There are many people who forget just how wild the originalIndiana Jones trilogygot in its final acts, with many supernatural elements pushing the fantasy boundary long beforeIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destinypulled the time travel card on Harrison Ford’s aging adventurer. However, one of the most ridiculed moments of the entire Indiana Jones franchise –namely Fridgegate – was a moment that was almost included in another movie that involved a whole heap of time travel– Back to the Future.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skullwas the first belated entry in the franchise, and among the numerous issues that were brought up in relation to the sequel, Indy surviving a nuclear fallout thanks to hiding in a fridge was top of the list of gripes. However, director Steven Spielberg was almost acquainted with a nuked fridge moment in another movie he was involved in when he produced the original 1985 movie,Back to the Future.
As shared by/Film, the original script for the much-loved Michael J. Fox comedy did not have Marty McFly coasting back into the past in the comfort of a DeLorean, but instead the time machine was a simpler laser-based creation. The ending of the movie did not have a lightning strike sending Marty back to the future either. Instead, he was required to have the time machine device strapped to a fridge and driven out into the blast zone of a nuclear test site in Nevada. It seems that while this “fallout fridge” moment was abandoned, Spielberg still managed to use it in some way later down the line.
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Indiana Jones Was Ridiculed For Its Most Grounded Moment
When you have faced down the spectres of The Ark of the Covenant, had a fist-fight with a voodoo priest anddrank from the Holy Grail, using a fridge’s lead lining to avoid being caught in a nuclear bomb test seems like something should not have caused as much of a reaction as it did. However, that one moment gained more bad press than the film’s climactic alien elements.
In Harrison Ford’s most recent, and final, return as Indy, the believability factor was abandoned pretty much from the moment the words “time travel” were mentioned. However, the film had other challenges to overcome, the biggest of which was addressing the fact that Indy is now an old man and cannot really be going around throwing himself from vehicles and getting into fights with men who could probably snap him in two if the fancy took them.
All in all,Dial of Destinymanaged to avoid ruining the legacy of the franchise, and in many ways acted as a coda to the story of Indiana Jones, showing that even at his age, there is always the pull of the mysteries and adventures of the world waiting out there to be explored.The film may not have had the financial successLucasfilm were hoping for, but the film still held its own among many of the other blockbusters that could have done with a fridge of their own to protect them from the perils of 2023’s disappointing summer box office.
