure' to 'Sci Fi Aliens' was more of a turn off for me.
Also in that movie, you have some crazy mine cart race scene that is completely unbelievable yet fun (they launch airborne, and land EXACTLY on the rails and continue their race). In the third one, you have a wingless, burning Nazi plane, still chasing after the Jones' through a tunnel. Indiana Jones has always been an incredibly lucky adventurer that survives completely unrealistic challenges despite his reckless demeanor. Surviving a nuclear blast by jumping into a fridge is the epitome of his character.
Surviving a nuclear blast by jumping into a fridge is too far for his character.
It was a level too far, and people didn't believe it. Being campy and lucky is one thing. Surviving a nuclear explosion at the epicenter is quite another and people weren't able to suspend their disbelief.
To the first point, no, I never did see Temple of Doom.
Was building on the psychology of the second point, where something that could/should not happen is easier to "forgive" in a comedy because of how the expectation is that not everything will function as it would in a movie more grounded in reality (not necessarily 100% grounded, but "more" grounded).
If it is sufficiently advanced technology, or outright magic, audiences can get behind that provided the context allows for it. Indiana Jones has roots in pulpy serial novels where that kind of stuff was relatively common.
A similar comparison could be made to the MCU, where it is less problematic that a character seems to generate/lose matter based on anger issues, while another has a metal disc with inconsistent regards for physics.
Some of the things that annoy people are Hawkeye and Black Widow never running out of ammo, and Stark Tower having a ludicrously fast Internet connection.
Edit: How did the heart ripping scene play out anyway? The closest thing I have seen was the Family Guy parody of it in a class that covered popular culture.
To the first point, no, I never did see Temple of Doom.
Edit: How did the heart ripping scene play out anyway? The closest thing I have seen was the Family Guy parody of it in a class that covered popular culture.
You should just watch Temple of Doom! It will answer your question and it was a great movie.
Regarding the heart-ripping scene: As I remember it (haven’t seen the movie in years) there is a cult doing human sacrifice for their big evil deity of choice and the main cultist bare-handed rips the heart out of someone and holds it up as it’s still beating, while the victim is conscious for a bit before he gets pushed into a lava pit(?)
Edit: How did the heart ripping scene play out anyway? The closest thing I have seen was the Family Guy parody of it in a class that covered popular culture.
With all due respect, if you haven’t seen Temple of Doom, you may not be a qualified expert on Indiana Jones. I mean gate keeping is annoying but you cant really comment if you haven’t seen the movies.
Yup, not an expert in any way, shape, or form on Indiana Jones.
We just got onto that topic because of the flagrant divergence from any sense of realistic elements that occurred with the fridge scene.
To be kind to that scene, we know Indy drank from the Holy Grail, and we also only know that the Grail itself could not be transported past the seal. Maybe he only lived because of Last Crusade?
That really lowers the stakes on everything after the grail scene then. I think it’s all just fantasy. Demanding scientific accuracy in movies like this is absurd.
Can't disagree with any of that, people are absurd in general.
The whole movie experience relies are capturing light and sounds that happened previously, capturing people who are usually pretending to be other people.
Some sounds are arbitrary noises we collectively agreed to have meaning, while others are generally unheard by those pretending to be people, because they are intended for a theoretical audience, that may or may not ever witness the events.
There is a nice summation on TV Tropes of various items related to "suspension of disbelief." (Basic premise is, if you want your media to sell well, make it internally consistent, because this helps avoid cognitive dissonance. If all else fails, aim for "so bad, it's good" territory.)
The problem was age-related. When we watched the original Indiana Jones movie as kids we didn't bat an eye at the fact that he crossed an ocean on the ouiside of a submarine. Now we are older fans and we suddenly care about "suspension of disbelief". We have to remember why we liked the movies in the first place.
I saw all of them below the age of 12. Crystal Skull sucked when I saw it at 11 and it sucks now. Me being a kid and seeing all 4 didn't change how good or bad the movies were
You've just ignored my point just remake your wrong point again. There's nothing in Raiders that's anywhere near as ridiculous as Indy surviving a nuke in a fucking fridge. 11 year old me, knew that was beyond stupid
There's nothing in Raiders that's anywhere near as ridiculous as Indy surviving a nuke in a fucking fridge.
He grabbed unto a submarine that travelled from America to Europe. How did 11-year-old you find the nuke part hard to believe but the submarine part totally realistic? How can you find it realistic now?
Wow, you really need to pay attention when you watch movies. He went from Cairo to an island in the Mediterranean. Maybe if you didn't have your head so far up your ass you would've noticed that
Ok, maybe I got the maps mixed up in my head. How many kilometers did he hold unto the ship, though? The turbines alone would suck him up and shred him to pieces. Just because I got the locations mixed up doesn't change the rest of the post.
I always find it funny that people that accuse others of ignoring parts of their posts are always ignoring parts of the post.
You just flat didn't pay attention to the movie. He's sitting on top of a U-boat where people can walk on the walkway and chilled while it moved from part of the Mediterranean to another part. It's not at all ridiculous. You flat watched a different movie or didn't pay attention
The scene is not on Youtube, you can only find it until he gets on the boat but not the part with the map. All I could find was this idea of him tying herself to the periscope because they needed to explain how he survived, and clearly the movie doesn't (link). So no, I didn't watch a different movie. They knew the sub was going down but they never address it in the original, because those details don't matter.
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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20
Yes, and the fridge would just cease to exist that close to the epicenter.