Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

indy 4 has a name now, which sounds just as corny as you might expect from george lucas.

nevertheless, i'm still pumped for this film (yes despite the fact that harrison's pushing pension, despite the fact that lucas is an idiot, etc) why? cos it has spielberg, ford and williams on board. and it's an indiana jones movie. that's a fucking good thing.

when i'll hear the ta-tada-daa tune in the cinema i will piss in my pants and cry whilst doing standing ovations and scream for joy. bring on 2008

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

mmm... no news on what this is about yet... ??

i'm expecting He-man and Skellator in this one...

unless its featuring a quest to recover a missing Damian Hirst art peice...

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=4548

still at least its moving - titles usually mean a bit of progress has been made in development.... at least with Lucas....

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_6_1.htm

the "kingdom" apparently hints at the mayans... set pics from indy 4 confirm this.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

thanks, surprised Mel Gibson's not directing this then ;)

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

Indy movies are a hommage to those Saturday afternoon adventure movies. So the corniness of the title is appropriate IMO.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

yeah i am totally aware of that, but imo there's corny and then there's phantom menace corny. that's just me.

other registered titles for indy 4 were

- Indiana Jones and the City of Gods
- Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds
- Indiana Jones and the Fourth Corner of the Earth
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Gold
- Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Covenant

i dunno, somehow kingdom of the crystal skull just doesn't sound as hot as city of gods would. but it's a minor complaint: i'm just happy to have indy back.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

**potential spoilers below**
[COLOR=Black]
[/COLOR][COLOR=Wheat][COLOR=SandyBrown]
I've seen a ton of extras in brown German soldier outfits walking around the lot, which shouldn't be a big surprise for an Indiana Jones movie. Ford has been spotted in the weight room several times and I hear he's quite in shape.[/COLOR] [/COLOR]

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

Ugh, the annoying kid from Transformers the movie is in Indy 4? :(

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

*spoiler reply:*

[COLOR=sandybrown]i actually am surprised. i figured there wouldn't be nazis in indy 4, as the war had already ended. you sure they weren't russian uniforms? cos there's been a lot of talk about the film having a cold war setting, thus making the ruskies villains. and the fact that shia labeouf is playing a 50's greaser kind of supports this theory...[/COLOR]

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

UGH!

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

The press I read about the movie places it in the 50's

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

You could be right. It looked like it could be either one.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

*possible BIG spoiler*


[COLOR=sandybrown]there was a rumour once that indy 4's plot might revolve around the mystery of 1950's Area 51 and the ufo incidents. well, now it seems that rumour is not completely dead: apparently the word is that the mythical mayan crystal skulls would evidently turn out to be alien lifeforms, thus revealing the mayan's pyramid as a bigass mothership of sorts. although imo this sounds pretty insane, it would kind of make sense as it would a) answer that riddle of "how did the mayans build those übercomplex structures" in a very pulp way, b) work with 1950's ufo thing, and c) serve as the supernatural offering for this latest indy film. facemelting aliens? yes please[/COLOR]

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

Jesus...I swear I will kill David Koepp if he tried to write an X-Files script for an Indiana Jones movie.

Why not just do Atlantis like they had been planning since...what was it...the late 90s?

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

I wonder if he eats lunch at his son's restaurant here in Culver City every day.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

LOL



Ford's Filling Station
very funny...

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

there was a news report that thieves stole several laptops,
scripts, etc from spielbergs office..and offered them for sale..

however, the thieves were caught and everything was
returned..

thank goodness there were no leaks from it..

later
-1

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

[COLOR=Black] KINDA POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD



vanity fair article here

[/COLOR] [COLOR=Black]
[/COLOR]

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

That's classic Spielberg that, annoying kids...

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

And it seems to be a Spielbergian trait that had thankfully been absent from at least one or two of his films in recent years, Munich and Catch Me if You Can. But at least we can all look forward to the omnipresent father and son theme in his films showing up with the transformers kid.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

That kid?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXCK1EyP4s

I haven't watched Transformers yet, but that looks hilarious...

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

big spoilers (NOT) in the indy lego sets coming soon...

http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/12/28/...lego-spoilers/

I've just ordered the Raiders sets from Lego.com, but these new Skull sets are not available just yet though....

I WILLbe buying these :)

plus the PS3 Lego Indy game when it comes out (done by the same team who did the Lego Star Wars games - a trailer of the new Indy game can be found within the Complete Saga Lego Star Wars game, in the Cantina area)

enjoys

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

teaser trailer released today. a bootleg clip can be found here:

http://criticalmassreviews.blogspot.com/


part time!

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

cant wait to see this tonight..

man its been a long time..

yeah , there's negative reviews, so what?

it's indy!!!! (lets see if i say that after its over)..

later
-1

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

Yeah, it's gonna be a long night and day tomorrow, but I'm looking forward to it.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

4hours 59 min for me...

ticket in hand...
waiting for midnight for movie to start!

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

Well, that happened. After the midnight showing I came out of the cinema and just kind of shrugged my shoulders, talked with my two friends for a bit and went home to get 3.5 hours of so of sleep before work today.

Not that it wasn't terrible, it wasn't. But it was far from good. It makes me wonder what film people are seeing. It also makes me wonder about people's reaction to another highly anticipated film like Star Wars Episode 1and whether or not people were just going to say they liked the film regardless. They liked it because there were familiar flag posts throughout like a piece of theme music and set dressings.

One of the main things I attempted to do walking into this film was remove any expectations and just try and sit back and enjoy. For the most part this was a successful venture, however, the film was not that enjoyable.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

grady , care to be more specific?

i enjoyed it a lot, and thought it brought back the classic elements
very well...i did not like 1sec of acting from shia, why was he even
in the movie..

now, taking that all in...i rate/grade the 1st movie as a solid A/5 stars,
the second as C-/2 stars, the third as a C+/3 stars, and this last
movie as B-/3 stars.

(taking A to be the best, and the stars to be out of 5)

no, it will never touch the first movie, but it was better than
the last two...

i enjoyed the stunts, the scenery, the whole storyline etc..
i have not watched/read a single spoiler before going into it,
and have only seen the first trailer once ...so i had no idea
besides the skulls, what it was going to be about..

later
-1

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

It was pretty good.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

The film's gotten pretty good reviews so far (see Metacritic aggregator), and Harrison Ford is in better than average shape for a 60-something, but with all the promotional tie-ins and the 19-yr wait between films, i can't help but envisage "Indiana Jones and the Adult Diapers of Doom in Search of the Cash Cow".


Nonetheless, i'll probably see it with the lady tomorrow:p

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

I can start getting into more specifics, I was hesitant too initially as no one else had replied to thread just yet but here we go. (Side note, I've been trying to use the color tags method stimpee describes in the sticky post in the forum and it's been non-responsive for me, so I just added a bunch of space)



















(I'm just going to start writing and putting this together very similar to an email I wrote to a friend in Boston today who really enjoyed the film. I went through in a cursory overview of the points in the film that didn't work for me.)


Story/plot/structure

For starters, my overall impression was that the film was just too cluttered for it's own good. This seems to be a contribution from a multitude of sources, but the primary one being the appeasement of the fanbase. The film just seem to have too much going on and was juggling too much for it's own good.

I'm referring specifically to the amount of secondary characters and story lines. It's been widely known that Lucas has worked with a plethora of talented writers over the years brainstorming and trying out potential ideas and scenarios for another film. This film just seemed like a hodgepodge of all the different ideas produced over the years selectively culled together into one large blob-like thing and haphazardly stitched together.

There was no definite through line for the story. It seemed very scattered from the involvement of the Russian element/red scare, to Mutt and Marion, to Ray Winstone and John Hurt, and then all the nods to previous films, and the mythical supernatural element present in the previous three films. This film had all of these elements but the balance and fine tuning of it seemed all off.

I could go into more detail if you would prefer, but I just think back to that conclusion of The Last Crusade and how wonderful that final shot is in it's simplicity but also it's effectiveness. There was none of that type of simplicity in this film. Everything is too over complicated and over explained.

Look/feel/design/CG/Other

Perhaps the first jarring element was the production design, cinematography and visual presentation. Prior to and during the film's production, Spielberg's go to DP for the past decade, janusz kaminski had been mentioned in the press as trying to replicate the visual look of the previous three films shot by Douglas Slocombe. I was always worried about Kaminski's approach to the film as with most film's he's shot for spielberg, they tend to be bathed in this white, over lit glow that becomes a bit repetitive.

Now with this new Indy film, it does have a certain look and visual feel that is reminiscent of the three prior films, but doesn't fit into the visual look. Part of this I feel was due to the over abundance of CG used throughout the film, both in large visual effects sequences, but also in small adjustments to the background of shots like matte paintings and set extensions.

It all has that soft, fuzzy feel that looks very flat.

What was with the monkey/tarzan sequence? honestly? How could you not roll your eyes at that nonsense? When the hell did the film enter the board game film Jumanji?!

Cast

Harrison Ford is great as Indy and it's nice to see him do something where it seems he's enjoying himself and the capable hands of a good director. I didn't mind that he's aged a bit. It worked and he could still trade blows with the baddies and jump into hairy situations with the greatest of ease.

Shia Lebeof seemed entirely unnecessary for the film.

I wish there was a more fleshed out role for Ray Winstone. He's always such a damn pleasure to watch.

Kate Blanchett seemed like she was having fun.

Directing/action/pacing

Maybe Spielberg's becoming lazy, but the action sequences in this film paled in comparison to a couple of his previous films. I'm thinking specifically of sequences like the electronic spiders in Minority Report going through the building, Aliens on the rampage in New Jersey in War of the Worlds, or Avner planting the bomb in the hotel room in Munich.

I'd heard about some great action sequences in this film and there were about two, and they occurred in the first 3 reels, the first one being reel one of the film at the Air Base and the second one being the motorcycle chase on the college campus.

The remainder of the action throughout the film felt really forced and tired and uninspired. I couldn't see past the fact that these were nothing more than sets built on stages throughout the greater Hollywood area last summer. I felt like The Mummy 4 and National Treasure 3 would soon be cannibalizing these sets for their productions.

None of the other film's in the series had this feeling.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

grady,

great response...i do actually agree with most of your points..
i don't really want to drag this out....but i will post some defense
of them....although being an apologist isn't exactly what i'm trying to do..

i don't think this film was that great either,
but compared to:
================================
sahara
national treasure
the mummy

this still stands head and shoulders above them..
which might not be saying much..

i take it you actually liked 'last crusade'...i felt it was
a huge letdown as the then finale, and was a very weak
climax for the trilogy.....it was so derivative of the first
film, that i had a hard time taking it seriously...especially
as you mention the overall simplicity of it..there was no
suspense, no motivation, and besides sean connery just
'being there' underutilized.....along with the pseudo
backstory to introduce the 'indiana jones' character..
did we really need to see him as a young man?

anyways, i digress, as i don't mean to dig too far back
into 'the last crusade'...

i'm sure many volumes have been written about the trilogy,
what each movie meant, their impact etc...and i don't mean
to revisit that here...

i'll post more clarifying points about indy 4 later on..

thanks for your detailed points....

later
-1

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

There seem to be parallels to Live Free or Die Hard:

- They said there would be minimal CGI, turned out to be a CGI fest (in a bad way)
- There was a young, but completely unnecessary and annoying charakter added, so that the film would appeal to young people
- It was hyped, but did disappoint

I haven't seen it yet, but the first two points seem to be true... :(

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

One of my friends in high school was huge Star Wars fan and went to the midnight showing of Episode I. He said it was like a bad dream.

Why is Shia LaBeouf always a sidekick in movies? His roles in I, Robot and Constantine were
annoying.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

Well, the first half of the movie is pretty good.

Then... well.... it becomes too goofy to watch. If George Lucas hadn't been involved, I guarantee it would have been better.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

*SPOILER*


I felt the *SPOILER* extraterrestrial tie-ins were unpolished and pointless.

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

why were they at a military base then?

what was the point of getting the skeleton at the beginning?

where did the skulls come from then?

the whole plot falls apart if that isn't mentioned..

if you're saying the whole arc is pointless->movie=pointless..

it made perfect sense to me..

later
-1

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

name something good that speilberg has done lately?
munich?
war of the worlds?
terminal?
catch me if you can?
minority report?

yeah, maybe if you go back a decade to 'saving private ryan'..

sorry speilberg hasn't done any better, and thats no guarantee...

who should have been involved?

later
-1

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

i hate shia labeof, but i would hardly call being in transformers
a sidekick.......

later
-1

Re: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 

I just felt that aliens were added for the sake of adding aliens, as opposed to adding a social or philosophical commentary when a new perspective on life is added to movies.

What happened in the Ukrainian chick's brain when she was getting all that knowledge? were they just killing her or was she overflowing with knowledge? How did they lose their heads? How are they inter-dimensional?