General Indiana Jones Thread

I'd rank them

1. The Last Crusade (Sean Connery seals the deal for me, he's great there).

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (the whole "Indy doesn't really effect the end outcome all that much) is a fair knock against the film, but it's still great overall).

3. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (it has the return of Marion, and Cate Blanchett)

4. Temple of Doom (I've never liked this film, and it doesn't even feel like a proper Indy film imo. Also it's got some of the most irritating things in the entire franchise in it. It alternates between being boring, offensive, and just a miserable slog to get through Heck even Spielberg himself doesn't care for it much these days).

I liked Temple of Doom's big starting fight scene, The Walls Are Closing In scene (because it's a pretty well-done take on a classic scene), Mola Ram pulling out the guy's heart, and the bridge fight. Temple of Doom's as unabashedly pulpy as the series ever got, for good and ill.

I have a soft spot for Short Round/Data, though. And while Willie's set up to be deliberately annoying, and generally succeeds, I never found to be all *that* bad.

edited 7th Sep '17 4:06:01 PM by Unsung

I wonder if they'll bother to explain Mutt's absence. And Marion's, for that matter. I take it we're probably not going to see one without the other.

Just have Mutt pursuing a different career in life. But you can keep Marion on the adventure since I don't see Indy with another Bond-esque girl anymore given his age and official marriage.

You know, had Shia not went a rant about Crystal Skull and talk about how Spielberg was corporate Spielberg rather than director Spielberg, he would have been guaranteed to reappear in the sequel. Instead, he burned bridges with the man who thought he had great potential to be the next star.

Parts of me wonder if Spielberg is regretting he didn't take Lucas's idea of giving Indiana Jones a daughter instead.

edited 8th Sep '17 12:48:03 AM by Shadao

That would have been more interesting I think. Also Lucas seems to have this fondness for the idea of the main heroes from old films having daughters (the main hero in his version of the Star Wars ST was apparently a young woman).

I hope that Marion comes back at least.

Temple of Doom had some dubious elements at its core, but it seemed like it took full advantage of what it did have. Crystal Skull had aliens, Soviets, and Indy's son; all of which could have been quite fascinating and all of them ending up uninteresting in the final product. The Soviets specifically feel like the Nazis with a fresh coat of paint. For all of TOD's flaws the villains and antagonists in the movie are quite distinct from those in Raiders and Last Crusade.

There also doesn't seem to be any strong meaning or depth to the eventual relationship between Indy and Mutt, and truth be told I personally think they should have revealed him as Jones' son earlier in the film and thus get that father/son dynamic earlier. One of the things I liked about Last Crusade was that you could see the gradual change in the bond between Indy and Henry Jones Sr to the point where by the end the "Indy, let it go" moment is a huge deal. Never really get that with Mutt, as he seems to play the exact same role of vaguely rebellious young guy to contrast with Indy, even after the family reveal.

Its pretty damn sad when the relationship between Indy and Short Round feels more genuine than the one between him and his actual son.

The problem is, for me, is that the villains in TOD were "distinct" in all the WRONG reasons. I have this discussion/debate a lot actually (being a Star Wars fan, I often debate people about this vis a via the ST). For me, being "distinct" isn't good enough, nor is it inherently more interesting, in an of itself.

Having something "familiar" that works>Having something "distinct" that falls flat on it's face imo. And that's part of why TOD doesn't work for me personally. Nothing "new" that they tried worked/was compelling for me.

Its all a matter of opinion I suppose. The distinct contrast works for me (well besides the bad ethnic caricatures) because the drama of Indy being temporarily brainwashed and the village kids rescued from the mines are themselves very contrasting from the type of drama and endings of Rot LA, TLC, and Kot CS. I was invested in seeing the heroes succeed here more than I did in Crystal Skull because the latter story's villains never feel like they amount to much drama wise.

Unfortunate Implications abound inTOD though, and anyone who can't stand the movie because of them I totally understand.

I'm surprised there hasn't been any major Indy spoof in the vein of Spaceballs and Galaxy Quest. (There are a couple fanfilms, though, like Doom Raiders and Indiana Jed and the Search for the Infinite Power.)

To be fair, Indiana Jones is nowhere near as big as Star Wars or Star Trek.

I am in the "doom is the worst" camp. Because while it has some interesting elements (actually, exactly one, the setting in the mine), it is also downright offensive, and "Screaming Willy" is easily the WORST element in any Indiana Jones movie.

There are some genres that were just never big enough or otherwise already too self-aware to parody. I was thinking about Hot Shots! vs Hot Shots! Part Deux, where the first was a Top Gun parody and the second a Rambo parody. I felt Part Deux was the funnier film by far, if only because the fighter pilot genre was too narrow while the action genre had a lot more material to goof around with.

I would say too that Indiana Jones is similar to The Matrix in that the parodies came almost immediately after their release to the point that making a full length movie wouldn't have anything interesting to use. What are they going to do, another "switching the idol" or Bullet Time joke?

I would argue that The Mummy is an homage/spoof of Indiana Jones. That’s part of its charm.

There are also the Quartermain movies, though I don't think that their spoofy nature was intentional.

So, they happened to be showing the movies again on TV, I'd put them on, and I can't believe it's taken me until now to realize how great the cinematography is in these movies.

It's said because all the Quatermain have been terrible (aside from LXG).

Yeah, for their faults, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are masters of cinematography.

EDIT: Because I'm an idiot.

edited 21st Jan '18 9:49:15 PM by TheShadow

In the books, Alan Quartermain was described as a middle-aged Great White Hunter. So having him be played by a young(ish) Richard Chamberlain was a miscast.

edited 21st Jan '18 5:26:53 PM by pwiegle

Okay so...Temple of Doom, there's that whole opening song number that's, like, really out of place in the context of the entire movie. How the fuck is there an entire soundstage there in the middle of what's clearly a small corner for Willie's song number?

Gotta love the elaborate choreographed dance sequence, organised between God knows how many dancers, that blatantly happens backstage.

It's a really catchy song though, so I'm all for it.

edited 21st Jan '18 6:42:33 PM by Lavaeolus

Indiana Jones is specifically a throwback to 30's adventure serials, which is why they are set mostly in the 30's, but also play to to a lot of the old fashioned Hollywood tropes of the time. The opening musical number in Temple of Doom was an homage to the 30's musicals, especially Busby Berkeley, which would have the same problem of ignoring what the actual location was in favor of crazy stunts and camera angles before going back to an applauding live audience.

Still really weird.

I mean hell the entire opening to the film is kinda weird. It's a staple of the franchise to have cold openings of Indy in the middle of another, different adventure that segues into the main adventure, but in here it's just kinda different?

Like, let's compare the opening to Raiders to the opening of Temple of Doom. In Raiders we start with Indy and some people in South America (I think, correct me if I'm wrong, could be Central America) going out to find the idol, some of them try to betray him and they die/run off along the way, he gets the idol, makes the dashing escape from the boulder, gets confronted by his arch rival, then runs off from some generic "savages" (God these films have shitty stereotypes) and runs to the plane where he's scared by the pilot's pet snake. So in this cold opening we have an establishment of who Indy is, what he does, who he's against, and his greatest fear, all of which kinda comes into play later on (and for the people who criticize the film for suffering from Pinball Protagonist, there's all of that in the opening too). The opening to The Last Crusade is similar by establishing some of Indy's past while setting up some of the conflict in the main plot. Both openings have a purpose in showing Indy's character, setting up a side character, and giving us a glimpse into the main plot.

Now let's examine Temple of Doom. In the cold opening we get a song number. I mean, I don't hate the song or anything, but it feels like it was there just to kinda be there. Hell, looking it up, Lucas had taken it from early drafts of Radioland Murders. Anyways, we have the opening song number, then Indy going up against another villain who doesn't relate to the main plot that much (but personally I'd totally have preferred a movie with Lao Che as the villain over what we got in Temple of Doom), and Willie just kinda gets sucked into it (worst character in the whole film). So Indy gives Lao Che the bones of Nurhaci in exchange for a diamond, Lao betrays Indy and poisons him, we get a random nobody who is only there to vaguely give a view of Indy's other adventures that will only be in expanded universe material, gunfight, Indy and Willie jump out and Short Round drives them to Dan Akroyd, who takes them to Lao Che's plane by accident and they almost get killed before making an implausible escape on a raft.

Now, I'm not saying this is necessarily bad. I'm not a fan of Temple of Doom but I can understand the intent with having it open with Indy mid-adventure like the other movies. The difference for it is that, while the scenes in Raiders and Crusade help to establish Indy to an audience new to the franchise, the opening to Temple doesn't fully serve that purpose. The audience is introduced to a musical number that's a big contrast to the dark tone of the film, and then it segues into Indy and Lao Che's whole deal. The only relevance Lao Che has is to A: show Indy has had many adventures and foes, and B: to set up the main plot through Indy and co stumbling into it through sheer dumb luck. It's a whole awkward kinda thing that isn't necessarily bad, but doesn't work as strongly as in Raiders or Temple.

From what I remember of the Temple of Doom DVD bonus features Spielberg just thought it'd be fun if they opened it with a musical, so that's what they did.

Yeah, they wanted audiences to wonder if they were in the right movie at first. Not a premise you can get away with for just any movie.

Well that sounds kinda funny for if you're only just seeing it for the first time but it kinda wears thin afterwards.

Going back a bit, I seriously think that Lao Che should've been the main villain of a movie or something. He's only in Temple of Doom for like 10 minutes and yet he leaves a pretty huge impression.

I had the idea Temple of Doom would have been better if Mola Ram had been a charlatan like some people speculated with the foreign queasine, heart removal, and other stuff being a product of hypnotism and stage magic.

The idea of him using the Thuggee as a Scooby Doo plot to build his own kingdom.

Maybe reveal the British General was selling them firearms and so on.