Summary

• The nuclear blast scene is one of the most infamous scenes from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with Indy surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding in a lead-lined fridge.
• A nuclear weapons expert affirms that much of the scene is nonsense, but gives it credit for its depiction of a thermal pulse and for the "positive phase" of a nuclear shockwave.
• The nuke scene speaks to a larger problem in Indiana Jones 4, with the film leaning too heavily into over-the-top and CGI-heavy action set pieces.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's nuclear bomb scene is assessed by a nuclear weapons expert, and it surprisingly gets a few things right. Released in 2008, the fourth Indiana Jones film sees Steven Spielberg return as director and Harrison Ford return as the titular archeologist. Despite its financial success, the sequel is largely considered a step down from the original trilogy, with Indy's survival of a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge earning a reputation as one of the franchise's most ridiculous moments.

In a recent video from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull nuke scene and comments on its real-world accuracy.

While acknowledging that basically all aspects of Indy surviving the blast in a lead-lined fridge are complete nonsense and that a "negative phase" for the shockwave is missing, the expert reveals that specific aspects of the blast are done correctly. Check out Sprigg's comment below:

“It got several of the physics things correct. The first thing that happens after nuclear detonation occurs, you get a large burst of prompt radiation, you get neutrons and prompt gammas coming off of the fissioning process. You don’t necessarily see that. An observer might actually feel it if they were in close enough, and that would be a bad thing.

The next thing is, there’s a very intense thermal pulse…that you do not get with a conventional explosive. And so anything that’s close to that detonation point, such as the mannequins that they had standing out in the front yards, those would be incinerated. The timescale was a little wrong. That incineration occurs very, very quickly. Those mannequins would’ve disappeared into a puff of smoke within a couple tenths of a second.

“I would give it a three [out of 10] in of realism. He got the thermal pulse right and he got the positive phase of the shockwave correct, but the rest of it kind of fell apart.”

Indiana Jones 4's Nuke Scene Speaks To The Movie's Larger Problems

Although there are many aspects of the film worth celebrating, Indiana Jones 4 proved to be quite divisive upon its release. The sequel leans more heavily into science-fiction than any movies in the original trilogy, fully introducing aliens into the world of the story. A lean into hard sci-fi, especially in the third act, is undoubtedly part of why the movie doesn't totally work, but it's also just generally more ridiculous than previous entries.

Exploring the nuclear testing that was going on at the time is, on the surface, an interesting choice for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but having Indy survive a blast by hiding in a fridge that is then hurled hundreds of yards across the desert arguably shatters the audience's suspension of disbelief. It's just too blatantly not real. A similar moment comes later in the film when Shia LaBeouf's Mutt Williams, Indy's son, swings through the jungle on vines to catch up with a speeding vehicle convoy.

Yet another instance of this CGI-heavy veer into ridiculousness can be seen when Marion (Karen Allen) drives an amphibious vehicle off a tall cliff and onto an outstretched tree, which then lowers it gently into the water below. This sequence is then further harmed by the same vehicle and its occupants going over and surviving not one but three waterfalls. Were it not for an over-reliance on CGI and a few too many ridiculous action set pieces, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may have been a much less divisive movie.

Source: Insider