Indy 5

[biggytitbo]

Surely nobody forced Spileberg to use such shit CGI or direct the Tarzan thing? He's Spileberg! The whole last half of the movie is very poorly directed, unless Spileberg basically let Lucas do it because he'd given up hope himself?

[Steven]

[mobias]

From what I've read George Lucas was continually throwing ideas at Spielberg and he was basically saying yes to all of them. I get the impression Lucas has always been a bit of a back seat director of the Indiana Jones franchise but Spielberg in the past had been more assertive at saying no to some of the stuff Lucas was dreaming up.

[biggytitbo]

People go on about the fridge scene, but I can live with it. It's mainly badly directed - add a mattress and the fridge landing in some soft sand and it almost enters reality. The Tarzan stuff though, it is just the pits, as low as either men have ever gone in their career.

[Kane Jones]

Ray Winstone's character was frustratingly shit as well. I still don't really understand what his motivation was. And the three waterfalls scene was tragic. Utterly pointless.

[popcorn]

Watching Temple of Doom now. It is so endlessly cruel to the female lead.

[biggytitbo]

Ohh yeah I'd forgotten about the watefalls, piss poor. Winstones character is actually great, but his role and motivation in the film is utter, incoherent shit.

[Kane Jones]

Watching Temple of Doom now. It is so endlessly cruel to the female lead.

That's because both Spielberg and Lucas hated women at the time. In a final act of cruelty, Spielberg made Capshaw marry him.

[Replies From View]

we might actually get to see the ol' Spielberg magic flare up once again.

His haemorrhoids?  Hope not.

[Glebe]

His haemorrhoids?  Hope not.

Too much time, etc.

[Lt Plonker]

You could tell the directors heart wasn't really in it and I think he's admitted since that he said to yes to George Lucas far more than he would have in the past instead of fighting his corner. 

I read the big Making Of book for all four films a few months ago and the final section on Crystal Skull gives the impression that Lucas REALLY wore Spielberg down. He'd spent 20 odd years pitching the alien idea - just pushing and pushing - originally touting it to Harrison Ford on the set of a Young Indy adventure:



Even in the behind the scenes stuff on the blu ray, Spielberg seems exhausted and fed up with the man. According to the book, there was a moment filming a scene in the alien throne room where he mutters: "That's the take George likes, print it."

[marquis_de_sad]

I was confused by Lucas' odd use of the term MacGuffin here, so I looked it up and it turns out he has his own weird take on what it means. For example, he thinks the MacGuffin in the first Star Wars film is

Spoiler alert

Luke Skywalker

[close]

. He really has no clue what he's talking about, does he?

[popcorn]

I thought the 50s UFO paranoia vibe worked really well in Crystal Skull. What didn't work were the aliens themselves. We should never have seen them, just discovered evidence of them.

To be clear: Crystal Skull is hardly flawless, there's a lot of shit in it, but I think it's much better than most nerds give it credit for. Way better than the Star Wars prequels, for a start.

At the risk of getting into further trouble... I think you lot might be being too hard on old Lucas, desperately trying to blame him for everything wrong in the world. There's nothing in that passage Lt Plonker posted that makes Lucas sound weird. Having ideas and persuading people of them is how things get made, isn't it? It's only because you don't like his ideas after the fact that you interpret him as pushy or needy or whatever. If you read exactly the same sort of thing but it was about Spielberg pitching Close Encounters to a skeptical colleague you wouldn't think he sounded mental.

[popcorn]

I was confused by Lucas' odd use of the term MacGuffin here, so I looked it up and it turns out he has his own weird take on what it means.

Then so does Spielberg: 'Although Spielberg said "I'm very happy with the movie. I always have been", he also said "I sympathise with people who didn't like the MacGuffin [the interdimensional beings] because I never liked the MacGuffin."'

[Lt Plonker]

I thought the 50s UFO paranoia vibe worked really well in Crystal Skull. What didn't work were the aliens themselves. We should never have seen them, just discovered evidence of them.

To be clear: Crystal Skull is hardly flawless, there's a lot of shit in it, but I think it's much better than most nerds give it credit for. Way better than the Star Wars prequels, for a start.

At the risk of getting into further trouble... I think you lot might be being too hard on old Lucas, desperately trying to blame him for everything wrong in the world. There's nothing in that passage Lt Plonker posted that makes Lucas sound weird. Having ideas and persuading people of them is how things get made, isn't it? It's only because you don't like his ideas after the fact that you interpret him as pushy or needy or whatever. If you read exactly the same sort of thing but it was about Spielberg pitching Close Encounters to a skeptical colleague you wouldn't think he sounded mental.

I dunno. I think pitching THAT particular idea for THAT particular franchise for 20 odd years and not realising that is sits so uncomfortably with what they'd done before seems a bit short-sighted. Harrison Ford is completely right and it seems bizarre Lucas just doesn't clock it. You're right about CS though - there's still plenty of good stuff in there, some great character scenes and proper fist fights and stunts.

I thought the alien implication in Fate of Atlantis worked really well! From what I remember they imply an alien origin in, I think, one line of dialogue which then acts as a very light backdrop to Atlantis itself. What you don't see is a big cartoon alien trying to poke the camera, so yes, I agree with your sentiment to some extent.

[popcorn]

I think pitching THAT particular idea for THAT particular franchise for 20 odd years and not realising that is sits so uncomfortably with what they'd done before seems a bit short-sighted. Harrison Ford is completely right and it seems bizarre Lucas just doesn't clock it.

Was Ford completely right though? As I said, I think the central idea of the 50s UFO paranoia setting works really well. Lucas was right on the money in concept - they just took it too far in execution. (And it sounds like maybe we agree on that point anyway?)

[Jerzy Bondov]

I wonder if Spielberg, Lucas or Ford are at all familiar with Fate of Atlantis. Or if it bothers them that there's a brilliant Indy 4, much better than their own effort, that happens to be a computer game.

[mothman]

Was Ford completely right though? As I said, I think the central idea of the 50s UFO paranoia setting works really well. Lucas was right on the money in concept - they just took it too far in execution. (And it sounds like maybe we agree on that point anyway?)

I agree, certainly. The leap from what might have worked, done right - the 50's alien paranoia - to the bonkers actuality - interdimensional beings FFS - is a step too far.

It takes us out of the internal logic of the franchise - most of the previous films managed to avoid much in the way of contemporary comment on that era, it's all just presented at face value. But then with Crystal Skull, you have them basically saying, well, we all know they can't actually BE Men From Mars or from anywhere nearby, so let's go with a more contemporarily-accurate scientific explanation.

It's not in itself the only problem with the film but it's the icing on the cake given everything that's happened leading up to it.

[mobias]

To be clear: Crystal Skull is hardly flawless, there's a lot of shit in it, but I think it's much better than most nerds give it credit for. Way better than the Star Wars prequels, for a start.

Sorry but its just plain awful for the most part. When it was on TV over Xmas I caught it again and it was every bit as bad as I remember it being from seeing it in the cinema. Its marginally better than the Star Wars prequels simply because the acting and dialogue is far better than the SW prequels, but then again that wouldn't be difficult.

I think you'd have to see past a lorry load of cinematic failings to want to see the Crystal Skull as anywhere near being decent or underrated. Its viewed as a turd by audiences for valid reasons I think.

The whole alien premise could probably have been made to work if it was handled with a bit more subtlety but introducing aliens into the Indiana Jones franchise I think in any way would have always been a bit of a gamble. Introducing Jones in his 60's was going to be a bit of a gamble. Having him be a father and introducing him to his son was always going to be a bit of a gamble and having him get married at the end of the film was also going to be a bit of a gamble. Lucas took at least three too many (shit) gambles with Crystal Skull and none of them worked whatsoever. The odds were stacked against it before filming even begun. I'm guessing Spielberg probably secretly knew this.

[mothman]

Thinking about it some more, there is 50's SF that went down the mind-bending Tentacular Monstrosities From Beyond Space! route - but they presumably felt that was too silly. And flesh-melting angels, stones that heat up by voice command and a 900yo crusader weren't?

And worst of all the resolution is enacted via some shockingly bad CGI.

[biggytitbo]

Surely Fate of Atlantis started out as one of the millions of rejected Indy movie ideas?


Anyway, the idea behind crystal skull is brilliant, if Indy moves into the 1950s then the aliens concept is perfect. Especially when it's tied into the von daniken chariots of the gods stuff, so it's still strongly centred around ancient cultures and archeology.


The aliens part of crystal skulls is not what's wrong with it, aside from the end where it becomes too overt. It's the many many rotten and ill-judged story elements and scenes throughout and the poor script, direction and terrible CGI in the latter half.

[Steven]

Nah, I think Indy + Aliens is wank, just feels intrinsically wrong, whereas Indy + The Supernatural such as Biblical stuff like The Ark or The Holy Grail didn't seem to have that sense of cognitive dissonance.

[biggytitbo]

In itself maybe, but when tied into the idea that aliens influenced the incas and ancient eygptians etc I think it fits really well in the Indyverse. They were both too literal about it and surrounded it by far too much terrible shit for the idea to really work here though.

[Replies From View]

In the new film I reckon Harrison Ford's character should be the frontman of a band called "The Indy 5" that features "Bald Rick" as the drummer.

[Mango Chimes]

Has anyone mentioned the problem that the crystal skull prop looked nothing like crystal and exactly like a plastic with a bit of scrunched up clingfilm inside it?  Or the fact that everyone was calling him Henry or Jonesy instead of INDIANA.  Or bringing Marion back as a grinning simpleton.  I quite enjoyed it in the cinema, but it's not lived well in my memory.

Shifting Indy into the late fifties was weird.  Having him as an old man in 1966 or whenever is just not going to feel like Indy no matter what they do.

[Steven]

Shifting Indy into the late fifties was weird.  Having him as an old man in 1966 or whenever is just not going to feel like Indy no matter what they do.

Ha ha. They should do the new one for the college crowd set in the swinging 60s, sort of an Indy version of Half Baked, could call it Indiana Jones & The Cursed Bong, LOL! Indy smoking weed, hahahaha, he could whip the joint out of people's mouths for a cheeky drag. Hanging round with a load of hippy students who are all incredulous about his old man's stories at first but then turn into a rag-tag bunch that help in his quest. Indy taking LSD would be well funny, like the Stained Glass Knight bit in Young Sherlock Holmes but with old Indy pooing his pants! Sean Connery could cameo in a wheelchair and slap a bitch, Indy has to find the titular Cursed Bong and drink the bongwater to cure his athlete's foot or sommat.

[Blumf]

Part of the problem with the post-war era for Indy is that the world became too small in the Jet Age. The 50s is about as far as you can push it, the 60s just wouldn't work. 1920s/30s is where it need to be, but you can go back to that, not with OAP Indy at least.

Give Indiana Jones a rest, go back and give Doc Savage another try.[nb]I liked the campy George Pal film, but I understand there's more that could be done with the pulps[/nb]

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

As early as the first rumors for this film surfaced, I had one theory that gets more and more likely. Disney didn't just buy the distribution rights for the final film in the Paramount deal to make the last adventure, it will also be a semi-reboot with a new actor.

Indy V will have a framing device with old Indy (Ford) bookending a story set up in the thirties with a new actor who will take over the part in potential sequels.
Think of it for a minute. There will be an actor cast as young Han Solo in the 2018 Star Wars Anthology film by Lord & Miller.
Use the same actor, tell the story about Indy's first big quest for an important relic, one that ultimately goes nowhere.  Old Indy, just before retiring, realizes what mistakes he made in the first place, and finally completes the quest.
It would also allow the series to go back to the thirties for a few entries.

I don't expect it to be great (there's a very slim chance they do something elegiac looking a little like Once Upon a Time in America when they switch eras), but it's Disney, and you know they won't allow a franchise to be finished because the main players and creators say it's over. Who seriously thinks that they won't make a fourth Star Wars trilogy in due time?

[Hollow]

I think the massive major problem with Plastic Skull is Harrison Ford, he is clearly an old man, he looks like an old man in his eyes, he looks like he doesn't want to be doing what he's doing.

He didn't convince me that he was Indy, quite sad looking in the old clothes.

That's not going to be any better now, no, it's likely to be much worse.

He was better as Solo recently, but it's telling he was wanting to die in it, Solo was always a bit world weary, but Jones always had a more academic nature, more of an action character than Solo, although in many way they are just the same dude.

[greenman]

Has anyone mentioned the problem that the crystal skull prop looked nothing like crystal and exactly like a plastic with a bit of scrunched up clingfilm inside it?  Or the fact that everyone was calling him Henry or Jonesy instead of INDIANA.  Or bringing Marion back as a grinning simpleton.  I quite enjoyed it in the cinema, but it's not lived well in my memory.

Shifting Indy into the late fifties was weird.  Having him as an old man in 1966 or whenever is just not going to feel like Indy no matter what they do.

Really the latter is unavoidable but bringing Maron back was certainly a mistake as the character was just terrible.

The Alien stuff I thought worked well for the first half but then seemed to shift from very dull with people staring at a poor quality skull prop that did fuck all to suddenly cartoonishly over the top at the end plus of course the whole chase was pointless as getting your face melted was the only reward.

Indy as a semi retired professor in a 60's collage seems like an excellent setup for me, especially if your going to follow up on the cold war plot again.