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Indiana Jones V

Started by St_Eddie, April 09, 2018, 07:38:42 PM

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St_Eddie


Well, this is unexpected; a teaser trailer for Indiana Jones V!

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What are everyone's feelings about the upcoming movie, as it's Steven Spielberg's next project?  Personally, I'm very wary towards it.  I love the original trilogy but Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was not a worthy followup at all, in my opinion.  The biggest red flag towards the fifth installment is perhaps that David Koepp (the writer for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) is coming back for this sequel.  Still, hope springs eternal.  I'd be over the moon if it turns out to be great.  I can't imagine it will be, in all honesty; given Keopp; Ready Player One era Spielberg and an aged Harrison Ford but fingers crossed, hey?

biggytitbo

There's a good, perhaps great hour in Crystal Skull. The other hour is terrible shite though.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Ready Player One didn't even work as good mindless entertainment for me. It was just a load of nothing really. I suppose you could put that down to Spielberg not giving a toss about the subject matter, rather than being past it, though. Crystal Skull was indeed naff, but not as bad as I remembered when I watched it a second time.

St_Eddie

#3
Quote from: biggytitbo on April 09, 2018, 07:45:53 PM
There's a good, perhaps great hour in Crystal Skull. The other hour is terrible shite though.

I agree with this.  The first half of the movie is decent (with a few eyebrow raising moments; the fridge and the gophers mainly) but once the quicksand scene kicks in, the movie tumbles off a cliff and down a waterfall three times, in terms of both quality and content.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 09, 2018, 08:25:00 PM
Ready Player One didn't even work as good mindless entertainment for me. It was just a load of nothing really. I suppose you could put that down to Spielberg not giving a toss about the subject matter, rather than being past it, though.

The problem with modern Spielberg, in relation to Indiana Jones, is that he lacks the grit; his mean streak that he once possessed when making the original trilogy (particularly the first two).  He's softened with age.  The Plinkett review of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull covered this and is spot on.  I agree with every criticism of the movie in that review.

Avril Lavigne

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 09, 2018, 08:34:42 PM
The problem with modern Spielberg, in relation to Indiana Jones, is that he lacks the grit; his mean streak that he once possessed when making the original trilogy

And Poltergeist!

St_Eddie

#5
Quote from: Avril Lavigne on April 10, 2018, 12:16:24 AM
And Poltergeist!

Oh, absolutely.  I was simply honing in on the original Indy trilogy because it was relevant to the discussion at hand but yes, the Spielberg of old had more grit and playful nastiness, in general.

Avril Lavigne

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 10, 2018, 12:24:27 AM
Oh, absolutely.  I was simply honing in on the original Indy trilogy because it was relevant to the discussion but yes, the Spielberg of old had more grit and playful nastiness, in general.

For sure, I was very disappointed by Spalko's death scene in Crystal Skull, which right away was obviously going to invite comparisons to the face-melting from Raiders of the Lost Ark but played out like the same idea remade with the attitude of 'we don't want any kids having to look away or cover their eyes during this.'

St_Eddie

Quote from: Avril Lavigne on April 10, 2018, 12:38:58 AM
For sure, I was very disappointed by Spalko's death scene in Crystal Skull, which right away was obviously going to invite comparisons to the face-melting from Raiders of the Lost Ark but played out like the same idea remade with the attitude of 'we don't want any kids having to look away or cover their eyes during this.'

Yep.  I can't imagine the people who watched Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as kids, growing up and reminiscing about the creepiness and scariness of some daft little CG fireballs erupting from Spalko's eyes.  The CG ants were a total joke as well.  The Spielberg of old, would have demanded no less than a shipment of 3 billion fire ants for that scene.  Instead we get the cast of Antz performing a circus trick by utilising their digital bodies to create a stepladder.

It's actually quite sad, watching the behind the scenes documentary for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the Blu-Ray; Spielberg is sat in an office and using Skype to evaluate an early version of the ant scene.  He tells the animator that he'll need to add double the amount of CG ants.  He then laughs and recollects how the "exact" same thing happened on the the original Indy trilogy; "I demanded thousands of more snakes, then bugs, then rats and here I am again, with the ants!".  The sad realities of modern filmmaking and the difference in technique and tangibility between a bunch of code on a computer and a bunch of living creatures on an actual set, seems completely lost on him.

I don't hold out much hope for Indiana Jones V.  Not when today's Spielberg likes to do as much as possible on a sound stage during production and a computer during post-production.  Indy movies need to be shot on location and with practical effects, as much as possible.  They're supposed to be throwbacks to the serials of old, after all.

Shaky

I can't help but be excited about this even though a) that's exactly what they're banking on from nerds like me and b) I can't see how it'll be fit to lick the boots of the first three films. In my head there's a way they could pull it off with some dignity but then I thought that about the last one too. Ideally Indy V will go a different direction a la Last Jedi or Twin Peaks S3, sticking two fingers to nostalgia... but it won't, it'll just trot out the tropes which didn't work in the fourth film.

Crystal Skull feels weirdly small; it lacks the epic nature of the others, it's a messy compromise between CGI and some shoddy model work and it has almost no sense of threat.  I mean, the spike trap in Temple of Doom still makes me fear for their lives.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Shaky on April 10, 2018, 03:47:19 AM
Ideally Indy V will go a different direction a la Last Jedi... sticking two fingers to nostalgia...

In the hopes of not derailing the thread, I must say that I'm not sure how The Last Jedi stuck two fingers up to nostalgia, given the shameless recreation of the throne room scene from Return of the Jedi and the battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back.

Quote from: Shaky on April 10, 2018, 03:47:19 AM...the spike trap in Temple of Doom still makes me fear for their lives.

I'm with you there.  That's a masterfully tense scene.  I can think of few ways worse than checking out of this life, than by being slowly impaled by spikes and simultaneously crushed by a steadily lowering ceiling.  That scene also contains my favourite Harrison Ford line reading ever; "We are. Going. To die!".

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 10, 2018, 04:28:24 AM
That scene also contains my favourite Harrison Ford line reading ever; "We. Are going. To die!".

FTFY

dex

I have a theory that this one will be good. It is an admittedly lazy theory based on odd number Indy films are good (Raiders and Last Crusade) and even number Indy films (Temple and Crystal) are not so good.

Here's hoping!

Bleeding Kansas

It's not a lazy theory. They are clearly the inverse of the Star Trek Films.

Solid gold proof.

Shit Good Nose

I knew Crystal Skull was doomed to be shit when we first saw Indy's shadow.  It should have been an iconic moment.  Instead, it was very very obviously a CGI shadow, and not a particularly good CGI shadow either.  Why did they need to do a CGI shadow?!??!?

But, as it is, I think Spielberg is still capable of making great films (and I disagree he's completely lost the grit - Munich, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies prove he's still got some of it, regardless of whether you like the films or not) and, after a reasonable turn in The Force Awakens and an unexpectedly brilliant turn in Blade Runner 2049 (where he still did a lot of physical stuff himself, including where K throws him over a lounger), I still think Ford just about has the chops.

The problem, as it was with Crystal Skull, will be with the story.  If they get that, and the resultant script, right, then it could be good.

My expectations are set suitably low, but I'm not writing it off just yet...

popcorn

Look, everyone, the scene in Raiders where everyone's running about in the marketplace and hiding in big bins is the most mindbummingly tedious sequence of any film ever made and it's about time we all admitted that.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: popcorn on April 10, 2018, 03:16:57 PM
Look, everyone, the scene in Raiders where everyone's running about in the marketplace and hiding in big bins is the most mindbummingly tedious sequence of any film ever made and it's about time we all admitted that.

I think there should be more escaping-by-being-rolled-up-in-a-carpet in live action films.

popcorn

Oooh no Indy, is she hiding in this bin or the other bin, ooh no Indy, she's on the other cart, they went that-a-away, ooh no Indy, a monkey's stolen your hat, watch out Indy, you're about to slip on a banana peel, oh nooo, the tension, whoops, heck

bgmnts

Yeah but even in that silly scene is one of the best moments in cinema.

popcorn

Nope. And you know what is? The fridge scene.

I've argued this before, on these forums. You were all convinced by my arguments at the time, but I expect you've all forgotten now.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: popcorn on April 10, 2018, 03:26:39 PM
Nope. And you know what is? The fridge scene.

Totally agree.  I mean it is just genius - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWZ5Shp3A1s




..........oh, you didn't mean that fridge scene.  You mean THAT fridge scene......

lebowskibukowski

I always enjoyed the opprobrium that Crystal Skulls received. People were actively losing their shit that the nuclear-flying-fridge scene was ridiculous and that big alien crystal skulls were too far fetched when the first film featured A NAZI HAVING HIS FACE MELTED BY RELIGIOUS GHOSTS THAT WERE TRAPPED IN THE ARK OF THE FUCKING COVENANT.

biggytitbo

The fridge scene might have been ok if he'd bunged a mattress in there or something, just enough to make us buy it.

Anyway, even if Skull is as it its best when it's practical stunts and effects, I don't know if it really is the terrible cgi that ruins it. The old films are full of terrible optical effects, especially the second two - the effects in the cliff scene look particularly shite in Doom. The relentless, slapdash and artless use of CGI in the second half of Skull (not to mention technically poor) does have a sort of numbing effect though.

It would obviously be best to have as much done practically, but that's clearly going to be even less of the case in V in case Harrison Ford dies. I wonder if they'll even try to cgi de-age him?

Kane Jones

The worst bit in Skull is the monkeys. Shit for cunts kids.

Steven

Quote from: Kane Jones on April 10, 2018, 04:04:26 PM
The worst bit in Skull is the monkeys. Shit for cunts kids.

That is the obvious bit to mention, a proper Ace Ventura "Come to me jungle-friends!" bit of utter horseshit.



That and having Aliens involved in the Indy universe at all, Spielberg is obsessed with putting aliens in everything, thank God he never got to direct Stand By Me or Gordy, Chris and Vern would discover parts of the Roswell craft in Pressman's junkyard or something. Biblical/supernatural stuff works in the Indy universe, aliens don't.

popcorn

Tapping into that 50s Roswell/UFO/Soviet stuff works really well, but they take it too far. It should have been left at artefacts with eerie powers, not spaceships taking off.

Steven

Quote from: popcorn on April 10, 2018, 04:26:05 PM
Tapping into that 50s Roswell/UFO/Soviet stuff works really well, but they take it too far. It should have been left at artefacts with eerie powers, not spaceships taking off.

Maybe by implication. But having literal grey aliens turning up in giant thrones controlling ships telepathically that are buried under ancient temples just seemed not to fit the tone, extra point for spelling artefacts correctly, even the spellchecker disagrees with the correct spelling!

SavageHedgehog

Quote from: Steven on April 10, 2018, 04:14:57 PM
That and having Aliens involved in the Indy universe at all, Spielberg is obsessed with putting aliens in everything, thank God he never got to direct Stand By Me or Gordy


Could have used some aliens if I recall.

(I did actually read it as this at first (I've never seen Stand by Me))

colacentral

Wasn't it Lucas who insisted on aliens? I thought I remembered Spielberg always thinking that was a shit idea until Lucas mentioned tying it into its 1950's period as a sci-fi movie homage, then Spielberg got on board with it.

To be honest, I don't think it having aliens is a bad thing - considering various widespread mad theories about things like the pyramids, it makes sense for a film series about an archaeologist who finds supernatural things to eventually touch on the subject. It's just that the execution was piss poor.

Dog Botherer

Crystal Skull is pretty much an Indy/Stargate crossover, except fucking dogshit.

Also the Skull is tied to the wrong aliens to fit with the SG mythos but whatever. Who gives a shit.

SavageHedgehog

I wonder if the alien elements would be better received if it came out today? 2008, being the year of The Dark Knight, was pretty much the apotheosis of the "gritty and grounded" mainstream blockbusters, in striking the public mood if not in quantity (and Iron Man started to highlight the potential of the other approach). These days when we're all hyped for the Marvel gang to fly their hovercraft through the fist of infinity or whatever would we feel differently? Of course Indiana isn't a comic book character and their fan bases aren't exactly the same (a lot of Indy fans probably see the originals as "how it should be done" in contrast to the Marvels etc.), but I do wonder.

Barring a couple of minutes of television (which actually looked pretty good) I haven't seen Crystal Skull since it came out. It strikes me as the kind of film which might actually play when you have more of an idea what to expect. I look forward to a fifth, but wont be too surprised or bothered if it's not much cop.