66 replies to this topic

[du Garbandier]

Heck, if you check out the video embedded above, you can see that Spielberg even includes a shot from Indy's point of view that LOOKS DOWN AND MOVES SIDE-TO-SIDE as he ponders what a huge, huge drop it would be if he fell into that chasm. Yeah, forget binocular vision. Even with a single camera shooting a 2-D image, there is NO WAY that we should see what we see in that shot, if in fact the camera was pointing down at a camouflaged bridge with a chasm on either side.

Exactly.



From the original architects' point of view, maybe the only remotely possible way to have allowed for such a perspective (disregarding the problem of motion) would have been to eliminate the darkness below using some form of illumination, and then taking enormous pains to match--in texture as well as proportion--the exposed bottom of the chasm to the top surface of the bridge. In other words you would need to make it all rocks and no darkness in order to be even the least bit plausible.

Of course being able to see the bottom would rather mitigate the dramatic effect of the Step of Faith. It might even turn the Step of Faith into the Spelunk or Rock Climb of About the Usual Degree of Courage Such Ventures Normally Require, Give or Take. Just go down one way and come up the other. (Not necessarily Indy, who is pressed for time, but maybe some other adventurer whose father is not dying.)

But of course they did not choose to do any such thing. And given the incredible effort and time and possible defiance of physics it all would have involved, we might say they chose...wisely.

Edited by du Garbandier, 07 August 2009 - 01:04 PM.

[mrmando]

Well, we could go all the way back to the first Indy film and ask ourselves how primitive engineers designed a security system that automatically thrusts spears into anyone who interrupts a beam of light. Pretty simple to do with photosensors and electric circuits; don't see how it could be done without them. Um ... and what happens when the sun goes down and said beam of light no longer enters the tunnel? Wouldn't spears be triggered at that point and remain extended into the tunnel, rendering that particular security feature useless at night?

[John Drew]

This was one of those moments that I used to think only occurred in Looney Tunes cartoons. You know, when Wile E. Coyote paints a hole on the highway, thinking that the Roadrunner will stop to avoid it. Only the Roadrunner runs right over it, yet when the coyote tries to pass over it, he falls in.

[Peter T Chattaway]

mrmando wrote:
: Well, we could go all the way back to the first Indy film and ask ourselves how primitive engineers designed a security system that automatically thrusts spears into anyone who interrupts a beam of light. Pretty simple to do with photosensors and electric circuits; don't see how it could be done without them.

Yeah, this has occured to me too. There are such things as photosensitive plants, though, right? Maybe, um, there's a network of them in the walls, or something.

: Um ... and what happens when the sun goes down and said beam of light no longer enters the tunnel? Wouldn't spears be triggered at that point and remain extended into the tunnel, rendering that particular security feature useless at night?

Oooo, I hadn't thought THAT far ahead! Good point, good point.

[mrmando]

Yeah, this has occured to me too. There are such things as photosensitive plants, though, right? Maybe, um, there's a network of them in the walls, or something.

Right, it might be possible to rig something using the photosensitive properties of water, plants, or other organic material ... but I think you'd need a longer interruption in the light beam, and it would take a relatively long time for the system to react to that interruption. An instantaneous reaction to the briefest interruption suggests the presence of electronics. Also, a network of plants would have to be carefully maintained, to prevent the plants from either dying or growing so large that they don't function properly. Whereas the suggestion in the Indy films is always that these archaeological sites have lain undisturbed for centuries, and that the security systems are designed to work on their own once an intruder enters.

[John Drew]

mrmando wrote:
: Um ... and what happens when the sun goes down and said beam of light no longer enters the tunnel? Wouldn't spears be triggered at that point and remain extended into the tunnel, rendering that particular security feature useless at night?

Oooo, I hadn't thought THAT far ahead! Good point, good point.

For that matter, suppose the dig at Tanis happened during a different season when the sun didn't pass over that one particular opening in the maproom? Seems to me, with the position of that opening, that the Well of Souls could only be found at a certain time of the year.

[David Smedberg]

from Cracked