You all know how the Indiana Jones movies are written, don’t you? Let me recreate for you the day Steven Spielberg sat down with his head writer to put together the outline of what would be the fourth installment in the franchise.
Spielberg: Guys, here it is: the secret formula for a successful Indiana Jones movie. [Spielberg waves a tattered 3×5 index card around] Take this, and let’s get to work.
Writer: Steve…this is just a scribbled sentence with some blanks.
Spielberg: Right. Haven’t you ever played Mad Libs?
Writer: OK, but don’t you kind of have this memorized? Why go through the motions?
Spielberg: I’ve forgotten everything on that card, so don’t worry, it’ll be new and fresh. Hollywood does this to you after a while—first it sucks the creativity out of you, then the memory goes, and you become a creature of short-term instinct. Go ahead, ask me questions to fill in the blanks, and we’ll get this picture started!
Writer: Umm, name a “villainous group”.
Spielberg: Easy. Naz…no, wait. I think we did that one. Let’s see, uh, Communists. Yeah, we’re already thinking out of the box!
Writer: Good one, sir. It reminds me of the second Indy movie, when you made the bad guys a mostly forgotten and entirely neglected Indian religious cult. That one surprised everyone with its freshness.
Spielberg: Right! We’re on a roll! Next!
Writer: Name a “famous historical artifact”.
Spielberg: This is always the hard part for a shark-like mind with no long term memory. Hmmmm. OK, Crystal skull.
Writer: “Crystal skull”? What’s that? I’ve never heard of it.
Spielberg: I think I saw something about it on late night cable. It sounds cool, anyway, and it’ll look eerie on film.
Writer: But it does say “famous historical artifact” here…
Spielberg: I‘ve heard of it, so it must be famous. Besides, I bet you never heard of sankara stones before, either, and we made them famous. Now everyone talks about them.
Writer: Oh, right. That second movie again. We really are treading in the footsteps of greatness, this movie is going to be fabulous. OK, last one: name a “dangerous power”.
Spielberg: Yeah, let me think. This is getting hard, I’m just about burnt out here. Are you getting hungry? No? I think I need a little nosh, let me call out for something.
Spielberg [to his office intercom]: Carol, get me a quick bite. An arugala salad, I think. Yeah, that’s what I said. Write it down. You heard me, write it down, an arugala [writer starts scribbling]. Thanks.
Spielberg: Now where were we?
Writer: We’re done! It’s going to be a blockbuster!
Spielberg: Read it back to me.
Writer: “Indiana Jones must race evil COMMUNISTS to acquire the fabulous CRYSTAL SKULL before they can use its power of ARUGALA to rule the world!”
Spielberg: Wow. We have outdone ourselves. I want to see this movie already.
Writer: We’ll be packing ’em in. I’ll just plug in some of the usual plot devices and flesh it out in the script a little bit.
Spielberg: Yeah. But you know, that last bit might be a little…weak…
Writer: Now that you mention it…
[Spielberg and Writer stare at 3×5 card for several seconds, brows knit in thought.]
Spielberg: Aww, screw it. Don’t worry about what the crystal skull does, or why anyone would want it. We’ll just go with the flow.
Writer: Second movie?
Spielberg: You got it. We made that whole damn thing, concocted an all powerful religious cult using thousands of child slaves, all in order to acquire magic rocks that had the power to set leather handbags on fire. And nobody cared! Any MacGuffin will do if you’ve got Harrison Ford.
Writer: Right. I’ll get you 200 pages by, say, tomorrow noon?
Spielberg: Great. Oh, and remember to stick in a couple of scenes with insects crawling all over people. And show Indy with some human weakness with a snake scene. And, oh yeah, that face-melty thing in the first movie was really popular — could we have someone’s eyeballs burst into flame?
Writer: Love it, boss.
I think you can guess…I was a little disappointed. Ford was great, I think he’s become a real icon of the swashbuckling hero genre, and I enjoyed his performance. The movie kept things moving with lots of action, but ultimately, it was the writing or the lack thereof that crippled the movie. There was no point to all the frenzied scurrying, and the ending was a mess, a great big gooey splort of special effects with no relationship to anything else that preceded it.
All right, everyone else who saw it can have at it in the comments. Be warned, everyone: spoilers may emerge herein. Click through only if you are prepared to be disillusioned, if you aren’t already.
Our local newspaper did an article on Mitchell-Hedges skull years ago when Anna Hedges lived in the area. It was brought up again on whether the movie is based on this skull.
I guess it’s about time I went and saw the third one then…
Spoilers? You mean there could be a surprise ending in this movie? Now THAT would certainly be a surprise.
Thanks for this post. I haven’t seen it yet, I’ll adjust my expectations accordingly.
The first oddball thing to spring to mind when reading your post was, ‘Reverse Star Trek’ effect. i.e. The odd numbered movies are good, the even ones stink.
You guys are missing it. Before you see any Indiana Jones movie or the like, you must be in the right frame of mind. Usually a glass or two (sometimes 3) or, for those so inclined, another substance perhaps. It should loosen you up enough to step out of your daily analytical mind-grind and into the world of fantasy and enjoy it for what these films usually are – a spectacular display of visual and sound effects, photography, etc. – screw the story line. It’s so much more fun!
I don’t understand why they didn’t just tart up the plot from the Fate of Atlantis game.
We often point out the absurdity of the religious, but there is another aspect of superstition that is sometimes overlooked. That is the use of things like astrology. Surprisingly enough, it is sometimes used in recruiting in business. Here is a nice crackpot site.
http://www.amanita.at/e/reading/e-01-recruiting.htm
“The ultimate goal of all personnel selection systems is to forecast the future performance of an applicant, to figure out how he or she will be doing and to select the best to fit the human resources strategy. At any rate, it’s the future that counts, not the past and not even the present. Predicting the future has always been the main task of astrology.”
It does mention drawbacks.
“# Reactance problems: resistance from applicants (and stakeholders), negative effects on the corporate image because of the negative reputation of astrology
# Lack of scientific proof, wrong decisions:
Almost no evidence from empirical research supporting astrology as a selection tool is available. Wrong decisions are costly and unfair to the falsely rejected applicants.”
Indiana Myers must race evil CREATIONISTS to acquire the fabulous PHARYNGULA BLOG before they can use its power of POLL CRASHING to rule the world!
It was not anything different than the previous movies that everyone loved so much.
I enjoyed it
One of the great things about Raiders was how all the action took its toll on Jones: “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.” That’s missing here; he’s almost superhuman. The screenplay could’ve had another draft. Characters are underused; dialogue doesn’t quite have the snap we expect. Liked the Oppenheimer reference, though. And Cate Blanchett was blindingly hot. Raiders is the only movie in the series that achieves true movie greatness.
Ford’s an atheist.
PZ you really should have replaced Spielberg with Lucas*, then I think you would be spot on.
LeeLeeOne is right, you have consider the movie in the right context, Lucas (or was it Spielberg-so much for me being anal) wanted to be able to explain the main plot in less than…some abitrary number of words. That said, I haven’t actually seen it yet, so I’ll reserve final judgement.
*Lucas was facinated by crystal skulls, which apprently bemused Spielberg/Ford etc. as they had not heard of them.
Still, I don’t get it. Studios invest hundreds of millions in making movies like this one, mainly paying for locations, stars, special effects, and they cannot put out a few more thousands to hire a talented scriptwriter or two?
There has been quite a few of these recently, extremely costly blockbusters (and I like blockbusters) which really made me cringe, so terrible were the plotting and the writing. Beowulf anybody? (and this one had Gaiman on the staff)
I mean, Spiderman 3 was so bad, I could only watch it in 5 minutes instalments.
http://ffrf.org/day/?day=13&month=7
“Before you see any Indiana Jones movie or the like, you must be in the right frame of mind. Usually a glass or two (sometimes 3) or, for those so inclined, another substance perhaps.”
This worked for me; a couple shots of whiskey beforehand at the bar, and the same for my girlfriend. She was asleep in the seat next to me by the time the 5th trailer rolled (there were 8 trailers in all) and didn’t move until the Indy credits rolled.
Since when was Indiana Jones original? It never was. :P S’how we like it too.
You left a part out.
The part where Erich von Däniken comes in.
I thought he was Minnesota Myers. That sounds better too (alliteration and wotnot).
The movie kept things moving with lots of action, but ultimately, it was the writing or the lack thereof that crippled the movie. There was no point to all the frenzied scurrying, and the ending was a mess, a great big gooey splort of special effects with no relationship to anything else that preceded it.
SO you’re comparing it to sex, then? That good?
There were at least a few moments where I definitely laughed out loud at the absurdity (some line of dialogue or a particular incident… the refrigerator comes to mind).
I liked the movie overall but I definitely found myself wondering how they could make perfectly ordinary scenes in a $150 million picture look so poorly made. It was as if Speilberg just discovered soft focus and decided he needed to use it constantly.
Open thread, so did you know that someone has even invented “evolutionary astrology”?
http://www.evolvingjourney.com/ArticleonEvolutionaryAstrology.html
“Let’s say that the planet Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, is going to spend three years getting to know that aforementioned Gemini Sun. (More like the Sun getting to know the nature of Pluto, truth be told.) Depending on what part of the chart that Sun inhabits, predictions could include depression, an identity crisis, the end of a relationship, a time of personal empowerment. All potentially true. But from an evolutionary standpoint, none of these possibilities is set in stone, and none is the heart of this passage.”
Hey, at least they let you in.
It suffered from one of the same problems that the new Star Wars movies did. They were bringing back a popular giant after a long hiatus, and were self-consciously trying to be something – a blockbuster, funny, true to the old popular form. Too much of the movie was contrived and gimmicky, like the gophers in the beginning. Different isolated things were added for specific effects, but there was no coherence. As far as any kind of story goes, the writing was awful.
And the refrigerator scene: worst idea ever.
I did think that the ending was appropriate for the close of the Indy series, even if it was cheesy. The heavy-handed symbolism with the hat and Mudd was too much, though.
Arugula isn’t bad, but if you want to rule the world, you need the power of spinach. ;-)
Thank you for the summary. It doesn’t sounds like this will be the film to make me start going to the cinema.
I liked One and Three, though, when they came to the small screen (for all his Scottish Nationalist nuckfuttery Sean Connery can be fun). And I used to have such a crush on the Young Indy.
What? Now you tell me? These words should be in giant letters as a splash page for this blog–a warning for impressionable young creationists!
“This website contains graphic descriptions of reality…”
I’m surprised Movie-a-Minute’s ultra-condensed movie list
http://www.rinkworks.com/movieaminute/
doesn’t contain any of the Indiana Jones films.
Now you know why I don’t ever get my hopes up about any films anymore. If I don’t get excited beforehand (like you did in a previous post), I usually end up satisified at the very least. Hardly ever disappointed. Disappointment only comes when you’re expecting something better.
My blog is way ahead of you guys. I didn’t write this, but it’s good. And we’ll have more in the series:
Coming Soon — Ben Stein as Indenial Jones
OK, PZ confirmed my expectations: I’m not going. Anyone want to go see the movie with my husband? He’s cute.
(.)(.)
Sorry to be a pig, but as far as I’m concerned any movie which features Cate Blanchett in black leather is OK with me.
Well, you could go to St. Paul and see a baseball game. The minor league tema there is giving away a nice little item to the first 2500 people to attend on Sunday May 25, a Bobble Foot.
I haven’t seen IJ4 but surely
would apply just as much to IJ3? Now that was a mess.
The only film sequels which have held up are George Romero’s starting with “Night of the Living Dead” movies. Each one has been good.
Don’t blame Spielberg, blame Lucas. He’s the one that came up with the “crystal skulls” idea. He’s the one that rejected Frank Darabont’s screenplay. One the one hand you’ve got the guy who wrote the screenplay for The Shawshank Redemption who comes up with a screenplay that’s praised by the director of numerous classic adventure movies, and on the other hand you’ve got the guy who’s only directed one good action movie and has been determined to muck it up ever since. I think it’s pretty clear who the problem was in this collaboration.
“There was no point to all the frenzied scurrying, and the ending was a mess, a great big gooey splort of special effects with no relationship to anything else that preceded it.”
Ironically that makes it closer to the serials and adventure B-movies to which it ostensibly serves as a pricey homage. (Nice nod to THE NAKED JUNGLE. Ditto X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES.) Looking for a “point” (whatever that means) seems pretty, er, pointless in a movie where a guy survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. What’s fun here is the lack of pretension and the shared, wholly infectious fun between the characters/actors. (The quicksand scene was a kind of subtle mini-masterpiece on its lonesome.) All things considered, this one has more soul than THE LAST CRUSADE, and Ford’s reaction to Karen Allen’s entrance is the stuff for which cinema was invented.
More to Pharyngula’s speed: what’s interesting in the Indies is that all religions turn out to be right. The Ark of the Covenant works and so can one rip out a poor schmuck’s heart for Shiva. Here, though, [major spoilers, but c’mon, it’s a MacGuffin anyway] the natives are wrong and their “god” is a buncha aliens. Discuss.
I still think that they should have gone with the “realistic” version: Indy spends 2 years writing and re-writing grants, gathering permits, and writing up preliminary findings until it all finally comes together and he can go out into the field. First exciting action sequence: the weather doesn’t cooperate and he’s nearly killed in a freak hurricaine or sandstorm or whatever is appropriate for the area. He then spends the next several seasons carefully digging and recording every shard. Until he finally finds…another shard. But this one is different. It doesn’t look like much but after extensive analysis in the lab (could be some good dramatic scenes in there where the PCR fails and the exasperated lab tech threatens to throw it out the window…oops, anachronism) it proves to be the critical piece of evidence that will change our thinking about the way pre-historic people lived forever…Hey, I’d pay to watch it.
Here’s an example of what made Raiders magical. It’s one scene that perfectly combines Spielberg’s direction, Ford’s acting, and William’s music. (The dialogue isn’t here, so the music becomes even more central.) This is just movie-making at its finest:
The best part was when UChicago had its shout out. My classmates and I cheered.
And, I agree, I feel no hatred towards Spielberg, it was Lucus’ fault.
My blogged student-based opinion (and spoilers) of it is the link on my name. Just ignore the rest of my blog, please ;).
No monkey-brain eating?
When I was younger and more foolish, I always thought that if they were going to remake North By Northwest, Harrison Ford would be the guy. Then I got older and wiser and realized that remaking North By Northwest would be incredibly foolish, regardless of who got what part.
I think The Fugitive is pretty darned great, though… Even if, in real life, the movie would pretty much have ended at the dam. I wouldn’t put the odds of surviving that jump at even 1 in a million.
When I saw “Raiders” as a kid, I was floored. I don’t think the first one had much (if any) pre-publicity. I taken to the theater on opening weekend expecting to be bored. (“It’s about an archaeologist?”) By the time Indy climbed into the airplane in the first scene, I had a new favorite movie.
Watching it again, recently, I was surprised at how it has been a little antiquated by the action genre it inspired. The editing is just not as tight by today’s standards. But it’s still awesome fun, great spectacle and the script is very clever.
I can’t expect any of the sequels to match or exceed the original because they’re not the original. And the basic premise isn’t *about* anything except recreating the excitement of old style serials.
“Temple of Doom” was dreadful. “Last Crusade” was cute, the chemistry between Connery and Ford made the movie. Thanks for the forewarning on “Crystal Skull.” I can’t say I’m surprised.
What were really cool style choices in the first movie are now brands. They have to recycle the whip and the hat. What was so fun and unexpected in the first has become like PZ’s fill-in-the-blanks.
“Godfather II” is my favorite example of a sequel exceeding the original. The original was highly stylized but it was *about* something. The sequel explored the themes and characters more deeply.
The first “Austin Powers” was very funny. But since, it wasn’t about anything, the sequels are terribly formulaic and unbelievably unfunny.
There’s a new Indiana Jones movie?!
Thanks for the spoiler, asshats.
Geez. Some people’s children.
MikeM, I’m curious about your opinion. I loved The Fugitive too, except… the ending. That was one of the most anti-climactic final scenes I can remember. It ended with a whimper. Until then it was definitely great (and Tommy Lee Jones was perfect).
When it comes to sequels exceeding the quality of the originals, I think of, of course, “Godfather II,” then “Bride of Frankenstein,” and even “Empire Strikes Back.” “Aliens” isn’t necessarily *better* than “Alien” as its a wholly different movie; they’re both fantastic on their own.
And I must say, the trailer for “The Dark Knight” looks *amazing.*
@#37 Mathias
Wasn’t it a surprise to the characters when the “Ark of the Covenant” actually did something? Or was that just me projecting onto the film?
Anyway, it seem like it might have more to do with dramatic reversal than an actual stance regarding the supernatural. When the film treats the supernatural as “just myth” throughout, you can be assured the supernatural will turn out real, but when it’s treated as real throughout the movie, it’ll turn out to be superstition or some other supernatural thing.
Meh, it has that Shia LeBouf guy in it, or whatever his name is, and I refuse to abandon my stern LeBouf boycott. Stupid human being the main character of Transformers *grumble* *grumble* *grumble*
I don’t get why so many people say that Godfather II was better than I. Except for the flashback scenes with DeNiro, the characters just seem flat in the second one and it’s like everyone is just going through the motions. The first one was miles better.
There was no point to all the frenzied scurrying, and the ending was a mess, a great big gooey splort of special effects with no relationship to anything else that preceded it.
Uh. That is a pretty good nutshell description of life. See? Atheism does lead to nihilism. :)
Speaking of archeology, Yahoo News is reporting that Vandals have attacked Stonehenge. No word on whether Ostrogoths or Visigoths took part in the brutal tribal assault.
Silly me. I actually believed that they titled Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with the intention that it be his last crusade. How naive of me. (Of course, I was much, much younger then.)
Back in February, when the buzz about this new movie began to ramp up, I wrote a post about possible titles for future installments in the Indiana Jones oeuvre. My personal favorite is Indiana Jones and the Wheelchair-Accessible Caverns of Despair. Catchy, no? Anyone have other ideas?
(Please remember that “Oh, so very tired” has already been co-opted by a Simpsons episode as the putative title of a future Star Trek motion picture.)
Why am I so reminded of this Penny Arcade strip when hearing about Indy4?
“Indiana Myers …”
I thought Indiana was the name of the
Blogdog. ;-)Julian wrote: Meh, it has that Shia LeBouf guy in it, or whatever his name is, and I refuse to abandon my stern LeBouf boycott. Stupid human being the main character of Transformers….
Yeah, but he wasn’t bad in “Constantine,” a neglected classic as far as I’m concerned. Francis Lawrence got LeBouf and Keanu Reeves to give good performances in the same movie, which is mind-boggling. “I Am Legend,” which Lawrence directed, is apparently disappointing, though.
strike “Blog”
Fouled up the HTML :-(
“The movie kept things moving with lots of action, but ultimately, it was the writing or the lack thereof that crippled the movie. There was no point to all the frenzied scurrying, and the ending was a mess, a great big gooey splort of special effects with no relationship to anything else that preceded it.”
So . . . just how did it differ it from the first three of those crummy movies?
Lay off of “Temple of Doom”. That movie was a cinematic masterpiece.
If the dialogue sucked it was because George Lucas was involved. I can hear it now:
Lucas: Hey Steve I can save you time by helping you with the dialogues.
Spielberg: Oh really George? That’d be great!
Lucas: I know. I’ll whip out my Dialogue à la Star Wars Episodes 1-3.
Spielberg: Brilliant!!
Dr. Myers, no time for love?
Note: I am going to spoiler the shit out of this.
I could not disagree with all this negativity more. I think they played off of his advanced age well and appropriately. They did a turn around on the whole father-son theme from Last Crusade, explored one of the sadder things about getting older: i.e. everyone you know starts dying, and generlly played Indy as an older, wiser version of his adventuring self. There was absolutely a reason everyone wanted the skull: it was a source of radical otherworldly psychic power. I think they used the fact that it was set in the 50’s to great effect: not only that the enemies were communists but they had the whole red scare thing going, and LaBeouf’s character was well played as the quintessential 50’s bad boy. LaBeouf didn’t even ruin the movie; he gave his most brilliant performance yet… meaning he was adequate. I think that they did essentially stick to “the formula” but if they didn’t it wouldn’t really be an Indiana Jones movie. I think they used what they had within the formula to make it it’s own movie within the series, rther than just a remake, while at the same time keeping to the spirit of both the series and the pulp genre. I loved it. As for the end? He was all “Gimme my hat, bitch!” Fuck yeah!
I thought it was a lot of fun. No Raiders for sure, but certainly not the disaster everyone was expecting. And when I realized it was the love child of Indiana Jones and Red Alert, I was completely on board.
That sounds like you just described how they make every movie in Holywood, not just this one.
I can’t imagine any reason why anyone over the age of 10 would be excited about seeing a film like this…although I guess they let you into this one this time so that has to be a bonus.
In a strange bit of sychronicity (or if you’re cynical, a deliberate marketing stunt), yesterday’s re-run episode of Stargate SG-1 on SciFi was the Crystal Skull episode that turns Daniel invisible and ends up vindicating his grandfather’s claims about “giant aliens”. From what I’m reading here, this may have been a better story than the new movie.
“Ford was great, I think he’s become a real icon of the swashbuckling hero genre”
Your idea of a swashbuckling icon is a bland, middle class, corporate type?
Maybe there’s something to creationism after all.
Zeno:
Indiana Jones and the Enlarged Prostate of Ennui.
Saw the movie last night. What a disappointment. I am in shock from how bad the plot, direction and production was. I just can’t believe they did this to one of my favorite movie series. If you want to remember Indy as one of your fondest movie going experiences, DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE.
Dear P.Z.,
Please know I’m writing this in the most loving way.
WRITE YOUR DAMN BOOK!
I love your blog. I read it every day. I really enjoyed this funny, detailed entry. But I can’t help but think all this energy and creativity could be channeled into a best seller. Are you by chance avoiding that writing for this?
Our beloved Molly Ivins would say one could tell she was on deadline because she’d be busy reorganizing her spice rack.
Just a thought.
I loved the movie.
I think the difference between me and thee, all those who didn’t like it, is that I have different scales in my head for judging different things.
Gods vs. Science questions: Rational Scale.
Action movie questions: Action Movie Scale.
Action movies are made to engage your emotions fully, and your cerebrum only marginally. I think too many of us are unclear on this. Uber-critics might as well write scathing critiques of boxing matches, for failing to live up to their expectations of plot and character development.
Now if Lucas had tried to sneak in a serious, critical comment on evolution or science, I would have snapped to attention in an instant, and hated it.
…
Heh. I just realized that religious people use the Action Movie Scale for judging the Bible, and so do conservative Republicans for judging Bush.
There’s a HufPost article in the idea.
As promised, the next installment in the series has been posted over at my place. PZ himself is passingly mentioned. If that’s objectionable, I’ll edit it out (even though I didn’t write this piece).
Deluders of the Noachic Ark: Part the First
I’m not understanding the sheer amount of “Kate Blanchet is hot” in this thread. She’s never been hot.
My Maguffin is better than Steves Maguffin :
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2008/05/blue-jade.html
#44, movielover:
I LOVED the ending. It’s because I read about it before I went. It was meant to be a bit of a tribute to Enter The Dragon. Go back and see it again from that POV. If you haven’t seen Dragon first, my comment may not make sense.
It was meant to be confusing, intense and violent, and I think they hit the target dead-on.
My favorite movie of 2007 was Juno. Yours? I find myself continually drawn to best-screenplay winners or candidates. In recent years, that includes Little Miss Sunshine (the pageant was delightfully creepy) and Almost Famous, which I don’t think is possible to see too many times.
I’m sure I’ll like this new Jones movie too, but dang, the second one was racist. Maybe I’m looking in too many corners for racism, but I don’t think I was in this case. It was right there: The Brave White Guy is there to save the Little Brown Natives from Certain Death. Jeez, that was bad. Good roller-coaster ride, though.
Borat nearly caused a divorce in my house. The nude scene was so far over the top that my wife left. But I really liked the statement(s) it made about racism and sexism. He really caught people in moments of uncomfortable honesty. The scene in the gift shop was priceless. My question about that movie, though, is I bet they had a LOT of out-takes where people would look at Cohen and say, “Wow, you’re really a bigot!”. I have a feeling that for every “good” take they got, there were probably about four where the interviewee told Borat to go screw himself.
(And yes, I’m aware that Cohen is basically the anti-Borat.)
Zach Miller #69’s comment just shows how it is possible to be objectively wrong about such matters.
To all those saying that people don’t understand that its just an action movie and its just supposed to be exciting and engage our emotions – WE GET THAT, but it doesn’t give it a free ride to be ENORMOUSLY stupid, which as PZ points out, the plot absolutely is.
Raiders and Last Crusade were both fun exciting popcorn escape movies that ALSO were witty, had cool plots, and were, within the Indy universe (and this is important, of course not compared to reality) the films were believable and consistent and not over the top.
The last 30 minutes of Indy KCS stunk rotten. Shia with the monkeys on the vines? Come on – this is the same problem as the new Die Hard – they take characters who werent originally superheroes, just normal, badass dudes, and make them superheros just because they can and because they’ve got the special effects to do it.
Seriously – just because it is a fantasy movie based on old serials doesn’t mean it has the right to be stupid, cheesy, or, most egregiously, lazy.
(i will say the middle third of the movie was pretty awesome. My gripes are with the first and third third)
Agreement on the Lucas comment. He really went downhill after he had kids. The Star Wars prequels? PeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyOOOOOOOOOO. Stanky.
I’ll probably see Indiana Jones once and call it good.
I don’t get the all of the hate for Temple of Doom. I found the stereotyping a bit tired, but I loved the set pieces and choreography. The lack of serious character development or an amazing plot did not detract from the pure fun of a mine car chase.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
First!!!
My favorite part of “Raiders” is the beginning where Jones is explaining about the ark of the covenant and then adds “…if you believe that sort of thing.” What, a skeptical archaeologist?
Naturally, he’s wrong, and Yahweh does have a phone that melts your face if you look at it.
From the same source, the 6 original titles proposed by LucasFilms for Indy 4:
* Indiana Jones and the City of Gods
* Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds
* Indiana Jones and the Fourth Corner of the Earth
* Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
* Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Gold
* Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Covenant
#22 “Hey, at least they let you in.”
Funniest comment on this thread.
One reviewer commented, “this is the (Indiana Jones) sequel you dreaded”.
The key to why the original “RotLA” was so good was the coked-out debaucle of “1941”. Desperation over a career damaging flop can lead to some great creative effort. Of course extreme success can lead to surrounding yourself with sycophants unable or unwilling to tell the Emporer he’s buck naked and his script sucks. (I can’t imagine that none of Lucas’ posse could not see how horrible SW episodes I, II, and III were and how Jar-Jar Binks should have been left in CGI limbo)
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” rocked; the sequels – not so much.
Funny that Karen Allen is back for the 4th film. She, evidently, was such a pain in the ass on the first film, Spielberg swore he’d never work with her again. Thus the prequal “ToD” with Cate Capshaw, who succeeded Amy Irving as the second Mrs. Spielberg. After so many years – bygones, I guess…
MikeM: I also thought “Temple” was racist.
Zach: I’ll concede this is a matter of taste but Cate Blanchett is enduringly hot.
Zeno: How about “Indiana Jones and the Rambling Story that Doesn’t Go Anywhere.” (“Give me five bees for a quarter!”)
Something else the makes the sequels not match up to the original is CGI. When Butch and Sundance jumped off the cliff, actual people jumped off and actual cliff! And someone playing Indy was actually dragged underneath a truck! (at 15 MPH, but it looked faster!) Exhilarating stuff!
I can’t bemoan CGI but it has devalued action a little.
For a real thrill, check out the conclusion of Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last” (1923)
“Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds”
I absolutely adore that title. How apocalyptic! How epic! How bad-ass! And what do we get? “Crystal Skull”–some mythical artifact most folks have never even heard of. At least that title was referenced in the movie, i.e., by way of Oppenheimer’s quoting of the Bhagavad Gita.
I agree with 59. I thought it was quite fun. My only concern was that the audience had a bit too much omniscience, because the “interdimensional alien” theme is such a part of popular culture. Every person in the theatre, to the last child, understood the meaning of the elongated skulls, the Nazca lines, and tales of “Where the gods live” long before the characters. And even in the end, Indy’s son is still asking if they were from space.
However, as I came to think on it more, since it was set in the 50’s there was no good reason for the CHARACTERS to know about Aliens, “ancient astronauts”, etc. So I supose their questions might be warranted, except the audience had answered the questions themselves an hour or more before.
I’m so disappointed… (haven’t seen it yet, but can predict well enough from this thread).
The Raiders was iconic. Spielburg’s actual knowledge of how to make a good movie (story, writing, pacing, ect) along with Lucas’s, well vision, and ILM.
The second movie, pretty much crap. Everything except production was at the level of a made-for-TV piece (and not the new made-for-HBO/Showtime stuff that rocks).
The third, if you haven’t seen it do, is perhaps my favorite. Same formula, but with snappy writing, adding Connery to the mix, and tying into good mythology again.
I was really hoping this one would be more like the third… mixed up by Indy (Ford) getting old and a bit crotchety and the times and tech moving on a bit (50s with commies and all that). Alas, when I heard ‘Crystal Skull’ I immediately feared that this would be a disappointing film.
–I can’t bemoan CGI but it has devalued action a little.–
I pretty much despise CGI and how it’s taken over SFX in movies. Better a thousand latex werewolf masks and rubber sharks than another CGI movie. Except for the Jurassic Park movies and Jackson’s King Kong, I really have no use for it.
I spent most of the movie thinking about the Hellboy II trailer. This was definitely the worst Indy. CGI and campy don’t really mix well…….
Yes, CGI is ridiculously overused. I think the tipping point came from the Star Wars prequels. On the other hand, I’m curious as to why I appreciate rubber suit monsters, stop-motion dinosaurs, and animatronics more than CG, which is almost always more “correct” and, one might argue, “believable.”
Ray Harryhausen > ILM? I think so, but I don’t know why.
Anyone have other ideas?
“Indiana Jones Is Dead”
It’s 2 hours and 12.7 minutes of black screen with no sound.
Philip Glass directs.
The trailer that caught my attention was the one with Will Smith as the homeless superhero, Hancock. I’m there.
Kung Fu Panda is looking a bit more enticing now, too.
Open memo to Spielberg and Lucas:
STOP TEABAGGING MY CHILDHOOD. REALLY.
Heh, first thing I thought was “Well, apearently not so top men.”
Did it strike anyone else as odd that
*** MASSIVE SPOILER ***
.
The aliens use a tample/spaceship that, in order to enter, requires them to remove their OWN SKULL?
The movie really needed a better villain. That Russian woman was a cool character, but she just didn’t feel like a main villain. They either should have had her been much darker and more evil. Or had her be a second in command to another villain.
After reading all of the negative comments, I’m not sure whether I should be ashamed of the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed a film so many intelligent people have such disdain for, or proud of the fact that I’m able to derive joy from an experience while so many others can only get annoyance and cynicism out of it.
For what it’s worth, I felt the same way back when I saw the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie and enjoyed it more than most of the other Douglas Adams fans I knew.
On the other hand, I thought the CGI in Lord of the Rings was spectacularly well done, seamless, appropriate, necessary…
It’s like everything else; appropriate use of technology trumps inappropriate use of it.
I saw a little bit of Seventh Voyage of Sinbad on the teeeveee the other day, and, you know, they did a pretty good job with their clay models. The movie itself is goofy; no doubt about that. And we laugh at those clay models now. But think about it… They did all that with rocks and sticks, basically. On a certain level, they have my respect.
Off-topic: I see now that McCain is criticizing Obama on his lack of military experience. To which I say, Wow, that’s a stretch. I’m 49… Signing up for the draft ended before I turned 18, and re-started after I turned 25. I never had to sign up. I believe Obama was in the same boat. The only way Obama COULD have signed up was if he volunteered, and ended up invading Grenada.
How many people have that on their resume? “I helped liberate Grenada by participating in the 1983 invasion.”
Shyeah.
I was never going to vote for McCain anyway (he’s in Lord Voldemort’s political party), but I do appreciate what McCain went through. Somehow, this criticism is even more disappointing coming from McCain.
One more thing: #22 FTW.
I blame the Scientologists. Tom Cruise must’ve infected Spielberg while they were working on War of the Worlds and now XENU is in my Indiana Jones.
I would just like to point out to the Scientologists that, once Xenu gets your gold, he causes your brains to burn out of your eyes.
(I can’t believe how many people thought “yeah, this is a great idea, here, have money, do it!” It sucked.)
I saw Iron Man the other day and really enjoyed it. Since I have a gift card, I might as well see this and Batman as well.
I liked the previous Jones movies (yes, including Temple of Doom)!
Why the hate for “Temple of Doom”? It has its moments, and it is the only Indy film to not follow the formula of: bad guys acquire artifact and are destroyed by it.
Best trailer, hands down: Frank Miller’s The Spirit.
#13 a couple comments in response as i am pretty familiar with “the industry”
Still, I don’t get it. Studios invest hundreds of millions in making movies like this one, mainly paying for locations, stars, special effects, and they cannot put out a few more thousands to hire a talented scriptwriter or two?
for a movie of this pedigree, the starting pay for the writer(s) is $100K. i don’t think a few more thousand dollars would make a difference. part of the problem is that movies are made by committee. too many people are part of the development and preproduction process. people with no concept of story, plot, characterization, costume design, prop building, historical relevance (if a historical piece) for set dec, or if the film is a sequel, no concept of the elements which attracted the fans to begin with, are meddling in the process. what is the initial concept is completely convoluted at the end when in post then on the screen. all they care about is the bottom line and the box office take.
There has been quite a few of these recently, extremely costly blockbusters (and I like blockbusters) which really made me cringe, so terrible were the plotting and the writing. Beowulf anybody? (and this one had Gaiman on the staff)
the script written by neil gaiman and roger avary which follows the saga, was not the one used for the movie. zemeckis took their script then deviated. you can actually purchase a copy of the original script to see where zemeckis decides the audience wouldn’t understand beowulf returning to geatland, keeps him in denmark, then convolutes the original completely.
Indiana Jones Mad Libs.
No, really. It’s real.
*SPOILER*
So will the next film be “Indiana Jones and the Scourge of Cancer”? Hanging out near ground zero at an A-bomb test can’t be good for you.
So will the next film be “Indiana Jones and the Scourge of Cancer”? – Diego
I believe the working title is either “Indiana Jones and the Titanium Hip Replacement” or “Indiana Jones: The Quest for Stool Softener”. I love Harrison Ford, really, but I keep hearing Danny Glover in my head saying “Man, I’m getting too old for this shit” when I see him in an action scene. Time for the elder statesman type roles.
I thought it was a little disappointing as well. I mean, as just a movie it was okay but I expected a bit better. The writing was weak and cheesy at times, and there was too much just action. It felt like there was action for the sake of action. There was little mystery like you felt in the other ones and the whole communist plot was extremely weak, especially if you compared it to the Nazi plot of the third movie – in my opinion, easily the best.
I also felt that Shiloh’s character wasn’t a bad as I thought but again, I didn’t feel he added much to the film except a little humor. And aliens? I enjoyed the others because they delved into historical mysteries and legends. Why did we have to start the movie at Area 51 with ET? Did Spielberg really have to do it…
Actually, one that would make a really good fifth & final:
Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth.
They could put some of that CGI to use turning him back into young Indy.
Hmm, a MacGuffin? Does Alfred Hitchcock put in an appearance as a real-life zombie or sumpthin?
I got exactly what I expect from an Indiana Jones film, a fun, pulp action adventure film. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Saw it last night and darnit all – missed a very long pass of ISS because of it. Sigh.
I am old. It took me a few hours to get my brain started again. I gotta be careful shutting down like that. These movies are going to have to go the way of all the things I just can’t do any more.
JC
PZ, what did you expect? A good story?
Michael, #107: and I got exactly what I expected from it, based on the previous set: lot’s of “fun” mixed with the persistent reek of supernaturalism. OH, how exciting.
Doesn’t anybody think that fiction can be based on reality anymore? Is natural reality really that much of an extinguisher of good fantasy or box-office profits? I mean, COME ON ALREADY! These film-makers claim to have an IMAGINATION and they have to resort to what they think people “want” to see because it resembles commonly experienced irrational dream-states? (Or whatever?)
Like, for example, The 300 Spartans. The Richard Egan version is by far superior to that recent monstrosity. The original actually had something resembling grace and an adherence to historical accuracy. The new version was nothing more than a comic-book-fest that simply gave me a headache.
Or pirates. I’ll always prefer Charles Laughton’s Captain Kidd as a completely believable sinister character. Bad guys are always more scary if they are portrayed realistically. (Ever notice that?) Laughton just twitching his nose during a moment of pregnant silence is a thousand times more effective than Depp acting like a maniac.
As for “action”? Sure. Knock yourself out topping the last flick. But the real skill is in keeping it believable. I get jazzed up when I can BELIEVE what I’m seeing, when it corresponds to my experience of the real world. I think: “WHOA, this could really happen”, etc. But as soon as I see anything that requires me to gulp down some assinine “suspension of disbelief” (TM-Hollywood), it ruins the entire movie.
The entertainment biz has gone completely stark-staring berserk with its supposed warrant to crank up what they figure is sensational and stimulating to a public they think is afflicted with ADD, a formula they actuarially worship as boosting profit. ENOUGH already! It’s NOT entertaining anymore. It’s just tedious crap heaped up on more crap. It all turns kids minds into a slurry of it too.
I agree with jynnan_tonnyx and Michael. I just got back from the movies and I have to be honest (even though I now feel slightly ashamed of the sentiment) and say I loved it. I went into the theatre feeling rather apprehensive – I thought it would suck, especially since Star Wars died such a catastrophic death, and I really didnt want my cherished childhood memories shattered…uh, anymore than they already had been (*cough*thanks, Lucas*cough*). And yeah, there were moments when I was seriously wondering what the writers were thinking (surviving a nuclear blast in a FRIDGE???? The hell????). But once I loosened up a bit and realized that this was not intended to be in any way related to reality, I had lots of fun. Like Michael said, I got exactly what I’d expect from an Indy film and thoroughly enjoyed myelf :)
#88: “Ray Harryhausen > ILM? I think so, but I don’t know why.”
Same reason why Michelangelo > Photoshop.
So Lucas was involved in this movie somehow? That would be the reason it is like the second movie, I suppose. I was afraid of that.
And to cap it all it appears that the crystal skulls were fake all along!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7414637.stm
I bet that doesn’t make it into the script;-)
So you’re not Jonesing for another sequel?
Blockbuster movies, IMHO, should be treated like a new OS from MS…wait until everyone has tried it, then get a pirated copy.
George and Steve must be laughing all the way to the bank:
“hahaha That movie was SOOO bad!!hahaha And the idiots went and paid $12 – 15 bucks a pop ANYWAY!!hahaha and now we can hahaha totally build new beach homes in Malibuhahaha….we even got serious scientists – people who supposedly have half a brain – to watch it multiple times hahahaTOO hahaha MUCHhahaha….Oh, yeah, here young lady, please process this googleplex billion dollar check in my account, please. Did you say you were hungry, Steve? I still have the lunch menu from that place in Paris…”
my wife and i have a term for the endings of certain movies…
we say “it was spielberged”… this for exactly what you
described… way over the top endings with massive and
probably unnecessary special effects…
but what the heck… we like movies with a tight story line…
i am perfectly willing to suspend belief on a point of reality
if the rest of the script hangs together tightly… it is
only entertainment… but i detest “spielberg” endings
One line review from a friend of mine:
“The best part was when George Lucas wiped his cock on the curtains after raping my childhood.”
I didn’t think it was quite that bad, but the CG-fest of an ending did spoil it a little. Not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the first two hours though.
The sad thing is, Spielberg used to understand that it was *character* that told the story, not the special effects. Go back and watch Jaws or Close Encounters, or Raiders or even Poltergeist: the FX are indeed prominent, but are still at the service of the story. The acting is quite natural, the dialogue believable. Lucas however is on record decades ago saying he’s always wanted to make movies *without* actors. Ugh. Add to this the closed-in reclusive lifestyle of people that rich and powerful, surrounded by yes-folk, and you end up with unfortunately lop-sided movies like Crystal Skull, the Star Wars prequels, War of the Worlds, Minority Report, etc. Action-adventure/fantasy/blockbuster movies can be fun and smart and cool (Spider-man 1 and 2 for example) but Spielberg and Lucas have lost the way.
The sad thing is, Spielberg used to understand that it was *character* that told the story, not the special effects. Go back and watch Jaws or Close Encounters, or Raiders or even Poltergeist: the FX are indeed prominent, but are still at the service of the story. The acting is quite natural, the dialogue believable. Lucas however is on record decades ago saying he’s always wanted to make movies *without* actors. Ugh. Add to this the closed-in reclusive lifestyle of people that rich and powerful, surrounded by yes-folk, and you end up with unfortunately lop-sided movies like Crystal Skull, the Star Wars prequels, War of the Worlds, Minority Report, etc. Action-adventure/fantasy/blockbuster movies can be fun and smart and cool (Spider-man 1 and 2 for example) but Spielberg and Lucas have lost the way.
I’m not sure whether I should be ashamed of the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed a film so many intelligent people have such disdain for, or proud of the fact that I’m able to derive joy from an experience while so many others can only get annoyance and cynicism out of it.
The latter, Mr. Tonic. Sadly, many intelligent people get a bit full of themselves, forget that they are talking meatbags full of goo, and begin to actively decide what they will and will not enjoy based on some criteria other than actual enjoyment. You savvy?
So enjoy away. It’s even OK to *like* CGI, especially if you remember there’s actual artists manning some of the keyboards.
#51 – “Indiana Jones and the Wheelchair-Accessible Caverns of Despair” is a classic! How ’bout some of these:
Raiders of the Lost Art
Indiana Jones and the Script of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Last Straw
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Meth
A posthumous one:
Indiana Jones and the Coffin of Eternal Life
A native American one:
Indian Jones and the Reservation Reverberation
An avaricious one:
Keeping up with the Indiana Joneses….
I found the movie good, but not great. Some scenes (refrigerator, monkeys) were too silly to fit in with the rest of the action. And the ants part had to be my favorite. My entomology professor was an expert on them, so I spotted a dozen or so factual errors about them, but then I turned that part of my brain off and just enjoyed the silliness, as this wasn’t the actual Amazon, but a pulp-fiction Amazon. I also enjoyed the way that the elongated alien back of the skull was not shown in the trailers.
Before I went to see it, I re-watched Temple Of Doom because it’s the one of the original three I saw the least, and it was better than I remembered it. Still not a great movie, but at least you can enjoy the action sequences.
And to cap it all it appears that the crystal skulls were fake all along!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7414637.stm
I bet that doesn’t make it into the script;-)
Doesn’t show they are fake, just that they were not made by ancient Mayans. Obviously, that means they really are alien artifacts ;-D
My chief quarrel with CGI is the frequent lack of inertia. Case in point: At the end of SW #1, we see a big, lumbering, blubbery alien (Jar Jar’s boss) jump out of a vehicle (~3′ drop), land lightly on his toes, and waddle off. That strikes me as WRONG on a gut-level when I see it, and seriously interferes with my suspension of disbelief. LotR, on the other hand, handled it much better, at least in the first two (I never did get around to seeing #3). Gollum was spindly (and tough) enough to get away with lack of inertia, and the larger critters DID appear to have inertia. At least closely enough that I wasn’t hit over the head with “WRONG”.
I just saw it last night and loved it for all its campiness and glory, but then again, my favorite Indy movie had been the Temple of Doom. Still, if you are entomophobic, acrophobic, intrigued by conspiracy theories, or sitting just close enough to the screen so that you feel like ducking at certain points, then I think you would love it, too. I especially liked Indy’s quip about God not having such a long head: “Depends on who your god is” and Mutt’s likening of Indy’s archeology style to grave robbing. And the plot was strong, I thought, for the period it was set in, but maybe too tongue-in-cheek for critics. The things I found to be distracting were the magnetics, the refrigerator event (although funny), and the death of the antagonist.
And no, I haven’t seen the new Indy yet. I’ll probably wait until DVD. That’s how I see most flicks.
“The new version [of 300] was nothing more than a comic-book-fest”
That’s exactly what it was intended to be! Duhh! Same with the marvel comic book-derived movies. These movies aren’t aimed at “adult scientists”. They’re aimed at a wide audience, in many cases including children. All of these people have to be entertained or at least given a reasonable shot at it.
I feel sorry for those who insist the movie just has to have verisimilitude. I guess you never enjoyed any movie about Santa Claus.
Movies are not primarily an entertainment proposition, they’re a business proposition. Naturally, those which fail to attract an audience also fail as a business venture (and become a cult classic!), but the success of a movie is the box office, not what a select handful think on some blog somewhere.
So it really doesn’t matter what any one of us thinks of it, and anyone who allows their movie choices to be dictated by the comments of others, especially movie “critics” (unless those others actually do share intimately your movie-viewing habits) is being as mindlessly robotic as the creationists.
Relax. Go see it. Take out 2 hours from reality and let go for goodness sakes. Quit analyzing everything to the Nth degree.
To those commenters who feel ashamed that they liked the movie in view of the curiously disparaging comments here, yes, you should feel ashamed – ashamed that you evidently let others dictate what kind of entertainment you can allow yourself to feel good about.
And to those commenters who think that instead of using CGI, real people should quite literally put life and limb at risk for nothing more than your cheap vicarious thrills: you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. How you must mourn the end of the era of Roman games.
I suppose PZ could be Morris Myers instead of Minnesota Myers. Then Skatje would be a Morris Minor. ;-)
“The new version [of 300] was nothing more than a comic-book-fest”
That’s exactly what it was intended to be! Duhh! Same with the marvel comic book-derived movies. These movies aren’t aimed at “adult scientists”. They’re aimed at a wide audience, in many cases including children. All of these people have to be entertained or at least given a reasonable shot at it.
I feel sorry for those who insist the movie just has to have verisimilitude. I guess you never enjoyed any movie about Santa Claus.
Movies are not primarily an entertainment proposition, they’re a business proposition. Naturally, those which fail to attract an audience also fail as a business venture (and become a cult classic!), but the success of a movie is the box office, not what a select handful think on some blog somewhere.
So it really doesn’t matter what any one of us thinks of it, and anyone who allows their movie choices to be dictated by the comments of others, especially movie “critics” (unless those others actually do share intimately your movie-viewing habits) is being as mindlessly robotic as the creationists.
Relax. Go see it. Take out 2 hours from reality and let go for goodness sakes. Quit analyzing everything to the Nth degree.
To those commenters who feel ashamed that they liked the movie in view of the curiously disparaging comments here, yes, you should feel ashamed – ashamed that you evidently let others dictate what kind of entertainment you can allow yourself to feel good about.
And to those commenters who think that instead of using CGI, real people should quite literally put life and limb at risk for nothing more than your cheap vicarious thrills: you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. How you must mourn the end of the era of Roman games.
I definitely choose the latter. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather sit back and enjoy the ride rather than play “cynical pissant armchair-critic”. Heck, I even enjoyed Star Wars Episodes I-III and the Dungeons and Dragons movie. You guys have fun with your high blood pressure and your ulcers. Life’s too short to crap on the things I enjoy.
Quiet Desperation (#120):
And if we get actual enjoyment from criticism, what then?
APic @ 117,
“The best part was when George Lucas wiped his cock on the curtains after raping my childhood.”
Mwa ha ha! OMFG, I had to go to the bathroom before I wet my pants and then I had to make myself a nice cup of tea to calm down.
Now I know how to describe my reaction to Star Wars 1-3 and the digitally remastered ending to Jedi. You know, the part where Lucarse (not a typo) put Hayden Christensen in as the glowing jedi spirit of Anakin Skywalker. Utter rage.
Despite all the comments on this thread, plus PZ’s comment, I’ll still fork over my $10 and probably enjoy the rape of the crystal skull.
Truth be told, I enjoyed (for the most part) Star Wars 1-3. Was so cool to have something from my childhood continued. Ditto for Indy. What kid doesn’t want to be an archeologist after viewing those movies? Yeah, I know it’s nothing like reality, but it’s still inspiring imagination whilst entertaining people. In my book, that’s cool.
I still totally hate the new Jedi ending though. Ugh.
And if we get actual enjoyment from criticism, what then?
Well now there you have a genuine conundrum. Maybe you just think you enjoy it. :-)
I enjoyed (for the most part) Star Wars 1-3
I thought the pod race was neat because of the whole chariot-like nature of harnessing the engines like horses.
I *LOVED* Anakin getting three limbs burned off in lava. That almost made the whole trilogy worth it.
Oh, and some of the light saber battles were fine, I suppose. And the Kaminoans were cool. These guys: http://www.starwars.com/databank/species/kaminoan/img/movie_bg.jpg
Saw it last night and liked it. I’d put it between Temple of Doom and Last Crusade.
For those panning the script, I wonder if you’re not seeing the other films through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. I love them to death, by they ain’t exactly shining examples of screenwriting. Or acting. Just fun-as-hell action/adventure movies.
And I say that as someone who’s idolized Indy from the first time a saw a trailer for Raiders.
Again, just because a movie is popcorn escapism, doesn’t mean that criticizing it is just being cynical and over-thinking. There’s good popcorn (True Lies, X-Men, even Transformers!) and bad popcorn (Crystal Skull).
You cant just say “Oh, its just a popcorn flick, just enjoy it”. Stupidity ruins movies, and the plot and last 30 minutes of this movie were beyond stupid. These are talented professional people who are just being lazy because they don’t care, because they know they will making billions of dollars. Spielberg and Lucas could shit out moderately enjoyable movies in their sleep. If they had cared to try, they would have come up with a decent plot. Bad writing is bad writing. Bad movies are bad. If I don’t enjoy the movie, I don’t enjoy the movie. Im not telling anyone they have to DISLIKE the movie, but people are telling everyone else that they basically HAVE to like it, or else we are cynical, or are lying to ourselves.
Jason Apple, you are 100% right. A good movie is a good movie, and it can be anything from a Kurosawa epic like “Ran” to a teenage comedy like “Bring It On.” I’m not saying those movies are equally art, but good movies don’t insult one’s intelligence by requiring you to turn off your brain completely. As someone who admires both filmmaking and film criticism, and who was a film minor, I bristle a bit when people think I’m over-analyzing a movie when I criticize it. I think even popcorn summer blockbusters should aspire to a little bit of art and not slack in areas of character and dialogue and plot. “Crystal Skull,” with another script polish, could’ve been really special; instead, it’s merely okay. Except for Ford, he’s great as always.
And I would argue that “Raiders of the Lost Ark” *is* an example of fine screenwriting art: when Marion punches Indy in the jaw, the screenwriter (Lawrence Kasdan) knew that would tell you more about those two characters than pages and pages of exposition and dialogue. It’s my favorite bit in all four movies.
So I was so disappointed in the terrible errors in the movie that I took notes on my hand. I typed them up and plan on sending them to my friends. Here they are:
• Meso-American culture (Mayan language) translates to Incan archeological remains and the Nazca Lines in Peru
• Indy refers to the “Hindu Bible”. Are you serious??
• Cate Blanchett refers to something as paranormal, and then five minutes later, calls it “natural”. Abnormal/unnatural becomes natural??
• Magnetic properties translate to psychic properties. That’s right. So the earth must be a giant psychic attractor force thing…
• The alien skeletons are identical to human ones except for the ribcage. And the fact that they’re crystal.
• Said aliens inhabit a different dimension…and travel there in a flying disk.
• Babylonian, Sumerian, Egyptian artifacts (and Buddha!) somehow find themselves in Peru.
• An incredibly powerful magnet does not attract metals until it is taken out of a cloth bag. I wonder what that cloth’s made of…
• Indy avoids nuclear fallout by hiding in a “lead-lined” refrigerator, emerges in time to witness a mushroom cloud, and goes through nothing worse than being scrubbed down by the FBI as a consequence.
• Indy’s son is able to swing around on vines after watching monkeys do it. Yes, monkey see, monkey do.
MikeM @#95:
I was just thinking that while reading other people’s complaints about CGI.
Back in the early ’90s, there was a spate of quite good cartoons on TV, most notably the Batman animated series. My explanation at the time was that special effects in cartoons don’t cost extra: having the hero jump out of an exploding building costs as much as showing him walking down the street. So sequences that would have required a huge budget for a live-action film were well within the budget of the smallest animation company. Therefore, the way to stand out is to have a well-written show.
Helie L should cease attending movies immediately.
I *LOVED* Anakin getting three limbs burned off in lava.
they should have done that at the beginning of filming for the second movie.
It might have improved Hayden Christensen’s acting.
well, at least it wouldn’t have made it any worse.
*shudders just thinking about it*
#88: “Ray Harryhausen > ILM? I think so, but I don’t know why.”
Same reason why Michelangelo > Photoshop. – fcaccin
Not to nitpick TOO much but Photoshop is a program and Michelangelo was a brilliant artist/architect. You really can’t compare a tool to a craftsman and expect there to be ANY kind of contest. Photoshop is an AMAZING tool in the right hands, I have been using it since version 3.0 so am very familiar with it, but in the hands of a novice (or worse yet a hack) you will only get mediocre results back – at best. It isn’t a magic wand.
If Michelangelo were able to use Photoshop he would still be an incredible artist but he would have been a much more productive one.
It isn’t a magic wand.
…but it does have one!
:p
btw, since this is an open thread…
anybody a Lakers fan hereabouts?
30 point blowout!
WOOT!
I left the movie tonight feeling so disappointed and sad- what a shitty movie……
“The new version [of 300] was nothing more than a comic-book-fest”
That’s exactly what it was intended to be! Duhh! Same with the marvel comic book-derived movies. These movies aren’t aimed at “adult scientists”. They’re aimed at a wide audience, in many cases including children. All of these people have to be entertained or at least given a reasonable shot at it.
I feel sorry for those who insist the movie just has to have verisimilitude. I guess you never enjoyed any movie about Santa Claus.
Movies are not primarily an entertainment proposition, they’re a business proposition. Naturally, those which fail to attract an audience also fail as a business venture (and become a cult classic!), but the success of a movie is the box office, not what a select handful think on some blog somewhere.
So it really doesn’t matter what any one of us thinks of it, and anyone who allows their movie choices to be dictated by the comments of others, especially movie “critics” (unless those others actually do share intimately your movie-viewing habits) is being as mindlessly robotic as the creationists.
Relax. Go see it. Take out 2 hours from reality and let go for goodness sakes. Quit analyzing everything to the Nth degree.
To those commenters who feel ashamed that they liked the movie in view of the curiously disparaging comments here, yes, you should feel ashamed – ashamed that you evidently let others dictate what kind of entertainment you can allow yourself to feel good about.
And to those commenters who think that instead of using CGI, real people should quite literally put life and limb at risk for nothing more than your cheap vicarious thrills: you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. How you must mourn the end of the era of Roman games.
What an utter dissapointment! I took my 8 year old son to see this today (I saw RotLA at the same age with my father)- total rubbish……Too much CGI, too little plot, pointless extended chase scenes, cliched and rubbish plot devices (quicksand scene springs to mind)and unbelievabl. This last point may sound daft, but cast your mind back to the original RotLA and only the final ARK scenes were faintly daft – but at least forgivable given the religous nature of the artifact. With Crystal Skull nearly all of it was make believe and did’nt fit in with the “Indy” world.
Also why bother bringing Marion back at all? She had little dialogue and nothing much to do. Karen Allen’s role in RoTLA was good with an excellent script. Also the whole Mutt/Son thing was just so predictable.
What a lousy film that has really destroyed my childhood memories of India Jones. And to think that Speilberg once directed good films………
Phil
Hey I just realized something, the crystal skulls in the movie are made of quartz, quartz is Silicon Dioxide, meaning the aliens in the movie probably have a Silicon based biochemistry.
“Cinemabiology” is a very interesting subject.
I just came back from seeing it myself, and pretty much agree with Phil’s commentary @148.
I would also add that a 70 year old Harrison Ford is simply no longer a believable action hero, even with all the makeup and editing.
as far as the series goes, I think it was slightly better than “Temple of Doom”, but that’s about it.
still, as far as the adventure films available to see at the moment, it wasn’t a total waste of money (as a matinee).
I’ve seen worse (not that that is a good thing).
“And to those commenters who think that instead of using CGI, real people should quite literally put life and limb at risk for nothing more than your cheap vicarious thrills: you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. How you must mourn the end of the era of Roman games.”
What a profoundly ignorant statement. This is a classic false dichotomy. You dont have to be in the film industry to understand how silly that is. First, you can do lots of stunts very safely without risking much at all. Second, its not all about stunts. You can use props and sets and practicals to do cool stuff without relying on “add it in post”. On top of that, you can write stuff into the script that is not so silly and over the top that you HAVE to use CGI.
The movie felt like a fanfiction-quality version of “National Treasure” filtered through the mind of a 12 year old Michael Bay. Absolutely dreadful. Lucas continues to piss all over my childhood memories.
To neutralize the adverse effect of seeing this movie, I’m going to see “2001” or “A Clockwork Orange”.
You know, me, I liked this film! Sure, it had flaws, and many, but regardless I had a good time with it. It was better than “Temple of Doom”, thought not quite as good as “Last Crusade”.
Actually, if I had to sum up what I thought was wrong with the film, it’s that everyone inovled seemed to be trying too hard. There wasn’t the relaxed sort of atmosphere one got with the original movies.
Still, worth seeing!
Whag the hell was with Spider Labouf?! The worst CGI I’ve seen in many a year. Big long elastic limbs swinging from fake trees with faker little cute monkeys swinging along for the ride?! What a [iece of crap that scene was! And then lets talk about the duck boat swinging in the tree. Indy always pushed suspension of disbelief to the maximum, but that was worse than an old Abbott and Costello chase sequence! Too bad, the storyline could have been fantastic, but they cheaped out with bad writing that ripped off sub par movies like The Mummy and National Treasure, and they relied too heavily on CGI.
Disappointed, disappointed, disappointed.
It got off to a good start, with Indy ingeniously (though improbably) surviving being at ground zero of a nuclear explosion. That’s exactly the kind of awesome absurdity I expect out of an Indiana Jones movie. Unfortunately, that was it. That was the best moment in the whole thing, and it happened within the first ten minutes.
And the inconsistent magnetic properties of the skull irritated me to no end. Sometimes it makes metal objects slide across the floor from several feet away, but it’s completely inert when its magnetism would do something inconvenient like interfere with a sword fight. I can’t be the only one who noticed that. I mean, come on. Absurdity is fine (even desirable) in a summer popcorn movie, but inconsistency is not. A movie can make its own rules as ridiculous as it wants, but once they’re established it has to play by them. Anything else is shoddy screenwriting.
Well, what’s worse: crystal skulls, or another movie reinforcing old-testament myths?
I actually know people who think the holy grail is out there, along with everything from Da Vinci Code.
I liked it. Yes, the script was full of holes, but that didn’t bother me too much. It was fast-paced, funny and camp, read: exactly what I expected. The Last Crusade is still my favourite, though (I love the dialogue). Speaking of which, anybody else notice how the look Indy gives Mutt right after the head falls off of Brody’s statue is pretty much exactly the look Jones sr. gave Indy during the motorcycle chase in TLC? “This is not funny young man”. Tehehe. Great role reversal there.
And as to how the hell Indy survived a nuclear blast with a refrigarator as his only protection: well, he did drink from the Holy Grail, so he’s kind of immortal ;).
Late to the party here but…
I enjoyed it, though probably not enough to justify the ticket cost. We really didn’t need more evidence of Luca’s descent into crippling insanity.
I have to respond to Citizen Z’s comment about Darabont though – After having seen what he did to the ending of The Mist, I don’t know how much better he’d do. Seriously, I know it wasn’t high art, but how the hell do you direct characters for two hours of screen time, and then in the last 5 minutes completely reverse their entire psyche while obliterating the feel of the world and declaring your giant stiffy for the military. He seems to think it was ‘darker’, but it was just trite and shallow. I’ve seen mud puddles with more depth than what he’s apparently capable of, if The Mist is any example. (Ok, Shawshank was good, fine. Maybe he sucks at horror…)
Oh, and I guess my biggest complaint is the number of movies that seem to put the onus of “suspension of disbelief” on the audience. No, you jackasses, your job is to not violate common sense so horribly it makes our brains wretch. It’s not our fault if you can’t distract the audience from implausibility.
I’m with Helie L…though you missed at least one.
And Lucas/Spielberg have done this to me the last two IJ movies. I can “suspend disbelief” pretty well for a popcorn/action movie. So it’s fantasy. I can deal. (Historicals are another matter; don’t get me going on Braveheart, though I liked Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe it’s the whole Christlike figure and Mel Gibson being an ultra-Catholic.)
What manages to suck me out of brain-dead enjoyment is usually something that is so egregiously wrong that my brain is saying “WTF…can’t anybody do basic factual research or do they just not care, or figure ‘Nobody will ever notice’?” Said something is usually just plain badly out-of-place.
In Last Crusade, that moment hit when they started into the entrance passageway to Petra, where I’ve never been but I’ve seen plenty of pics over the years…and I started thinking, “Oh, no, not the Treasury. Please. There are other spectacular, less well-known tombs there.”
In this one, it was the use of the Aztec calendar stone, in South America, no less; it seemed like every time they turned around, they were standing on a replica of the bloody thing, or crawling over it (the shifting stone on the way to the conquistador’s tomb, hmmm?) or something.
The “magnetism” got to me, too, especially since it was strong enough to make things fly through the air for some distance…but simply holding something in a hand was enough to make it stop. And especially when Irina pulled her rapier away from it…and it stayed down and in place by her side. Yeah. Right.
Now, the “Hindu Bible” bit…I’ve heard that used before as a shorthand reference. Incredibly inaccurate, but it does convey to a benighted Westerner the general authority and reverence in which the texts are held.
Just saw it yesterday. Entertaining tripe. The ending was so ridiculous I couldn’t suspend disbelief any further.
I know that movies like this feature characters who survive miraculously when they should have been killed. But going over three Niagara-size falls (maybe Angel Falls) in a car and emerging safe each time is just too much. Then observing a time-space warp with boulders flying overhead yet not even getting dust in the eyes – words fail.