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

[Jackskeleton]

And it's possible to prevent radiation burn being in a led lined fridge. Possible, but not very likely. Just like the plane.

And if you can suspend your disbelief enough to believe Jesus death rays, Holy Grail magical water healing, Hearts being ripped out while still being alive and so on in the franchise, being blown away by a low level nuke/bomb testing site in a fridge that was led lined.

I'll argue that the montage of Indy in front of the mushroom cloud served to stamp home that feel that this is now a 50's pulp indiana jones. It also got him to be treated for radiation exposure and get him black listed, which got him fired from his job, which led him on his adventure. Oh how it led to more plot turns. Edit it out and what other excuse is there for Indy getting treated in the military base?

[Draven]

Originally Posted by Jackskeleton

And if you can suspend your disbelief enough to believe Jesus death rays, Holy Grail magical water healing, Hearts being ripped out while still being alive and so on in the franchise, being blown away by a low level nuke/bomb testing site in a fridge that was led lined.

We have no idea what will happen when someone drinks from the Holy Grail. We know what will happen when someone sits in a fridge at ground zero.

Again I ask - would you be ok if Indy could suddenly fly?

[NIMH Rat]

Originally Posted by Draven

We know what will happen when someone sits in a fridge at ground zero.

Not necessarily.

Operation Cue, which is the series of tests reenacted (and lampooned) in Crystal Skull, proved that a lot of weird stuff survives a nuclear blast, especially stuff not nailed down.

[Puzznic]

Originally Posted by Jackskeleton

And it's possible to prevent radiation burn being in a led lined fridge. Possible, but not very likely. Just like the plane.

And if you can suspend your disbelief enough to believe Jesus death rays, Holy Grail magical water healing, Hearts being ripped out while still being alive and so on in the franchise, being blown away by a low level nuke/bomb testing site in a fridge that was led lined.

I'll argue that the montage of Indy in front of the mushroom cloud served to stamp home that feel that this is now a 50's pulp indiana jones. It also got him to be treated for radiation exposure and get him black listed, which got him fired from his job, which led him on his adventure. Oh how it led to more plot turns. Edit it out and what other excuse is there for Indy getting treated in the military base?

Indy got blacklisted for helping the Russians at the military base. Talking to the government officials after escaping was the next logical step considering he would either be picked up at the base or seek out the military for help.

Wandering into the test zone and getting blown away was completely pointless and tacked on. It served no purpose, except apparently to annoy a fair amount of viewers.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by Jackskeleton

And it's possible to prevent radiation burn being in a led lined fridge. Possible, but not very likely.

It's not just "radiation" that burns from a nuclear explosions, there's also good old-fashioned regular heat, and a lot of it - enough to turn sand into glass (at least 400°C).

I agree that the filmmakers went for an attempt at plausibility. They did after all make the fridge lead-lined (how common that actually was, I don't know. The only fridges nowadays that are lead-lined are specifically for radioactive material. Lead doesn't even sound like a good insulator). A fridge was probably the most likely candidate for any sort of protection in that house. When the sirens first went off, I thought Indy might try hiding in the refrigerated section of the ice-cream truck he was near. However, while they tried to sell the plausibility, they ultimately failed for a lot of viewers.

Again, even ignoring the radiation and heat, there's the simple physics of propelled objects working against them. The same physics they exploited in TOD with the raft work against them here, since you wouldn't expect someone in a fridge to survive a fall from the height the fridge was propelled to.

Operation Cue, which is the series of tests reenacted (and lampooned) in Crystal Skull, proved that a lot of weird stuff survives a nuclear blast, especially stuff not nailed down.

A fridge that flies through the air at an extremely rapid velocity may have a chance at surviving in a relatively good condition. The contents inside? Not so much. It's like my analogy with the egg in a safe; a safe can survive a 5-foot fall without hardly a scratch, but not the egg inside.

And if you can suspend your disbelief enough to believe Jesus death rays, Holy Grail magical water healing, Hearts being ripped out while still being alive and so on in the franchise, being blown away by a low level nuke/bomb testing site in a fridge that was led lined.

I must've missed the one with the "Jesus death rays". The only artifact that I saw that caused death was strictly Old Testament. However, all the artifacts you mention are mystical and have paranormal and/or supernatural capabilities. A nuclear bomb isn't paranormal, it's straight physics. If it had been a crystal skull explosion, I could've accepted some abnormalities in the way it turned out, like, say, at the end of the movie.

I'll argue that the montage of Indy in front of the mushroom cloud served to stamp home that feel that this is now a 50's pulp indiana jones.

I do believe that the whole scene is there just to end with the shot of the Indy silhouette in front of a mushroom cloud; they were going for something iconic, exactly how you describe. However, the execution was severely flawed.

Even if you leave the nuclear explosion in, you could edit the existing footage to something less ridiculous. Say, start with the shot of Indy on the hill overlooking the fake town. Then over that, start playing the sirens. Show the other distance shots of the town, show the bomb on the other side, show the explosion. Cut to Indy climbing back from behind a hill to see the mushroom cloud. There, silly flying fridge scene adverted.

Edit it out and what other excuse is there for Indy getting treated in the military base?

As Puzznic pointed out, Indy was wandering around a military base after helping some Commies, who also killed some US soldiers, steal a state secret artifact. He has every reason to be questioned and blacklisted by the FBI and military.

[NIMH Rat]

Originally Posted by Jay G.

A fridge that flies through the air at an extremely rapid velocity may have a chance at surviving in a relatively good condition. The contents inside? Not so much. It's like my analogy with the egg in a safe; a safe can survive a 5-foot fall without hardly a scratch, but not the egg inside.

Indy survived. He's Indy. It's a movie.

Like the Blues Brothers car. Or a John Woo character surviving 20 gunshots.

It's a completely acceptable form of entertainment. Half the fun of movies is watching the laws of physics get bent, broken, and toyed around with. That's why it's a movie and not a science lecture.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by NIMH Rat

Indy survived. He's Indy. It's a movie.

He's Indy, he's not fucking Superman. In the first film they showed a scene of him complaining about aches and bruises after a couple of fistfights. He's always been human. It's like how Die Hard went from John McClaine went from a painfully removing some glass he stepped on to jumping out of speeding cars. They up the action to absurd levels, dehumanizing the characters in the process.

..Like the Blues Brothers car.

The Blues Brothers car was a pile of parts by the end of the movie.

Or a John Woo character surviving 20 gunshots.

Name one. A lot of John Woo characters ending up dying from their wounds.

It's a completely acceptable form of entertainment. Half the fun of movies is watching the laws of physics get bent, broken, and toyed around with. That's why it's a movie and not a science lecture.

It may be acceptable to some, but just because it's fiction doesn't mean it doesn't have to play by any rules. If a movie purports to take place in the real world, or in real history, than it needs to play by the rules that the real world and history has set. The level it has to adhere to those rules varies, but nothing in the past Indy films would lead one to believe that a real world device like a nuclear bomb would operate differently in the Indy universe than it would in the real world.

In fact, the filmmakers go to great extent to re-create a real-world nuclear blast and it's effects, as evidenced by real-world footage, except with the added caveat that Indy somehow survives, beyond all realistic probability, without any paranormal involvement that would typically be attached to such a physical impossibility in the Indy world. They shoot themselves in the foot by using something real-world and making it totally realistic except for Indy's escape.

If Indy had, instead of hiding in a fridge, outran the nuclear blast, and the movie gave no explanation aside from "I guess I'm a fast runner," even more people would be calling BS. Extraordinary results require extraordinary explanations. The nuked fridge only gives us ordinary explanations and expect us to believe the extraordinary result is still plausible.

[NIMH Rat]

I think what you're getting at is your relatively low threshhold of suspension of disbelief.

Apparently you're fine with the Blues Brothers car remaining intact until the precise moment the brothers exit the car.

....and with a John Woo character taking multiple gunshots and having the wherewithal to make a heroically dramatic gesture before dying.

....and with Indiana Jones surviving fistfights, shootouts, and vehicular chases that would kill or at least render unconscious any normal human being.....because afterwards he has BRUISES. LIKE A REAL PERSON!

But not with the fridge scene. No, that goes TOO FAR. And you will not be FOOLED by such NONSENSE.

We should have a whole thread devoted to what people are willing to accept in movies. Like CLOVERFIELD. I for one did not believe for one minute of that film that any of those events could be shot with that degree of visual clarity by that particular cameraperson. I still sort of enjoyed it, but never believed it. Not for a second. But someone who would believe it may defend it by saying, "The guy died, after all."

They're all conceits, all of them. Credibility is in the eye of the beholder.

[Jackskeleton]

That and "Nuke the Fridge" is still a stupid fucking phrase that I can not suspend any disbelief that anyone would think it's "cool" or "hip"

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by NIMH Rat

I think what you're getting at is your relatively low threshhold of suspension of disbelief.

I don't think it's particularly low. For example, I haven't gone off the rails about the rocket car scene, or how Indy and crew fall down three ever larger waterfalls with barely any harm.

Apparently you're fine with the Blues Brothers car remaining intact until the precise moment the brothers exit the car.

....and with a John Woo character taking multiple gunshots and having the wherewithal to make a heroically dramatic gesture before dying.

....and with Indiana Jones surviving fistfights, shootouts, and vehicular chases that would kill or at least render unconscious any normal human being.....because afterwards he has BRUISES. LIKE A REAL PERSON!

But not with the fridge scene. No, that goes TOO FAR. And you will not be FOOLED by such NONSENSE.

Exactly, except without the sarcasm. The Blues Brothers was a comedy, and the film earned that car death scene with many other scenes before it that set the tone for the film and the reality of the world it was in. This is a car that started out jumping an opening draw bridge. And at least the car did die after that abuse, in a comically over-the-top manner with perfect timing, and didn't "survive" like you claimed.

With John Woo films, again it sets the tone of over-the-top gunfights and action scenes. However, characters still get wounded and die from bullet wounds, albeit maybe not at the same pace in real-life. And John Woo knew how to film people surviving a nuclear explosion: get them the fuck away from the epicenter and put the bomb underground.

With Indy, he may have survived some situations that a "normal" human (whatever that term means) may not have taken as well, but he's clearly not invulnerable. Again, if he had instead been simply dropped from a plane in a fridge from the height they showed the fridge flying at, would you have believed him emerging completely unharmed?

Ultimately, each film series sets its own reality and rules, and has to play within them. I loved the film Kung Fu Hustle and readily bought into the conceit of the main character being able to run like Roadrunner because the film had set the tone as a comedy with cartoon-like action sequences. I wouldn't ever accept Indy running like Roadrunner, even to outrun a nuclear explosion, because that's not the type of world Indy exists in.

We should have a whole thread devoted to what people are willing to accept in movies. Like CLOVERFIELD. I for one did not believe for one minute of that film that any of those events could be shot with that degree of visual clarity by that particular cameraperson.

The entire movie Cloverfield hung on the conceit that it was all shot on a camcorder by an average Joe. If you didn't give the filmmaker's that, you didn't have a movie. Living in New York City, I had more of a problem with them getting uptown in the subway tunnels so quickly.

They're all conceits, all of them. Credibility is in the eye of the beholder.

I'm not talking about credibility, I'm talking about suspension of disbelief. You don't necessarily have to think something is 100% possible in real-life, you just have be presented with enough reasons not to care. It's a contract between the creators and the audience. If the creators work within the rules for the world they set, then the audience is apt to enjoy whatever is thrown at them. However, if the creators violate their own rules, or push them a little too far, the audience can no longer suspend disbelief. That Indy didn't survive the nuclear blast while standing out in the open in the middle of the blast zone "just cause" shows that the creators knew there were limits to what the audience would accept. However, their attempts at acceptability, by inventing a lead-lined fridge for Indy to hide and fly in, were not enough for many viewers.

[Jay G.]

Originally Posted by Jackskeleton

"Nuke the Fridge" is still a stupid fucking phrase that I can not suspend any disbelief that anyone would think it's "cool" or "hip"

"Nuke the Fridge" is not a very good phrase, and won't stand the test of time.

[RTisBetter]

Originally Posted by Save Ferris

the movie is riddled with 'goofy' from groundhogs to the smiling mannequins in that whole sequence, but the fridge ride was supposed to be a 'daring escape' moment.

It was supposed to make the audience laugh, and in my case it did.

[Draven]

Originally Posted by RTisBetter

It was supposed to make the audience laugh, and in my case it did.

The audience I was in groaned.