Ants! Why did it have to be ants?

The only problem I had with the ants was when they formed a ladder. They should have made them climb the tree...

LostArk said:

The only problem I had with the ants was when they formed a ladder. They should have made them climb the tree...

Click to expand...

Ants can form a ladder (apparently)... although I've never seen it myself.

I've seen it twice now & both times I've thought that when the ants are forming the ladder it looks like they're climbing up an invisible rope! This was my only complaint about this scene as it looked fake.

But at least they weren't as giant as I'd imagined. When I first heard there was going to be giant ants, I thought, "Oh, God, not like Anty in Honey, I shrunk the kids!"

I was hoping for more spiders as the scene in Raiders creeps me out even to this day & I'm 32!

I wouldn't lose much sleep over them forming a ladder, they only really did it for a small joke scene concerning Spalko and her terror.

I wish they had utilised scorpions more...that could have been good, a chamber filling up with them. I did enjoy the ants though.

Ants posed a threat which is good! To me they were one of the best scenes in the movie! And regarding the Ladder sistuation: I had thought that they were climbing up a spider web thread or something because that's the 1st thing that came to mind.

QBComics said:

Ants posed a threat which is good! To me they were one of the best scenes in the movie! And regarding the Ladder sistuation: I had thought that they were climbing up a spider web thread or something because that's the 1st thing that came to mind.

Click to expand...

The ants were using one another to stack and climb upwards. As noted before, this is done by real ants as well.

Agent Z said:

The ants were using one another to stack and climb upwards. As noted before, this is done by real ants as well.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I don't see a problem for the ants to do that. *heh* I enjoyed it, especially when I saw Spalkos face

James said:

Actually, I thought the choice of ants was pretty clever. They featured prominently in two classic 50s movies: "The Naked Jungle" and "Them!" The latter movie was about giant ants that have been mutated by atomic testing.

They're also the first 'creature' since Raiders to actually pose a threat to Indy.

Click to expand...

Good post!

I liked the ants as well, although I'm not gonna lie, I was really hoping for piranahs!! I figured South America=Amazon, and a jungle chase as well as water scene was mentioned early in pre-production days. That would've been a perfect setting for piranahs.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2NmkXCSewdA&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2NmkXCSewdA&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

We could have had ants - and pirhanas! That would have been a good prelude to the waterfall drops! The Russians and Indy and friends could have had a race/battle within the water after the ants segment as well, trying to avoid being chomped to death. Some Russians perish, but then Irina manages to get out of the water, and she catches up with them later at the skull chamber.

Or...how about the man-eating piranha that shoot man-eating ants out of their mouths when they attack...? [/Homer Simpson]

James said:

Actually, I thought the choice of ants was pretty clever. They featured prominently in two classic 50s movies: "The Naked Jungle" and "Them!" The latter movie was about giant ants that have been mutated by atomic testing.

They're also the first 'creature' since Raiders to actually pose a threat to Indy.

Click to expand...

I agree with all of that. I really liked the ants.

agentsands77 said:

I agree with all of that. I really liked the ants.

Click to expand...

Siafu ants are also known as "Red Army" ants too, just like the soviet red army. I really think there's way more cleverness in the film than it gets credit for. People like my parents who grew up in the 1950's get it all. For people younger than me it just goes over their head and they don't get it or find it silly.

I think they could have made the aliens more campy but were wise to keep it somewhat classic looking since it was just a brief glimpse. The skeletons looked cool and creepy when they came to life.

The atomic bomb testing, McCarthyism, communists and mind control (something people were afraid of then as anything with communist overtones was deemed "subversive"), UFO's and aliens (also a reference to Close Encounters as well as Earth vs. Flying Saucers), 50's music, greasers and hot rod's (a reference to American Graffiti) and "Red Army" ants (reference to the classic "THEM").

Agent Z said:

Or...how about the man-eating piranha that shoot man-eating ants out of their mouths when they attack...? [/Homer Simpson]

Click to expand...

LMAO!!

My feeling was just that the ants weren't scary. They were quite obviously shiny CGI creations, and we knew that Indy wasn't in any danger. Whatever, I'm tired and ranting.

deckard24 said:

I liked the ants as well, although I'm not gonna lie, I was really hoping for piranahs!! That would've been a perfect setting for piranahs.

Click to expand...

In the novelization, Mutt is attacked by a piranha prior to heading over one of the waterfalls.

If they make an Indy 5, this might be a good choice of creepy crawlie- especially if they want to play around with the "monster" aspect of 1950s B movies. Lucas mentioned "Creature From the Black Lagoon" a few times during interviews for KOTCS.

This is an interesting thread.

Well, ya see... it's not that I didn't like the scene with the ants... the fact is that... well, I think it is the worst scene of the entire saga...

It surely is the big let-down of the movie. And I'm saying this not because it looked CGI fake or whatever... I absolutely don't mind CGI (on the contrary... I'm almost getting sick of people blaming it, every single time, and always without minimally explaining a VALID motivation for that).

The problems with the ants sequence are various... the scene is TOTALLY UNORIGINAL and, on the other hand, it's WAY TOO GROTESQUE AND DISGUSTING for an Indiana Jones movie, in my opinion. All of the previous Indy movies were generally lighthearted, some kind of "innocent". By having inserted the ants sequence, which features two of the most brutally horrible death scenes I've ever seen in a movie, you have just somehow changed the global feeling. Even the sacrifice scene in "Temple of Doom" was less disturbing than the scene with the ants in "Indiana Jones 4". FAR LESS disturbing... and I'm writing from Italy, where censorship on movie scenes doesn't exist, so I've always seen the uncensored sacrifice, ever since I was a little boy.

Now, I just wanted to write a few lines on originality... like there was the need to...
Pass that the ants may be a citation of great B-movies from the past, but... damn... we have already had insects in "Temple of Doom"... LOTS OF INSECTS... TONS OF INSECTS...
Not to mention that the scene in "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is only a mere copy of an analogue scene from Stephen Sommer's "The Mummy".
No, definitely... the film is set in the Amazons, they should have used piranhas, as deckard24 suggested. They would have been:

1) MORE ORIGINAL
2) MUCH BETTER
3) WAY MORE SPECTACULAR

Now, imagine a scene in which thousands of little piranha-monsters jump out of the water, obsessively trying to reach our heroes... imagine all of the splashes in the water... imagine all of the reflexes of the light on the little shiny bodies of the piranhas... THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD SCENE. MUCH MORE ADVENTUROUS, SPECTACULAR, ORIGINAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

After all, I think the ants sequence was bad. REALLY BAD. And out of place.

Spielberg was probably avoiding Piranhas. It would be too similar to Jaws! He would have been accused of repeating himself. Also I don't think they are that dramatic. Under the water, unseen. To have under water shoots would have meant CGI. Fish are even harder to pull off in CGI than ants are.

The ants and monkeys were terrible. Part of the reasons why the movie was bad. Too disney. I thought I was watching the mummy.

Avilos said:

Spielberg was probably avoiding Piranhas. It would be too similar to Jaws! He would have been accused of repeating himself. Also I don't think they are that dramatic. Under the water, unseen. To have under water shoots would have meant CGI. Fish are even harder to pull off in CGI than ants are.

Click to expand...

I was actually thinking of something like a myriad of piranhas spasmodically jumping out of the water, so completely visible. You know, to increase the feeling of danger and the overall "effectiveness" of the scene. I think it could have worked well on screen. And maybe it also would have needed less CGI.

Does anyone else believe the scene where Dovchenko is killed by the ants is sooo grotesque that it does not fit with other Indy movies like the pervious poster said.

Seems like a really off-the-mark observation to me.

Melting Nazis
Ripping hearts out and eating live snakes

Come on!!!