Indiana Jones Discussion Thread (Spoilers)

[Recoil]

OK,

So I just saw the movie. Figured we should have a thread if anyone wants to talk about it.

Most of the people I saw it with flat out thought it was the worst of the Indiana Jones movies (below Temple of Doom). I wasn't prepared to give it that low of a mark, but to be honest, when the movie first started, it didn't have an Indiana Jones feel to it.

Perhaps it was the theater I saw it in. A "dinner/drink" theater, and we were sitting near the front, so I was practically under the movie screen. The picture looked fuzzy a lot (probably the theater) and the sound was a bit off (where we were sitting) so maybe my brain had trouble connecting at first.

First, my comments:

Overall story? On one hand, the story was OK by me. I thought the aliens thing was a WEIRD direction for Indiana Jones. However, they already did the God thing twice, and then some never-heard-of-before Shankara stones, so I guess they did have to go somewhere different. And if you were going to do a story about an ancient advanced civilization (even like Atlantis) then aliens have always been part of those ancient myths. Aliens are tied to Atlantis stories, to Mayan culture (there is the ancient carving of what looks like a man in a spaceship if you choose to see it that way) and even in ancient Egypt there have always been those stories and legends....so while it was weird to see a flying saucer in an Indiana Jones movie...I guess when you think of some of the most ancient legends....its not too bad.

Action sequences. This is what finally (at first) made me realize I'm watching an Indiana Jones movie. Running from bad guys with bad aim. Car chases. Fist fight while driving. I thought they were all very well done and fun to watch --- except for one.

For me the lowest point in the movie is where "Mutt" gets pulled off the vehicle in the jungle chase by these vines, sees a bunch of monkeys, then starts playing tarzan and swinging around (with the monkeys). What made it even worse, is that he caught up with the vehicles, AND managed to kick the Russian lady. That was just a bit TOO over the top for me. This was shortly followed by Marion driving the duck off the cliff, landing on a branch, and softly in the water. So the jungle sequence seemed a little too tough to take.

I was also a bit mystified by what they did with Indy's character after the last movie. So...he somehow was in WWII (I guess anything is possible) but worked his way up to Colonel? Then he was a spy? All of that stuff just didn't seem to fit. I mean I realize WWII was big enough to reach just about anyone, but for a college professor in his 30s to somehow enter at that level...just weird. And the spy/FBI/CIA/missions he was on stuff just seemed...out of character. Then the thing with the feds suspecting him of being a commie...red scare, etc, just seemed out of place. Again, something that made it tough to realize it was an Indiana Jones movie at the start.

Then there was the A-Bomb scene. OK, lead lined fridge? Check. Surviving this fridge bouncing all over the countryside? Check. Surviving the intense heat that the blast generated without being cooked inside that thing? Check. Hopping out and not getting instantly overdosed of radiation? Check. A little too over the top too...and frankly I wonder why that scene was even in the movie at all.

So I think it started on VERY shaky ground. Then it fell into its stride. Was a fun ride. The story was OK, but nothing spectacular. But I guess one needs to remember that even Raiders of the Lost Ark was meant to be a B Movie...paying homage to 40s and 50s action serials and comic strips. And this movie did fit into that category.

I think before I fully judge it, I'll need to see it again. Somewhere where I'm not sitting at the base of the screen (practically) and enjoy it on its own terms. Maybe I can form a better opinion then. But for now, I was disappointed (and I tried not to have expectations too high) but not as disappointed as those I saw it with, who thought it was terrible.

What did everyone else think?

 

[Chilli]

Double thread .. though the first one was very hard to recognize.


The monkey bit was, too, for me the one bit that was a bit too over the top. The second thing that went a bit too far for me was the waterfalls .. not that they survived three of them, but that they didn't even check if they had all survived after every one. Made it a bit too obvious that the heroes just couldn't die.

Otherwise, though, I found it intensely enjoyable.

 

[Recoil]

Well that thread doesn't exactly say "Hi, Im a thread to discuss Indiana Jones movie" so it never occurred to me to post there...and probably others as well. So I wouldn't call it a double thread. Besides, I just peeked at that thread since you mentioned it...and it seems to be spoiler free, so it is definitely not a double thread. This is the one to talk about the movie itself.

Yea the waterfall thing was a bit much. But at least on the second one you saw them falling OUT of the vehicle and then all having to crawl back in. Again, Indiana Jones movies were never known for "realism" per say, so stuff like that isn't so bad, its meant to be fun. But the monkeys and the "George of the Jungle" routine just seemed pretty weak.

 

[Cell]

Having seen KOTCS last night, it's not that good.

The character of Mutt seems forced all movie long and the scene where he starts swinging from the vines like a monkey is just ridiculous. The "Mutt doing the splits" on moving cars bit was too Indy. I know they want him to be the next Indy, but save the big time heroics from him for his own film if they plan on doing that. What always made Indy so special was that he did all the crazy and absurd stuff that no one else could do, but now we have Mutt doing the same stuff, and it's nowhere near as believable.

The aliens were frankly, pathetic. It's not the fact that they were aliens, but they were cliche and a Stargate rip off all rolled into one. The scene at the end with the one alien glaring in at the Russian chick was cringe worthy.

It's also nice to see a tremendous actor like John Hurt reduced to nothing but idiotic mumblings where he adds nothing to the story. Same goes for Marion who gets reduced to a couple of one liners and smirks at the camera as the manly men do everything else around her.

The pacing of the movie was really off, and that was the worst because it stopped an Indy movie from being what an Indy movie needs to be, fun. Indy isn't big over bloated action sequences and explanations of the plot galore, Indy is small character moments followed by fast paced and fun action scenes. I believe whole heartedly that The Last Crusade was the pinnacle of the Indy franchise in every way, whereas KOTCS showed that the franchise should have stayed dead.

The killer ants that were mentioned previously were an obvious rip-off of The Mummy, and isn't it amazing that the first two Mummy's (didn't see Scorpion King so can't comment) actually understood and produced a better action movie than the supposed pinnacle of the genre in Indy?

I was bored stiff by the Indy investigates sequence that took place after the nuke and before the car chase. It seems like a lot of exposition that was handled in a clunky and boring fashion.

Now, all that being said this wasn't a good movie but it wasn't a terrible movie.

Outside of the insanity of the fridge I liked the entire opening sequence all the way up until Indy got out of the fridge. The silhouette of Indy and the bomb cloud was particularly choice.

I liked the little tidbits of Indy showing off in small ways where he wasn't even really trying to show off. Those little character moments were the best part of the movie hands down.

I liked the end chase scene, but that led into the alien ending that I didn't like. The problem with the ending was that they explained everything to a T and left you with a nice no questions asked ending. Part of the allure of the Indy franchise was that the big bad artifact, or whatever, was still for the most part a mystery at the end of the movie. It may have been used and they may have showed it in use, but they didn't pile on a big CGI effect and exposition to explain what it was, how it works, and show it completely. They left a little bit of mystery to ti, and that was lacking in KOTCS.

Yeah, that ended up being a longer rant than I was expecting. The bottom line is I should never groan out loud at a flick like this, nor should I stare at the big screen and mutter, "Fucking Lucas", nor should I almost fall asleep in the middle of it. Yet all of those things were true last night. Indy is a decent flick, but it falls way short of Iron Man, Prince Caspian, and even Cloverfield for best movie in 2008 consideration and actually ends up at or near the same level as Semi-Pro and 10,000 BC, and that is not a good thing.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

OK,

I was also a bit mystified by what they did with Indy's character after the last movie. So...he somehow was in WWII (I guess anything is possible) but worked his way up to Colonel? Then he was a spy? All of that stuff just didn't seem to fit. I mean I realize WWII was big enough to reach just about anyone, but for a college professor in his 30s to somehow enter at that level...just weird. And the spy/FBI/CIA/missions he was on stuff just seemed...out of character. Then the thing with the feds suspecting him of being a commie...red scare, etc, just seemed out of place. Again, something that made it tough to realize it was an Indiana Jones movie at the start.

I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't comment on how they handled it, but it is a historical fact that during WWII, several archeologists, and I think a paleontologist or two, were recruited to be military spies, and made officers, because of their knowledge of the culture and geography of various areas. I've seen docs on a couple of them in the last few months, but they weren't people I was familiar with, and I can't recall their names at the moment.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

DUH...

Well, T. E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, was a practicing archaeologist, before he, uh, moved on to other things... He was working as an archaeologist in the middle east, when he was recruited by the British military.

Indy himself is rumored to have been patterned after paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, who was a real swashbuckler, and coined the term "Outer" Mongolia, early in the 20th century, when he was hunting fossils there.

 

[Recoil]

Interesting. I didn't know that. Well at least that does a good job of explaining why they had all that exposition at the beginning.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

It was geologists who helped the US military determine the whereabouts of Bin Laden, when he sent one of his first tapes, by the rock formation in the background. They just called up some branch of intelligence, and told them what they knew. When it comes to using scientific knowledge in war, there is a lot more to it that inventing new bombs.

 

[Jonny_Fever]

I kinda liked the movie just because it was Indiana Jones however I do think it was the worst of the 4. The first 3 each started with some rousing adventure and this one felt kind of flat. For a minute there I thought I was watching some sort of political thriller instead of an Indy movie. To me it felt like the first 30 minutes or so had a heavy George Lucas feel. It was like watching American Graffiti; and like Lucas really wanted us to feel like we were in the 50's. (The hot rod at the beginning, the atomic bomb testing, the fight between the college guys and the "greasers")

Was it just me or did Indy seem to mellow with age? I think he smiled more in this movie than the first 3 combined. He wasn't as cynical or hard-edged but then again perhaps that is all part of his character since they were trying to show he had aged.

I found it plausible that he entered into WWII. With all of his experiences with the Nazis and the fact that he speaks multiple languages was a big draw to the government (I'm guessing). Even though I found it plausible that he was in WWII, Indy as a spy didn't feel right to me. He's more over the top, than a cloak and dagger kinda guy.

I'm also trying to remember the part in the movie where he mentions he rode with Pancho Via; wasn't that in an episode or two of The Young Indiana Jones tv show?

It was cool to see Karen Allen but she spent most of the time looking like a love struck teenager. As soon as Mutt mentioned his mom was "Mary" I knew it was Marion Ravenwood and that was only because I had seen her in the previews. If they had left her out of the previews it would have been a little bit more of a surprise. As much as it could be with her name in the credits.

I think someone else in another thread mentioned you can google "Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men of Mars" and find the screenplay that was writting in '99 or there abouts.

 

[Recoil]

Here is an interesting article:

Indiana Jones: The Untold Story

Here are a couple key quotes:

The parameters kept shifting for a story that had to first satisfy Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford. None of them had any contractual imperative to reunite, and each of them had mutually-agreed-upon veto power. ''Three very powerful, opinionated individuals,'' says writer-director David Koepp.

I had heard this before, that all three of them had to like the script, which i what took 20 years (to a degree). Here is the biggie though:

Die Hard scribe Jeb Stuart got the boulder rolling with an early-'90s script titled Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars, a stab at addressing one of Lucas' central ideas. It made sense, Lucas argued, for the first three Indy movies to imitate 1930s and '40s adventure serials, as the stories were set in that period. But with Indy older, and the setting pushed to the '50s, the genre should also switch to the sort of trope you'd find only in that later era: namely, aliens invading Earth in spaceships with the military in hot pursuit. Or so Lucas argued, to raspberries from his collaborators. ''Harrison said, 'No way am I being in a Steve Spielberg movie like that,''' recalls Lucas. ''And Steven said, 'I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.'''

And an annoying final quote:

Are aliens still in there too? ''I can neither confirm nor deny,'' says Koepp. According to Ford, ''There's no element of any of the original scripts that has completely gone away. George made sure of that. 'Cause he is that persistent. And that dogged.''

So basically all of them had to like the script. Ford and Spielberg didn't like the Aliens idea at all, yet, somehow that is still what we ended up with, because Lucas is stubborn it seems.

There was an explanation in the article as to that early script. Basically that the original Indiana Jones movies being based on 30s and 40s serials, took place in that era, with 30s and 40s background. Nazi's etc. So since this one was in the 50s they felt it should have 50s feel (which as you said, he REALLY tried to establish that at the start) but given the Area 51 / Roswell thing, that is why he went for the Aliens angle.

Either way, my brother said it best last night. "It took them 20 years and THAT is the story they came up with?"

 

[Garovorkin]

Considering the last three Star wars movies I don;t exactly have much confidence in George Lucas or his story telling ability of late.

 

[Cell]

Eh, personally I feel the amount of prequel hate was blown out of proportion. TPM was decent, AOTC was good, and ROTS was an excellent splashy art/CGI movie. But, if you don't like KOTCS then most of the blame falls on Spieberg as this is his baby. Lucas contributed a little, but Spielberg contributed the bulk.

 

[hypatia]

Just my opinion here, but I disliked the Star Wars prequel movies so much that after the first I didn't even bother seeing the other two in the theater. I rented them on DVD or watched them when they hit t.v. And I haven't regretted it for a moment.

I think a lot of fans of the original three felt they cheapened the series.

 

[Cell]

I think my main problem with that assertion is that ROTJ was a decent movie at best, and I find A New Hope to actually be a bad movie most of the time and not as good as any of the prequels. I think for the most part a lot of people have put the original trilogy on this high pedestal that, outside of Empire Strikes Back, they don't really deserve. Sure, it's all a matter of opinion, but for the most part people think too highly of the OT to begin with.

 

[hypatia]

You lost me on the abbreviations. OT?

For better or for worse, the "New Hope" original Star Wars film struck a chord with the American public. It changed the face of science fiction in the movies without a doubt, and opened the doors for much of what emerged on screen in later years. It was definitely a lower budget movie, but it really did capture the imagination of the public. So I don't think it's very enlightening to judge it by today's special-effects standards. Or even the story standards. Sci-fi movies try hard to be "deep" now. A New Hope was made to just be fun, I believe.

It is interesting though that the actor playing Obi Wan Kenobi asked (if I heard right) to be killed off in the movie. For an actor with the talent of Alec Guiness, he wanted parts where he would.. well... do some actual acting.

 

[Chilli]

You lost me on the abbreviations. OT?

For better or for worse, the "New Hope" original Star Wars film struck a chord with the American public.

And the rest of us too, considering that it was a movie produced in England, Tunisia and Guatemala, popular all over the world

I think what some have said here is definitely true. The old Star Wars, and Indy movies, were not. that. good. They were FUN, they struck a cord, some of us were about 5 when first seeing them, and have been brainwashed over the decades to accept them as pinnacles of filmmaking.

So a lot of the criticism I've seen aimed at Chrystal Skull is stuff that could be aimed at the first three Indy movies too. The aliens weren't plausible? Neither was the lost arc.

Yeah, Chrystal Skull was full of plot holes, but it was still FUN. Which is all I expect from an Indy movie. I don't see how it could be worse than Temple of Doom, as that one wasn't even fun.

 

[Cell]

OT stands for Original Trilogy.

Like I said earlier, I didn't find KOTCS fun at all. It was far too tedious and boring to be any fun. That's the same way I feel about A New Hope, whereas ROTJ went too far in the fun category and ended up being a movie that is held together by string. I'm okay with viewing a movie as fun, but I do believe that in the case of Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The last Crusade they are all fun and don't have any glaring flaws or plot holes. They aren't perfect movies, maybe Empire is, but they are great little movies. I can't say the same for A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, or KOTCS.

 

[hypatia]

And the rest of us too, considering that it was a movie produced in England, Tunisia and Guatemala, popular all over the world

Really? I didn't know that. That's cool.

I think what some have said here is definitely true. The old Star Wars, and Indy movies, were not. that. good. They were FUN, they struck a cord, some of us were about 5 when first seeing them, and have been brainwashed over the decades to accept them as pinnacles of filmmaking.

You know, I agee with that wholeheartedly. What you tended to like, and what made a deep impression on you as a child or young adult definitely affects your perceptions. I was one of the high school geeks who was delighted to see how all of the out-of-classroom talk was dominated by Darth Vadar and Jedi Knights for a long time. A long long LONG time.

And yes, we were a lot less critical of such movies and entertainment. Who needed an excuse to go hog wild over Star Wars? It was all around you.

 

[B5_Obsessed]

Regarding Indy surviving outside the refrigerator: If you've never seen "Atomic Cafe" (it was even referenced in the film) take a look at this link. If only we knew then what we know now.

http://journeyman.tv/?lid=58702

Of course, Indy didn't seem to suffer any long-term radiological effects since his character (as shown on "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" lived to at least the age of 94 years old and would tell his tales to any poor sod who sat down next to him.

I'm still curious as to how he lost his eye.

http://steveandamysly.tannerworld.com/databank/image_youngindianajones_old1.jpg

 

[darth_librarian]

As I said in *my* other thread (although it did have a really stupid title ) the film was basically a ton of fun, for me at least. To be honest, I found the plot no sillier than any of the others (Temple of Doom was rubbish from that point of view really) so there was no problem with that. I'm not really sure what people expected from this, its not like Munich.

The action was top throughout (except the monkies, which was made of suck) and Indy had a great rapport with Shia whatsisname. In Temple of Doom, Indy survives by jumping out of a plane in a rubber dinghy. That involved multiple cliffs and waterfalls, and was just as silly as the stuff in this one.

As for the plot being based on Alien ideas, it did take a bit of adjusting. I thik the difference is, most of the new age mythos it is based on have erupted in the last 100 years, the grail and ark stories are a bit older. The Shankara stones are based on Chakra stones.

Anyway, other than the Spear of Destiny, they've basically used up all the good Christian relics.

I hope they do more, although Lucas probably needs to chill out on the aliens thing. Ultimately, he invented Indy, so he can do with it as he likes.