I think the reason the alien thing doesn't work is that Lucas (rightly in my opinion) thinks the genre of Indiana Jones is not "1930s action serial" but "whatever happened to be popular when the series is taking place." The problem comes in when Lucas decides that the film needs to embrace the 1930s action serial clichés anyway, rather than go all-out in making a 1950s alien-invasion flick. So the whole thing comes off as kind of confused, desperately trying to keep one foot in each camp and failing desperately.
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
Lucas was trying to revive a finished series, not by starting fresh but more like trying to squeeze the whole 1950's sci-fi in a series based entirely on 1930's adventure serials, and the result was an awkward clunk. The two ideas he was going for just don't mesh in terms of story telling, not only that but it was done in a very slap-dash method. Like the Star Wars prequels, people just assumed Lucas knew what he was talking about and didn't question his ideas like they did back in the day. Back in the 80's when Lucas wanted something done a certain way, it couldn't be done or the directors told him no. Now, however, he wasn't challenged, he said "Hey, let's have Indy look for alien artefacts rather then religious ones like before," and no one said "I don't think that would work." And it didn't. The film falls very flat in most of the aspects, specifically the ones that made the originals so amazing even today. The trilogy was all very kinetic, and despite being about magic and the power of the gods, you still believed it, you could feel the magic in the air when you see the Ark, the stones or the Holy Grail, you can feel the grittiness of the action scenes, and even the normal scenes. Everything carried so much weight and was at it's heart an adventure story. Crystal Skull on the other hand is exactly what it is, trying to bring back a franchise without thinking what made the originals so good to begin with, the best scene in the new one was probably the motorbike chase (quite reminiscent of the mine cart scene from Temple of Doom) because it was real, it was a real bike with actors weaving on a road with traffic. The other scenes are cartoony and borderline ridiculous, sets and landscapes replaced with lifeless CG and greenscreens. Compare the Tank fight or the Truck chase in Last Crusade and Raiders to these actions scenes and they don't even begin to come close. Whatever magic there was left didn't come back for this film.
I never understood why people don't like the aliens, just because it was never done before (except in a non-canon PC Adventure game). I never understood why people call computers "lifeless" yet prefer sets and props. I watched Raiders a week or so before Skulls but didn't feel any magic or weight. I knew that, whether cardboard or computers, none of it was real.
"What's out there? What's waiting for me?"
The spiders and snakes in Raiders were more "real" than the monkeys and scorpions in Crystal Skull. It's not about Willing Suspension of Disbelief, it's about the visual effect — when the main body of the film is live-action, live action sets/props/animals usually look better than CGI, resulting in a more visually satisfying product.
The aliens don't fit with the classic, religious themes of the rest of the films; they turn the genre into sci-fi, which the other films weren't.
For me, there was another major problem. Indy is just kind of dragged along on this adventure and it doesn't feel like he does much more than stumble through everything and throw a few punches. In the other movies he was constantly thinking on his feet and his interactions with all the different situations he found himself in were a big part of what built up his character and made it so much (there's a reason the Indy Ploy was named after him). In this I can't think of anything he did that comes close to the famous 'shooting the swordsman' scene, "DON'T call me Junior!", or any of a dozen other great character moments in the other films. Indy doesn't really do anything memorable here. He's forgettable in his own movie. That's not how an Indiana Jones movie should be.
Leave a Comment:
Would Be As Good As Raiders, Except For 2 Things
The nuking-the-fridge scene is not only over-the-top-ridiculously-implausible even by Indy standards, but it's completely pointless. You could take that entire scene out, and it wouldn't affect the plot one iota. It's an unnecessary detour Indy makes on his first escape. Why did they even include this scene? Nothing about it looks right from any angle.
The other point that feels wrong in every way is the aliens. Lucas, why didn't you listen to Spielberg when he said the aliens were a bad idea?! It's the wrong genre! Indiana Jones has always been associated with fantasy, mythology, and religion, not sci-fi and aliens! It's like inserting aliens into an Avatar: The Last Airbender episode — it clashes too much with the established universe and its style for fans accustomed to this world to accept it. Too jarring — just way too jarring!
But if you ignore those 2 things, the rest of the film is... awesome! The performances are awesome. The action scenes are awesome. The music is awesome. Indy's and Marion's banter is awesome. Mutt is a surprisingly awesome character. The rest of the film is 100% true to the spirit of the first 3 films — the atmosphere, the tone, the dialogue, the comedy, the drama, the characters, the mystery, the pursuit of the clues, the villain who tries to loot the mind and insists on dealing with things they haven't bothered to try to understand, leading to their demise... it's all still there! Most of the movie does feel like watching a "classic" Indiana Jones film with all the things you loved about them. The action and chases and fights are exciting to watch, and the interaction between Indy and Marion and their son is also excellent to watch. It's an adventure you want to be on.
This just deepens the mystery why, when they got so much right, so many things went wrong — no, why a few things went so extremely wrong. Take out the nuking-the-fridge and the aliens, and I enjoy the rest every bit as much as I enjoyed Raiders, maybe even moreso. It's no Last Crusade, but it's better than Temple Of Doom. There are two things that make you wonder, "What were they thinking?!", but it's still definitely worth watching, and it definitely doesn't deserve to be rejected as non-canon or non-existent. It's worthy of being part of the Indiana Jones family.