So filming is very much underway on this not exactly highly anticipated sequel. I for one am anticipating it, because I love a bit of Indy. They’re also filming in the Scottish Borders, close to where my Dad lives.
Rumour is they’re filming war scenes at the Leaderfoot Viaduct, which coincidentally is really near a largely unexplored Roman Fortification. Why largely unexplored? Because the land owner is an inexplicably awkward sod and doesn’t want excavation.
Other locations, lifted from Wiki…
Filming began in the U.K. on June 4, 2021.[90] Shooting locations include Pinewood Studios[91] and Bamburgh Castle.[92] Scenes were also filmed at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway near Grosmont, where an action sequence involving Ford's stunt double was shot and replicas of World War II era Nazi military vehicles were seen on set.[90][93][94] Ford himself was spotted on location in Grosmont on June 7, 2021.[95][96] Phedon Papamichael will serve as cinematographer, marking his sixth film with Mangold.[97]
Interesting that they’ve gone back to the WW2 era. I do wonder if these are opening scenes, and we’ll see a de-aged Indy. Think young Indy in Last Crusades opening scenes. Something to give a bit of flavour and texture to the main story.
Not too sure about this and I'm one of the few that actually liked the fourth one.
Mostly I'm just wondering how much actual Indy we're going to get, Harrison Ford is getting pretty old and I haven't heard anything about them recasting the character.
I'd be more interested if it were a 'new' Indie and a soft reboot (or whatever). Or, -gasp-, a new franchise.
This just seems mean to Ford, and probably painful to watch.
Unless they ditch the action and go for real archaeology, but that seems unlikely with all the Nazi junk.
Voss wrote: Unless they ditch the action and go for real archaeology, but that seems unlikely with all the Nazi junk.
I would be down for a slower/more mystery style Indiana Jones bit though. Less action set pieces, more mystery investigation. It would be neat, at least as a one off to see what it was like.
Well i guess someone noticed that the 2 IJ movies that had him fighting nazis were good and the two that didn't, ahem, sucked sewage.
Hopefully this will have indy and friends fighting a resurgent nazi movement, movies about refugee nazis tryink to rebuild der reich ver common in der 50's ja?
I don’t think the choice of the Soviets as the villain was the problem in KotCS; I actually think that the whole Cold War experiments with “psychic warfare” is a really good fit for the IJ style (particularly once you’ve got rid of actual, literal, Nazis as your potential villain). The problem with KotCS was bad script, bad CGI, poor characterisation and a whole load of other real-world stuff, unrelated to the actual core concept.
Edit: UFOs and “Chariots of the Gods” stuff also fits nicely into the Cold War era too.
Jadenim wrote: I don’t think the choice of the Soviets as the villain was the problem in KotCS; I actually think that the whole Cold War experiments with “psychic warfare” is a really good fit for the IJ style (particularly once you’ve got rid of actual, literal, Nazis as your potential villain). The problem with KotCS was bad script, bad CGI, poor characterisation and a whole load of other real-world stuff, unrelated to the actual core concept.
Edit: UFOs and “Chariots of the Gods” stuff also fits nicely into the Cold War era too.
It was also a shift in the style of movie being homaged, which I don’t think people were expecting.
I still enjoy it (yes, even the monkey ropes bit).
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: No worse than Willy in the Lava really. Spesh when we saw the first victim aflame well before he was submerged.
Or being able to get an imprint of a metal object from scar tissue.
Well, while there was no excuse for the horrible second IJ movie i do recall the first victim was set on fire by erupting flaming gasses bursting up from the lava pit. Willy's plotluck just meant there was no similar eruption in her case.
i never thought of the bit with the scars producing a readable image. I guess i assumed it worked like a brand.
While the second movie was the most offensive, the fourth's 'floating gunpowder that turns corners due to magnetism' was the most screamingly idiotic scene in any of the movies.
Just remember they’re all super daft fantasy films at heart.
I steered clear of the opening of the Ark due to respect for the religious beliefs of others.
But….really?
Not to mention the opening scene of Raiders, where despite having had others with him, Indy legs it to the two seater airplane… Think about that. Multiple peeps. Two seater airplane.
Two. Multiple.
Awfully convenient, dontcha think?
They’re still cool like, and such a realisation affects my enjoyment not one jot. But if we’re going to heavy handedly critique Crystal Skull, we should in all fairness apply said same heavy hand to all the offerings,
Which reminds me. I’ve a boxed set of Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in dire need of watching.
Imagine that on Disney+ in a few years. Now properly old Harrison Ford, by the fire, recanting his adventures to the viewer.
Not to defend the IJ movies, even tho 1and 3 were the better ones by far, but the 2 seater plane scene could be explained.
Indy's partners came in on a canoe or overland (Maybe that's how the nazis followed them) while indy flew in because he forsaw taking away valuable archeological relics, and wanted to fly directly to some safe site to make it less likely they'd be stolen while plodding thru a jungle to reach civilization.
I mean that does work as a cover for the problem, i won't even try to cover the flaws in the others.
The Ark killing Nazis fits in with the Ark killing the enemies of the Hebrews pretty well. I’ve always wondered if Raiders wasn’t written mostly to justify that one iconic scene.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The Ark killing Nazis fits in with the Ark killing the enemies of the Hebrews pretty well. I’ve always wondered if Raiders wasn’t written mostly to justify that one iconic scene.
Seeing that one guys face melt was worth the movie. As for me, seeing nazis being killed in always good, given my personal experience with a real open neonazi.
As to the ark, in the original OT texts it was pretty indiscriminate. I mean, yeah, it killed the enemies of israel, but in once case it flipped off it's rails and an israelie rushed to put his hand on it to keep it from falling and was instantly killed for laying hands on the ark, I think that if it were divine it would be able to tell the different between an enemy and an act of desecration and an ally trying to protect it from falling damage.
Interestingly enough in raiders the ark "knew" that the swastika was a pagan symbol being used by evil and burned it off the box it was in, yet no one on the team noticed this and took it as an omen. Stupid nazis.
If you want to see more movies with lots of dead nazis, try "the keep" and "the devil's rock'
Jadenim wrote: Lots of dead Nazis in Dead Snow too. Although, not in a good way!
Now i have to look up dead snow. Lemme guess, yet another zombie movie....
Sigh. Yep.
I'm amazed the wayans bros haven't made a stupid, ugly, hateful movie called 'Zombie Movie" yet to parody this endless horde of mindless zombie movies. Or someone hasn't made "Zombieman!" to cash in on the stuporhero/zombie film mania.
I steered clear of the opening of the Ark due to respect for the religious beliefs of others.
But….really?
Not to mention the opening scene of Raiders, where despite having had others with him, Indy legs it to the two seater airplane… Think about that. Multiple peeps. Two seater airplane.
Two. Multiple.
Awfully convenient, dontcha think?
We're told that Indy and Belloq have a history. I like to think The expedition walked overland but Jones Jnr got his mate with a plane to go there separately. He was going to double cross Belloq (before Belloq double crossed him) and the plane was the quick gettaway.
It's an odd numbered entry in the franchise. Should be good.
FWIW, I actually kind of like Crystal Skull. Watching Harrison Ford play Sean Connery is rather inspired. It's got its faults, but its not the worst of the 4 by a long shot.
Matt Swain wrote: Or someone hasn't made "Zombieman!" to cash in on the stuporhero/zombie film mania.
I, Zombie has been a television show.
I'll also direct you to Marvel Zombies, which could have potential once Marvel Studios figure out what they're doing with the X-Men and the Fantastic Four...
I steered clear of the opening of the Ark due to respect for the religious beliefs of others.
But….really?
Not to mention the opening scene of Raiders, where despite having had others with him, Indy legs it to the two seater airplane… Think about that. Multiple peeps. Two seater airplane.
Two. Multiple.
Awfully convenient, dontcha think?
We're told that Indy and Belloq have a history. I like to think The expedition walked overland but Jones Jnr got his mate with a plane to go there separately. He was going to double cross Belloq (before Belloq double crossed him) and the plane was the quick gettaway.
Indy and Belloq weren't on the same expedition, Indy didn't even know he was there until he showed up at the cave entrance.
The most likely situation is he recruited he crew up (or down) river outside the rainforest, and asked his pilot to land near the site.
Yes, that does mean the guides and etc are going to have to walk back through hostile territory. Its worth noting Indy isn't a kind or decent person at any point in the films.
He's a thief, tomb robber, smuggler ('I'm sure you've upheld the international treaty for the protection of antiquities,' his professor friend says sarcastically) and killer. And, you know, the whole statutory rape thing.
While i know it won't go like this, can you imagine if Indy bit it like 15 minutes into the movie, and the rest was someone he tagged in with a letter or something to finish some great task
I know it's impossible, but I'd like to see indiana jones at the earths core where indy and a hawt israel agent follow nazis stealing a treasure, the spear of destiny, to the legendary inner earth pelucidar, which hitler or himmler believed in.
They fight nazis in a prehistoric world and indy ends up riding a T.Rex, the israeli agent cuts hitler's head off with excalibur and we see a triceratops eat it while it's still alive.
Jadenim wrote: Given that they're filming in the UK, I'm guessing this is going to be Arthurian legends?
Not necessarily. Everything being filmed in the U.K. is reported as being war scenes. With naughty Nazis and everything. So it seems likely we just have the right scenery for the scenes.
Like now Rob Roy was filmed in Ireland, but set in Scotland.
You could do the 9th legion marching into Scotland and dissapearing (I read the books as a kid. Seems this myth may have become rather less certain since then).
Or there are Viking treasures one could hunt. Still been more than 2000 years of recorded history hereabouts. Surely there will be something interesting. Or go beyond d that and go all Stonehenge (where the banshees play, and they do play well).
Flinty wrote: You could do the 9th legion marching into Scotland and dissapearing (I read the books as a kid. Seems this myth may have become rather less certain since then).
Or there are Viking treasures one could hunt. Still been more than 2000 years of recorded history hereabouts. Surely there will be something interesting. Or go beyond d that and go all Stonehenge (where the banshees play, and they do play well).
I mean, possibly. The Viaduct they’re filming at is adjacent to site of Trimontium, which as I mentioned in the OP is a Roman Fort largely unexplored because the landowner is a difficult sod.
I’ve visited what’s there with my Dad, and think the IXth Legion are believed to have been based there for at least a while. That’s quite possibly just apocrypha, and may even be me making it up in my own head.
Dysartes wrote: Defending "Indy in the fridge" is tricky, though.
In a world where Indy literally drank from The Holy Grail, which had the power to keep a Knight Templar alive for hundreds of years and healed a gunshot would nearly instantly... no, it's not.
Don't get me wrong. It's still cheesy. But let's face it, there's cheese all throughout the series. How does Indy manage to stow away on a U-BOAT without being either spotted or drowned? How do our heroes survive the shennanigans with the rubber raft? How does an aircraft pass a car in a tunnel without colliding with it? The wing stubs at the very least should have hit the car. We let stuff like this go when the movie is entertaining... and dwell on it when the movie is NOT entertaining.
Dysartes wrote: Defending "Indy in the fridge" is tricky, though.
In a world where Indy literally drank from The Holy Grail, which had the power to keep a Knight Templar alive for hundreds of years and healed a gunshot would nearly instantly... no, it's not.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:He’s searching for the lost Dr Who episodes.
And you, sir, have found an exalt!
Vulcan wrote:
Dysartes wrote: Defending "Indy in the fridge" is tricky, though.
In a world where Indy literally drank from The Holy Grail, which had the power to keep a Knight Templar alive for hundreds of years and healed a gunshot would nearly instantly... no, it's not.
Don't get me wrong. It's still cheesy. But let's face it, there's cheese all throughout the series. How does Indy manage to stow away on a U-BOAT without being either spotted or drowned? How do our heroes survive the shennanigans with the rubber raft? How does an aircraft pass a car in a tunnel without colliding with it? The wing stubs at the very least should have hit the car. We let stuff like this go when the movie is entertaining... and dwell on it when the movie is NOT entertaining.
There was a web series years ago called Reel Physics (get it?) that looked at realism in Hollywood films; they were very surprised that, broadly speaking the fridge thing was actually survivable. I mean “probably getting a concussion and a few broken ribs” sort of survival, rather than just “dust yourself down and walk away” as in the film, but still, wouldn’t be the first time Indy walked away from something that should have left him in a hospital (truck chase, life raft parachuting, etc.) Problem is, it just looks ridiculous and completely breaks your immersion in the film, more so than any other ridiculous thing in the other films.
Matt Swain wrote: I know it's impossible, but I'd like to see indiana jones at the earths core where indy and a hawt israel agent follow nazis stealing a treasure, the spear of destiny, to the legendary inner earth pelucidar, which hitler or himmler believed in.
They fight nazis in a prehistoric world and indy ends up riding a T.Rex, the israeli agent cuts hitler's head off with excalibur and we see a triceratops eat it while it's still alive.
Hey, i can dream
Ha! This cracked me up. I could see the scriptwriters discussing this in earnest.
As far as drinking from the Grail, I do think this was one aspect that was explained, whereas many other super difficult to fathom events are not. Indy would have no benefits from having drunk from the Grail once he passed the emblem on the floor.
I have always thought HF an odd sort of actor and not one of my favorites, but it is the roles he gets that are my favorite. So, yes, I will absolutely watch the next IJ installment!!
I kinda respect HF as a person, when someone got injured at a national park and needed air transport to a hospital, HF was the nearest pilot and didn't hesitate to respond to the call, let the medics load the guy into his own plane and flew him to the nearest hospital, didn't ask for a dime for fuel or time.
Not a big star that acts like normal people are unfit to be around him.
LunarSol wrote: Having had literally watched the rubber raft scene the day before I went to Crystal Skull.... I was not at all bothered by the fridge.
I walked out of the theater for after Crystal Skull absolutely surrounded by people complaining about how unrealistic the idea of aliens is. Kept glancing at various people trying to figure out how blatant divine sorcery complete with massive light shows and immortality was somehow more believable.
The fridge was ridiculous, but pretty on brand.
The people in the walls was still really dumb, however.
People didn’t walk out complaining about magic in the good movies for the same reason they didn’t complain about unrealistic aliens in ET. Not because they have double standards between magic and science, but because they have a double standard between good movies and crap movies.
I should watch the fourth movie again and see if time has mellowed my reaction to it. I didn't think it was terrible or anything (and I liked the fridge scene), but I seem to remember that missing the charm of the old movies was my big issue with it. I get that a lot, with movies in the 2000s and onward trying to connect to the glory days of the 80s and failing because times have changed and movies just aren't made the same anymore, in both good and bad ways.
Be interesting to see what a fifth movie has to offer.
Vulcan wrote: How does Indy manage to stow away on a U-BOAT without being either spotted or drowned?
That's a silly thing to ask. He held his breath. The loading screen with the red line and travel music wasn't that long.
Geifer wrote: I should watch the fourth movie again and see if time has mellowed my reaction to it.
Lets be clear, its not particularly great and definitely doesn't live up to the legends that are 1 and 3; its just no where near as terrible as you'll see complained about endless on the internet.
I walked out of the theater for after Crystal Skull absolutely surrounded by people complaining about how unrealistic the idea of aliens is. Kept glancing at various people trying to figure out how blatant divine sorcery complete with massive light shows and immortality was somehow more believable.
Walking out with a friend who is VERY anti-religion who complained about the same thing definitely broke my brain on that reaction quite a bit.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: People didn’t walk out complaining about magic in the good movies for the same reason they didn’t complain about unrealistic aliens in ET. Not because they have double standards between magic and science, but because they have a double standard between good movies and crap movies.
Oh no. The complaints were 100% about aliens. These people weren't interested in the distinction between good or bad movies, particularly if there were enough action sequences. It was just that aliens were 'too far.' Everything else was sorta fine.
I didn’t much care for the aliens in IJ4, nothing to do with realism, just it wasn’t what I wanted from Indiana Jones. The previous 3 had featured magic/supernatural goings on, and that’s what I wanted more of.
I’d have been just as disappointed by aliens showing up in The Mummy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural etc.
I can’t remember whether they show the U-boat preparing to dive, because if not you’ve got the easy excuse that U-boats actually spent most of the time on the surface; they only dived to attack or avoid attack.
Personally, I had two main problems with KotCS; one was the production wasn’t great. Massive over-use of questionable CGI, which added to the “unrealistic” feeling of the whole thing and probably also contributed to some of the less than stellar performances (which is a surprise, given the quality of cast they had). The second and more important one is Indy doesn’t know what’s going on. In all of the other three films, he is your guide. He knows the stories, the mythology, the history; even if he doesn’t believe it initially, when presented with the evidence of a mythical artefact he will then be “ok, if that’s X, then we need to go to Y place, because that what the Codex Apocryphal says should happen.” In KotCS he doesn’t know what’s happening and is just being bounced from event to event along with the rest of us. It takes a lot of agency away from his character and it leaves the film a bit meandering and rudderless, because instead of charging headlong on adventure to get to the prize before the bad guys, your just sat there waiting for the film to explain what’s going to happen next.
Jadenim wrote: The second and more important one is Indy doesn’t know what’s going on. In all of the other three films, he is your guide. He knows the stories, the mythology, the history; even if he doesn’t believe it initially, when presented with the evidence of a mythical artefact he will then be “ok, if that’s X, then we need to go to Y place, because that what the Codex Apocryphal says should happen.” In KotCS he doesn’t know what’s happening and is just being bounced from event to event along with the rest of us. It takes a lot of agency away from his character and it leaves the film a bit meandering and rudderless, because instead of charging headlong on adventure to get to the prize before the bad guys, your just sat there waiting for the film to explain what’s going to happen next.
This is a really strong analysis.
I find KotCS to be solid, and when you watch all four of them together, actually meshes pretty well thematically with the larger series. However, the real life time distance between Crusade and Skull means those threads are not obvious when you go see it.
I do feel that the last scene just went a step too far on the aliens..... to fit better with the 50's it really needed a cleaner, more archetypical flying saucer though.
He has to find the Lost Dialogue of Plato, with Sophia Hapgood, renowned Psychic and Fortune teller, with the help of Nur Ab-Sal!
I would actually prefer a movie where he teaches Marcus' Grandson how to be a treasure Hunter.
Ah Marcus. What a missed oppurtunity. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. And we never did.
I think ToD suffers from too much horrible gribbley stuff early in the film. As a child I found Ark easier to watch up until the very end when I knew I had to hide behind the sofa. Doom has insects and heart tearing and starving malnourished child slaves.
And then there is Crusade, which I happily put forward as one of the best films ever made (nostalgia glasses firmly attached ).
Skull I have only watched once. I will weigh in again when my kids are old enough to watch it
Well, i suppose some people had to believe the 2nd movie wasn't horrible.
As to skull, the aliens didn't bother me at all. Tje movie lost me with the magnetic gunpowder scene.
I honestly don't see how anyone could mal=ke that scene or not be completely put off by it. Any kid who ever played with magnets knows magnets don't work like that at all, how could anyone even write a scene that everyone knows was impossible because we've all played with magnets when we were kids.
At that point the movie was done for me.
The aliens? We don't know aliens are impossible, we don't know their technology is impossible. They could exist.
The floating gunpowder scene was impossible and ridiculous, we know that. At that point i really quit paying attention ton the movie and just sort of overhead it.
Jadenim wrote: I can’t remember whether they show the U-boat preparing to dive, because if not you’ve got the easy excuse that U-boats actually spent most of the time on the surface; they only dived to attack or avoid attack.
Yes, they did spend much of their time on the surface running their diesel engines and making sure their batteries are fully charged. But you do this with a full watch - often four or five men - on the conning tower constantly looking around so they can see those threats they want to avoid. It's not like pre-WWII U-boats had radar and satellite surveillance to fall back on, and even sonar was pretty meh at the time. No, their primary sensory apparatus was the mark 1 mod 2 visual sensor - eyeballs and binoculars. The view from the periscope is totally inadequate for general surface search and air raid warning.
So, the only time EVERYONE goes inside leaving no one on watch... is immediately before diving. Which makes sense, as they would dive to prevent the freighter they just raided from telling anyone where the sub went, or even which direction it left in.
If you know anything about submarine operations, it's at least as immersion-breaking as the fridge.
BUT, because the movie so far has been good, we let is slide. The movie leading up to the fridge scene? Not so good. That's why it stands out more.
Jadenim wrote: I can’t remember whether they show the U-boat preparing to dive, because if not you’ve got the easy excuse that U-boats actually spent most of the time on the surface; they only dived to attack or avoid attack.
Personally, I had two main problems with KotCS; one was the production wasn’t great. Massive over-use of questionable CGI, which added to the “unrealistic” feeling of the whole thing and probably also contributed to some of the less than stellar performances (which is a surprise, given the quality of cast they had). The second and more important one is Indy doesn’t know what’s going on. In all of the other three films, he is your guide. He knows the stories, the mythology, the history; even if he doesn’t believe it initially, when presented with the evidence of a mythical artefact he will then be “ok, if that’s X, then we need to go to Y place, because that what the Codex Apocryphal says should happen.” In KotCS he doesn’t know what’s happening and is just being bounced from event to event along with the rest of us. It takes a lot of agency away from his character and it leaves the film a bit meandering and rudderless, because instead of charging headlong on adventure to get to the prize before the bad guys, your just sat there waiting for the film to explain what’s going to happen next.
Oh, wow, you've just nailed my problems with KotCS. And I quite like the movie.
There are bits of the film when Indy is "Indy-ing". He doesn't know why the gunpowder thing works, but he knows that it does and he's in the lead, doing some detective work to find things in the warehouse. He doesn't know exactly why he needs to find Ox, but as soon as it's a quest to find Orellana's Cradle, he's in his element. The problems properly kick in once they find Ox and he's just tagging along with Demented John Hurt.
(Oh, and I think they should have kept the Aliens as crystal skeletons rather than CGI grey)
He has to find the Lost Dialogue of Plato, with Sophia Hapgood, renowned Psychic and Fortune teller, with the help of Nur Ab-Sal!
I would actually prefer a movie where he teaches Marcus' Grandson how to be a treasure Hunter.
Ah Marcus. What a missed oppurtunity. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again. And we never did.
Marcus' character got short shrift in IJatLC. In Raiders we get the sense that he's an older, British Indy now comfortably settle into Academia but tempted to ditch the classroom and get back out there. But in Crusade the role of young adventurer and old adventurer (or rather old adventurer and even older adventurer) were already taken so Denholm Elliot's character get's reduced to 'Bumbling Brit'. The statue in the 4th movie didn't make up for it.
The best i can hope for realistically is that the female lead will not be a helpless screaming object to be menaced by evil men and has to be rescued from a fiery peril by He Man Jones and claimed as a prize at the end.
frankly I preferred the female Nazi in last crusade to that helpless screaming object in ToD. of course Spielberg had to satisfy his fetish for women in fiery peril by having her fall presumably into a fiery pit.
(Spielberg really has a thing for women in peril, often dieing, bondage and fire. Ever see the young sherlock holmes movie? I don't begrudge a man some sexual kinks but does he have to put them on screen so much?)
Personally after seeing women so often just helpless screaming objects to be imperiled and rescued by men i'm actually OK with the "mary sue" thing, it's a welcome change of pace. I'd rather see a mary sue woman than one like in ToD.
So I hope that the female lead is strong and believable, and occasionally kicks a baddie in the nads or even chops him across the throat or gouges his eyes than ends up being rescued by indy again.
Matt Swain wrote: of course Spielberg had to satisfy his fetish for women in fiery peril by having her fall presumably into a fiery pit.
(Spielberg really has a thing for women in peril, often dieing, bondage and fire. Ever see the young sherlock holmes movie? I don't begrudge a man some sexual kinks but does he have to put them on screen so much?)
I mean.... he married Willie after that movie, so yes, there's more than a little going on there.
They’re all homages to the films of the 30’s and 40’s, where Damsel in Distress was a near constant feature.
Yes that is distasteful to modern eyes (especially in an era of Leia and Ripley), but still part of the wider thing.
And let us not forget it was Willie who first figure Indy knocking on her door figured he couldn’t resist her charms. In the romance thing, it was mutual and consensual.
If anything, the cause for greater concern is The Evil Coloured Folk deciding to sacrifice The Beautiful Aryan Woman Before Anyone Else.
Even then, still a homage to the original inspiration stuff. The whole sexual reward thing is not, and has never been, limited to Indy.
Yeah, the actress playing in ToD did marry speilberg, catching on a rebound from another actress.
I mean, so what? She ended her career to be mrs. Spielberg. Ok, her choice, i know nothing of the situation.
For all i know she had the same kinks he did, god knows what kind of roleplaying went on in their bedrooms. It really doesn't matter.
As to it being ok to portray a woman in a negative way because of the times the movies were from, would that make it ok to have black characters portrayed like steppin fetchit?
Again, I just hope that the female lead in this movie is portrayed better than any in the earlier ones.
As far as the U-boat scene from Raiders is concerned, there is another plausible explanation. The uboat DID dive. The conning tower is usually not inhabited during most dives, and there is a small sealed area there. Dangerous to be there if there is an outer hatch leak, but it is plausible that Jones hid there during the dive, and then when they surfaced again he scrambled out before the Nazis went topside.
That or the modern internet love of spreading everything that bothered anyone as far and fast as possible wasn't applied to films in the pre-internet day, letting them get by with poorly thought through transitions that ultimately didn't matter to most people and provided a better pacing that exhaustively explained technicalities.
Matt Swain wrote: The women in fiery peril/bondage thing is a theme in spielberg's movies.
It's also a theme in 1930s serial pulps, which is what Indy is based off of. Indeed, Marian having any sort of moments of strength - such as machine-gunning down a truck of soldiers with the tail gun of the flying wing - is very much an anomaly from that source material.
Remember, Aliens came out two years after Temple of Doom, and FIVE years after Raiders. The archetype of the kick-ass female lead may not have originated there, but I can't think of a movie that did it BEFORE Aliens. About all that comes to mind were the TV shows Charlie's Angels and Wonder Woman in the late seventies. (There are certainly others; I just don't remember them off hand with my swiss cheese memory...)
Buffy (the movie) was 1992, The Long Kiss Goodnight 1995, Tomb Raider 2001 - these were all a decade OR MORE in the future.
Yes, times have changed and things are better now in many ways, but we should not judge forty year old movies on 2021 standards. By the standards of 1981, Marion is among the stronger female support characters of her time, right up there with Leia Organa. Most other supporting female roles - and even lead ones - of the period are literally nothing more than damsels in distress for the lead man to rescue.
Having said that, it would be interesting to see a female character be the one rescuing an increasingly geriatric Indy for once, as he admits he's getting WAY too old for this...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
cuda1179 wrote: As far as the U-boat scene from Raiders is concerned, there is another plausible explanation. The uboat DID dive. The conning tower is usually not inhabited during most dives, and there is a small sealed area there. Dangerous to be there if there is an outer hatch leak, but it is plausible that Jones hid there during the dive, and then when they surfaced again he scrambled out before the Nazis went topside.
So where did the archaeologist learn about this?
Don't get me wrong, I love the movie. We literally just finished watching it again, showing it to some youngsters who hadn't seen it before. And the movie keeps one entertained enough that you don't worry about it until later, sometimes MUCH later. Whereas the problems in other, less entertaining movies jump out and grab you even as you're watching it BECAUSE you're not entertained.
To be honest, Indy spends his whole career sneaking into aces he’s not meant to be, so getting into a contemporary mechanical seagoing device may well be insignificant compared to some for the trap infested horrors he’s visited.
I like to think there is a fully fledged snake city on the other side of the wall, and they all have tiny pagers for when they need to leap… well, slither, into action.
“Hi Jimmy, another day another adventurer to menace”
“Yo Norm, I know, but was just about to get in A nice hot bath…”
cuda1179 wrote: As far as the U-boat scene from Raiders is concerned, there is another plausible explanation. The uboat DID dive. The conning tower is usually not inhabited during most dives, and there is a small sealed area there. Dangerous to be there if there is an outer hatch leak, but it is plausible that Jones hid there during the dive, and then when they surfaced again he scrambled out before the Nazis went topside.
So where did the archaeologist learn about this?
Don't get me wrong, I love the movie. We literally just finished watching it again, showing it to some youngsters who hadn't seen it before. And the movie keeps one entertained enough that you don't worry about it until later, sometimes MUCH later. Whereas the problems in other, less entertaining movies jump out and grab you even as you're watching it BECAUSE you're not entertained.
Well, Indiana Jones was a World War 1 veteran but also, apparently, helped steal the German Enigma machine, whilst disguised as a Nazi, which was on a U-Boat, so guess he had some experience.
Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Tell that to people judging modern sequels/remakes without applying the same hyper critique to whichever film they’ve decided they need to love to extend the reach of their e-peen
he enigma machine was invented in the early 20's and being offered commercially by 1923 and was bought by a bunch of govts who then developed their own versions so wold be ok
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Like I said, the movie is entertaining so I can let the inconsistencies go while watching it. I find this to be true even for Temple, and even to a small extent Crystal Skull.
However, there is also fun to be had breaking down the various inconsistencies after the fact for a laugh.
(Which is separate from bad movies where the only fun to be had is from breaking down how the movie breaks down... you know the one.)
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Tell that to people judging modern sequels/remakes without applying the same hyper critique to whichever film they’ve decided they need to love to extend the reach of their e-peen
That’s kinda the point of the current convo.
As I said, entertain me and my critiques will be friendly. Insult me and my critiques will be far less so.
And take care, you're bordering on personal attacks.
Where did they come from? How did they survive and breed for thousands of years?
The crumbling exterior wall with all the holes? The one Indy put a statue through to get out, and is shown on camera with snakes crawling through it?
They didn't have to survive and breed for thousands of years. They just had to come inside to survive the cold desert nights during the last few months.
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Like I said, the movie is entertaining so I can let the inconsistencies go while watching it. I find this to be true even for Temple, and even to a small extent Crystal Skull.
However, there is also fun to be had breaking down the various inconsistencies after the fact for a laugh.
(Which is separate from bad movies where the only fun to be had is from breaking down how the movie breaks down... you know the one.)
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Tell that to people judging modern sequels/remakes without applying the same hyper critique to whichever film they’ve decided they need to love to extend the reach of their e-peen
That’s kinda the point of the current convo.
As I said, entertain me and my critiques will be friendly. Insult me and my critiques will be far less so.
And take care, you're bordering on personal attacks.
There's also the fact I was 4 when Raiders came out. When I watched it I was a bright eyed teenager, easily impressed with flashy flashness. I'm now 44. Sure maybe I'm a little jaded but I also don't just consume sugar any more. The older movies also get a bit of a pass because they were from an ealier age. Compare a Model T to a Tesla, or a Wright Flyer to a B787. As amazing as early things are there's no need to still be impressed years after the day, without needing to judge them by modern standards. Hell look at Rogue Trader vs current WH40K. The Model T was amazing, compared to modern cars, with all their flaws, the Model T won't even begin to measure up. Does that make the Model T bad? No, it makes it amazing for when it was relevant.
Do the older Indiana Jones have problems? Yeah. Personally I hate Temple of Doom. There have been almost 3 decades of development of cinematography since then. Is it surprising we hold new movies to higher, newer, standards?
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Like I said, the movie is entertaining so I can let the inconsistencies go while watching it. I find this to be true even for Temple, and even to a small extent Crystal Skull.
However, there is also fun to be had breaking down the various inconsistencies after the fact for a laugh.
(Which is separate from bad movies where the only fun to be had is from breaking down how the movie breaks down... you know the one.)
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Tell that to people judging modern sequels/remakes without applying the same hyper critique to whichever film they’ve decided they need to love to extend the reach of their e-peen
That’s kinda the point of the current convo.
As I said, entertain me and my critiques will be friendly. Insult me and my critiques will be far less so.
And take care, you're bordering on personal attacks.
There's also the fact I was 4 when Raiders came out. When I watched it I was a bright eyed teenager, easily impressed with flashy flashness. I'm now 44. Sure maybe I'm a little jaded but I also don't just consume sugar any more. The older movies also get a bit of a pass because they were from an ealier age. Compare a Model T to a Tesla, or a Wright Flyer to a B787. As amazing as early things are there's no need to still be impressed years after the day, without needing to judge them by modern standards. Hell look at Rogue Trader vs current WH40K. The Model T was amazing, compared to modern cars, with all their flaws, the Model T won't even begin to measure up. Does that make the Model T bad? No, it makes it amazing for when it was relevant.
Do the older Indiana Jones have problems? Yeah. Personally I hate Temple of Doom. There have been almost 3 decades of development of cinematography since then. Is it surprising we hold new movies to higher, newer, standards?
Since I was 10 when Raiders came out I understand exactly how things have changed in cinematography. Some of those changes are good, some are very, very bad. So I also understand not judging classic movies by modern standards, many of which are garbage anyway. More lens flares, more explosions, and poorly subverted expectations do not make up for being a thoroughly unentertaining movie.
ONE MORE TIME. If I find the movie entertaining, I can let go of inconsistencies while watching it. But there's fun to be had exploring those inconsistencies after the fact as well.
If this is not your experience, that's cool. You are not me; I don't expect you to experience things the same way I do. But please do not try to imply I am wrong for not being YOU.
Where did they come from? How did they survive and breed for thousands of years?
Snake hiving is not that uncommon. Garter Snakes will do it in the thousands. My uncle used to live near Carson City Nevada, and was told that old mine shafts down there look cool, but depending on the time of year could have anything from a cougar to thousands of rattlesnakes chilling out in there.
So, inspired by this thread I watched the movies again. With regard to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, watching the movies so close to each other it struck me that the first half of the movie very much felt like the Indiana Jones movies of old, with the exception of the gophers or whatever. Cute animals for the sake of having cute animals hasn't been a thing before. Aside from that, proper and familiar Indy feel. But starting with the jungle chase it just turned into sequence after sequence of stuff that seemed to have been mindlessly thrown together without much purpose or meaning to the actual story.
I went into this liking the thought put forward earlier that the core issue is that Indy stopped being a driving force and was only along for the ride from a certain point onward, but it turns out that while I wouldn't call this idea wrong, it's not what bothered me from the point of the aforementioned chase onward. It felt more like it was down to how modern movies need to one up preceding entries and inevitably discard verisimilitude for spectacle along the way. The sword fight on the moving cars, for instance, bothered me. We've had fights on moving vehicles before. Both on a single vehicle and going back and forth between two vehicles. And they all accounted for the movement of the vehicles, terrain and other factors that would interrupt fights only to get picked up again after the obstacle was passed. Indy 4 doesn't do that. Commie lady and teenage delinquent happily fight on top of cars speeding over rough ground like they're in a training session on campus. When the cars get separated, teenage delinquent precariously balances between both cars but merrily continues the fight. I think it's this kind of escalation that sets the movie apart from the earlier ones. It doesn't respect the world rules and expectations introduced by the earlier movies and as a consequence stands out negatively.
Or Marian driving off a cliff against the advice of everyone else, knowing for whatever reason that there's a tree below to break the car's fall, knowing that driving at a specific speed will land her safely on the tree, bend the tree down to where she want's to go, and then to top it off the tree conveniently whips back afterwards to throw some commies down the cliff. Actually, what tops it off is Marian looking incredibly pleased with herself like she had it all planned out. That's not just a lot of disbelief that needs to be suspended, I can't think of any scene in the previous movies where dumb choices were presented as fully planned with maximum pay off. Even bailing out of a plane in a rubber boat was presented as a solution that nobody was happy with and whose great achievement it was that everyone survived after a harrowing trip down the mountain.
What's interesting to me is that the way the first half of the movie is made suggests that someone was well enough aware what it takes to make an Indy movie in the vein of the old ones, only to fail at showing any such awareness through the other half of the movie.
A lot of the worst moments of Crystal Skull come down to the same problematic green screen CGI replacement for practical effects and stuntwork. What you've touched on exactly what has always been my main issue with the movie, but it rarely comes up before discussions are sidetracked by aliens and refrigerators. It's a problem that absolutely dogged over a decade of films like the Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels.
LunarSol wrote: Guys, its just a plot hole. It doesn't make the movie bad. It doesn't need to be defended. It doesn't logically work but the movie isn't real. It's okay to just let it go.
Totally agree with you.
The magically appearing vertical drop in Jurassic Park still baffles to this day even when looking at the making of the film, but its an exciting scene all the same. Apparently its a moat but its a hill? Dunno, but on screen it makes zero sense.
Yet Crystal Skull's fridge scene is slammed even though we at least have the "LEAD" sign to actually explain the thinking behind it and that the Indy movies are an action-comedy anyway. In real life, yes the fridge would very likely be incinerated or at least every bone in Indy's body would be broken. But this is the movies where one can pick off a bad guy on top of a building with a hand gun, and a velociraptor is much larger what it was in real life.
LunarSol wrote: A lot of the worst moments of Crystal Skull come down to the same problematic green screen CGI replacement for practical effects and stuntwork. What you've touched on exactly what has always been my main issue with the movie, but it rarely comes up before discussions are sidetracked by aliens and refrigerators. It's a problem that absolutely dogged over a decade of films like the Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels.
I never thought of it that way. Once you can stop worrying about how to make something physically happen it may become all too tempting to just do it without any reflection.
And since we've now also mentioned Jurassic Park, I think a nod towards a certain Ian Malcolm quote about cans and shoulds is in order.
I'm with Lance when it comes to Shia. I think the only reason they had him was to try to cash in on that Transformers recognition. I'm not saying I hate the guy personally, or that he's bad at acting in general, but I just don't feel he fits in an Indiana Jones movie.
Where did they come from? How did they survive and breed for thousands of years?
Snake hiving is not that uncommon. Garter Snakes will do it in the thousands. My uncle used to live near Carson City Nevada, and was told that old mine shafts down there look cool, but depending on the time of year could have anything from a cougar to thousands of rattlesnakes chilling out in there.
Yeah, if memory serves, the surprising thing isn't so much that snakes congregate in caves and other underground structures, it's how many species of snake from all over the world apparently holiday in North Africa!
Having watched Crystal Skull many times, I cannot fault Shia's performance and feel that he's a highlight of the film.
Ray Winstons's "JONESY!!!!", on the other hand, got on my damn nerves. It always felt misplaced and down right awkward. Its the objectionable thing I have against the film, but its no where near as film breaking as that bloody awful "Jedi Rocks" in ROTJ: Special Edition. Seeing your favourite childhood film ruined is like someone taking a machette to the Mona Lisa. Its heart breaking...
cuda1179 wrote: I'm with Lance when it comes to Shia. I think the only reason they had him was to try to cash in on that Transformers recognition. I'm not saying I hate the guy personally, or that he's bad at acting in general, but I just don't feel he fits in an Indiana Jones movie.
I am saying both that 1) I don't like him personally (remember those like.. 2 years of his weird antics acting out in a death spiral of his own making? Fighting a bum? "I am not famous any more" paper bag. The sitting in a room with a paper bag while people wait on line to berate him? The plagiarizing an apology for plagiarizing? He is in fact a real piece of gak. The only good thing to come out of it (and admittedly, it is fething great) is Actual Canibal Shia Lebuff, and 2) He is bad at acting. Case in point...
Isn't there a rule about continuing a franchise where it's been a decade or more since the last movie or the last good movie? Hollywood keeps milking franchises dead I guess.
I think the saddest thing I heard many years ago is that it's not that entertainment has no new ideas but rather it's very costly and very risky to make a big budget movie so generally when they do big budget it's safe and why remakes and or sequels are so common.
Let Indy rest man. People ranted about crystal skull enough as it is. I don't want to see another series from my childhood get wrecked.
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Not to mention there's also the rule of every series should end after the 3rd. Only James bond and maybe Batman can survive past 3.
I never liked the Shia LaBeouf character. I don’t think it was the actor so much as it felt like I was watching a back door pilot. I don’t know whether or not this was the plan, but it seemed like they were trying to pass the torch from Harrison Ford and had the film ( and the character) been better received, we would have seen a spin off film starring LaBeouf.
cuda1179 wrote: I'm with Lance when it comes to Shia. I think the only reason they had him was to try to cash in on that Transformers recognition. I'm not saying I hate the guy personally, or that he's bad at acting in general, but I just don't feel he fits in an Indiana Jones movie.
I am saying both that 1) I don't like him personally (remember those like.. 2 years of his weird antics acting out in a death spiral of his own making? Fighting a bum? "I am not famous any more" paper bag. The sitting in a room with a paper bag while people wait on line to berate him? The plagiarizing an apology for plagiarizing? He is in fact a real piece of gak. The only good thing to come out of it (and admittedly, it is fething great) is Actual Canibal Shia Lebuff, and 2) He is bad at acting. Case in point...
I also like when he got political and set up a webcam of a an anti-Trump flag in an undisclosed location. It only took hours for people to figure out where it was and steal it. Then it happened again. And then again. LOL
Not to mention there's also the rule of every series should end after the 3rd. Only James bond and maybe Batman can survive past 3.
the rule of DC is that we are not allowed to get more than 2 good movies from the same series without a reboot
and the rule of 3 is more about a rule that you should not make more movies than there is source material to draw from, as well as avoiding prequels with the same actors
problem is that because continouing a franchise worked in same cases as well as the sequel being better than the first movie let people jump to the conclusion that it will always work with every movie and it is a save way to print money
