Chachapoyan Temple light trap

DocSavage

New member
Could it be that the light was a red herring(sp?)? And that the trap was something else? I mean, what happens at sundown? I know the trap was set when Indy moved his hand into the light it sprung, but whose to say prior actions hadn't already set the trap into motion. I'm grasping at straws here. I say chalk it up to a cool moment in a fantasy film.
 

EvilDevo

Member
The answer is quite simple:

Indy's hand cast a shadow on the wall... which in turn projected (through a series of hidden apertures, convex mirrors, and prisms) the silhouette of an enormous hand into a secret chamber full of bats and piranhas.

These creatures, thriving for centuries in this room, are rarely ever disturbed. Upon seeing the gigantic shadowy appendage, they flee in all directions, and one of them manages to trip a thin rope...

This rope pulls at a network of levers, weights and pulleys (the goonies anyone?) and VOILA! -a spiked trap is sprung!

How, you ask, did the trap manage to reset itself? Not once, but twice?
... the bats and piranhas get paid $6.65 an hour for tunnel maintenance.
 

Indy Bone

New member
DocSavage- Thanks; I thought my post would be met with another spamistic attitude.

EvilDevo- I had that same theory once, 'cept it was spiders, and they were only paid in beer.
 

Paden

Member
It's Forrestal.

See, the trap was originally designed to only deploy once, working off of the same floor pressure mechanism used to fire the darts in the idol's sanctuary. Forrestal sprung the trap and, as we know, got skewered. Ever since, Forrestal's vengeful spirit has haunted the temple, intent on not allowing other treasure hunters to succeed where he failed, using psychokinetic energy to reset and spring the trap, often when alerted to an invader's presence by the disturbance of the light.

Or not. :D
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
In the script, "As the spikes slowly retract, Indy pulls [Forrestal] free and seats the remains gently on the floor."

EvilDevo is right: it's probably bat or bird-powered. When an unnatural shadow blocks the sunlight, they assume a predator is poking its head through the wall. They panic, upsetting a narrow-based vessel of water. The lever it's perched on rises and releases the catch for the trap which is sprung (see fig. 4.12). A trickle of water refills the vessel, which retracts the spikes as it lowers back to its perch on the lever, finally pushing the catch for the trap into place. Seriously, Disneyland could build a working replica of the temple (with a pit that overlooks Snow White's dressing room). ;)

The spike room in TOD reset differently: Willie pulled a "fulcrum release lever" which removed or shifted or replaced the trap's fulcrum. But what reset that trap's (significantly greater) potential energy? Slave children, probably. Maybe they powered the whole thing. Shouting "hey kids, knock it off, the shaman of Mayapore sent me" might have made the trip a lot easier.
 

Jay R. Zay

New member
i think this explanations has a few problems, too. if the slave children had to reset the trap each time it went down, they probably had to do directly. if this was the case - the bad guys were watching them all the time: wouldn't it be much more likely that they would have kept the children from saving indy? i mean, whoever triggers this trap was in the very wrong place - no need to pull the spikes up before they went down completely. the light trap as well as the spikes in ToD were obviously supposed to be mechanical devices with neither human nor animal power. and, as we've said, they are not supposed to be realistic, so why waste too much time exchanging holey theories? :)
 

roundshort

Active member
I got it! Sleestak, their are left over Sleestak, that hate the light so that is why they built a light trap in the first, place, at night they reset the trap!
 

Indy Bone

New member
Paden, that's a pretty good idea! It's awkward for such supernatural business to be taking place there, but it's pretty cool and creepy. If the prologue is looked at as more of a short story with little to do with the rest of the movie, this would be a pretty good explaination for the Forrestall scene; it fits in with the creepiness in Indy's typical adventures and Spielberg's trademark tendency to insert entertaining little details. Or I could be just making a mountain out of it.

roundshort - What are Sleestak?
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Indy Bone said:
roundshort - What are Sleestak?

sleestak.jpg


[Jokingly]Indy Bone, obviously, you are not a Golfer.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
I was kidding when I suggested Indian slave children/ Oompa Loompas/ Keebler elves powered the spike room entirely. The spike room is a daily thoroughfare for Thuggees to access Willie's bedroom, the billiard room, etc. while the Peruvian temple remains empty for decades or centuries at a time, with no maintenance schedule.

Thuggees probably reset the spike room's huge counterweights.
 

roundshort

Active member
I know Moe, but wehn I saw the Sleestak picture n another thread i couldn't resist. LEts face we have to give this one to the movie and can never in a million years have an explanation for it, lets call it the force that controls this trap. So, what porpels the darts? I dought they had masterd spring loaded tchnogly or compressed air, esp. compressed air that woudl hold for a few thousand years?
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Maybe a round stone falls down a shaft of the same diameter, compressing the air and launching a dart. I doubt any dart hole could fire more than one this way, though.

I like to imagine the Hovitos stay out of the Chacapoyan temple, but maybe they did maintain it. It's a question for historians. (Waaait... the Chachapoyan Ruins are real, but is the Hovitos tribe? Can't find any history of them.)
 

Grimdiana Bones

New member
The ruins were obviously put there by an ancient alien civilization, that while a little archaic by our standards, are still fused with their alien mind-bending magic.
 

Paden

Member
Maybe there were plans to revisit the events at the Chachapoyan temple in Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars. ;)
 

Indy Bone

New member
Ah, Land of the Lost. I used to watch that show...

Perhaps all the booby traps are fantasy. Adventure films tend to have those types of illogical gimmicks (booby traps that make no sense).
 

intergamer

New member
Indy Bone said:
Ah, Land of the Lost. I used to watch that show...

Perhaps all the booby traps are fantasy. Adventure films tend to have those types of illogical gimmicks (booby traps that make no sense).

True.
But I would like to say, in extension of what I was saying earlier, that Indy traps are HARD, meaning they should make sense (see the jump from the lion's head - it wasn't some lame faith powered thing, it was a painted floor).

Luckily, some thought was clearly put into those parts which clearly mattered, where the audience might otherwise believe that there was merely something spiritual at work. Most people just let the light trap go by without mention.

The temple place was built by the knights though, right? So if it was actual supernatural I would have bigger problems.

ps, I am more willing to believe in the light trap if the eyes move, but I prefer it this way. I'd rather the eys don't move so that we don't think about the spiritual aspect of it to begin with, and for most audiences they don't see anything fishy about the light trap at all. The eye thing could just be a mechanical effect, but it does lean toward supernatural thoughts, doesn't it.
 
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