Random Blather about Indiana Jones

So I saw Indiana Jones last night, and in spite of what I am about to say I really did enjoy it. My random musings are under the fold, but I will warn you that I spill a good bit of the plot. If you are not interested in knowing the plot in advance, you should come back later.

• In a movie where the ultimate goal is to find a temple in the Amazon populated by trans-dimensional aliens -- aliens who then proceed to vanish from existence taking a large portion of the Amazon with them, it is amusing to note that the things I found most unrealistic about this movie were as follows. 1) Shia LeBouf -- who incidently spends this whole movie dressed like the Fonz -- trailing after Indiana and the major antagonist knows instantly how to swing from the trees like a monkey and brings a herd of monkeys with him to fight his battles. What does this imply about 1950s hipsters? Did the entire cast of Happy Days also have the ability to command animals? 2) When the ants are trying to eat Cate Blanchett they proceed to build a ladder of ants to try and reach her. This seems like complex behavior even for Amazonian man-eating ants. 3) They drive a amphibious car off not one but three 300 foot waterfalls and emerge not only unscathed but after two of them still in the car.
• The scene where Indy is involved in a nuclear test was just great. He escapes by hiding in a lead-lined fridge because...really...if you are going to survive a nuclear blast the major issue is radiation and not being hurled a thousand yards into the air in a lead-lined unpadded fridge.
• How many people in the opening scene with the magnetic alien carcass thought that Indy was going to exploit the magnetism to get the Russians bullets to course back at them? I can't believe the writer didn't think of that. Because frankly there were 40 Russians shooting at him at all times throughout this film, and I think that barring other explanations we are really impugning the aim of an entire people. Those Russians can't hit shit.
• What was going on with Cate Blanchett's accent? It alternated between British and Chekov from Star Trek. I come to expect that mixing from people like Angelina Jolie in Alexander, but Blanchett actually can act. (Incidentally the Russians are denouncing her role as anti-Soviet propaganda. They should be denouncing it as a horrible cariacature: "Dammit! Our actual KGB agents were way more competent than that.")
• During the middle of the Red Scare, KGB agents with deep Russian accents can totally reasonably walk around American cities totally unmolested.
• When they are walking through the temple and natives pop out of the walls to kill them, how long do you think the natives were in the walls? Do they live there? How does that work exactly? My remark after this though was: "Well, you can't have an Indiana Jones movie without him being chased out a temple by a horde of stereotypes."
• I felt bad that the Russians killed all the natives; they adopted the more direct negotiation method. Then I realized that if they hadn't all the natives would have been killed anyway when their entire town was sucked into a transdimensional vortex at the end of the movie.
• I was somewhat distressed by Indy's maxim in the library-motorcycle crash scene that real archaeologists need to "get out of the library." You see, I became a scientist largely because of the example of characters like Indiana Jones. (Him and the people in the Hot Zone and maybe Batman as well.) That is what I thought science would be like. Travel the world, fight crime, and use your knowledge for good. (This is an appealing proposition for someone who was and is as tremendous a dork as I am.)

  But considering my present job, I doubt that I could "get out of the lab" and do science in the field. I mean maybe before I could do Western blots in my kitchen and separate proteins by mass using some ad hoc viscous substance like gravy. But now I train rats for a living. I could do it in the subway, but I doubt the results would be publishable.

  I think my "scientist who fights crime" persona needs revision. The closest this comes to reality is forensic scientists like on CSI, but having spoken to some of them there is a lot more paperwork than you would appreciate. Distressingly, the final battle in the dark building between the CSI guy and serial killer often fails to materialize.

• Indy can take a punch; I will give him that. They should really add that to our core courses in graduate school. I am sure it will come up eventually.