It is perhaps one of the most reviled moments in cinema history. A scene so dumb, so over-the-top,
that it single handedly killed a beloved movie franchise. And yet here we are,
15 years later, and I'm here to say that we were all wrong about the fridge scene.
Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that just really hates snakes. Like, why did it
have to be snakes? So are you all hype for Indiana Jones 5? No? Well I'm not surprised. The franchise
has definitely struggled to find its footing in the modern era. You see, Indiana Jones was huge
when it was first introduced back in the 1980s, the brainchild of producer George Lucas, director
Steven Spielberg and movie star Harrison Ford. It was like the holy trinity of movies at the
time. You had the guy behind Star Wars, the biggest director of the 20th century,
and one of Hollywood's hottest, most recognizable stars. People loved these movies. And honestly,
how could you not? They were perfect action adventures, starring an archeologist who traveled
the world exploring tombs, punching Nazis and teaching inappropriately flirty college students.
The Indiana Jones trilogy was rock solid, and I don't know a single person who wasn't satisfied
when Indy and his friends literally rode off into the sunset at the end of the Last Crusade,
thereby cementing this character's legacy in cinema history forever. And then came
the shameless cash grab. Greed gonna do what greed gonna do. And so in 2008,
Lucas Spielberg and Ford teamed up for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Bring in Indy out of retirement to play the hits, but with a twist: Fighting communist, reuniting
with his first love and introducing him to his son, played by Shia LaBeouf, which was a choice.
He chose… Poorly
Now, to say that fan reception to Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull was mixed would be one a heck of an understatement.
Watching it again today with fresh eyes I don't think it's the death of cinema like a lot of
people said at the time. But it's certainly mid, was completely unnecessary and most egregiously
of all, just lost the spirit of the original for a ton of people. Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull was where the franchise jumped the shark, where the fun adventure storytelling became too
silly, too irreverent, too unrealistic. And if I were to bet what happened here,
the fact that Lucas and Spielberg were suddenly able to use CGI, no longer tethered to what could
be done practically. Yeah, I think that was what was to blame here. It's almost like it's a pattern
with some of these guys. All of a sudden, this very grounded series became more like a video game
than the old serials that they were inspired by. This is a movie where Shia LaBeouf swings with
monkeys, a guy gets eaten alive by ants, aliens melt the villain's brain using mind bullets. Oh,
you heard me. Mind. Bullets. But of them all, one scene stood out as the moment that the franchise
died, the moment that it went past the point of no return. I'm talking, of course, about
the fridge scene. Since this movie was released 15 years ago, which means that maybe you've been
spared from this. Let me explain. At the climax of the film's opening set piece, Indy is on the
run from several Soviet spies at a U.S. military base in the 1950s. He ducks into a neighborhood to
hide from the Russkies, but soon realizes that something's not quite right. This village is
filled with mannequins, not people. If you've ever played Call of Duty, Black Ops, you'll immediately
recognize this as a doomtown; a fake neighborhood constructed near nuclear blast sites to see
how atomic bombs affect the average American. Basically, it was built to get blown up. Suddenly,
Indy hears an alarm blaring in the distance. Realizing his predicament, Indy hides himself
in a conveniently lead lined refrigerator to save himself from nuclear annihilation. As the
bomb goes off, he's blasted away from Ground Zero, safely crashing just far enough beyond
the blast radius to pose for a real cool shot before he moves on with the rest of the movie.
Yeah, I don't know about you, but I can absolutely see why this one shattered the
audience's suspension of disbelief. Surviving a nuclear explosion with your only protection
being a refrigerator? Yeah. It was so ridiculous that it coined a new term that was even worse
than jumping the shark, nuking the fridge. In retrospect, I think a lot of the filmmakers
realized that this was just too much, with Spielberg himself personally taking the
blame for this, quote, silly scene back in 2011. George Lucas, however, insisted a year later in
a New York Times interview that he was the one who actually came up with the idea. As the story went,
Lucas drafted up a six inch thick dossier of research demonstrating that, quote,
The odds of surviving that refrigerator from a lot of scientists are about 50/50.
Of course, that dossier has never been made public. Believe me, I looked. And so,
you know me loyal theorists. I can't just take a filmmaker's word on something. When you make
a bold claim like, Oh, Indy would have survived that stupid, unrealistic atomic bomb scene. I
need to run the numbers. So let's just end this debate once and for all. Could Indiana Jones have
survived nuking the fridge? I'm going to be 100% honest with you. The answer will absolutely shock
you. But even more surprising than the answer is how we're going to get there. So grab your whips
and tip those fedoras. It’s time to swing into it. First, we need to set some parameters around our
fridge and our bomb. The type of fridge that's used in the movie is a King Cool
standalone refrigerator. But since this was a fictional brand created entirely for the movie,
obviously there wasn't any hard information about its dimensions and makeup. So instead
we pulled out our classic theorist pixel rulers and got to measuring. Harrison Ford is six foot
one inch tall. Using that information, I was able to determine that the fridge was
roughly 4.69 feet or 143 centimeters tall and 2.61 feet or about 80 centimeters wide.
We're going to be assuming that it's roughly as deep as it is wide to get a nice,
even rectangular prism. Older fridges like this were made of steel and were insulated
with either asbestos or fiberglass. The standard for insulation in a refrigerator
like this was about one inch, so we're going to be using that for our numbers today.
That being said, we should also mention that the movie goes out of its way to focus on a
shot saying that the fridge is, quote, lead lined for superior insulation. This is actually kind of
ridiculous for a home refrigerator, which we're going to see in the numbers here in a minute.
But for now, we're just going to run with it. Okay. So now that we know the fridge we're talking
about, let's talk about the other main factor here, the bomb. Specifically how powerful it is.
Though it's easy to think that a nuke is a nuke is a nuke, and that being so close to one would
instantly vaporize anyone. That isn't necessarily the case. This is where I got to give 'ol Georgy
Boy a point. Though you'd be hard pressed to survive a nuclear explosion at Ground Zero. If
you're a little bit away from it, even as close as we see the explosion in this movie, it's not
impossible. For as much as we think of dropping an atomic bomb is resulting in the complete
decimation of a city. Hundreds of thousands of people survived the bombings in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. So it can be done. There's just a lot of variables affecting this sort of thing.
So, just how powerful is the bomb that we see in Indiana Jones? We can actually approximate that
thanks to military records. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull takes place in Nevada in 1957, which happens
to be the exact time and place where the U.S. government was undergoing Operation Plumbbob,
a series of 29 explosive nuclear tests with bombs placed on the ground, in balloons,
underground and as we see in the movie, in towers. Now you might be wondering why they'd
want to test bombs in the air with balloons and towers, but detonating them in the air is a way
that militaries will maximize the destructive energy of an explosion. While in the air, the
bomb's energy is distributed over a wider area, meaning that you're likely dealing more total
damage on the ground. This is a concept known as an air burst, and again, it was the way that the
bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anyway, since we know that the bomb in Indiana
Jones was on a tower, this then narrows down our list of candidates. Comparing the size
and shape of the mushroom cloud in the film to footage captured from Operation Plumbbob,
the explosion most closely resembles that from a nuke codenamed Smoky, which had itself a yield
of 44 kilotons. That's equal to 44,000 tons of TNT, and it was detonated atop a 700 foot tower.
Additionally, the Smoky test occurred right here, just a few miles away from Area 51.
Given the comically large 51 on the hangar doors that Indy's escaping from, this intro is
obviously supposed to take place there. So it's feasible that Indy would have been able to make
his way to the Smoky detonation site through the desert on foot while escaping the Soviets.
Also, I couldn't find any evidence of Operation Plumbbob using any doomtowns
during the experiments. It seems like something that they just added into the movie. So we're
going to be taking data from doomtowns used in earlier 1955 tests as a stand-in. Structures
for these tests were built approximately one mile or 1.61 kilometers away from ground zero,
but again, lines up nicely with what we can eyeball from this scene in the film.
So now that we know all of that, it’s time to figure out if Indy could have survived.
When it comes to death by atomic bomb, there are three main things that we need to worry about:The
heat of the explosion, the blast wave that the explosion makes and the radiation that's left
behind. So let's just start off with the heat. When a bomb like this explodes, it releases a
ton of thermal radiation. Like, a lot-a lot. The fireballs from these nuclear explosions
can reach temperatures equivalent to the interior of the sun, about 100 million
degrees Celsius. But the further away you get from the center, the less intense that that
heat becomes and it falls off fast. According to the online tool nukemap, anyone within two
miles or 3.21 kilometers of the explosion would have 100% chance of getting third degree burns.
That said, if you were, say, inside of a building or an appliance that was shielding you from all
that, it would actually be far less intense and entirely survivable. Case in point, a woman named
Akiko Takakura survived the Hiroshima bombing when she was just 300 meters away from the
bomb's hypocenter. Much, much closer than her 5280 feet or 1.61 kilometer distance in Indiana Jones.
How did she get so lucky? She was actually inside of a bank. And though she was burned,
the building shielded her from the worst of the effects and it saved her life. And if we
want more proof from an even more applicable situation. During the test of the 29 kiloton
Apple two bomb in 1955, a Frigidaire chest freezer full of food was placed in a concrete home just
0.89 miles or 1.43 kilometers from ground zero. When scientists were able to move in and examine
the damage, they found that the freezer and the food were relatively unharmed. In fact,
when they later plugged the freezer in, it still worked, all after being less than a mile from
the nuke. So all in all, it is feasible that Indy could have beaten the heat inside of that fridge.
So what then about the actual forces and shockwaves created by the explosion? For
these sorts of incredibly powerful nuclear bombs the blast wave from the
explosion tends to work in three stages. First, there's the static overpressure,
which is the initial shock wave that radiates out from the blast. It is by far the weakest
of the three. Then you have yourself the dynamic overpressure, which is the big old gust of wind
that blows things away in all the videos that you tend to see coming out of these sorts of tests.
This is caused by air literally being pushed away from ground zero by the power of the
explosion. The dynamic overpressure is by far the worst of the three waves. Finally,
we have the receding flow, another gust of wind that goes in the opposite direction as air rushes
in to fill the temporary vacuum created by the explosion, pushing all the air out of the way.
So how powerful would these blast waves be for a 44 kiloton nuke? Again, looking back at nukemap,
the worst of it would be in the range of 0.81 miles where the overpressure would be up to 20
psi, resulting in wind blasts up to 500 miles an hour. That is 805 kilometers an hour. But again,
once you're outside of that zone, things drop off fast. In Indy’s case, we've established that the
doomtown is a bit outside the range, one mile away. So the overpressure there would only be
five psi. Resulting in blast winds that are 163 miles an hour or 262 kilometers an hour. Don't
get me wrong, that is still the equivalent of a category five hurricane, but it is
nearly five times less what it could have been. So with air speeds like that, could the blast
wave have launched the refrigerator like we see in the movie? No, definitely not like we see in
the movie. In the movie, the fridge is launched so fast that it literally outruns the blast wave that
sent it flying in the first place. That right there? It just makes no scientific sense. But
in general would the acceleration have rocketed Indy with enough force to damage his body? To find
that number we're going to need to figure out the acceleration that's put upon the refrigerator by
the explosion. And to do that, we use the classic equation for F=MA or force equals mass times
acceleration. If we switch that equation around a bit, it becomes acceleration equals force divided
by mass. Thankfully, we can figure out both the mass and the force using other information from
the film. So let's just start off with mass. An average steel refrigerator weighs only about
250 lbs or 113 kilograms. Indy was roughly 60 during the events of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,
and the average weight of a 60 year old man is roughly 195 lbs or 88 and a half kilos.
But we also have to remember that this isn't just any refrigerator,
this one is lined with lead for that superior insulation. And let me tell you, lead is heavy.
If there was a one inch sheet of lead on every side of this fridge, that would add an additional
3717 lbs or 1686 kilos right there, totaling out at 4162 lbs or 1888 kilograms when accounting for
the steel and Indy inside of it. Yeah, all of that lead adds up fast. Because a 4000
lbs refrigerator is just a wee bit ridiculous. I also ran the numbers for a much more reasonable
1/10th of an inch of lead lining for this thing, which resulted in a total weight
of 817 lbs or 370 and a half kilograms. Spoiler alert in the end, it didn't make that much of a
difference. For force, we found the number using the wind speed and the area of the refrigerator.
I'm not going to bore you with all the numbers here, but basically we use this equation that
you see on screen right now for force with drag, and then we use the airspeed of the atomic blast.
In the end, the fridge experiences the equivalent of 1.46 G's of force. That's honestly not a lot.
Ironically, the immense weight of a lead lined fridge is the thing that ultimately
saves him. Even with our much, much smaller and more reasonable 10th of an inch of lead
lining number, the G-forces Indy experiences would only come out to seven and a half G's,
a bit higher than some intense roller coasters. Most humans can withstand 4 to 6 G's pretty
easily. Fighter pilots are trained to withstand up to 9 G's for a couple of seconds. While sustained
G-forces this high would absolutely be fatal. The fridge is only flying for about 11 seconds in the
movie, likely not enough to actually kill him. Would he be uncomfortable? Absolutely.
But ultimately, it seems like the forceful flight in the fridge would be survivable.
So that is surprisingly two for two. But then what about our third killer, radiation? Atomic
bombs release an intense amount of radiation that can be fatal to all those within range
without any protection. This might actually be the most deadly thing for Indy in this
situation. Though thin amounts of lead are able to block between 90 and 99% of low level radiation.
Even a foot of lead would be unable to completely block the most dangerous gamma rays that are
released by these sorts of atomic bombs. That's said It doesn't necessarily mean that all this
is impossible for Indy. See, the most deadly radiation from these sorts of bombs are released
in a very small area. And according to NukeMap, the immediately fatal dose of radiation for the
Smoky explosion would have only been within 1.59 kilometers, just barely below the 1.61 kilometer
distance that Indy's fridge starts at. And considering that it got pushed away
from Ground Zero by the blast wave, he would have ended up even further away. Additionally,
Indy and the fridge starting out inside of a house would have done them a lot of good. Remember that
Frigidaire freezer that survived the blast of one of these atomic tests and still worked? Well,
like I said, there was food inside of that fridge as part of the test.
And when scientists examined the food, they found no traces of radiation inside of it. In fact,
the food was declared safe for human consumption and in celebration, people eat it. It turns out
that the building it was in took the brunt of the radiation and shielded everything inside. Now,
to be fair, the building was made of concrete, whereas the one in the movie looks like it's made
of more traditional stuff like woods and metals. But that would still do something to block the
radiation. Without a doubt, Indy would have had some long term side effects from the bomb;
developing cancer later on in his life at minimum. But for our purposes today, it's
plausible that he survived the radiation too. So, believe it or not, and I can't believe I'm saying
it. But George Lucas wasn't entirely wrong here. Indiana Jones could have feasibly survived this
nuclear explosion inside of a refrigerator like we see in the movie. Now, don't get me wrong,
a lot of things would have needed to go Indy's way, a lot of things. And it is still a very,
very stupid scene. But by the numbers, it's not impossible. The whole “experts
say it be 50/50” thing is kind of plausible. And yet the twist in all of this is that Indy
would still be guaranteed to die. No, the nuclear bomb explosion might not have killed him, but the
refrigerator would have. See, refrigerators used to be very dangerous. They're designed to be
airtight, to keep the contents inside colder and fresher for longer. But that also means that if
someone were to spend any extended amount of time inside of a fridge, they'd suffocate to death.
This right here is known as refrigerator death. These days, it's not as big of a threat because
modern refrigerators use magnetism to keep their doors closed. But back when refrigerators were
first hitting the market, it was a massive public threat. Early models of refrigerators were sealed
using mechanical latches on the outside of the door, meaning that they could only be opened
from the outside using that latch. This led to a lot of tragic deaths,
especially when children would hide inside of them. Between January 1954 and June 1956,
there were 54 reported cases of children becoming trapped inside of household refrigerators. Of
those, 39 died of asphyxiation. This led to massive outcry from the American people and
decades of public service announcements warning kids about the dangers of these sorts of fridges.
Even G.I. Joe got in on the action.
Eventually, this outcry led the American government to pass the Refrigerator Safety
Act of 1956, making it illegal to manufacture and sell fridges that couldn't be opened from
the inside. And so you can probably see where I'm going with this. See,
it's more likely than not that this fridge that Indy steps into wouldn't have been
able to open from the inside, turning this thing from his saving grace into his coffin.
Now, before some of you call out that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull takes place in 1957 that
the Refrigerator Safety Act was passed one year earlier in 1956. Remember that every
fridge in the country didn't just immediately switch over. Deciphering the legalese here,
you'll see that the changeover on the fridges didn't go into effect until October 30th of 1958,
a full year after the events of the movie. We can even see Indy pulling a latch to open
the fridge, proving that it was one of these older models. So there you have it. Indy had a
better chance at surviving an atomic blast than he did of surviving the fridge. All the heat,
radiation and blast waves in the world didn't matter. The minute he stepped into
that fridge and shut the door, he was a dead man. But hey! We ended up using a lot of physics and
math in today's episode. We even had to cut a lot for time and complication reasons, but thankfully
there are ways to understand this stuff without needing to actually hop into a refrigerator and
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