Upon watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last night, I was reminded constantly, the reason why I have problems watching movies ... their illogic. Now I know that Indiana Jones is a fictional character and is a sci-fi movie, but that is not what I am talking about. My problem is with scenes that make no sense. For example during the Last Crusade there is a point where Indiana and others visit the museum/old church find the roman numeral 10 and then leap below to hunt for the marker and the grave of the third knight. During this time ...

1. They find a labryth and Indiana says "Petroleum ... I should set up a well here and retire" All of the bugs and rats. Is this a livable place for these animals?
2. Indiana rips some cloth wraps it around a stick dips it in the petroleum and sets it on fire. The whole scene this torch loses sparks and pieces of burning cloth ... should this nt ignite the whole area?
3. Indy makes a chalk rubbing of the sheild, then after number four below happens, swims around in petroleum. Should this not destroy the rubbing? When he gets it out later it looks to be in tip top shape.
4. The bad guys enter. One lights a match drops match, which ignites whole area ... see number 2
5. This one made me laugh. As the place ignites Indiana and the Nazi Bombshell dive under a coffin to escape the flames. Indiana tells her to stay there and dives back into the petroleum to the other side ... Has anyone else ever noticed that when he does this, that his eyes are open? Would that not burn your eyes out???

I know it sounds petty, but things like this stick out like a sore thumb to me. How hard would it be for these people to get a clue and fix these things? It is possible to have movies without the illogic.

Have any examples of your own???

I love that in this day an age everyone has a mobile phone/cell phone.
But in the movies they never have one when in danger or only have one if its nessecary to the script.
anyone else notice this.

Or they always seem to be out of range when the "poop" hits the fan. The only movie that I can remember that had a logical rationale for this was in the Hills have Eyes. Nuclear test site .. I can see that.

I was always under the impression that the petroleum was floating on top of all the water.

Movies are full of these things. There is something to be said for the suspension of disbelief. But I think writers have to pay closer attention to keeping things real... or at least less impossible.

Someone send this one into Myth Busters.
I wanna see them swim around in it. LOL

Would gas not be so thin that you couldnt swim in it? You cannot swim in milk because it's not dense enough.

Hey Purplos, even if it was water under the gas he was in a dark chamber maybe 15 foot wide at the most. What did he need to see?
I agree whole heartly ... keep it real even if it is sci fi.

Purplos is right--the petroleum is floating on top of the water. When Indy goes under, he is swimming below the petroleum.

But...that doesn't exclude the fact that movies do take liberties with reality. That's part of the fun, if it works.

I go to movies to be entertained. I don't mind if they fudge a bit with reality, as long as I enjoy the ride.

Wish I was you ... every irrational moment jumps out at me. I could rant all day about movie scenes that make no sense ... for example at the beginning of the Last Crusade, Indy is having a debate to whether or not the Holy grail could possibly be real. Uuummm??? I don't know about you but if I had found the Ark of the Covenant and seen what it did ... would you not think that the grail is possible???

In temple of doom, getting burned by fire would combat the mind control potion thingy, this seems like a pretty glarring weakness considering the cult is hiding out in a feaking volcano...(fire all ova da place)

Yeah!!! When they are strapped and put down into the pit or magma ... would'nt being twenty feet from it pretty much be the end of you??? She comes out of it with a slight sunburn!!!

Yeah, weird considering the first guy burst into flames before he reached the magma..

And shouldn't the guy that got his heart ripped out be, you know, DEAD, instead of watching his beating heart and crying like a sissy girl?


Ok, that wasn't the best example, but it is true that sometimes the scenes are so illogical that it makes you want to beat the s*** outta the guy who wrote that thing.
For example, in Universal Soldier 2: The Return, after the machines have rebelled and all hell has broken loose, Van Damme barely manages to escape with the chick. They're driving away from the scene. Their most logical plan: go to a stripper's club, go to the manager's office and use the computer to warn the army instead of, you know, DRIVING to the military.
Or maybe it was because Van Damme only wanted to see some boobs to relax after that rough day and somehow the chick agreed to go with him. I won't go into details there

I tend to shut my brains logical side off when I watch movies,otherwise I end up just confusing myself.

It's just romanticism; in the examples given the violence or action has been romanticized in an attempt to increase it's desired effect on the audience.

In theatrical terms, it's referred to as the willing suspension of disbelief. Yes, originally this was designed for the theatre stage and we are to willingly suspend our logical minds and pretend that a cardboard set on a stage is really the romantic Paris (as one example), but in modern cinemas, the idea still exists, as people watch fiction. Though i guess there does come a time when the suspension of disbelief is just too great and one has to just say it was a bad movie. But for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, for the purposes of the film, I thought the theatre was good, despite the inconsistencies.

If you're willing to just sit back and enjoy a ride into a fictional world, then that's what the cinema is. I don't think it necessarily needs to perfectly mirror reality. To paraphrase one of the most influential figures in modern acting (Stanislavsky), the theatre should be more real and yet more terrible than anything that real life has to offer. That means believable characters, believable acting, but not necessarily believability in other areas - suspension of disbelief.

Of course, not everyone has the same mindset when going to the theatre or cinema, so I do see the point you are trying to make I just thought I'd like to share......

You can never "genuinely" recreate reality perfectly in a movie because reality is infinitely complex. So why try? It's not the purpose of a film anyway. It's to feed the human mind. And if you look at dreams for example, or poetry or songs, the human mind works in abstract, approximations, metaphors etc. not in a perfect reflection of reality. The human mind can't process reality directly, it's too complex. So a film doesn't need to either.

Even great movies have problems with continuity..In Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs-Fast forward to the scene in the warehouse at the end where everyone shoots each other. Pink's under the loading ramp, Joe's pointing his gun at Orange, White's pointing his at Joe, Eddie's pointing his at White.

Anyway, when the guns go off, nobody is aiming at Eddie, but he still gets shot. I heard that he was supposed to be shot by either Orange or White but his blood bag exploded too early and it looks like he's shot by nobody.

Maybe Pink shot him...That's all I can come up with..

/Somebody call the Warren commission...