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Indiana Jones-The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

#31 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 15 October 2008 - 12:44 AM

I finally got around to watching the damned thing. It was better than Temple, but that's not saying a lot. They seemed to want to do two movies at once. FBI-KGB intrigue that caught Jones in the middle, and the eponymous crystal skull hunt. The first plot was completely abandoned about halfway through the movie and then magically resolved.

The villains end up being as cartoonish as and pointless as Temple's. There's the requisite main evil person who is melted in the end, and then theres the man meat who likes to punch Indy.

The other problem I have is the placement of our evil-doers. KGB operatives drive en masse, through an anti communist rally no less. The fugging Russian army shows up in Nevada. The fugging Russian army flies from Nevada to Brazil. I could handle a few people chasing eachother, but scene after scene with six or seven characters hopping around on army trucks and vines got damned confusing.

You might notice that these same things worked in Ark and Crusade. That's because for one thing, the Nazis controlled the Mediterranean and in Crusade they were even clearly shown working out a deal with the local leader who provided them with their tanks. So, if we are to understand this, the Nazis are not capable of taking tanks across a sea they have almost total control of, but the Russians can drive gunboatcars from Nevada to Brazil unhindered. Why are we not speaking Soviet now?

The ants scene, in my own opinion, was actually the most decent use of CGI in the movie and worked rather well. Unfortunately it was preceded by, without a doubt, the most ridiculous stunt ever recorded. Even worse then the silly plane hopping in Temple. What could be more unbelievable than Indy plummeting off a waterfall? Indy plummeting off THREE fucking waterfalls. Thanks for hammering it into my skull that this is just a movie. Though if a guy can survive a nuclear blast in a (for whatever reason) lead lined refridgerator, then he can survive anything.

I don't need to mention the whole deal with the monkeys and vine swinging.

Spalko carried a sword. That is dumb. The best gadgets the kremlin can give their femme fatales is a sword? Couldnt she at least get one of those scary nazi hangrrs? She was largely lacking in menace and appeal, there was never even any hint that there was tension between her and Jones. Maybe she just saw his oldness in a few scenes. His switch from able bodied hero to elderly school marm was not ironic anymore, he looked the part too well.

And finally, I have to say that I do not at all get why Spalko had to die. I mean, ok, she's the villain, but she does not at all demonstrate any sort of evil throughout the movie. She seems to have gotten the same face melting treatment as the villain in Crusade, but why? That guy shot Indy's dad. All she did was slap him maybe one time. And every woman on earth gets to slap Indiana Jones, it's almost expected.

Oh, and there was not a single Nazi in the damned film. This displeases me IMMENSELY.

For a more complete plot summary, I have prepared this pictorial essay:

http://www.chefelf.c...?showtopic=8009

This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 15 October 2008 - 12:46 AM

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#32 User is offline   Vesuvius Icon

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Posted 19 October 2008 - 09:28 PM

Hmmm, good points JM.

I finally watched it and don't know if I should have. I strongly feel that this movie shouldn't have been made... or at least made ten years ago.

I didn't mind Mutt, but I did mind his relationship with Indy. Maybe this twist works for some people. I wasn't ammused. And why was Karen Allen so dull? She was awesome in Ark.

And the ant scene. I love ants. Seriously, I love insects, this also means I've studied where quite a few of them live. Those ants that Indy mentioned in this film in South America are native to Africa only. Why didn't they just use army-ants? Army-ants already live in SA.

I detected much of the "Lucas-slaps-you-in-the-face" style of presenting things in this film. However I could tell Spielberg directed it, but the mud from Lucas' hands gets on things from time to time.
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#33 User is offline   Lord Aquaman Icon

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Posted 23 October 2008 - 10:14 PM

I liked the earlier Indiana Jones films, but this sucked big time. You could tell from the trailers that this was going to be a slap in the face to all that we liked about the character. Dumb story, poor acting, poor directing, even the action scenes were terrible. It felt like they stole someone's fan fiction and blew it up to summer time proportions - with disastrous results. Another cheap cash in whoring out the nostalgia of a beloved old franchise simply because they can.

And now we may have Ghostbusters 3 to contend with. UGH.
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#34 User is offline   Vesuvius Icon

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Posted 24 October 2008 - 08:37 PM

QUOTE (Lord Aquaman @ Oct 23 2008, 11:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
It felt like they stole someone's fan fiction and blew it up to summer time proportions - with disastrous results. Another cheap cash in whoring out the nostalgia of a beloved old franchise simply because they can.


Oh boy! That sums up the plot right there! Nice. Heh, or maybe Lucas did write this.

And about Indy surviving an atomic bomb, lead is used in protection against radiation, not heat. A lead lined icebox would have melted within a few seconds of detonation, especially within a few meters from groud zero. Lead is a very soft metal and it melts at lower temperatures than lets say iron. If Indy were a mile away from ground zero, and in the icebox, then he'd probably be alright. But that's all depending upon the kilotons used in the bomb.

I can't let some things go in this film because it's too difficult to suspend belief in some of these situations that were presented.

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#35 User is offline   Heccubus Icon

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Posted 26 October 2008 - 02:41 AM

I feel better every day for waking up one morning, wandering to my computer and somehow finding my way to a trailer for it, at which point I said "Fuck that. That is absolutely going to suck."

Seriously, the more people talk about it, the happier I am that I never had an ounce of interest in seeing it.
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#36 User is offline   Vesuvius Icon

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Posted 26 October 2008 - 12:42 PM

QUOTE (Heccubus @ Oct 26 2008, 03:41 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Seriously, the more people talk about it, the happier I am that I never had an ounce of interest in seeing it.


laugh.gif Well said.

Yeah, you didn't miss much at all. Just be content in reading about all of it's flaws. It's funnier that way.

And like the scene where all of the "crystal" skeletons formed together to make flesh! WTH?!?! Bones are just bones, they can't make living tissue, especially living telepathic tissue! That flies spaceships! That disrupts the entire country of Peru!

C'mon, at least with the other three Indy films, these events happened in such remote locations that you'd never hear about these things on the news or see them in a newspaper. But the absurd things that happened in this film should have still been able to gloss over the Hindenburg, Titanic, and 9-11!

This post has been edited by Vesuvius: 26 October 2008 - 12:43 PM

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#37 User is offline   Lord Aquaman Icon

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Posted 27 October 2008 - 11:24 AM

Is it me or did Harrison Ford seem tired & hung over for most of the film? His timing was seriously off in a number of scenes, one of the few lines he managed to rattle off decently was "Somewhere, your grandpa is laughing." It was like he really didn't have the energy to play this character anymore - another sign that the film should not have been made.

And what was up with Indy meeting aliens? Indy was always about Earth based mythologies, like the Lost Ark, the Cup of Christ (as seen in the Last Crusade) and even the magic rocks seen in Temple of Doom. Throwing in aliens was an unnecessary & pointless element. If this had been an entirely different, non-Indiana Jones film that tried to mimic & twist the Jones formula without being Jones, it might not have been as obnoxious, but seeing as how this is an Indiana Jones film, it just felt out of place.

I remember reading at one point that they had a script called "Indiana Jones & The Lost Continent" which had Indy discovering the Lost City of Atlantis just as it was in danger of being destroyed by early Atomic bomb tests, and to be honest, that sounded like a much better idea than this.

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#38 User is offline   Vesuvius Icon

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Posted 27 October 2008 - 05:08 PM

Yeah, I remember the title, "Indiana Jones and the Emporers Tomb," bleah, then they turned that into a videogame.

Aliens were a poor choice for this film. Now if they did things involving native tribes and such and there were all kinds of traps and Indy didn't have to talk much, then that would work, hence the beginning of Raiders... but um, yeah, there was no elaboration to that. It was just a set-up scene.

Why didn't he look for something scary in Russia instead of Russians being in the States in the 50's?!

This film should not have been made.


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#39 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 28 October 2008 - 12:27 AM

I agree that this film shouldn't have been made, bit don't agree that a good film was impossible with these elements. Aliens incidentally ARE an Earth-based mythology; all of the stories of alien visitation are either totally mythological or at best mostly so. And the Russians were the new International threat, so, yeah yeah. My concern with that last bit thogh is that Spielberg and Lucas thought that menacing Russians were as interesting as menacing Nazis. Well, maybe DURING the Cold War, yeah (hence the paranoia that fueled sci fi classics such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing), but AFTER, well, they kinds lost their chill. So I agree there that Russians were dodgy.

"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#40 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 28 October 2008 - 01:33 AM

Here's a quick question. If they wanted to do Russians

WHY THE SHIT WAS IT SET IN AMERICA?

The Russians appear almost as a Deus Ex Machina, except it's more like an antagonist et machina. They drive through Nevada with two Americans in their trunk. They enter US military bases and cross international borders at will, operating freely in Peru as well, which was one of the few Latin American countries where the comintern had little presence, and therefore where the soviets wouldnt have been able to, well, operate freely.

Would it not have been possible for Indy to end up in Russia and get caught up in a few things? That would add a bit of danger to the movie. Wandering around a country full of millions of friendly, anti-communist allies is not terribly suspensful. Or believable when the villains succeed anyhow.

And could the latin American country not have been, say, Bolivia or something, a country where the communists actually did have guerilla groups in place that could have provided opposition to Indy without murdering suspension of disbelief?

The Russians were utterly botched because they always seemed to lack power and menace. Their success was due solely to the fact that they were supposed to be moving the plot along.

The Nazis on the other hand continuously made use of duplicity, their own quite considerable power, spies and intelligence gathering, and of course the fact that the films occured in occupied Europe or the middle east.

The cold war was different from this, yeah, and we should have seen that. But the cold war intrigue plot with the FBI folks and such was utterly abandoned after bein introduced for absolutely no reason. Instead we get the usual ham fisted shooting war, and no limitations placed on any of the characters. The Russians murder a whole US garrison and rob it without any fear of the consequences (mutually assured destruction?) and Indy takes out a whole Russian army (like Buddy in SSS, right Civ? ) without bothering Russia in the least.

This did not feel historical at all, while the two good Jones movies really did drive home the atmosphere of WW2.

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#41 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 29 October 2008 - 04:18 AM

Well, agreed, JM. I think these elements could have been used to make a good film, and you have suggested some ways that they might have been. I agree wholeheartedly that the elements were not used in an entertaining or believable way. This film was shit, and I am NOT speaking metaphorically. It was literally shit.

I also agree that apart fromt he Red Elvises, there is nothing good about SSS. tongue.gif

"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#42 User is offline   Mr Pye Icon

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Posted 29 October 2008 - 05:44 AM

I guess I can accept Russians as villain. Probably not sanctioned by their government, maybe even guerillas. What is stupid is that they can walk into Area 51 without much resistance.

But yeah this movie made a deliberate departure from the more serious tone and intent of the previous ones. I don't mind fluff movies of this kind, though neither can I see why they wished to use Indiana Jones for such a movie.

The result is a pretty dumb combination. Fits with the general lack of interest Lucas has shown in his other old franchises though.

Is it me or did Harrison Ford seem tired & hung over for most of the film?

Old.
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#43 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 29 October 2008 - 01:15 PM

Civ- Hey now, Lucas liked it well enough to steal the "man slaughters Russians and people in silly costumes with swords in the desert" theme. Oh dear, that endorsement doesn't help my argument at all does it...

Pye- That's what I was saying. The movie should have been set in Russia largely so there would be some suspense. Indy VS the entire communist government machine could have been interesting, but instead he just beats up some lost Russians in the desert. And yeah, when they werent doing his makeup he looked way old.

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