Spare us all! Another Indiana Jones film could be on the way (1 Viewer)

[Steve Y]

In Temple of Doom, the cult leader ripped out a still-beating heart with no trace of incision, and his victim continued to live. If the Indy series ever went off the rails into the "absurd", it was then. And remember how "absurd" it was when Indy "turned to the dark side" after drinking blood? But not as many people seemed to complain at the time. Granted, not a lot of people like Temple of Doom (I happen to love it) but it's very consistent with what they've been doing with the series all along.

 

Even in the first movie, he was assaulted by holy spirits who melted away enemies like butter. In the third film they meet a knight from the crusades. I mean come on. I think people reacted negatively because it wasn't a religious (per se) artifact. That's one of the Indiana Jones trademarks so people freaked out when they took a different route, but one no less absurd.

 

I think the real reason people were "up in arms" about Indy 4 wasn't because it went too far. It's because it didn't go far enough. IMO the second half of Indy 4 was quite lackluster (after a brilliant opening). There are some decent character moments, but there's little-to-no suspense as they make their way to the temple and explore it. And the the most intelligent antagonist in the film wasn't ever that much of a threat. By the time the CGI whirlwind comes along, you're kind of "so what". Considering the outlandish setting, it really didn't have any high stakes. I mean, come on - the end reminded me of National Treasure 2.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Stealing hearts and melting faces all have a context to them, that of the supernatural. That's one part of the Indiana Jones formula.

 

Randomly swinging monkey boys and nuclear impervious refrigerators have no such context, which is why they play so poorly.

 

It's an apples and oranges comparison.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Zack Gibbs
 

Randomly swinging monkey boys and nuclear impervious refrigerators have no such context, which is why they play so poorly.

 

It's an apples and oranges comparison.

What about the rubber raft in Temple Of Doom that takes them from a crashing airplane and goes all the down a river without popping? That's just as ridiculous as a refrigerator getting tossed away from a nuclear blast.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Originally Posted by TravisR
What about the rubber raft in Temple Of Doom that takes them from a crashing airplane and goes all the down a river without popping? That's just as ridiculous as a refrigerator getting tossed away from a nuclear blast.

 

Are you kidding? The rubber raft sequence is decidedly a 5 on the ridiculous meter. Refrigerator Toss is a 10. That's 100% more ridiculous. Duh.

 

[Chad R]

Originally Posted by SilverWook

A lot of what Indy does in all the films could be considered theft from various points of view. Belloq even gloats there isn't much difference between them. Someone in Temple of Doom brings up the tomb robber accusation. It probably should have been set up a lot better, but I seriously doubt Spielberg was out to make Indy that deliberately crooked in Crusade. One could also make a case that Indy has gotten a lot of people killed over the years. Must be hard to hire guys to lug your gear into the jungle sometimes.

 

Was "Panama Hat" guy constantly on the run from Indy with the cross all that time? And IIRC, weren't those goons about to toss Indy into a storm tossed ocean? Mind you, if Indy had broken into the guy's house and shot up the place, that would put him in a pretty bad light.

No, I don't think Spielberg intended to make Indy that way, but he did. And since that was the man's boat, his property as much as his house, then it's just as bad as Indy breaking into his house. And the sheriff didn't need to be on the take. Those guys were rightfully digging and found an artifact. It was theirs. Just because it offended Indy's then sensibility of "it belongs in a museum" did he bother to fight for it.

 

My point is that all of the sequels have their problems, but the good always outweighs the bad in my opinion. Even in Crystal Skull. The rocket sled sequence was a lot of fun, so was the motorcycle chase through the college. I had lots of fun with it, despite some of the more ridiculous parts like the triple agent bit, which is why I welcome a fifth movie with open arms.

 

[SilverWook]

Originally Posted by Zack Gibbs



 

Are you kidding? The rubber raft sequence is decidedly a 5 on the ridiculous meter. Refrigerator Toss is a 10. That's 100% more ridiculous. Duh.

Didn't they do the rubber raft thing on Mythbusters a few years back?

 

[Zack Gibbs]

^^Rofl they did. I was going to say "There's no way Mythbusters would bother testing the refrigerator myth!" However, if not for the need of a nuclear explosion, I'm sure they absolutely would.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by SilverWook

Didn't they do the rubber raft thing on Mythbusters a few years back?

I've never seen that show but they had three people (or two adults and a child) jump out of an out of control airplane in a 1930's rubber raft (which I assume is not as well constructed as a raft made today) onto a mountain, rode that raft all the way down the snowy mountain to a point where the snow had melted and then they were just riding on dirt and then they jumped it off of a cliff and into a river and all three people managed to survive without any serious injury? Those guys have balls.

 

[SilverWook]

I've had my doubts someone could be lowered that close to a pool of lava and not suffer severe burns, but given the cliffhanger serials these movies draw inspiration from, (where nobody ever seems to break a bone or skin their knees) you have to relax and roll with it sometimes.

 

Mythbusters could simulate the shockwave effects of a nuke if they could get several tons of TNT though. I saw footage of such a test on some old science show years ago. Given the logistics and cost, maybe it will have to wait for the inevitable Mythbusters movie.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by SilverWook

I've had my doubts someone could be lowered that close to a pool of lava and not suffer severe burns, but given the cliffhanger serials these movies draw inspiration from, (where nobody ever seems to break a bone or skin their knees) you have to relax and roll with it sometimes.

 

Definitely but my point is that the refrigerator scene in Crystal Skull isn't the only ridiculous scene in an Indy movie.

 

[Edwin-S]

 

The rocket sled sequence was a lot of fun, so was the motorcycle chase through the college. I had lots of fun with it, despite some of the more ridiculous parts like the triple agent bit, which is why I welcome a fifth movie with open arms.

 

When I was watching that motorcycle chase, I kept thinking "Fred MacMurray where are you? Some guy named Harrison Ford is in your movie". That whole scene with the accompanying music just reminded me of a Disney movie with Fred MacMurray.....just not as good, because Fred MacMurray's Disney films are classics AFAIAC.

 

[Richard--W]

I had hoped the fourth Indiana Jones movie would be a chapter serial, perhaps 15 to 24 chapters (the more the better) lasting about 24 minutes each, in authentic double-interlock 3-D (to screen later when the industry catches up). After milking the serial for a couple of years in theaters they could recut it into two or three feature-length films adding additional footage to each shot for that purpose. That's how I would have done it.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Originally Posted by Steve Y

In Temple of Doom, the cult leader ripped out a still-beating heart with no trace of incision, and his victim continued to live. If the Indy series ever went off the rails into the "absurd", it was then. And remember how "absurd" it was when Indy "turned to the dark side" after drinking blood? But not as many people seemed to complain at the time. Granted, not a lot of people like Temple of Doom (I happen to love it) but it's very consistent with what they've been doing with the series all along.

 

Even in the first movie, he was assaulted by holy spirits who melted away enemies like butter. In the third film they meet a knight from the crusades. I mean come on. I think people reacted negatively because it wasn't a religious (per se) artifact. That's one of the Indiana Jones trademarks so people freaked out when they took a different route, but one no less absurd.

Here is the thing for me. After watching Indy4 in the theater, I rewatched Temple of Doom and it suddenly looked good and seemed to fit properly, albeit well below, in the first three rather than being the standout out-of-place movie with really ridiculous stunts. At least there was still the mystery and exploration in TOD and Indy was behaving like Indy, i.e. very knowledgeable about history and local customs and he used that knowledge to get through the day (plus his fists). TOD should be the worst Indy movie but that was replaced by KOTCS.

 

I hope they can do another movie but if the stories about Lucas forcing his aliens storyline be used or the movie wouldn't be made are true, I hope they can kick him completely off the project before getting started.

 

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Chuck Anstey  

 

...if the stories about Lucas forcing his aliens storyline be used or the movie wouldn't be made are true...

I know that some people like to solely blame George Lucas for everything from the Indy IV script to unrest in the Middle East but Spielberg and Ford had to agree to the script as well. They all agreed to the script that was used so they all share the credit or blame for that one being used.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I blame the direction as much as, if not more than, the script. Spielberg's direction veered from lifeless to uninspired to pedestrian. His lack of enthusiasm was pretty obvious, and it hurt the film more than the generic script. I said as much in the Discussion thread.

 

[Andy Sheets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck Anstey

I hope they can do another movie but if the stories about Lucas forcing his aliens storyline be used or the movie wouldn't be made are true, I hope they can kick him completely off the project before getting started.

But it's his character. If anyone's leaving an Indiana Jones project it's everyone but Lucas. And it's not like he sprung the aliens thing on his partners - for years the big rumor on the "next Indiana Jones movie" was that it was likely to involve Indy fighting Soviets in the 50s over UFOs and I don't recall anything about Spielberg ever objecting to that because he likes old sci-fi movies, too.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I wouldn't want an IJ without Lucas. I'd prefer someone else wrote the script, but I want GL to work the ideas and themes. As Andy says, it's HIS character.

 

[MitsuruX]

The thing that really bothered me about IV was that there was alot of "glimpses" of what could have been a good movie.. . (example: when they discovered the mummies), but the way way to many parts that were way over to top (more so than any other indy over the top moments).

 

The Crystal skull and an Alien plot didn't bother me, but the last 20 min special effect resolution was not a good conclusion..(IMO of couse)

 

3 parts that i would have changed:

 

Refrigerator Nuke blast, not needed, and there could have been a different way for the story to progress, perhaps he gets caught after the rocket sled point.

 

Parts of the Jungle chase/fight sequence - Drop the swinging monkeys part, par down some of the sword fight scene, get rid of the three water falls and elastic tree sequence.

 

Chsange the final resolution - don't show chrystal skeletons, indy sould have confronted main villan himself, no CGI space ship, perhaps the skull could have "unlocked" something better (instead use the natives for more the 10 seconds)

 

 

even with those grips i welcome a Indy V, perhaps they can do better

 

 

 

[Will_B]

I was confused by how the crystal skull turned up in some other location -- some old earthen and stone structures guarded by some locals. I remember there being lots of exposition about how someone hid it there, but I didn't follow who or why (some other archeologist maybe?), and wished that scene had been excised from the film.

 

And the final set piece was too CGI and not enough good old fashioned studio. (As was the jungle car chase, which had worse fake vegetation than Serenity's flying-mule chase). The ants were good.

 

But the pacing was terrible, there was no romance or humor between Indy and the Soviet lady (which is always essential in these kinds of films), and though it was nice to see Mary Ann again the actress hadn't kept up on acting lessons.

 

I thought the 'fridge scene -- the whole nuclear village scene -- was essential. It put Indy in a moment that everyone has seen a thousand times in documentary footage. And that worked. That was magic. It felt like they were putting Indy there to draw our attention to that time and place in history and technology, for a reason... but then they failed to connect it to the alien plot:

 

The familiar tones of Spielberg's obsession with aliens was fine. The script injected plenty of contemporary theories into that, despite being set in the 1950s -- the old scientist murmured at the end that the aliens came "not from outer space", but rather "the space between spaces" (a nod to modern perspectives on aliens being interdimensional or using interdimensional technology to move great distances). That bit of dialogue, and even the crystal skull being magnetic even though it was crystal, was all intended to tie in to the nuclear theme that the film presented. (Nuclear bomb research, nuclear physics giving rise to quantum physics in the mid-to-late 1950s).

 

However, if the intent had been to play up how research into the atom was opening up new places for a fella like Indy to explore, that theme was presented only haphazardly.

 

Basically it felt like the story had gone through far too many writers or too many drafts, leaving many parts of the film limp. It was as if no one remained who had any clear idea on what scenes were important and what scenes were just meant as transition pieces... or what the big-look at the 1950s was about. The film seemed to lack ownership.

 

[MitsuruX]

Originally Posted by Will_B

 

Basically it felt like the story had gone through far too many writers or too many drafts, leaving many parts of the film limp. It was as if no one remained who had any clear idea on what scenes were important and what scenes were just meant as transition pieces... or what the big-look at the 1950s was about. The film seemed to lack ownership.

Yes, yes and yes, thank you for putting into words exactly how i felt about the movie as a whole...