First there was "jump the shark"...now "nuke the fridge"

[nickdawgy]

Originally Posted by Dr Mabuse

oh yeah and then he steps out of the fridge and stands right under the mushroom cloud... just stands there watching the mushroom cloud grow, from right under it...

it was a multimedia insult to the intelligence of the viewer...

'nuked the fridge'... i love this one...

Yeah because all the Indiana Jones movies were so real, it's a slap in the face that they'd go and throw this fake stuff at us.

[nickdawgy]

Originally Posted by jdpatri

Actually the fridge was low on the totem pole of issues with Indiana Jones.

Spoiler:

1. Inter-dimensional fucking beings
2. Vine swinging
3. Inter-dimensional fucking beings... aka George Lucas needs to be committed before he can do any more damage
4. Set design in the Amazon (really? that's where you were? Because it looked more like a set from the Tarzan TV show.)
.
.
.
17. Nuking the fridge

tell us how you really feel.

[Ron G]

What about "surfed the avalanche"?

[Nick Martin]

Originally Posted by DthRdrX

But the hacking of the mothership came at the end of the film! There wasn't much left to be excited about anyway. I actually like this phrase!

Hacking the Mothership is good, but then again I LOVE ID4. Yes I do.

[Jackskeleton]

Was "flipped the lid", "ride the sub" or "dodge the boulder" taken?

Either way, "Nuke the fridge" is stupid. Seriously stupid.

[riotinmyskull]

has 'nuked the fridge' jumped the shark yet?

[Charlie Goose]

Originally Posted by Groucho

To be fair, the sequences you mention are clearly based in mythology and fantasy. But nuclear tests sites and refrigerators are more realistic concepts. You make a good point, but it'll not quite the same thing.

True. No one knows what would really happen if we opened the Ark of the Covenant, so that interpretation is up for grabs. However, we all know what happens during an a-bomb test, so it should stick closer to reality.

[Draven]

Look, like it or not, Indiana Jones exists in the "real world" with a fantasy element.

What if Indy could suddenly fly? Would you all say "oh, it's a fantasy. The Ark killed the Nazis so anything goes." No, you wouldn't. And a 60+ year old man surviving a near ground-zero nuclear blast and flying miles through the air in a metal fridge and rolling out, STANDING UP and watching the rest of the explosion is as ridiculous as Indy gaining the ability to fly.

They set the rules in this world, and the only thing that can "break" them are the fantasy elements. The nuke was straight out of our world and we all know how devastating they are.

This was a completely unneccesary part of the film that began the downhill slide the movie took from there.

[jdpatri]

Originally Posted by nickdawgy

tell us how you really feel.

Nah. We'd be here too long.

[theflicker]

Originally Posted by Draven

Look, like it or not, Indiana Jones exists in the "real world" with a fantasy element.

What if Indy could suddenly fly? Would you all say "oh, it's a fantasy. The Ark killed the Nazis so anything goes." No, you wouldn't. And a 60+ year old man surviving a near ground-zero nuclear blast and flying miles through the air in a metal fridge and rolling out, STANDING UP and watching the rest of the explosion is as ridiculous as Indy gaining the ability to fly.

They set the rules in this world, and the only thing that can "break" them are the fantasy elements. The nuke was straight out of our world and we all know how devastating they are.

This was a completely unneccesary part of the film that began the downhill slide the movie took from there.

There's a line when he's getting debriefed by the government agents where Indy says something like, "Maybe you want to talk about how I survived that nuclear explosion?"

One interpretation could be that the they're acknowledging the absurdity of the situation, but my personal interpretatation is that this is the result of him drinking from the Grail. By doing so, Indy came in direct contact with the supernatural/fantasy world and now has some of those attributes.

At the same time, I guess his father's death sort of 'nukes the fridge' of my argument. (I can use the term that way because it means nothing.)

All the same, it's a fantasy adventure film that I found pretty entertaining. Except for the monkey tree swinging tutorial. If Lucas/Spielberg intend for Mutt Williams to be the next Indy, he needs to fall on his face a bit more.

[jdpatri]

Originally Posted by Seantn

Are you serious ? You care about there being

Spoiler:

aliens

? Have you seen the previous Indy films? You didn't care about Nazis having their bodies melt because of some box that was opened -- but it didn't hurt Indy, because he didn't LOOK at it? Yeah, that's not one bit silly at all.

This is my logic and I'm sticking to it.

Indiana Jones is an archaeologist and the movies have all been about the power of religious relics and the mythology of the past...

Spoiler:

Crystal Skull abandoned this. You had a few requisite scenes of fact finding and discovery in Crystal Skull, but by the end you were dealing with aliens. My distaste for the aliens has nothing to do with broaching the fantastic. I hate the aliens because it abandoned much of what made Indiana Jones feel like Indiana Jones. Suddenly it wasn't about the past anymore (even though they tried to artificially shoehorn this concept into our brains). Whether they like it or not, we, as viewers, have notions we bring into the theater beforehand and aliens or interdimensional beings are futuristic -- not relics or things of the past... Suddenly we're cast into the realm of science fiction. And it was like that from the beginning.

The fridge scene was an attempt to bridge the old Indy with the new (and consequently the New World of Indiana Jones) where we're supposed to buy into George Lucas' hackneyed ideas of how just because we've entered the 50's in this cinematic world, the Indiana Jones supposed serial adventures would also have to be subject to the pop-fiction elements of the era.

Spoiler:

I acknowledge that aliens could have arrived at any time in earth's past and therefore made their crap an object of archaeological interest; however, in the movie world where genres come with certain arrays of expectations, I don't think it works.

But it's not just the concept; it was the whole entire scene. You had unnecessary larger-than-life whirling CGI and an ending that placed the entire dramatic tension outside the realm of the characters. When CGI takes over a scene, it draws us out of the movie and reduces our investment in the characters on screen. There was no drama, just special effects. Huge special effects. Cheap melting heads, hands ripping through obviously false chest cavities... none of these things take me out of the movie like CGI... because even though they are cheeze, there's a greater element of a reality. There's something palpable on screen. It's all probably just me. All this complaining and I did enjoy the movie, and didn't mind the fridge scene... but was really disappointed in the direction Spielberg/Lucas took.

[RichC2]

I didn't mind there being aliens, I minded the way they were handled. If they changed the CG orgy finale with something more settle, I would have been much happier.

That said, I also agree with the CG detractors, it just doesn't fit the series too well.

I'm going to go microwave some pasta.

[Damfino]

Originally Posted by Dr Mabuse

oh yeah and then he steps out of the fridge and stands right under the mushroom cloud... just stands there watching the mushroom cloud grow, from right under it.

Well, Duh! he took a shower afterwards

I think "nuke the fridge" is a perfect assessment of the movie. For me at least it made it a lot easier to accept the fake looking ants, the three water falls and the "ow, my balls" gag that they stole from Idiocracy.

Yep, "nuke the fridge" is now in my vocabulary if only to annoy people.

[Rogue588]

Originally Posted by Damfino

Well, Duh! he took a shower afterwards

And that one dude did scrub his twig and berries..

[Daytripper]

Originally Posted by Jackskeleton

Was "flipped the lid", "ride the sub" or "dodge the boulder" taken?

Either way, "Nuke the fridge" is stupid. Seriously stupid.

Indeed! I said it first two pages ago. Thankfully, most agree.

[Draven]

Again, why is it stupid? That was the moment where Indiana Jones stopped being a cool movie series. And it pretty much went downhill from there.

[JimRochester]

To get real anal about it...

refrigerators in the 50's didn't close by a pressure seal the way todays fridges do. They had a mechanical lock like you'd still find on a big restaurant cooler today. Once inside you couldn't get out. It could only be opened from the outside by the handle.

Back in the day, they had to start a campaign to get people to take the doors off refrigerators when they threw them away. Kids would climb in to play, get stuck and suffocate. So in my book he survived the nuclear blast but suffocated afterward when he got stuck in the fridge.

Jump the shark has always referred to a point in a series when they've run out of things for the characters to do and start relying on gimmicks. Like in Happy Days when Fonzie jumped the shark.

[NIMH Rat]

^^^ "Back in the day..."

JimR just nailed why some people look down on the fridge scene. They don't have the knowledge to laugh at a 50s joke.

JimR is also correct, unlike the Urban Dictionary, in his definition of jumping the shark.

[Draven]

Originally Posted by NIMH Rat

^^^ "Back in the day..."

JimR just nailed why some people look down on the fridge scene. They don't have the knowledge to laugh at a 50s joke.

Wait, so now I am too stupid to get the "joke"? I didn't realize that Indiana Jones was a parody, where all laws of the universe are thrown out the window for a cheap laugh. I guess I'll chalk it up to the same amazing durability that OJ Simpson's character possessed in the high drama "The Naked Gun".

[NIMH Rat]

Indiana Jones always walked the line between straight adventure and parody adventure.

Like Gunga Din. You've seen Gunga Din, yes?

And the fridge scene wasn't a cheap laugh. It was a pretty smart, well-earned laugh.

[Draven]

Originally Posted by NIMH Rat

Like Gunga Din. You've seen Gunga Din, yes?

No I haven't. Are there CGI aliens in it?

And the fridge scene wasn't a cheap laugh. It was a pretty smart, well-earned laugh.

Smart? Well-earned? Under what criteria? That he wasn't spitting out a mouth-full of lettuce when the door opened?

[Dr Mabuse]

Originally Posted by Draven

Smart? Well-earned? Under what criteria? That he wasn't spitting out a mouth-full of lettuce when the door opened?

[NIMH Rat]

^^^ That would have made it even funnier!

[Jackskeleton]

You know, Indy's in real world and blah blah blah religion... and we all know how a fall from a plane without a parachute would be like...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364361,00.html

So F that, Indiana jones didn't "Nuke the fridge", He "Rafted the Plane!" cause he's based on real world physics and yet survives a fall from a plane with an inflatable raft? Yeah... Mr. lucas, screw you!

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by Jackskeleton

So F that, Indiana jones didn't "Nuke the fridge", He "Rafted the Plane!" cause he's based on real world physics and yet survives a fall from a plane with an inflatable raft? Yeah... Mr. lucas, screw you!

It actually is possible to survive a fall from a plan using an inflatable raft; not the way it's shown in the movie, but it is possible.

It comes down to suspension of disbelief, and what is successfully presented as plausible. With an inflatable raft, it gives them more surface area with little weight, thus a lower terminal velocity. Additionally, they landed in water, typically thought to provide a softer landing than ground. And even then there have been people bitching about that scene for the past 20 years.

Whereas with the fridge, even if you ignore the contents inside it surviving a nuclear blast (after all, they did show a label saying it was "lead lined"), it still doesn't survive most people's rudimentary knowledge of physics. Here's an experiment: Take an raw egg and put it in a safe. Now drop that safe 5 feet. What condition will that egg be in?

At least the inflatable raft was integrated into the plot; the story needed some way for Indy to get from a pilotless plane to the ground. With the fridge, a half-decent editor could successfully edit that scene out of the film with no detrimental affect to the plot.