Indiana Jones V

[Steven]

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.

Spielberg's said that was all Lucas now, but I imagine Lucas knew Spielberg has a hard-on for anything to do with aliens which is why he came up with it as bait to get him on-board. He's since heard all the negative reactions and tried to pretend he didn't like the alien element, but all his other projects obsessed with the idea of aliens sort of betrays that. But he has actually embraced the negative "nuke the fridge" idiom replacing "jump the shark" except the nuke idea was one of the few interesting ideas in the movie.. which I think was a hangover from Zemeckis and Bob Gale's early drafts for Back To The Future, where instead of a car they used a nuclear powered fridge to travel in time.

[biggytitbo]

The aliens stuff was perfect for a 50s set Indy, all the von daniken ancient aliens stuff. They just did it really badly.

[Old Nehamkin]

How many Spielberg films actually have aliens in them? I can count four, including Crystal Skull.

[Steven]

How many Spielberg films actually have aliens in them? I can count four, including Crystal Skull.

I said 'projects', he's associated with other things featuring aliens such as Amazing Stories, and he produced Super 8 and other projects that never went into final production like Night Skies, but there's obviously Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, E.T., War Of The Worlds, A.I. (yeah yeah, you can argue they're not aliens but they're clearly modeled on 'grey aliens' in the movie), certainly he's been associated with them enough for it to become `a thing'.

[marquis_de_sad]

Spielberg's said that was all Lucas now, but I imagine Lucas knew Spielberg has a hard-on for anything to do with aliens which is why he came up with it as bait to get him on-board.

They've always said the idea came from Lucas.

In other behind-the-scenes clips, the constant changes made during shooting was mentioned a few times. I think that's the real source of the shitness.

[St_Eddie]

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.

That's such a straw man argument.  So because Raiders of the Lost Ark features a supernatural element, that means that the writers have carte blanche to introduce whatever ideas that they please into the series?  By that logic, Indy could have a 50tn boulder fall on him but survive because he curls up into the fetal position beforehand.  He could then get up, dust himself off and ride to the moon on a unicorn made of dreams because hey, there's an ark with ghosts in it, so anything goes, right?

Note that in Raiders, the world in which Indy inhabits is relatively grounded.  Indy himself, doesn't initially believe in the idea of the Ark of the Covenant as being anything other than a myth or a fable.  The supernatural elements in the series are not something in which your average joe within that world would be aware of.  For your average joe in that world, life is very much like it is within our own reality (this is also true of the sequels, including Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

Having said that, the world of Raiders is a heightened reality to be sure; a place where feats of endurance are beyond what is plausible in real-life but crucially, not by much.  It's still a relatively grounded world when compared the majority of other action movies and to an extent, the initial two sequels to Raiders themselves.  Just because it's established that there's an ark containing vengeful ghosts in Raiders, it doesn't follow suit that Indy should be able to survive a nuclear blast and being flung hundreds of feet into the air, by climbing into a fridge.  For the record, I took the same issue with the sequence of Indy and co surviving a fall from an aircraft, via an inflatable dinghy in Temple of Doom (a sequence rightfully cut from the original draft of Raiders).

What the series needs to do, in my opinion, is to return to the relatively grounded world of the first film.  The sequels have all been guilty of breaking the established world of Raiders to some extent but Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is by far the worst offender in that regard, with the fridge sequence being emblematic of the the filmmakers wont to make the series more and more cartoonish and outlandish with each subsequent installment.

I adore Raiders of the Lost Ark, I love The Last Crusade and I very much like Temple of Doom.  I don't like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  In part because it was several steps too far, in terms of breaking the world established in Raiders.  Try watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, followed immediately by Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and you'll see that they don't even feel a part of the same universe.  Watching the sequels sequentially softens this blow somewhat but quality aside, the difference in tone and rules between the first and fourth movie is vast.

[Blumf]

Whilst I agree with the idea of Indy in the 1950s having aliens/UFOs, I think (part of) the problem is that Indy himself doesn't belong in the 50s. You can't take his kind of adventuring out of the inter-war years.

Going from the inspiration for his films being the 1930s serials, a 1950s set film would need a protagonist from 50s B-movies, but they don't tend to lend themselves to the kind of action you'd want from an Indiana Jones film.

[Avril Lavigne]

That's such a straw man argument.  So because Raiders of the Lost Ark features a supernatural element, that means that the writers have carte blanche to introduce whatever ideas that they please into the series?  By that logic, Indy could have a 50tn boulder fall on him but survive because he curls up into the fetal position beforehand.  He could then get up, dust himself off and ride to the moon on a unicorn made of dreams because hey, there's an ark with ghosts in it, so anything goes, right?

Note that in Raiders, the world in which Indy inhabits is relatively grounded.  Indy himself, doesn't initially believe in the idea of the Ark of the Covenant as being anything other than a myth or a fable.  The supernatural elements in the series are not something in which your average joe within that world would be aware of.  For your average joe in that world, life is very much like it is within our own reality (this is also true of the sequels, including Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

Having said that, the world of Raiders is a heightened reality to be sure; a place where feats of endurance are beyond what is plausible in real-life but crucially, not by much.  It's still a relatively grounded world when compared the majority of other action movies and to an extent, the initial two sequels to Raiders themselves.  Just because it's established that there's an ark containing vengeful ghosts in Raiders, it doesn't follow suit that Indy should be able to survive a nuclear blast and being flung hundreds of feet into the air, by climbing into a fridge.  For the record, I took the same issue with the sequence of Indy and co surviving a fall from an aircraft, via an inflatable dinghy in Temple of Doom (a sequence rightfully cut from the original draft of Raiders).

What the series needs to do, in my opinion, is to return to the relatively grounded world of the first film.  The sequels have all been guilty of breaking the established world of Raiders to some extent but Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is by far the worst offender in that regard, with the fridge sequence being emblematic of the the filmmakers wont to make the series more and more cartoonish and outlandish with each subsequent installment.

I adore Raiders of the Lost Ark, I love The Last Crusade and I very much like Temple of Doom.  I don't like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  In part because it was several steps too far, in terms of breaking the world established in Raiders.  Try watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, followed immediately by Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and you'll see that they don't even feel a part of the same universe.  Watching the sequels sequentially softens this blow somewhat but quality aside, the difference in tone and rules between the first and fourth movie is vast.

This is a really really good post and I appreciate the thought & effort applied within.

[mothman]

Said it in the last Indy thread, but I do think he can exist in the fifties world of nuclear paranoia and red scares and UFO crazes. Done right, though. Not like it was done in Crystal Skull. Proper little green men, not transdimensional entities.

I could even have stood to see a wartime Indy. Doing whatever it was he did that got him made a colonel.

[colacentral]

Should have been this:

[St_Eddie]

This is a really really good post and I appreciate the thought & effort applied within.

And in turn, I appreciate your appreciation.  Thank you.

[Mister Six]

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.

Yeah, the Indy universe appears to have the Jewish Old Testament God, Hindu gods and Jesus Christ superstar all coexisting (and Atlantis and Dracula too, if you like your extended universe stuff). Aliens (which were supposed to be extradimensional beings or summat, weren't they?) aren't that much of a stretch.

The bigger problem was that everything after the bike ride through the university was dogshit.

[Shaky]

The aliens stuff is fine and I can accept it within the piecemeal mythology of the franchise; the problem is there is almost no sense of that epic, transcendent mystery the other films thrive on. There's no real ebb and flow and the second half of the movie is very flat. Something happens, something else happens, slight pause, something more happens. Very hard to get excited when it all has the same, dead feel. Temple of Doom did wonders with a similar structure.

I also have big problems with the opening sequence. a crucial bit of business but in Skull it's way off the mark, and not just the fridge stuff. It's hard to do B-movie dialogue well and they totally fluff it with some incredible clunkers. "Judging by those wubble-u's I'd say, 'Eastern Ukraine'."  etc. That's when heart sank, as I realised the script was probably going to be fucking awful after the breezy, charming, making-it-sound-easy originals. By comparison, the Kasdan penned exchanges between Indy and Marion stick out as actually having a bit of life and wit to them.

[St_Eddie]

The bigger problem was that everything after the bike ride through the university was dogshit.

The motorcycle chase through the campus is easily the best action scene in the movie; it actually feels like Indiana Jones.  It's no coincidence that this is the only action scene which was shot, by and large, practically and on location.  The moment with Indy jumping from the motorcycle and into the window of the car, quickly punching some communists and then emerging from the other side's window and back onto the motorcycle is classic Indiana Jones.

[Dr Rock]

I only like the first two. Not arsed about 3, 4 is dogshit.

[biggytitbo]

3 does have a lot of the same problems as 4 - except its done incredibly well, whereas 4 Spielberg was clearly not arsed.

[greenman]

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?

Yeah I'd tend to agree with that, CGI is the easy target but I think the real problem was the script/direction fell to bits when it left the US with a lack of tension/mystery and a lot of clutter.

That section in the tomb("part time") for example didn't have much CGI as I remember it but it was still pretty dull.

[Blumf]

I could even have stood to see a wartime Indy. Doing whatever it was he did that got him made a colonel.

The Monuments Men crossed with The Keep

[JoeyBananaduck]

Indiana Jones is one of those things I feel should be right up my alley yet I just don't have any affection for. I'm not sure how it misses the boat for me. I love 40's adventure serials and shamelessly cheesy heroics, but nah.

[Replies From View]

[tag]Part time[/tag]

[lebowskibukowski]

That's such a straw man argument.  So because Raiders of the Lost Ark features a supernatural element, that means that the writers have carte blanche to introduce whatever ideas that they please into the series?  By that logic, Indy could have a 50tn boulder fall on him but survive because he curls up into the fetal position beforehand.  He could then get up, dust himself off and ride to the moon on a unicorn made of dreams because hey, there's an ark with ghosts in it, so anything goes, right?

Ha! No, I quite agree in regards to the world of Indiana Jones that already existed. Maybe I should've concentrated more on the fridge scene as an example. The point really was that if you are looking for verisimilitude then you might struggle to find it in a film series that has our hero having a chat with a Knight of The Holy Grail, or a ginger Irish wrestler being a Nazi strongarm.

[Gulftastic]

Just to mention that they tested the inflatable raft plane escape on Mythbusters and it proved surprisingly possible.

[Steven]

Ha! No, I quite agree in regards to the world of Indiana Jones that already existed. Maybe I should've concentrated more on the fridge scene as an example. The point really was that if you are looking for verisimilitude then you might struggle to find it in a film series that has our hero having a chat with a Knight of The Holy Grail, or a ginger Irish wrestler being a Nazi strongarm.

The fridge scene was a neat concept and would have been fine had they not made the thing fly hundreds of feet through the air after the explosion, the terrible CGI really takes you out of it. Then Jones knocks open the fridge door to roll out and be greeted by.. more fucking awful CGI gophers. Really leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

[lebowskibukowski]

The fridge scene was a neat concept and would have been fine had they not made the thing fly hundreds of feet through the air after the explosion, the terrible CGI really takes you out of it. Then Jones knocks open the fridge door to roll out and be greeted by.. more fucking awful CGI gophers. Really leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Oh sweet Jesus I had completely forgotten about the gophers...

[Dr Rock]

Why isn't every fridge in town blown about a mile away? Or anything else?

[Steven]

Why isn't every fridge in town blown about a mile away? Or anything else?

Because then they get to do a shitty CGI shot of it flying over the Russians' car and their astonished faces as they're inevitably blown-up but clever That's Why Mum's Gone To Iceland Indy survives. It's a standard trope in all the Indy films, except they were previously done with practical effects because they were realistic depictions of things, whereas this just looks pants.

[greenman]

The aliens stuff was perfect for a 50s set Indy, all the von daniken ancient aliens stuff. They just did it really badly.

Part of the problem I'd say is that the film seems to forget the way all the previous ones worked when it came to the quest, that is actually playing against the standard macguffin plot style. Each time you see Indy setup as someone involved with that kind of thing early on(the golden head, the Chinese urn, etc) in a more cynical fashion but then the main quest actually challenges that cynical nature.

Here the aliens just ended up as more of a standard macguffin themselves, there wasn't really anything in the way of drama there nore indeed even much direct influence on the way things unfolded until the very end.

[Operty1]

Ford doesn't have the energy or humour to play this role anymore, and Spielberg isn't the young hot director he once was in the eighties. Watching this movie will be like seeing your favourite old boxer coming out of retirement for one last fight. You have that feeling that the spark may still be there, that he's going to pull one more spectacular fight out of the bag. Instead he gets roundly humiliated and tarnishes his career, embarrassing himself as his ass is handed to him in front of a massive audience. And you switch it off at the end thinking, that's a shame.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It's not the mileage, it's the years.

[mothman]

The Monuments Men crossed with The Keep

You say that like it'd be a bad thing.

How about this: two other pre- AND post-war fictional characters who had some unspecified role during the war? JJ Gittes and Philip Marlowe. Imagine a metafictional TV show with those two in, with or without Indy.