The whole place shoulda gone up in flames...

C

Cactus

New member
Here's one for you. The Film is Last Crusade and the scene is where Indy and Schneider have broken the floor of the church in Venice and are navigating their way through the tunnel.
We then see, amongst other things, Indy discovering a river of petroleum and lighting a bone and some rags on fire using said fuel. At this point, we have a problem.
As The two are walking through the river several burning pieces of the bone/rags etc fall from the torch and go straight into the petroleum. Now, I am no scientist but I do know that if you drop ANYTHING alight into petroleum, it goes up in flames :dead: . A bit of a big boo-boo by the makers on this one. :eek:

Anyone got anything they wanna offer on this one???
 
M

Muttette

New member
Um... if it did go on fire that'd be the end of the movie right there... :whip:

Sorry, it's been a while since I watched that one but now I have to check out that scene again! Petroleum wouldn't really mix with the water though would it? Isn't it thick enough that it would just sort of float in random oily patches on top?

BTW hullo fellow newbie... ^_^
 
C

Cactus

New member
Muttette said:
Um... if it did go on fire that'd be the end of the movie right there... :whip:

Sorry, it's been a while since I watched that one but now I have to check out that scene again! Petroleum wouldn't really mix with the water though would it? Isn't it thick enough that it would just sort of float in random oily patches on top?

BTW hullo fellow newbie... ^_^
Click to expand...

Even with fuel floating around it surely still would have been one heck of a short film!

By the way, thanks for the newbie shout. :hat:
 
M

Muttette

New member
Cactus said:
Even with fuel floating around it surely still would have been one heck of a short film!

By the way, thanks for the newbie shout. :hat:
Click to expand...

Heh, of course they're all too short anyway... they really should have made a weekly TV show of it! And even if it was as bad as that I'd still watch it! ^_^

Heh, us newbies gots to stick together! (y)
 
Coronado

Coronado

New member
Yeah those flaming bits falling into the water/petrol always bothered me too... Good job it's only a set and Harrison Ford's not really in peril! :gun:

-Coronado
 
Coronado

Coronado

New member
The Man said:
Worry not; Lucas will have any offending flaming rags removed by digital means.
Click to expand...

LOL yeah, and he'll add a bunch of 'extras' too while he's at it. Gophers, perhaps?

-Coronado
 
R

Raider S

Member
Yeah, that whole fire scene was always dumb. They should have had the "baddies" pour a barrel of gas into the tunnel and then light it instead of lighting the petroleum that Indy had already been throwing fire into. An NO WAY would crude oil burn as quickly as it did, or without any smoke. But it certainly would burn on top of the water.
 
Dr Bones

Dr Bones

New member
LOL...I always wondered about this when I watched it!! The mix was enough to fuel the torch but not enough to ignite when flaming drops landed in it.:confused:

Plus, I am no expert but would a river of nearly pure petroleum when lit just flame...wouldn't it explode? It would have to be nearly pure to light the torch?

I think you wouldn't want to be standing next to it when you lit it as the guy did in the film. Shouldn't they have got barbequed too? Should it have brought the whole library if not the whole block down.

I dunno...always wondered though.
 
R

Raider S

Member
Crude oil is not explosive. Unlike gasoline, which is very reined, unrefined crude and lower octane kerosene burn more than they explode. So throwing a match onto that crude would not cause it to explode (unless there were a lot of vapors trapped in there). In fact if you threw a match into some crude floating on water it's a good bet the match would be extiguished - it would take a bit of work to get it burning.
 
muttjones

muttjones

New member
it is a movie. and a B-movie at that. it doesn't matter. btw isnt the liquid water with petroleum on the top? it would still light but i was just wondering.
 
aJakeinthePlane

aJakeinthePlane

New member
from my experience the actual liquid petroleum is not what ignites, its the fumes, so by that logic the whole place should have gone up just by them standing in the catacombs w/ a flame.:dead:
 
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