The River of fuel

Cactus

New member
I thought of two points when watching LC recently during the scene where Indy and Dr Schneider are gettin their way through the belly of the library and into the rat infested river of fuel, petroleum, gas, whatever ya wanna call it.:confused:

- Firstly, Indy puts together a makeshift torch and lights the sucker on fire. Just a few seconds later you see Indy and the torch moving round a corner where the torch decides to drop some of its flamy material into the fuel. Now I know i'm not going mad but surely if even the slightest of embers touched a river of gasoline, it's goodnight and thanks for watching cause the show is well and truly OVER.:dead:

- Secondly, my other issue is with the part where Indy and the doc escape the fireball approaching them by hiding in a coffin. Indy ducks under the water and, to my amazement, opens his EYES!!!!! I dunno about you guys but the first thing I would be thinkin is OOOOUUUUCCCCHHHHH. Gasoline would certainly hurt and more than likely screw your eyes up, especially if your about to get into a high-speed boat chase.:sick:

Hope someone can shed some light on these.
 

Gustav

New member
Actually I noticed those same exact two things the first time I saw LC so I've had a lot of time to think about it. I just accepted the bit of flaming petroleum that fell in the water as something that got by in editing. I'm sure they didn't plan for it to be dripping flames so maybe it was just something that escaped their attention. When he opened his eyes underwater, I used to think that it was just so diluted with water that it didn't bother him that much and then realized that petroleum floats on water, so if there was more water than petroleum, he could have opened his eyes under it. That would also explain why only the surface of the water was burning. A problem with that is when he said, "I could dig a well and retire" or something along those lines. That implied that all of the fluid was pure petroleum, but he also only touched the surface of the water so again he could have just touched the layer of petroleum.
I think it is most likely that Spielberg used made the petroleum act to benefit the movie which he said he was making mainly to entertain the audience, which is the case with the other two films as well. He probably didn't expect the audience to be looking for precise realism in this.
 

IAdventurer01

Well-known member
Jay R. Zay said:
congratulations, you found the two goofs of the indy trilogy. ;)
Oh, there are more... there are more...

But yes, I love the flaming ember inaccuracy, it cracks me up almost every time. As for the pain of looking through fuel - never really thought about it before. Ouch, indeed.
 

Abe Vayoda

New member
Gustav said:
petroleum floats on water

I was just about to post the same thing, you beat me to it though. I think Indy's line about retiring was a hyperbole on his part, he probably wasn't expecting to find a tomb full of the stuff.

Gustav said:
I think it is most likely that Spielberg used made the petroleum act to benefit the movie which he said he was making mainly to entertain the audience, which is the case with the other two films as well. He probably didn't expect the audience to be looking for precise realism in this.

Spielberg does this all the time, figures the audience won't catch on first glance. All of his movies he does this. Remember the T-Rex pen? Ground sank about 50 feet. ;)
Speilberg is right too, I never catch it the first time I watch it. Tricky little bastard.
 

Tennessee R

New member
Yes, the flames hitting the fuel is a well known fact, and much less of a mentioned fact is about his eyes.
However Gustav has a good point. And, I think I always thought of it as water down there, but petroleum burning up top.
 

qwerty

New member
Even worse when they apear once again under that coffin there is a tourch burning there. How the hell did they carry it in without seting entire surface on fire.
I don't know why but there is more mistakes made in a single Indy movie then in any other movie ever made. But that may be becouse I saw the movie couple times too many.
 

moondrifter

New member
No way are there more mistakes in an Indy movie than any other. I can think of more movies that just have plain stupid mistakes and i tend to forgive if it's in the editing. I think think mistakes are worse if it's in the acting or the script. Plus, it's unlike me to say this as i tend to spend most of the time watching a movie picking out the mistakes, but when you have tiny flaws in the editing, it adds a little something. At least it makes you less jealous of wanting to experience the adventure yourself:p
 

Finn

Moderator
Staff member
<small>BTW, moondrifter, how come your posts have gotten lot more content to themselves after you passed the mark of 100? Hmmm...</small>
 

roundshort

Active member
Finn said:
<small>BTW, moondrifter, how come your posts have gotten lot more content to themselves after you passed the mark of 100? Hmmm...</small>


Not me I try to stay as close to the chacrter min. as possible!
 

Cactus

New member
Just a couple more things

Well there have been some interesting opinions there and most of them saying that its good ole' editing slipping up again. I don't know about you though, I think all of this adds to the movie because when you watch it these things dont really matter as you are so worried about indy and schneider gettin out.

But there were two more small things niggling me about this particular movie. The first is the canyon of the crescent moon. How on earth this place was never discovered by anyone else but the jones' (although Donovan gets there first) is amazing.
The other thing is the German Steilhandgrenate or hand grenade to anyone who doesnt know German(Technically it should be Steilhalsgrenate as Hals is hand in German). Anyway when they are thrown they make a sort of whirry flipping sound. Oh well trust Hollywood to beef up the sound effects, but they must have had some stick (excuse the pun) from people who actually have thrown them as they sound nothing like that in real life. Oh well enough ranting, lets see what u guys think.
 

Indy1936

New member
Back to the "River of Fuel" for a second... If it was mostly diluted with water, Indy wouldn't have been able to make the torch, and if it was pure enough to use for the torch he would have set the fumes ablaze as soon as the lighter got within range. And barring all that, if it was a pure river of fuel, the fumes would have made them sick and their legs would have gotten numb long before they made it to the knights tomb. It would be possible for him to make the torch, MAYBE, if there were just a little bit of fuel floating on top of the water, but I still think Indy and Elsa would have gotten sick from the fumes anyway being as they were exposed for the period of time they were. I just chalk it up to a string of "Plausible Impossibilities".
 
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