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Hahahaha :)
I only say it because it sounds absurd when typed out or written down but we all know that how it's transformed onto the big screen can make all the difference. So true for all things.
But I take your point :D
It’s a Kathleen Kennedy production so it’s pretty much a given that Indy is going to be made look like an incompetent old fool just as Han Solo was in The Force Awakens.
It's also being produced by Spielberg and Frank Marshall, two chaps who managed to not make Indy look like an incompetent old fool previously. It's probably important to note that too, before we start talking about what's a given and what isn't.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/movies/harrison-ford-i-was-never-happy-indiana-jones-huge-error-confessed-by-screenwriter/ar-AAZx7oT?cvid=f1388009fcdf4e24991c299b509c2b14&ocid=winp2sv1plus
I totally understand Sir Sean's decision, though it would have been great to see him in TKOTCS if only for a short scene.
The aliens are barely in it, and they're not the main reason why the film had problems. They're just the macguffin, and films don't stand or fall based on macguffins: the whole reasoning behind macguffins is that it doesn't really matter what they are. It was more about a lack of danger and wit, and storylines just left abandoned (like the 'Indy is a commie' FBI plot). I don't blame Koepp entirely as he was obviously being pressured from all sides to put stuff in, but there's still quite a bit wrong with the story.
I don't mind the film hugely, it's perfectly entertaining, but I think this review hits a lot of the problems it has (without the overblown hyperbole you get on YouTube reviews). I think this bit really points out how Spielberg didn't show up:
A scene where Indy is forced to stare into the eyes of the crystal skull is a case in point. Where once Spielberg would have imbued this moment - which is potentially going to drive Indy insane - with power and terror, now it feels like a bad day on the Charmed set. Shot of skull, shot of face, standard music, blah blah. Remember how hard you willed him not to swallow that black liquid in Temple of Doom? Remember how vital it was that he keep his eyes squeezed tightly shut at the end of Raiders?
Remember how you didn't really care about him looking at a skull for a bit?
Actually, I don't remember the bit in IJATKOTCS - boy that's a LONG title - about looking at the skull, because the film is not memorable. The aliens - though "just a mcguffin" - were, for many folks watching the film, just going too far. The survive a nuke in a refrigerator was just plain stupid. The whole bit with Mutt didn't work, largely because Shia LeB was no River Phoenix, sir. He was no "Brando, Jr." despite his imitation of Brando's appearance in The Wild One. A big casting letdown. It was a shame, too, because - among other great appearances - it was good to see Marion, and Cate Blanchett as the stern Soviet was terrific.
Agree that Blanchett was great, one of the best things about the film.
I still have no objection to the aliens: the 'chariots of the gods' thing fits the world of Indy very well for my money as it's fantastical archeology, it's adding something vaguely fresh to the mix which I think you need when you're getting to the third sequel, and it also suits the timeframe thematically.
I'd say something like Iron Man which came out the same year is more going too far: that sets up a world very much like ours except the technology is a little more advanced (not hugely different to the world Bond lives in, really), and by the end of the sequel to it we're suddenly told he actually exists in a world where alien gods exist! :) Indy at least lives in a world of the supernatural right from the start.
I'd love to see a script doctor take apart Crystal Skull and fix the problems with it. I do think there's a better film in there somewhere!
Good points, though I still would call for a re-casting along with a script fix. Agreed that - for the timeframe, the 1950s, and the setting, the American west (hello, Roswell) - the aliens bit was dead on. I don't think I'd have gone as whole hog. It might have been too reminiscent of Last Crusade were Indy to find one old alien hanging in there somewhere, rather than a dozen or so waiting for someone to turn on their love light just so they could - take over ? No... Interact ? No... Leave !
I certainly think that the ending is missing something in terms of a personal connection to the story for the main characters. Given that the aliens were supposed to have pushed the ancient humans to develop then surely there's a parent/child analogy in there to be exploited: have Indy demand that they let the Earthlings grow on their own and then realise that's what he should do with Mutt - that sort of thing.
I agree that having the whole load of aliens sat there was maybe a bit much; or rather perhaps it might have worked if only it had been really incredibly spooky. You know, kind of terrifying like the obelisk in 2001 - that primal fear of seeing something unknowable from another world- and which the Ark kind of was in Raiders. But Spielberg just doesn't have the energy for it in this film. There's a brief glimpse of it when Indy first discovers the skull in fact: Indy is excited and puzzled by what it could be "What is this thing?!" he says and there's a touch of spookiness there, and John Williams gets it. But there's just not enough after that.
Amongst the great points she makes is that unlike in the other films, Indy has no character arc in it: he's the same guy at the end that he was at the beginning, even though he's gained a family along the way. He is given a chance to redeem/prove himself to Marion after ditching her years before, and that's what he could have learnt; but he doesn't. He could prove himself to the FBI, but he doesn't. He could learn the meaning of fatherhood, but doesn't.
Likewise Indy has no particular motivation to go after the skull in the first place. He's not interested in the skull itself and doesn't believe the legend, wasn't massively fond of Oxley and doesn't know who 'Mary' is, who this stranger Mutt tells him he knew years ago. And by the end, none of the large group of main characters have any particular reason to return the skull, and yet they do. Which gives the audience no particular reason to care.
I find the dissection of this kind of stuff really interesting, so I think this is worth a watch if you do too.
Honestly, I think one of the movie's most significant flaws is that it tries to recapture the magic of the old films too much.
Spielberg was just clearly not interested in making that kind of movie anymore (in live-action at least).
If he'd actually leaned into making an Indiana Jones film that matched his present-day style and interests instead of half-heartedly trying to recapture the 80s, it would've been better.
I actually love the nuclear bomb scene and think it's one of the best in the movie. For me, it's one of the few scenes that managed to successfully combine the old Indy humour and over-the-top-ness with the more bleak tone of post-90s Speilberg.
That shot of Indy gazing up at the mushroom cloud is still fantastic.
Good, if Indy is played by someone else, hopefully they’ll be more talented and less overexposed than Chris Pratt.
1. Temple of Doom
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. The Last Crusade
4. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
I had forgotten just how much I love Temple of Doom, it's such a perfect action-adventure film to me. I love the darker tone and its pacing is seriously flawless.
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Temple of Doom
4. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
All but set in stone for me.
2. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
3. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!
Pretty much deteriorated as they gone along. Am hoping the latest stops the rot..but am not hopeful...having seen James Mangolds recent 'Ford vs. Ferrari' am slightly optimistic!
2. INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE
3. INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
4. INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.
This is the one.
I concur with a minor adjustment.
1 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
2 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3 Raiders of the Lost Ark
4 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1. Raiders—the original and still the best.
2. Temple of Doom—different and imaginative.
3. Last Crusade—a Raiders rehash enlivened by Connery.
4. Skulls. Bleccch.
But for your rewatch I suggest story order: Doom/Raiders/Crusade. You can see the evolution of the character clearly.
2/ Last Crusade - Ford and Connery are a delight together.
3/ Temple of Doom - Loads of energy and fun.
4/ Crystal Skull - Starts off well, but the second half and the climax let it down.
Excellent assessment…
I am thinking about it by timeline, though.
Do I recall correctly that the timeline goes this way ?
Earliest IJATTOD
2nd earliest ROTLA
Next in timeline IJATLC
Most recent in the timeline IJATKOTCS
If you're REALLY cleve you place the TV episodes in the above. I guess they all go ahead of the earliest film, EXCEPT for two pieces from the shows -->
Old Indy with an eyepatch fits in AFTER even "the mouthful", since he was clearly younger in the 4th film than when catching a big-truck ride in the tv show.
Here's the question, though - WHERE in the timeline goes HF as Indy blowing the trumpet at the snow-covered cabin ? Fourth ? Fifth ?
This list provides yet another reminder of the ridiculously long title on that last one. Couldn't SOMEONE have pointed out that IJATCS would have communicated the same just as well, yet been more manageable ? Of course, that was the least of the film's problems.
I fear for the next one. They jumped the shark with IJATKOTCS, and that does not bode well. I know that an ark carrying the power of an almighty in it already crosses well over into the paranormal, as do hearts beating outside the chest and a Crusader yet alive, but the alien bit in...take a deep breath and here goes - IJATKOTCS somehow just went over. Were it proof, somehow, that they had visited earlier - that would have worked better, methinks, for many film-goers. So. They got their heads back on. Then what ? Take over ? Communicate ? Nope, and nope. Leave ! That was it ! and the whole thing with Mutt was lame. It felt like a LARGE part of the films agenda was to push Shia LeBeouf to stardom like H Ford. Wait ! What ? THAT's what I'm watching here ? Really ? Ain't happening, even without the guy bringing about a career meltdown on his own shortly thereafter. Even withOUT the painful comparison from just the film before with River Phoenix as young Henry Jones, Shia was not going to break out that way. Good to have Marion and Indy together again, sure, Kate Blanchett, sure, killer ants, sure, but some fx that were quite weak for any film much less an IJ film or a Steven S film ! So, this time, go even further into the inexplicable with time-travel ? Oh, ugh. If this one poops the bed it will just soil the memories along with it. HF already is too old for any more of these. And, no, not Chris Pratt, please. It's time for a new actor in stories set earlier in the timeline...or will that be timelines, plural ? Will the next film dance among the placemarkers of the timeline shown above ? Ugh. Belly ache.
2) Doom
3) Crusade
4) Crystal Skull
Sometimes 2 and 3 can switch, thanks to Sean Connery.
That happened in 1950, so after Crusade (1938), after the Infernal Machine (1947), and before "the mouthful" (1957).
It was a saxophone. But I really want to watch that whole show again to remember more.
Edit: I haven't checked, but going by the sound and the shape of the instrument, now I think it actually might have been a bass clarinet. It sounded high-pitched for a bass, but now I'm not sure it sounded like a sax. My memory sucks.