196 replies to this topic

[birdistheword]

Cautiously stoked.

Also, one paragraph from this story caught my attention:

http://www.cnn.com/2...s.ap/index.html

In its earliest incarnation, Lucas proposed an all-out alien flick called "Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars." Spielberg and Ford didn't like that idea, and it took more than a decade of wrangling to come up with a story all three could live with.

[pong]

Thread title and tone don't match unless I am missing something. I think this movie is going to be really good.

[Johnny Feathers]

I think the title is in reference to the fact that George Lucas thought "Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars" was a GOOD idea. Can you imagine if that had actually gotten made?? As it is, I want this movie to be good. But I also have my doubts. Shia Lebouf does NOT inspire confidence for a picture. My fingers are crossed that the movie holds up.

[Tracy Jacks]

I watched Indy 1 last night and Indy 2 tonight. I plan on watching Indy 3 tomorrow night. This was the first time I've seen Indy 2 since seeing it in the theaters. It is NOT better than I remembered it to be, far from it. Kate Capshaw was fortunate to marry Spielberg as she gives one of the worst and most annoying performances in any movie. What a disaster that movie it is.

[Bleep Blop]

Saucer men aren't too far off from the cup of life, if you think about it.

[Tony]

I watched Indy 1 last night and Indy 2 tonight. I plan on watching Indy 3 tomorrow night.

This was the first time I've seen Indy 2 since seeing it in the theaters. It is NOT better than I remembered it to be, far from it. Kate Capshaw was fortunate to marry Spielberg as she gives one of the worst and most annoying performances in any movie. What a disaster that movie it is.

I like it. One performance makes the movie a disaster? She was supposed to be annoying. Dave Kehr actually thought it was better than Raiders...

Steven Spielberg's 1984 sequel is quite a bit better than Raiders of the Lost Ark: the pacing is much more assured and effective (there are actual peaks and valleys in the action) and the situations are more imaginative and varied. Spielberg has developed the spatial contrasts of his visual style (particularly his trick of lighting his backgrounds more brightly than his foregrounds), creating a seductively dimensional look that at moments suggests Raoul Walsh. Yet the blunt Freudian images of George Lucas's story (the film is a male birth fantasy in which the hero must deliver a tribe of children from slavery in a dark, damp mine shaft) and the relentlessly juvenile focus of Spielberg's mise-en-scene come to seem oppressive and pandering; the film betrays no human impulse higher than that of a ten-year-old boy trying to gross out his baby sister by dangling a dead worm in her face.

[Dread]

Um.... what?

[Moo & Oink]

I like the Temple of Doom too; when I first saw it, that high priest who rips out beating hearts scared the hell out of me. Since the theme of good vs. evil is such a central theme in the Indiana Jones movies, it would make sense for the screenwriters to incorporate al-Qaeda into the next movie. The storyline could involve something along the lines of Indy searching for a relic from Mohammed's time.

[pong]

The 2nd two Indy movies aren't even in the same league as the first movie. The first movie is as good as it gets. The 2nd is pretty bad, and the third is close to downright awful. But, with that said, I watched the 2nd two this week and they are still entertaining in a comic book sort of way.

[Johnny Feathers]

The 2nd two Indy movies aren't even in the same league as the first movie. The first movie is as good as it gets. The 2nd is pretty bad, and the third is close to downright awful. But, with that said, I watched the 2nd two this week and they are still entertaining in a comic book sort of way.

Really? I always thought the Last Crusade was viewed as more of a return to form. I like it, anyway. What don't you like? What do other people think?

I think the second one is great for the first 20 minutes or so, up through the inflatable raft ride out of the airplane. After that....it's ok. I still see why I liked it as a kid, anyway.

[brainstorm]

I think the title is in reference to the fact that George Lucas thought "Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars" was a GOOD idea. Can you imagine if that had actually gotten made??

As it is, I want this movie to be good. But I also have my doubts. Shia Lebouf does NOT inspire confidence for a picture. My fingers are crossed that the movie holds up.

"This was not made by human hands."

That soundbite runs in the TV ads, and guess what? The movie you were afraid they'd make?

They made it. Just gave it a different name.

[brainstorm]

it would make sense for the screenwriters to incorporate al-Qaeda into the next movie.

Uh huh. The 100 year-old Indy wouldn't make much sense.

Unless you're hoping that Shia takes over in the lead role?

[brainstorm]

just read this review of Indy 4 on IGN.com, who usually give good reviews to everything: UK, May 18, 2008 - After more than a year of hoping and praying that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would do right by fans of the archaeological franchise, the film's first screening in Cannes confirms the worst. There's a brilliant Indy film buried somewhere within, but Star Wars syndrome has struck and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas just couldn't resist dipping into their box of computer-generated magic. Quite aside from a plot torn literally from outer space - we won't go into too much detail save to say that alien visitation plays its part- where this film struggles to find its feet is in moments in which its characters are forced to tackle increasingly implausible CG set pieces. When the first of these moments is as outrageous as it is, you have to worry where the film plans to go next. And that's the real issue: there's never any true sense of peril. There are only a couple of actual fistfights in the movie and Ford is the ultimate actor when it comes to taking a punch and making you believe it. Forcing him to constantly outrun the computer just doesn't feel true to the character. Too much reverence for the previous movies and for new technologies probably combined to cause the problem -- everything feels like a movie; the sets look rickety, the lighting harsh. The original films suffered the same problem occasionally, but they were of their time and totally plausible in spite of it. This would be OK if the CG didn't push too far, but it does so clearly in an attempt to live up to the summer blockbusters of now. Despite these issues, there's still a lot to love. From the moment Ford picks up the Fedora and you see his silhouette as he puts it on you know you're in familiar company and he delights in taking on the mantle of the older Dr. Jones. This is the film's greatest strength; there are a couple of jokes about his age, but nothing approaching Lethal Weapon levels, and you very quickly remember that Indy has never been the willing action hero -- Ford's reluctance is given a whole new angle. But Indy is probably the only wholly realised character. Disappointingly no one else is really given a chance to shine. Ray Winstone swaps sides far too regularly, John Hurt and Jim Broadbent are underused and Cate Blanchett has so precious little to do you barely remember her as the credits roll. The verbal arguments between Indy and Karen Allen's Marion Ravenwood are right back to par, though, and the worst kept secret in Hollywood about Shia LaBeouf's character sets him up as a third sparring partner. Unfortunately, Mutt really shouldn't be in the film - there's not enough characterisation to really justify his place and you wonder if he wasn't included purely to satisfy one of the film's - admittedly very humorous, running gags. This isn't as bad as Phantom Menace, and not as much of a disaster as it could so easily have been. You get the impression that Spielberg and Lucas did their best to take on board the lessons of the Star Wars prequels, and you are left in no doubt that everyone involved desperately wanted to preserve the quality of the franchise. And occasionally Indy IV genuinely entertains and gives you the warm, fuzzy feeling that you get when one is the company of a character you love. However, far too many moments fail to make an impact, too many ideas are so disappointingly half-baked. The fatal flaw though is the film's utter lack of dramatic tension, and an absence of the sense of danger and adventure so vital to the success of the previous instalments. On this evidence, here's hoping Indy will now hang up his weather beaten hat for good.

[Undercooked Sausage]

Cate Blanchett has so precious little to do you barely remember her as the credits roll.

THANK GOD

she's such a yucky girl!

[Sam]

Temple of Doom > Crusade

[birdistheword]

I think the title is in reference to the fact that George Lucas thought "Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars" was a GOOD idea. Can you imagine if that had actually gotten made??

As it is, I want this movie to be good. But I also have my doubts. Shia Lebouf does NOT inspire confidence for a picture. My fingers are crossed that the movie holds up.

"This was not made by human hands."

That soundbite runs in the TV ads, and guess what? The movie you were afraid they'd make?

They made it. Just gave it a different name.

Almost made it...from today's Trib:

"It's pretty hard to be definitive at all without giving away plot points," [Harrison Ford] says, vaguely. "But it's really a question of adjusting the recipe. George never backed off from his original ambitions in general. And when he" - big sigh here - "met resistance on certain elements of the story, he went back and refined them 'til we were less resistant. Steven and I pretty much saw eye to eye on it from the beginning. We had similar ambitions for it and similar feelings about some of the elements George was pushing for. But Steven and I work together very easily. It was an enormous pleasure to work with him again."

I get the feeling Lucas wanted a blatant wall-to-wall alien movie, and when it got shot down, the sci-fi elements got pushed into the background, or at least became a surprise twist.

[Montana]

Temple of Doom > Crusade

Absolutely.

[cerebralcaustic]

I get the feeling Lucas wanted a blatant wall-to-wall alien movie, and when it got shot down, the sci-fi elements got pushed into the background, or at least became a surprise twist.

I dunno, considering the first three movies took place in the 30s and 40s and were a tribute to the action serials of the 30s and 40s, it would make sense for an Indy that takes place in the 50s to be a tribute to the sci-fi that was dominant in the 50s.

[birdistheword]

Kehr and Rosenbaum ought to publish an anthology: That Movie You Like SUCKS...actually, they'd never publish a book with that title. "Too gauche."

Kehr on Raiders:
One would think that a collaboration between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas would produce something better than this giggly pastiche of a Republic serial, but then again maybe not: their gadget-freak aesthetics and propensity for instant gratification seem to reinforce each other. Harrison Ford is a swashbuckling archaeologist, Karen Allen is his girl; together they battle the Nazis for possession of the Ark of the Covenant. Spielberg, who directed, knows a lot about action cutting but nothing about narrative rhythm: this 1981 film travels fast and straight down a linear plot, and the ceaseless rush quickly becomes monotonous. The body count is somewhere on the far side of Dawn of the Dead, but with no sign of Romero's underlying moral seriousness: when a hero is twice given a choice between saving the booty and the woman he loves and chooses the booty both times, I have to wonder what makes him different from the Nazis he's fighting. But God, Spielberg tells us with dumbfounding literalness, is on his side.

Rosenbaum on Last Crusade:

Steven Spielberg's mechanical, soulless 1989 follow-up to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The fast pace and force-fed wisecracks are as seamless as ever, but rarely has audience laughter sounded as hollow. Christianity, Nazism, Arthurian legend, antiquity, the third world, and women in general all serve as ballast and backdrop to the uneasy affection between a grown boy and his neglectful dad. Also on hand are River Phoenix as the young Indy, John Rhys-Davies, Alison Doody, Julian Glover, Denholm Elliott, and a lot of actors dressed up as Nazis.

[birdistheword]

I get the feeling Lucas wanted a blatant wall-to-wall alien movie, and when it got shot down, the sci-fi elements got pushed into the background, or at least became a surprise twist.

I dunno, considering the first three movies took place in the 30s and 40s and were a tribute to the action serials of the 30s and 40s, it would make sense for an Indy that takes place in the 50s to be a tribute to the sci-fi that was dominant in the 50s.

yeah, I saw Lucas use the same rationale, but it would be too incongruous. You want to make a good tribute to 50s sci-fi flicks, use new characters, not ones strongly attached to pseudo-archaeological adventures of the 30s.

It's like the Batman comics from the 1950s, when they ditched their pulpy-noirish feel and plopped Batman into those sci-fi alien adventures...go to WB and try pitching evil aliens for Batman's next movie.

I actually think the concept of Indy's son COULD have been more interesting - it works well with the last picture's story (when it was about Indy and his dad), works well with Spielberg in general (most of his commercial and higher-minded films deal with parent-son relationships), and makes sense given Ford's older age.

Having said that, I'm not crazy about the kid they cast, and early word-of-mouth says they spent little time developing the characters or their relationship.