Nuking the Fridge Hate

Television, Movies Games and Books Non Science Fiction
#1

So, time for me to come out of the closet on this one: why the hate for nuking the fridge?

I ask because I seem to be the only person who thought this was an incredibly clever and plausible solution to the impossible situation: if you find yourself on a nuclear bomb test site with 20 seconds how do you survive?

When you line up the Ark of the Covenant solution (don’t open your eyes whilst everyone melts), Temple of Doom solution (avoid the guy who can pull your heart of our your chest by squirming) Last Crusade solution (talk to the immortal Crusade Knight) or the Crystal Skull scenario (I don’t know, something about aliens) I honestly don’t get why people fixate on the fridge. For a group of people who generally accept you can stick a time machine in a Delorean I find it baffling that the decision to get in a lead lined stainless steel container is such a stretch.

I know I will be in the minority on this one, but I do want to understand how when you line up all the other suspensions of disbelief why this moment sticks out so uniformly? I do harbor a belief that people who walked out of the theater didn’t think poorly of the fridge moment but later read someone’s criticism and got swept away in it.

#2

For the record, I don’t hate it. I’m not a fan of it, either. But as we pointed out in the podcast I totally understand why it was in the movie. While I could easily live without the fridge moment, I’m not sure I could live with the movie without the iconic Indy silhouetted against the mushroom cloud. Not only was that extremely cool, as Sean noted it’s also really important to the movie.

#3

I didnt like the CGI in crystal skulls. Also some of the scenes, especially the ones with Marion, felt very forced.

#4

I was thinking of posting something similar Solai, I don’t get the hate either. In Temple of Doom Indy survives jumping out an airplane by sitting in a life raft. That makes about as much sense, or less than hiding in a fridge to survive nuclear fallout.

Personally, I don’t see how you can really judge an entire movie by one fairly short sequence in the first place.

#5

To be clear rodneyfaile I want to keep this a focused conversation about ‘nuking the fridge’ and less of a broad Crystal Skill discussion. If a wider discussion interests you, definitely start up a thread! For this there is such a disproportionate amount of negative talk about this one moment I wanted to explore why people feel the way they do as I truly don’t understand it.

#6

I’ll just let Darth Mojo do the talking for me.

#7

<hits buzzer>

Nope. Read that whole article and he never addresses the moment. Sure he puts up some really funny pictures of refridgerators implying he didn’t like the moment but he never actually states why the moment didn’t work for him.

To be fair he wrote this opening night and so wanted to stay spoiler-free. Still, never addresses the topic at hand.

#8

I don’t understand it either. I thought of the same “life raft” scene when the “nuke the fridge” scene was being discussed on podcast #210.

#9

well i guess i’ll step into it;

now i liked the movie just fine the alien thing was a fun change. and the fridge doesn’t ruin it in any way. So there’s no hate but there is an annoyance. here’s where the fridge thing thing grinds my gears. we all know crazy things happen in this series. its not to be taken all the seriously. but most of the crazy things happen when dealing with the supernatural. So like its been said closing your eyes stopping the melty man. its silly but still doesn’t take me out of the movie. But to me when there dealing with real world threats like atomic weapons, its different standard on what takes you out of the movie i mean if it was a beetlejuice death ray it wouldn’t pull me out of the movie. this did all i could think of; was that would turn a person into something strangely reminiscent of pumpkin pie filling.

but hate is the wrong word; its just a weak aspect of the movie.

#10

This sounds like a great episode for Mythbusters, lol. Adam Savage loves movies, maybe they will address it. Who knows, maybe a lead fridge does more than we think.

#11

Getting into the fridge in the hopes that it will save you: plausible.
Surviving (unscathed) after getting in said fridge: implausible.
Theres no way it makes sense. Its ridiculous, and while I never had any vitriol for it, I dont think I would even have thought twice if people hadnt banged on about it so much.
I think the hate is easily explained tho. Children watched the first 3 Indy films, Adults watched Crystal Skull. You look on the first 3 films with a great deal of nostalgia and ooey gooey good feelings because you grew up with them. Crystal Skull is in line with those films but people are not willing to give it a free pass.

#12

That is interesting Boomer. So you posit that the reason people reacted so uniformly against this moment is that it was too close to home? Escapism was swapped for something that could actually be real? You and I will never encounter a tomb filled with kerosene and rats (or a giant spherical boulder for the matter), but being near a nuclear explosion is possible and therefore pulls us out of the movie.

I think it is a really interesting point. Let me push on it a little: wouldn’t then the (in my opinion very cool) sequence in Last Crusade with the motor boats in Florence then not work because this is an activity we could plausibly be involved in?

#13

BOOM! We have a winner! Perfect explanation.

I think the same can be said regarding the Star Wars Prequels.

#14

As opposed to frakking the Nuge.

It was a test nuke; maybe it was a really weak bomb.

#15

Well, yeah, your last bit addresses the first bit. The point is that almost every picture in his spoiler-free review includes a fridge. 'nuff said.

#16

Touche.

baltar

#17

Yea i am totally in Solais corner on this. I didn’t think anything of it when Indy jumped in the fridge. I mean the dude fell a couple hundred feet from a plane in a life raft landed on a mountain, slid down said mountain, fell a couple hundred feet again into a river, and then went down the river and survived it all. He had his heart on the cusp of being ripped from his chest and didn’t even get a bloody nose. I think its entirely plausible in the world of Indy that he could survive a nuke blast while hanging out in a lead lined fridge. It goes along with what Lord Corbin said. We watch the original movies with Rose Colo(u)red glasses. Much like we do with the original Star Wars trilogy. THey were always made for kids to look on in amazement. All were based on the Serial Shorts that were played before movies when GL was growing up. You know the ones that are routinely made fun of in MST3K. They are supposed to be just fun movies.

Actually what bugged me more than the Fridge was the Monkey Swinging that Mut did later in the movie. That was far more aggravating than the fridge.

#18

I’ve heard a lot of similar sentiments. I think the difference is that “Nuke the Fridge” fits the “Jump the Shark” pattern much better than “Swings like Tarzan” or whatever else you can come up with.

#19

See, the Tarzan sequence I understand why people didn’t like that. I didn’t like that, but I am glad to see that others are with me that ‘nuking the fridge’ is not as universally abhored as I was led to believe from reading various articles and boards.

#20

I’ve just been saying pretty much exactly this in the #210 thread. It was only some time later I even became aware of the fridge thing. Around when it was released everyone was snarking about the monkey thing, which I would agree with, but that doesn’t seem to be talked about much now and all you hear about is the fridge. Odd.