“Oh, Rats.” – Pests in the Indiana Jones Franchise

There are so many elements to love about the Indiana Jones franchise. The action, the character building, the costumes, the score, the cinematography, the stories, the settings – all are testaments to the genius that comes from extremely talented filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. But one of the most impressive facets, especially for the time that most of the movies were filmed, is the special effects. In this reality-based fictional world, the abundance of realistic creatures, historical settings, and archaeological finds make the stories lifelike. One of the feats of the hardworking crew is the use of real creatures to make the scene more believable. Each installment in the series features at least one real life critter species that provides a roadblock for Indy and his friends, with the reality of the animal toned down in favor of the movie magic that comes with the territory of making a big-budget Hollywood film. 

Before we take a look at three of the films in the franchise, it is worth mentioning that this is not the first time we have written on the creepy-crawlies in Indiana Jones. We dedicated a blog to the infamous scene in Temple of Doom where Indy, Short Round, and Willie are subsequently trapped in a monstrous room filled with the creepiest insects ever. Since we covered the insects in this scene in full detail, we left it off of this list so we aren’t writing the same analysis twice. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already, and entomophobes beware!: https://greenpestservices.net/the-iconic-insects-of-indiana-jones-and-the-temple-of-doom/ 

Raiders of the Lost Ark – Tarantulas

The first installment in this beloved series has so many iconic scenes that could justifiably be called someone’s favorite Indiana Jones scene. One such scene is in the very beginning, when Indy and Satipo make their way through the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors after surviving the dangerous jungle. In addition to the lethal and imaginative traps that they survive thanks to Indy’s expertise, the pair encounters the creepiest inhabitants of the temple: tarantulas. The dark temple has gone untouched for seemingly decades, and the fabric-like cobwebs they push through were likely the homes of these now-disturbed critters. Satipo notices a few clinging onto Indy’s legendary leather jacket, which he calmly brushes off with his trusty whip. But the nightmare is just beginning, as Indy instructs Satipo to turn around and sees that his new companion’s back is covered with dozens of arachnids. Jones easily gets them off of Satipo and they continue on into the temple to continue the rest of the famous scene. 

But we want to focus on the tarantulas for now, since that’s why we’re here. The filming of this scene falls in line with the rest of the movie, if you are also a fan of behind-the-scenes content. What started as a group of tarantulas sitting perfectly still on Alfred Molina’s (playing Satipo) back turned into the frenzy we see in the final cut. Dozens of tarantulas being perfectly still on a person seems like something out of a true nightmare, but the reason is actually pretty simple. All of the original tarantulas placed on Molina were males, and male tarantulas alone don’t do much when they’re together. Think of a group of shy kids who are forced to play together by their parents who are much more comfortable with each other than their children. But the professionals decided to add one female tarantula to see what would happen, and the crawling and scrambling immediately began! As soon as the males started clamoring for the attention of the sole female, director Steven Spielberg was desperate to get the money shot before it was too late. According to Molina himself, the tarantulas started “‘running onto my face and Steven is going, ‘Shoot! Shoot!…Alfred, look scared!’ And [I’m all], ‘I’m scared! I’m scared!’” (Hibberd, 2018). Another fun fact: this was Molina’s first scene he had ever filmed for a movie. What an introduction it was!

The Real Deal: Let’s talk about real tarantulas for a minute. Honestly, the movie got their demeanor right as far as their tendency to explore rather than attack. Tarantulas live in most parts of the world, especially in South America, and most species aren’t dangerous to humans. But some are powerful enough to kill small animals, like birds, mice, and lizards. Tarantulas hunt for their food, and use their venom to break down the food since they can’t chew. The venom is notably weak compared to other arachnids, which is why we aren’t in real danger from them, despite how scary they look. A tarantula bite will feel like a bee sting, and shouldn’t develop any symptoms more serious than redness and warmth on the site. But as with any bite, please seek medical attention if the bite seems to be infected or symptoms worsen. Tarantulas aren’t a common pest and don’t like to go near our homes if they can help it, so we thankfully don’t have to worry about inadvertently recreating this well-known scene. 

The Last Crusade – Rats

The third film in this iconic series is filled with something for every kind of movie fan: father-son relationship building, beautiful settings, a prologue that leads seamlessly into the present, memorable quotes, a small core cast of friends, and a religious motif throughout the whole story. But one element that may not be everyone’s cup of tea is the catacombs scene that makes any non-rodent-fans squeamish. When Indy and Elsa Schneider travel through the ancient Venetian catacombs underneath the gorgeous library, they stop analyzing the inscriptions long enough to see that hordes of rats have made the petroleum-soaked tunnels their home. At first, they simply step around the rats and continue on their way to their goal: the ancient tablet marker for the Holy Grail hidden in Sir Richard’s tomb. They do end up finding the tablet, only for the protective Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword to light the tomb on fire to protect the location of the Grail. Indy and Elsa survive by hiding under an overturned casket and swimming out through the sewer. But much to Elsa’s disgust, the rats also desperately swim and hide under the sarcophagus with them to survive the traumatic ordeal. 

Thankfully, the crew had many measures in place to keep everyone, including the real rats, safe during this impressive scene. They had around 1,000 to 2,000 rats specifically bred for this film! This is because typical rats carry all kinds of diseases that they easily transmit to humans, so the crew couldn’t use any rat found on the street. They also made sure to keep the number of real rats down to comply with an insurance policy, which now came with the first major rat deductible. For the shots where we see the fire rapidly spreading along the wall covered in rats, those are mechanical rodents, so no rats were harmed in the making of this movie. The warm water didn’t have real petroleum in it since that would be extremely deadly for anyone within a short radius of it. As for the sound of horrified, squeaking rats that punctuate the scene, those are not real rat cries. Sound designer Ben Burtt used high registers of chickens instead, just so the frantic sounds would be more realistic than the muted squeaks that were probably coming from the cared-for rats. 

The Real Deal: There are a few different fallacies in the role of rats in this scene, but there are also some surprising facts. For one thing, there aren’t any catacombs below Venice. The wood pilings holding the city up are built on islands, so it’s not possible to have full-on catacombs that rats would inevitably inhabit. As for the rats, it’s not unreasonable to believe that they would infest something like the catacombs if they existed. There are many news stories from all over the world about the rodents infesting cemeteries looking for the food sources (and we’ll just leave it at that). Rats are also nocturnal, so they favor darkness and isolation anyway. It is true that they can swim, so the part where they swim to safety is also not unrealistic. The best part of this scene is that our protagonists (for now) survive and continue on their adventure. But if this film were true, Indy and Elsa would definitely have contracted some kind of plague from touching so many rats that have been living underground for generations. The diseases that rats carry can be transmitted through their fur, feet, and droppings. There really isn’t a positive to being around a random rat, so we suggest not going for a petroleum-laced swim with the rodents anytime soon. 

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Ants

The fourth Indiana Jones movie may not be everyone’s favorite (and you would be hard-pressed to find someone declare it as their actual favorite), but it does have some charming qualities in between its clearly mid-2000s CGI. Indy is as brave and resilient as ever, even when dealing with…aliens?! But amidst the strangeness that comes with the alien crystal skull is a slew of jungle antics, including an unfortunate run-in with giant red ants, or Siafu. Russian officer Spalko’s jeep rams into the biggest anthill we’ve ever seen while pursuing Indy and his friends, releasing a swarm of deadly ants that cause the groups to focus on mutual survival for a moment. Not everyone makes it out alive, especially if they weren’t fast enough to climb a tree or outrun the hordes. The driver is horrifyingly covered in ants until his defining features are only ants, and the aggressive Dovchenko is carried off to the huge anthill while he is slowly consumed by the flesh-eating ants. Indy has the right idea with telling everyone to run to the river, but the Siafu interestingly don’t want anything to do with the crystal skull, which gives Indy and his friends the advantage. 

The idea of giant ants who are after human blood was not a new idea for this film. This came from a scrapped version of The Last Crusade script, but they subjectively work in this story overall much better than they would have in that one. The ants are CGI (thankfully), and their statistics are later published in Indy’s journal. The Siafu are six inches long, but their actual size and appearance are purely based on the amount of fungus they consume early on. Their jaws are strong enough to break skin, which is why Spalko reacts to the bite by immediately squishing the massive ant and getting her hand covered in the gross goo from the ant’s insides. The giant ones are the aggressive ants retaliating against their home being attacked, and these are the soldiers we see swarm the Russians to carry them back to the nest for a disgusting and filling meal. It is unfortunate luck that the jeep just happened to crash into the largest anthill in existence, but at least we got more hair-raising adventures with our favorite archaeologist out of the ordeal. 

The Real Deal: Thankfully, the brute strength and aggressive desire to carry full-grown humans back to the anthill is an ant trait unique to this film. Ants can lift 5,000 times their own weight, but it would take way too many to carry an adult even a foot. The Siafu are real ants, but as with any other critter in the Indiana Jones world, they are dramatized for the sake of the action-adventure. They are much larger in the movie and not nearly as bloodthirsty as their famous depictions. They are also native to Africa and Asia, not Brazil. Real Siafu ants are mainly referred to as driver ants, possibly due to their tendency to move to a new nest location every day when they are feeling especially nomadic. They will attack anyone in their way, including humans, snakes, and mammals, and will actively hunt for their prey in natural hiding places. But Siafu reside in the wilderness and aren’t found near homes in America, so we don’t have to worry about being carried off from our houses to an anthill anytime soon.

Pest Control is the Real Fortune and Glory

Luckily, we don’t have to fear an infestation the size of these three in our homes and businesses. That would be an absolute nightmare that would make moving far away sound like the best option. However, normal-sized invasions of pests are not anything that anyone should have to deal with. Ants appearing in the kitchen and spiders crawling around the bathroom is enough to leave homeowners searching for the holy grail (get it?) of pest control. Green Pest Services is here to serve you! Our experienced team is equipped to handle all kinds of pests, including ants, wasps, spiders, bed bugs, roaches, rodents, and mosquitoes. Contact us today to learn more about how we can provide you with a space that is so pest-free, it looks like it belongs in a museum. 

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Citations

Animal fact sheet: Tarantula. (2008). Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/tarantula.php 

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). Driver ant. Britannica. Available at https://www.britannica.com/animal/driver-ant (Accessed on May 18, 2022). 

Hibberd, J. (2018, March 30). Raiders of the Lost Ark: 14 revelations about its epic opening scene. Entertainment Weekly. Available at https://ew.com/movies/2018/03/30/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-facts/ (Accessed on May 17, 2022). 

Hutchinson, S. (2020, October 1). Indiana Jones: 10 behind-the-scenes facts about The Last Crusade. Screen Rant. Available at https://screenrant.com/indiana-jones-last-crusade-facts-trivia-2/ (Accessed on May 17, 2022).

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989): Animal action. (n.d.). Humane Hollywood. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://humanehollywood.org/production/indiana-jones-and-the-last-crusade/ 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Trivia. (n.d.). IMDb. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/trivia?item=tr0779804 

Magnoli, A. (2008, May 6). The lost journal of Indiana Jones. Gallery Books. 

Rat. (n.d.). Indiana Jones Wiki. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Rat

Siafu. (n.d.). Indiana Jones Wiki. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Siafu 

Tarantula. (n.d.). Indiana Jones Wiki. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Tarantula 

Venetian catacombs. (n.d.). Indiana Jones Wiki. Retrieved May 18, 2022, from https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Venetian_catacombs