Where were the death traps???

RaideroftheArk said:

Why have traps for returning an artifact to where it rightfully belongs? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

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And who ever said that the traps should have been just and only in the Akator temple? As someone correctly pointed out, the proper place where to have them would have been the cemetery. Or, if this was a better-made Indy movie they could simply have shot more archaeological scenes were to put them.

Anyway, allow me to specify that maybe aren't just the "traps" that someone of us feel missing: we probably missed good enigmas (more witty than the "return" dilemma), curious tricks, secret doors and passages (such as the mobile stone in Raiders or the secret stairs and the secret passage to catacombs in Crusade and so on...). We missed that ingenious fantasy-archaological tricks that the old saga accostumed us to. Just that.

Crack that whip said:

I don't think the scorpions are a "trap," per se, just a naturally occurring hazard.

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Well, you can easily say the exact same thing about the bugs in TOD as there are a lot of bugs in the jungle, and since they weren't poisonous, they were a natural hazard as well. Same thing with the rats in LC, rats are often found in sewers.

Finding Orellana's grave and the skull was full of enigma and "curious tricks". Orellana's cradle was guarded by the living dead - they had poisonous blow darts. Then there were hidden levers that operated a hidden door blocking a concealed crawlspace that happened to be a "tricky" stone balance that needed to be tipped to reveal the chamber where Orellana and his men lay mummified.

This was an awesome sequence with good banter between Indy and Mutt.

So you guys have to be kidding with these garbage complaints. The staircase at Akator is a trap. It's there. It's one trap like the spike room in Temple, or one trap like the breath of God in Crusade.

Gee, where was the trap in Crusade underneath the library guarding the knight and the shield marker? Oh right, there wasn't one. Instead, we get a couple "X-marks-the-spot" moments and then some rats -- no booby traps.

In Temple, you get the spike room trap that only is a danger if two specific buttons are pushed - one on the floor and one on the wall. Nice how contrived it is that Short Round triggers both for the convenient "booby trap" sequence in Temple. Yeah it was a fun, awesome scene -- but c'mon, it was totally contrived just for the sake of it. Both doors were opened too, so it's not like someone would think to push any buttons to get the one door open. It's silly.

So stop it with the silly lies like "there were no traps" in Skull or archaeological "enigmas" when there obviously were. You can say how much they displeased you, but you can't change the facts or try to pretend the other sequels somehow were packed to the brim with "booby trap" moments.

nitzsche said:

So stop it with the silly lies like "there were no traps" in Skull or archaeological "enigmas" when there obviously were. You can say how much they displeased you, but you can't change the facts or try to pretend the other sequels somehow were packed to the brim with "booby trap" moments.

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I wholeheartedly agree. Most of the great trap ideas occur within the first 10 minutes of the very 1st movie.
Traps are immediately associated with Indy films because of this. The staircase sequence in "Skull" was,
unfortunately, too brief but I did appreciate the stone slab balance in the cemetary. (More of a "secret door"
than a life-threatening contraption, but a nice example of anti-grave robber engineering.)

Although technically not "booby traps", the escape from the throne room had a few similar moments.
Timing the jumps for the door in the spinning room and running through the gigantic cog wheels.

Crack that whip said:

I don't think the scorpions are a "trap," per se, just a naturally occurring hazard.

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True, but like the tarantulas in "Raiders", the scorpions are still one of the dangers that the infiltrator must pass.
I've always counted the spiders as 1 of the 7 raider-stopping devices in The Temple of Chachapoyan Warriors.

1) The tarantulas
2) The light beam
3) The bottomless pit
4) The stone-triggered floor
5) The altar stone trigger
6) The falling stone slab/door
7) The rolling boulder

Nurhachi1991 said:

The traps should of all been in the cemetary..................





Think about this there were death traps but they were all people lol.

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I dont think they could have done that because its a real cemetery, and they had already been pushing it, by putting in rooms that aren't there.

I think the stone stairs would have been a good enough idea if the scene had lasted longer, and someone had fallen ( or some of the tribes men were chasing them?), it would have been better.

nitzsche said:

So stop it with the silly lies like "there were no traps" in Skull or archaeological "enigmas" when there obviously were. You can say how much they displeased you, but you can't change the facts or try to pretend the other sequels somehow were packed to the brim with "booby trap" moments.

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Once again:

Professor Jones said:

Anyway, allow me to specify that maybe aren't just the "traps" that someone of us feel missing: we probably missed good enigmas (more witty than the "return" dilemma), curious tricks, secret doors and passages (such as the mobile stone in Raiders or the secret stairs and the secret passage to catacombs in Crusade and so on...). We missed that ingenious fantasy-archaological tricks that the old saga accostumed us to. Just that.

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@nitzsche

by the way I repeat, since maybe I haven't been clear enough: we PROBABLY missed GOOD enigmas (more WITTY than the "return" dilemma), CURIOUS tricks... we missed that INGENIOUS fantasy-archaological tricks...

I think the period make really understand that I'm not trying to "change the facts" or telling "silly lies", but simply giving a personal opinion about what it is a matter of taste. In MY taste I don't find witty, neither good nor curious or ingenious the tricks of KOCTS. You are welcome to express YOUR personal taste and YOUR opinion, but I don't appreciate and I don't find polite that you marks my thoughts as "silly lies".

the stairs are just weak....yes they would have been enough of a trap if somethign would have happen....it was just so boring they all landed safely in the shalow water.....why did'nt anybody get killed???? this movie was just to light hearted.....one solider gets killed by ants and thats about it....i wa slooking for a darker and more violent indiana jones not a disney theme ride movie....a character should have defenitely die din the moving stairs scene...cuz not all characters were important for the end plus it would have maded the plot more dramatic

@ Professor Jones

If you found the "3-7-10, X-marks the spot" moment in Crusade with the shield marker totally unguarded and completely accessible under a styrofoam floor and behind a styrofoam wall to be a better archaeological "enigma" than the sequence where Indy and Mutt discovered the Skull, then there is no arguing with you.

Also, you are not the only person in this thread, so my comments don't have to apply to you specifically. There are more than one person stating "there were no traps" in KotCS. That's overlooking the facts.

Someone stating the giant boulder in Raiders is more exciting to them than the staircase in KotCS is stating an opinion. Someone stating there are no traps in KotCS is mistaken or lying.

@ Indy1986

Who would you have killed in the spike room in Temple? Indy, Willy, or Short Round?

nitzsche said:

@ Professor Jones

If you found the "3-7-10, X-marks the spot" moment in Crusade with the shield marker totally unguarded and completely accessible under a styrofoam floor and behind a styrofoam wall to be a better archaeological "enigma" than the sequence where Indy and Mutt discovered the Skull, then there is no arguing with you.

Also, you are not the only person in this thread, so my comments don't have to apply to you specifically. There are more than one person stating "there were no traps" in KotCS. That's overlooking the facts.

Someone stating the giant boulder in Raiders is more exciting to them than the staircase in KotCS is stating an opinion. Someone stating there are no traps in KotCS is mistaken or lying.

@ Indy1986

Who would you have killed in the spike room in Temple? Indy, Willy, or Short Round?

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All good points...

It's interesting to note that whilst Indiana Jones is synonymous with ancient 'Booby Traps', there are actually very few of them in the Indy movies to date.

As someone has already mentioned, the traps in Raiders all appear within the first 10 minutes. Technically, TOD didn't have any 'Booby Traps' at all? as it appears that the spike room was not designed to trap or be used as a safeguard against entry. Again, whilst Last Crusade does contain the ?three challenges?, they are by no means archetypal and, as you point out, there is a definite lack of peril in the Venice catacombs (which surprised me at the time).

Having said that, it would have been good to get a little something more at the cemetery or Akator temple that harkened back to those first 10/15 minutes of Raiders.

nitzsche said:

@ Professor Jones

If you found the "3-7-10, X-marks the spot" moment in Crusade with the shield marker totally unguarded and completely accessible under a styrofoam floor and behind a styrofoam wall to be a better archaeological "enigma" than the sequence where Indy and Mutt discovered the Skull, then there is no arguing with you.

Also, you are not the only person in this thread, so my comments don't have to apply to you specifically. There are more than one person stating "there were no traps" in KotCS. That's overlooking the facts.

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Alright, then we agree, I intended your words expressly referred to one post of mine because of some literal quoting of some sentences of mine, just that.

nitzsche said:

Someone stating the giant boulder in Raiders is more exciting to them than the staircase in KotCS is stating an opinion. Someone stating there are no traps in KotCS is mistaken or lying.

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Agree, but I don't recall any of us to say that there are NO traps in KotCS. Anyway I think we've cleared out the point...

The whole shameless movie was a trap...to get you in the seats and take your money while tarnishing the Indy legend.

Sorry. Especially to those who think it's just silly made-up arguments. But KOTCS didn't have a trap that even came CLOSE to touching that one trap in TOD. That Spike Room scene owns the entire KOTCS film.

The stairs COULD have been cool. But that was executed poorly. I thought there was going to be a maze in the temple... which would have been kind of cool to see. Something that would kill them all if they didn't get out of the maze in time. That would have been a good idea.

The stone slabe in the cemetary does NOT count as a trap at ALL so don't even try to pretend it does. It was a DOOR.

I too was excited to see what cool new traps were in this installment... nothing close to anything in the last three. Some spikes and stairs and that was over in like less than a minute.

How hard is it to come up with a cool idea for a trap anyway? The trap scene should have been a big scene like in the others. The quicksand scene lasted longer and it isn't really a trap.

OmegaSeamaster said:

The whole shameless movie was a trap...to get you in the seats and take your money while tarnishing the Indy legend.

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Holy Crap, that means they've tricked me into seeing this film three times! Those clever movie conspirators.

Bvance said:

Holy Crap, that means they've tricked me into seeing this film three times! Those clever movie conspirators.

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You know what they say, there's one born every minute.

OmegaSeamaster said:

The whole shameless movie was a trap...to get you in the seats and take your money while tarnishing the Indy legend.

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I thought that too

Nurhachi1991 said:

The traps should of all been in the cemetary..................





Think about this there were death traps but they were all people lol.

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Well if you think about it, there were some "traps" so to speak in the cemetery. Now they weren't "death traps" but there were some pretty neat gigs in there. Like the handle, and the balancing floor. Stuff like that.

OmegaSeamaster said:

The whole shameless movie was a trap...to get you in the seats and take your money while tarnishing the Indy legend.

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My poor misguided friend. How ashamed you ought to be.

Indyman4 said:

My poor misguided friend. How ashamed you ought to be.

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Give the man his due, at least his comeback was witty...

One of the most pitiful - and telling - scenes in Skull involves the retracting staircase, the only ostensible 'death trap'. They run in panic, the music thumps, hurry, oh, such tension...as they fall into a waist-high depth of water that wouldn't drown a child. "We...are...going...to...get wet!!!"