Indiana Jones and the Magic Fridge

[JarodRussell]

I hate it when people go "It's fantasy, why do you complain at all?"

The knight survived for several hundred years because of the Holy Grail. That's what the Holy Grail does. That's why everyone wants it. Either by magic, or by scifi, explain it any way you want.



But does a fridge really protect you from a nuclear blast? Would you survive the crash unscathed?



Had they introduced another magic or scifi device that protected him from the blast, I would have been okay with it. But a simple fridge is nothing that can protect you from such a thing.


It doesn't have anything to do with realism, it's all about logic.




I would have also been okay with them NOT showing how he survived. He gets in the fridge, closes the door, the nuke detonates, and FADE TO Indy waking up in the desert, with the fridge only barely visble as a HINT in the background. Or Indy waking up in a hospital bed.

[Trekker4747]

The fridge part I can "buy" it's "plausible" enough to wave away. But the way the fridge "landed" is too much. It was blown miles away by the shockwave and crash landed and then bounced around on a rocky desert floor before coming to a rest. Indy walks out perfectly fine.

It's just one of those things that is hard to accept no matter how many fantastical of things have happened in the past. It just looked utterly silly and not like something at all one could survive. The awning fall and the liferaft fall both were shown to look "kinda" like it could be survivable. Because they didn't show the liferaft landing on the mountain side going Mach-1, tumbling off numerous rocky crags and crashing into things before finally coming to a rest at the bottom of the mountain with Indie looking fine and Willie's hair simply being messed up a little with her screeching about it.

The mine-cart scene is a little OTT and silly. But even then it's a bit of an "eh... whatever."

I don't think Crystal Skull buys enough forgiveness to wave around the absurd fridge landing.

[CorporalCaptain]

Iron Man gets a similar treatment to the Nuclear Fridge landing, when his prototype suit crash-lands in the desert, after he escapes the cave. I don't believe that he and his cave-mate wired inertial dampeners into the suit. Why does Iron Man get a pass?

[Trekker4747]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Iron Man gets a similar treatment to the Nuclear Fridge landing, when his prototype suit crash-lands in the desert, after he escapes the cave. I don't believe that he and his cave-mate wired inertial dampeners into the suit. Why does Iron Man get a pass?

Because it was a good movie. The rest of the movie was good enough to have wave that away. And, believe me, it's a complaint I -and others- had. Similar to the other "slapstick" moments when he's testing various aspects of the suit and gets slammed into a concrete wall.

But Iron Man was a good movie so, meh, whatever.

If Indy 4 had been a good movie people would probably be a bit more forgiving over the fridge moment. It'd be, "Yeah, that was dumb, but it was great seeing Indy again!"

Instead the movie just kept heaping on piles of shit (again, chase scene, Shia doing fencing on the back of JEEPS SPEEDING THROUGH THE JUNGLE!, the multiple waterfalls) and it wasn't good enough to overlook the nonsense. Part of suspension of disbelief is suspending it, and it's the film maker's job to do that by whatever means they have to. Having a good movie buys a LOT of suspension of disbelief.

[davejames]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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It's just one of those things that is hard to accept no matter how many fantastical of things have happened in the past. It just looked utterly silly and not like something at all one could survive. The awning fall and the liferaft fall both were shown to look "kinda" like it could be survivable. Because they didn't show the liferaft landing on the mountain side going Mach-1, tumbling off numerous rocky crags and crashing into things before finally coming to a rest at the bottom of the mountain with Indie looking fine and Willie's hair simply being messed up a little with her screeching about it.

Agreed.

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Iron Man gets a similar treatment to the Nuclear Fridge landing, when his prototype suit crash-lands in the desert, after he escapes the cave. I don't believe that he and his cave-mate wired inertial dampeners into the suit. Why does Iron Man get a pass?

I don't think it should. That's definitely a moment that takes me out of the story for a second or two, because it just looks SO unsurvivable. But thankfully it doesn't become a trend (like in Indy 4), and the rest of the movie keeps his abilities to a fairly believable level.

[Argus Skyhawk]

When it comes to unbelievable events, fantasy elements do not belong in the same category as lapses in story logic. Aliens and lost arks with divine power belong in the first category, while refrigerators and inflatable rafts that bestow Wile E Coyote abilities upon their occupants belong in the second. That is why in Indiana Jones movies I'm not bothered by 700-year-old knights and village-protecting magical stones, but I definitely do not like scenes such the thousand-foot-fall over the cliff, the three increasingly deadly waterfalls, or the nuclear fridge.

[Edit_XYZ]

The nuclear fridge is a plot hole only because its reputation is that it's a plot hole.
An effect of nuclear phobia, perhaps?

Even the video at the beginning of the thread establishes that it's half-way realistic (and, by holywood standards, half-way realistic is hard core realism).

[RJDiogenes]

According to that video, the Atomic Fridge is survivable. The only thing they got wrong was the part about the fridge overtaking the car, which is well within the artistic license boundaries of a Saturday morning serial.

It's a very cool scene that has an ingenious cliffhanger escape and does a wonderful job of establishing Indy's new setting in the 1950s. It always amazes me the things that the audience objects to versus the things that they will accept and defend.

[Nerys Myk]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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According to that video, the Atomic Fridge is survivable. The only thing they got wrong was the part about the fridge overtaking the car, which is well within the artistic license boundaries of a Saturday morning serial.

It's a very cool scene that has an ingenious cliffhanger escape and does a wonderful job of establishing Indy's new setting in the 1950s. It always amazes me the things that the audience objects to versus the things that they will accept and defend.

Exactly. The Indy films are over the top action adventure films that homage Saturday-morning serials. In that context, a nuclear safe, flying fridge is not out of place.

[RandyS]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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According to that video, the Atomic Fridge is survivable. The only thing they got wrong was the part about the fridge overtaking the car, which is well within the artistic license boundaries of a Saturday morning serial.

It's a very cool scene that has an ingenious cliffhanger escape and does a wonderful job of establishing Indy's new setting in the 1950s. It always amazes me the things that the audience objects to versus the things that they will accept and defend.

Exactly.

[JarodRussell]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Iron Man gets a similar treatment to the Nuclear Fridge landing, when his prototype suit crash-lands in the desert, after he escapes the cave. I don't believe that he and his cave-mate wired inertial dampeners into the suit. Why does Iron Man get a pass?

He doesn't.

I find Iron Man extremely ridiculous. The suit would kill him.

[Venardhi]

As soon as the groundhogs popped up I kind of figured I was going to be watching another Lucasfilm cartoon. That is the big problem with the movie for me, not the events themselves but how over-the-top they were able to make them now that the technology allows them to do anything and everything as big as they can dream it up. There is no bargaining with the realities of physically accomplishing something to compromise that dream image into something that looks plausible and, importantly, retains enough reality that it still feels dangerous.

As far as I'm concerned it sits next to the PT on the shelf of movies I wish I could just pretend never got made. I don't doubt there was a good movie in there somewhere, but what ended up on screen just wasn't it.

[Set Harth]

JarodRussell wrote:

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He doesn't.

I find Iron Man extremely ridiculous. The suit would kill him.

Internal repulsor cushion.

[theenglish]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Aliens crosses a line, but not the spirits of God? THAT is to much to accept?

Sometimes it's used for EMPHASIS.

It wasn't the content of Indy IV that spoiled the movie, it was the pacing and lack of an engaging story. The content was no more unrealistic than any of the earlier films. All the films had some kind of magic quality about them, and over the top stunts--even III.

[Vassa]

Why was only one refrigerator thrown that far?