f13.net

It touched me in my bathing suit area.  And not in a good way.

 :pedobear:

More detail plz. Thanks.

Unless Indy fucks a kid, in that case, flat out say it and I'll stay away.

Since its clear as soon as they open the box at the beginning:


Kitsune is right, fuck that shit.

They say they spend 20 years looking for a good script and that is what they come up with? :roll:

Hehe, remember that Frank Darabont wrote a script which he and Spielberg agreed one was going to become one of the best films ever, George Lucas on the other hand didn't quite agree and scraped it for this.

God I hate that chubby noneck fuckbag.

There was another script that was ditched for this? Lucas is the Midas of shit. Everything he touches gets crappy.

There was a scene that had a character swinging from vine to vine through a jungle.  Not like they were hanging on one vine and needed to reach another, I mean they were traveling at high speed by vine-swinging like fucking Spider-Man in the jungle.

That alone should really say enough, but let me say more:

Everything that happened in this movie was telegraphed at least two minutes in advance.  At no point was a single cliche avoided.  A dozen Russians fired at the heroes from ten feet away with automatic weapons and didn't hit anything.  Indiana survived a fall even more gratuitously fatal than the one in the Iron Man movie without any harm.  The whole thing had to do with crappy aliens.  Characters were thrown in without any reason to actually give a fuck about them, and other characters would just attach to them for no better reason than because the writer wanted them to.

I can handle an indestructible pulp action hero just fine, but the thing that really got me about the movie was that everything happened for no better reason than because George Lucas said so.  Pick up a useless sidekick kid?  Lucas said so.  Hook back up with the woman from Raiders without laying eyes on her in twenty years and decide that you love her after all?  Lucas said so.  Have to clear out centuries of cobwebs to reach a place that someone else had supposedly visited a month prior?  Lucas said so.

They had twenty years to come up with a worthy successor to the excellent originals, and this shit was the best they could do?

Nevermind, Kitsune summed it up pretty nicely.  Time to drink more and black out the bad memories.

Nothing gelled because none of it was written to make even a scrap of sense.  The movie was basically Lucas sitting down in front of a piece of paper and writing "Things I think would look cool in a movie."  Beneath that, he wrote a list.  He then handed the list to a screenwriter, who strung the items on the list together and called it finished.  I'm being serious here, this statement is not green and is minimally exaggerated.  Rather than being a decent writer and trying to write an actual story with things like character motivations, he scattershotted a bunch of action scenes onto the thing and then tried to build a plot around them.

The final script is a Frankenstein's monster made up of a few other scripts.

Usually when a studio spends a long time "looking for a script" what it means is that the studio did a bunch of rewrites and competing versions based on the idiotic feedback of dumbshit producers and execs, then hires someone to put them all in a blender and make a final version that makes everyone happy by including all their pet ideas at the expense of quality.

So is it better than I Am Legend, or not?  :-)

There IS a additional scene that makes I am Legend a better movie. I don't know if that would work here...

 :cry:

If it's so bad, why is it doing so well on RT?

The "heavy hitters" currently have it at 64%.

This thread makes me cry.

That bad, eh?  Just reading some of the spoilers here is enough....

64% is really low for Spielberg.

The fanboy types are going to expect this movie to be the second coming of Christ, and they'll get petulant that it isn't. 

None of this stuff makes less sense than the zombie blood in Temple of Doom, or the bizarre roller-coaster mine cart in the temple, or the evil monkey in "Raiders," or Sean Connery being Ford's father, even though Connery is only like five years older, or Harrison Ford's ridiculous comic-relief Scottish Lord bit in "Last Crusade" or the creepiness about the girl fucking both the father and the son, or the ancient knight guarding the grail, or the fact that the girl in "Last Crusade" was a nazi being telegraphed as soon as she walked on screen, or Indiana Jones meeting Hitler, or Marcus catching a mean case of mental retardation between "Raiders" and "Last Crusade," or Connery shooting down a plane by scaring ducks with his umbrella, or the stupid riddles to get past the booby traps guarding the Holy Grail, or the invisible bridge, or the Holy Grail curing Connery's wounds, or the convenient earthquake swallowing the grail, or pretty much the whole last half-hour of "Last Crusade."

Um.. you DO know that's the whole legend of the real Crystal Skulls, right?  That'd be why it's the premise here.  Fuck, it's not even like they keep it a seceret, since it's mentioned in the latest trailer/ tv commercial by Nazi-chick.

Nothing lives up to childhood memories.  NOTHING.  If they released Raiders or Last Crusade today you all would bitch in the same manner.  (As Crawford shows...) Get over it, turn off the brain and watch the movie.  Lord knows that's what I'll do.

fixed for you

Agreed, even as a kid, Temple of Doom was a big load of fail. Although I wouldn't have used that more modern meme to describe it as such ;)

Incorrect.  All three movies were watched this week, marathon-style.  Raiders and Last Crusade both held up fine.  Temple of Doom, well.  Was my least favorite to begin with.

Temple of Doom was hated back in the day, but I still consider all three pretty awesome.  Same cannot be said for Crystal Skull.  I didn't hate the movie, but I dare any fan of the other movies to watch this and not be disappointed.  Not only did it not live up to the unreasonable hype surrounding it, but it just wasn't good.  Everything about the concept makes sense in the Indiana Jones world, and yes all that mystery about the crystal skull is inspired by real speculation, but a motherfucking greaser doing tarzan shit?  Fuck that.  Indiana Jones spouting off goofball one-liners instead of presenting himself as just plain irritated at the outrageousness of the situation?  Fuck that.  Shia as the heir?  FUCK THAT.

I am probably the biggest Spielberg fanboy here at these boards and I am having a hard time trying to defend this movie as anything more than mediocre summer fare.

Shia is no worse than River Phoenix as young Indy in the opening of Last Crusade.

(http://colunas.g1.com.br/files/14/2008/03/jarjar.jpg)

It's not that bad.

It's pretty awful.  I liked the Nazca angle, but space aliens... area 51... all The Mummy references.

What redeemed this movie for me, at least until the second half, was Janitor from Scrubs.

You mean, the janitor from The Fugitive?!?

(http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff26/stuabrtow/scrubsjanitorfugitive.jpg)

Kinda cool that he's in this. I'll keep an eye out since I won't be able to resist watching this movie.


Maybe I'm crazy, but I always thought River Phoenix was a pretty solid actor.

SPOILER: Snape kills Dumbledore.

Real Spoilers:
Seriously though, about five minutes into the movie, you realize that it's all downhill from here, and you better buckle up.  If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say that the stupid peaks with the vine scene.  From there, it's a denouement of retardation to the end.   Kitsune even left out some of the more horrid parts, like the monkeys, or the goddamn refrigerator scene.  Not to mention the "riddle" that took Jones all of ten seconds to solve--and that's including the time spent translating the text from some ridiculous dead language into Mayan. 

The characters are all pretty worthless as well.  Shia LaBeouf is gut-stabbingly terrible--as he has been in pretty much every movie--and brings nothing to the table except to serve as a deux ex machina to bring an old love-interest into the story.  Mac is written poorly and feels exactly like Elsa from Last Crusade--christ on the cross, we get it, he's obsessed with treasure.  What's even more annoying is that they made Jones a former OSS officer just to flesh out some worthless scenes with this character.  It doesn't help; the viewer still feels disconnected from whatever bond they're supposed to have.  Marion is interesting for about two minutes until she's disarmed by a charming Indy line; she spends the rest of the movie with a vapid smile on her face acting like $Lucas_love_interest[6].  It leaves you to wonder if the script only had those first few lines for her.  I imagine Lucas interrupting filming to say, "No!  No!  Look more wistful and fall back in love with the man who left you pregnant!  Hurry, the movie's almost over!"  There are a few characters left to assassinate, but honestly, it's not worth the time--just assume they're all bad.


Coming away from this movie, the only comforting thought you'll have is that at least George Lucas is done raping your childhood.

Good thing he fucked Howard the Duck right off the bat then.

Oh God, can I please have those two hours of my life back.

I always wait for the DvD.  I am almost never disappointed.  I either get to see a good film or I get a good nap.  I like both.

As psyched as I've been to see this, when I heard way back when that Lucas was heavily involved, I worried, and that's been in the back of my mind the whole time since.  And rightfully so, it seems.  All the same, I won't be able to stay away. 

Do NOT underestimate the powers of Jabba NostalgiaRaper.

He could do a reimagined version with a CGI Howard that would just melt your brain into a small pile of melted poprocks.

<spoler..s?>

Greaser... fencing... on the hood of a jeep moving through the jungle... when the path-clearing machine had been destroyed ten minutes ago?



New and improved Howard the Duck for the new Millenium: actual sex scene between Howard and Beverly!  They do it Ducky Style.

<spoilers don't matter for shitty movies>

No, worse.  Greaser fencing on the hood of a jeep moving through the jungle when the path-clearing machine had been destroyed ten minutes ago, while spending a solid minute completely helpless while stretched between two vehicles and holding his balls after they got smacked by a shrub and the evil Russian woman with the sword didn't think to run him through when presented with an opening wide enough to do doughnuts in the Titanic.

Meanwhile, every time the good guys got captured, they immediately became best friends with the bad guys.  Indy would promptly start volunteering valuable information, translating documents for them, etc.  And when Greedy McObviouslyevil is all, 'Hey, I wanna come with you guys!', they just kinda shrug and let him come.

And what the fuck is with that line, "Indy, I'll be okay." <wink> <die>  At that point in the movie I was too busy screaming inside to spend any of my precious few remaining neurons trying to figure it out.

I am going in intending to enjoy it, after carefully prepping my children for weeks with the older movies, Young Indy DVDs, and even old Indy paperback novels. I refuse to acknowledge flaws until afterwards.  :oh_i_see:

There are some nice bones thrown to fans of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.  One or two, anyway.

So do all these bad reviews make it morally ok to pirate it?  :grin:

You showed your kids the good stuff and are planning to take them to this?

You realize that they'll remember this when it's time to pick your nursing home, right?

Well, maybe they won't notice the crap, if they're super-young.  Swinging around on vines and being racked in the balls is sufficient to amuse children if they're young enough.

The problems that we have with this won't matter a damn to a child.  So no worries there.  We're old nerds.

I, too, hated Temple of Doom when I was a kid. If this is worse, then I'd expect at least some kids to notice.

I'll still go watch this. Personally, "The Last Crusade" is a worse film than "Temple of Doom".

WTF?  Last Crusade is my favorite alltime movie.  Temple is barely watchable. 

I've honestly never understood the Temple of Doom hate.  Maybe it wasn't as good as Raiders, but what is?  "You betrayed Sheba!" is one of my favorite movie scenes ever.

Now, having said that, the expression on my face for about 70% of Crystal Skull alternated between :ye_gods: and :uhrr:.  That was some seriously ham-fisted shit on display.  Either Spielberg has lost his touch or he's been drinking too much of Lucas' Kool Aid recently.  Even the little details, that in other movies would make nice touches, were overdone.  That shot of the Ark in the beginning, for example.  You could feel the cameraman thinking "Look!  See?  There's the Ark of the Covenant!  Remember, from the first movie?  Yeah, that one!  I think I'll linger on it for too long and frame it in the scene just so, so that you dumb asses get the reference!"

My other favorite :uhrr: moment was when Indy tells Mutt to get his own weapon, and what does he do?  Instead of manning THE FUCKING .50 CAL MOUNTED ON THE FRONT OF THE FUCKING VEHICLE, he pulls out... a sword.  Yeah.  Good choice, kid.

Quoted For Muther Fucking Truth. People have a hard time with interdimensional aliens, but they're okay with the holy fucking grail or God shooting lasers at Nazis? Um whut?

If people liked the ape-shit action and contradictory supernatural of the first three movies, then they'll like Indy 4.

I can't find the right way to articulate how wrong it felt having Indiana Jones be Science Fiction.

As we've covered in one or two other movie threads, the hate is directed at the early acts of the movie - particularly the club scene - and Kate Capshaw in particular.  To call her character unnecessary and mind-bendingly awful is being generous.  Goddamn, when I watched it over the last few weekends I wanted a "special edition" where her hammy screams are just cut the fuck out of the soundtrack.

Parts that she's not in?  Not bad.  It's a case of a few really irritating parts bringing the whole down.

I remember not minding her when I was little. She was just another Indy girl to me. Then I got the DVD collection for my birthday a few months ago, watched it again, and hate-hate-hated her. I was cool with the club scene, but she should have died on the end of a shish-kebab so Indy and his little pal could go on their fun adventure without her.

Half of the angst seems rooted in the lack of background knowledge of the lore. It doesn't match up with two things a good chunk of the world has at least heard of, regardless of their beliefs (10 Commandment Tablets, Grail). And while Temple of Doom had some preposterous circumstances, what I felt was missing from that movie more than anything else was the BigImpressiveThing that was the end of the first Indy movie.

This one's fine. It's a fun ride if you can forget the 20 years of changes to expectations for movies, and pretty much forget the details of the other three. Certainly easier to that with this IP than the other one.

"Temple" is better put together than "Crusade" and, apart from Kate Capshaw, has less hokey crap in it than "Crusade" imo.

I'll probably go off and see the latest Indy film today. Rant / review later, if it's worth it.

This Just In: Commies mad at Lucasfilm.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080523/film_nm/russia_indianajones_dc

Isn't Harrison Ford banned from Tibet already? Soon all of Asia will declare war on him. The crowd control on this will be interesting....

That article is full of win. I couldn't make this up.

Read: A= fiction bad.

Read: B= because we don't trust our own educational system to teach kids the difference?

Read: A+B= because we can't tell the difference?

At what point in the movie does it say that the Russians were threatening nuclear war?  I'm pretty sure it only shows the US making a fuss over The Bomb.

The Crystal Skull is meant to create a weapon to supercede the nuclear bomb.

Back from seeing it. Not worth ranting or praising, but it was an okay film with some horrible parts (swinging through the jungle ala George, for instance, or having punch-to-the-nuts humour; my biggest problem were the guys who apparently just hang around underground to chase any visitors to their graveyard and / or temple). I watched it as a pulp film, so having the supernatural element didn't bother me.

Based on this thread (and I avoided the spoilery parts) I went in with very low expectation and still thought that it stunk on ice.  As my wife said over dinner after the show, we need to go watch a good movie to cleanse our palates.  The hokey stuff in the earlier movies was acceptable because those were good movies. Hokey stuff in bad movies just makes you focus even more on its badness.


EDIT: Oh, and one funny thing. At least here in Utah people have a tendency to clap at the end of good movies, particularly in a packed house on opening weekend (don't ask me why). After this there was stone silence followed by a couple half-hearted claps and some actual hissing. Too funny.

Some of the audience actually clapped after the showing I went too.

Overall I thought it stunk, but not unbearably so, I won't be rushing out to pre-order the DVD or anything, it just wasn't as bad as Lucas last effort (which isn't saying much).

If the Alien was just waiting to get his head back before leaving then why didn't he leave 500 years ago before the spanish dude stole it?  NM, I don't really care.

I'm more excited to hear the remastered (possibly re-recorded?) indy music at the beginning than the movie itself.

Also, why bother collecting all the priceless artifacts if they're just going to be destroyed when they leave anyway?

When the credits rolled the reaction of almost everyone in the theater was "Wait, what?" I, of course, said "Fucking lucas" a little too loud. Much like I said "He's black!?" about Nick Fury at the end of Iron Man.

I want my childhood back.

The new Indy was utter trash. 

Even the new Hulk movie can't be worse that that.

Oh yeah, I just remembered.  I fucking hate wedding endings.

Uh they werent destroyed. They were broken down into their component sub-atomic particles in order to be worm holed through the inter-dimensional doorway. They will be re-assembled on the other side.

Wow you guys really didnt get this movie.

Anyway I saw it Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed. Its not an artsy film...its a summer action hero movie. Stop thinking so much and enjoy it.


It was no worse than Ironman in his desert cave built suit with the big fucking holes cut in the helmet being able to withstand being shot at so much (without a single one coming through the helmet eye slot) and then plummeting 300 feet out of the air into the ground. And oh yeah rather than modern surgery using x-rays to remove the metal shards, we instead have a pocket fusion machine running a magnet to keep them out of his heart.  ie its not reality.

Suspension of Disbelief only goes so far and it has different limits depending on the universe.

Indy 4 was so over the top ridiculous that I had a very hard time suspending my disbelief.

Nobody survives a nuclear bomb at that distance. Indy should have been deep fried in that refrigerator.
If the box is magnetic enough to pull gunpowder out of the air at distance of more than 100 meters then nobody should be able to handle anything magnetic in close distance to the box (Think MRI levels of magnetism) let alone that all of that crap is physically impossible and that the "magnetic field" turned off and on again if it was convenient.
Explain to me how they got the crystal skull in the first place since YOU NEEDED THAT SKULL TO OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR to get inside
That whole stupid amazonian car chasing scene with cars that use tree branches to drop to rivers, people that use swords to fight when there are perfectly acceptable autocannons available, people surviving a drop down the Iguazu waterfalls, the whole stupid "I'm a russian spy, no I'm not, yes I am, no I'm not" story line. Tarzan on speed.

I don't get it why every fucking Spielberg movie that is not about nazis must have some sort of Aliens instead.

The aliens make sense from a 50's pulp sci-fi view, so don't act stupid and start hating the movie for the right reasons; there are plenty to choose.

I've figured out one of the things that bugged me so much. The other movies were goofy as hell but they were all somewhat internally consistent. This atrocity has no internally consistent logic whatsoever. You add that to the general way Lucas can fuck up just about anything and you have this pile.

Wow, I had managed to forget about the A-Bomb scene and the magnet thing.  This bothered me so much while watching the film that I must have blocked them out.

And yes, I had problems with Iron Man for the same reasons you mentioned Broughden, but on the whole it was a MUCH better film than Indy 4.  As Abagadro just said, Indy lacked consistency while Iron Man was pretty much made of it.

Ultimate Nick Fury. Much cooler than the Hasselhoff version.

Just saw it.  It wasn't anywhere near as horrible as folks are making it out to be.  It wasn't good, but it wasn't "Manos: The Hands of Fate" like some are making it out to be.  I had a good time for my $5 and that's what I was after.  Now there were SOME things that bothered me about it, yes.

For example, the fridge thing was over the top.  Even after showing the "lead-lined" sticker, I wasn't expecting it to turn into a projectile that travels a few miles but only roughs Indy up a bit.   :ye_gods:

The inconsistency with the magnetism bothered the fuck out of me, though.  One minute it's hypermagnetic, the next it's not.  It'll pull gunpowder out of the air, and make dogtags come out of shirts to hover, but won't affect bullet trajectories or rip guns from hands.  Oh, and when it was behind the wood it wasn't able to affect crowbars, but move that protective 3/4" of planking and KLANG...  :uhrr:

Really, though, the part that bothered me most was that Lucas and Spielberg have both forgotten how to make movies.  They were originally the guys saying "The story comes before the effects" and "Effects should enhance the story not be it."  Now that we see what they both do with 'unlimited' budgets, I understand that was just the rationalization of poor men who couldn't afford big flashy effects in the 70s.

 Some of the shit that happened was obviously ONLY for the effects and to show off Lucasfilm's latest CGI crap.  And that's what it was, crap.  Hell, The Mummy did the bug scene better 10 years ago with lesser CGI. And with more consistency about squishing of the bugs.

I didn't actually have that much of a problem with the nuke scene.  One of the major things that came out of those tests was that the immediate blast was survivable, hence all the "Duck and Cover" stuff from the cold war era.  The wave front travels in a straight line, get below the level of the ground, like in a ditch, and it goes right over you.  There is footage of tests with live soldiers near ground zero in ditches waiting out the blasts.

Getting into the fridge was the wrong move and certainly would have been a deadly decision but I chalked it up to 'light humor'.

I paid $12 and 50 fucking cents. TOO MUCH FOR WHAT I GOT!

Holy shit, Merusk is posting through a time-portal to 1989!  That explains so much.

Or he's 65 and got his AARP discount at a Matinee showing.

AMC theaters in Cincy show movies for $5 if you go before noon.  :drill:  It's the only reason I still go to theaters.

Also, wtf was up with the Cinematography in the movie?  I don't normally notice things like this, but the scene in the diner between Indy and Mud was horrible.  I wanted to know if Spielberg was fucking the blonde extra at the table behind them because for 80% of it she took up as much of the screen as Shia and Harrison.

Oh, and 'fuzzy filters' and extreme over lighting don't give you a "50's feeling," Steve.  They just make it obvious you're trying to cover up your lead's age and wrinkles.

Ok, I saw it yesterday. You guys know I'm a forgiving movie-goer because I liked most of the prequel trilogy. This movie was...ok. I left feeling unsatisfied and trying to figure out why, then it hit me.

We were cheated out of the Indy action. Time and again Indy would leap onto a movie vehicle, then the camera would cut to a low angle beside the truck/car/jeep/whatever and you'd hear a punch sound effect then show a bad guy falling down. This happened alot and it was my biggest "non-vine swinging" issue. If Harrison Ford is too old to do the fight scenes then call it a day guys!

Oh, and on the magnetism, they sort of "explained" it later. Remember in the tomb when they find the skull and Indy says something like "gold isn't magnetic" when it gets stuck to the skull. That wasn't magnetism as we know it.

Edit: The chase scene encapsulates why I didn't enjoy this movie that much. The Shia Lebouf stuff was cool (other than the vines, even the nut slapping didn't bother me really.) But it had to be. Why? Because Indy's main contribution was...driving. And watching the action.

Except for, you know, him swinging from his whip and landing on the hood of the Commie's car then hitting the guy in the face?  Or jumping across the tops of huge stacks of boxes full of military secrets?  He got a little action at the beginning, at least.

And saying "oh, it's LIKE magnetism and has all the same properties, except it's intelligent and can turn itself off and on at a whim... oh, and it IS magnetic when we need it to be" is bullshit.

I didn't really notice much less Indy-action than in prior flicks. He still had the whip swinging. He did that thing with the two assailants when he and Shia visit the temple. He had the usual fight against the big baddy, with camera work that was reminiscent of Raiders (remember, that was not filmed as a boxing matched either, a lot of sfx and implied stuff). All in all, Harrison Ford came off looking better than I do, 28 years his junior :-)

It started off well but after that it was mostly implied action with a the big fist fight near the end being a major exception.

I thought it was fine. It wasn't Robot Jesus, but fuck -- it's an Indiana Jones movie.

Look, the first one was a straight-up homage to old-time serials, right? The second kept the serial feel, but Spielburg was going for the feel of the 40s/50s big costume epics. Hell, the opening to Temple of Doom practically shouted "Hey, you know Gunga Din? Keep that in mind. We're working with that feel, okay?"

I'm a little iffy on the thrid -- I think he just went back to the original formula and did it again.

This one -- straight up serial + Red Menace film. You think the Russians were campy and stilted because Spielbrug thought "hey, that's Communists for you!". They were that way because that's flat-out how Communists were portrayed.

As for space aliens -- well hell, that was the tenor of the times. That was the era of Roswell, the nuclear bomb (they mentioned both right off the fucking top), when America started pushing science and engineering because we had to stay ahead of the commies. Both sides were chasing psychics even. (And I like Stargate, so I'd already seen the OMG the Skulls are alien tech storyline). Even the ending was straight-up Red Menace films (the solid American Hero always got his happy ending after the Reds were defeated).

So the aliens didn't bug me. I never associated Indiana Jones with "religious archealogy" -- and hell, I'm an atheist so the glowy Ark of the Covenent is no more weird to me than space aliens. Sure, parts of it were ridiculous. It's Indiana Jones, and its roots trace to the ridiculous notion that when you see the hereos' plane going down, to certain doom -- there's always a parachute the hero forgot to mention. He could be naked and he'd find one while falling.

Ridiculous Russians, vine-swinging, space aliens -- if you've moving the story to the 50s, there's nothing else you can use. The Soviets were more fans of blowing up old ruins, not exploring them.

Admittedly, I enjoyed Temple of Doom a LOT more after I saw Gunga Din and a few other period films.

But hey, YMMV. I associate Indiana Jones films with serials/pulp based versions of one film genre or another. Not Nazis and Christian artifacts. I can't help but think a lot of people went in with 25+ years of expectations. It was fucking light-years better than, say, the Phantom Menance. :)

Of course, I also was drinking when I saw it...:)

I was surprisingly unannoyed by it overall. The refrigerator nuke scene and the vine swinging scene made me want to gouge my eyes out, but the rest of it was pulpy goodness. Definitely not a deep movie, but fine for a blockbuster summer shut off your brain movie.

I didn't really dig the whole Mutt Williams character, but the Sean Connery as Indy's dad bit in "Last Crusade" was kind of cheesy as well.

The one thing that pissed me off was that there were no live creepy-crawlies getting dumped on the actors. If Spielberg had to put Shia in the movie, the least he could have done is thrown real scorpions on him instead of CGI ones. He covered Doc Ock with tarantulas in Raiders, and dropped Ford into that pit of cobras. Then he covered Ford, Capshaw and Short Round with giant bugs and spiders in Temple of Doom, and there was the rat scene in Last Crusade.

I guess the ants were that Indy staple, and it was a cool scene. But I was kind of expecting to see real bugs. 

I suspect CGI is, all around, less expensive, safer, and less stressful for the actors when it comes to creepy-crawlies. Sure they're getting paid a lot of money to do it, but....hell, working with real live animals is always a hassle. (I'm always amused in Raiders when I see the glass keeping the snakes away from Harrison Ford. I also know that no amount of money would have me do some of the scenes in Indiana Jones with real bugs.).

Mutt Williams was too heavily telegraphed to be who he was (sorry, trying not to be TOO spoilery). The comb and switchblade were overly-clever analogs to the whip and hat. I thought the  Easy Rider homage was a nice, actually. John Williams's score was, as usual, stellar. There's some nice musical cues in there if you were listening. :)

I think the pitfall with Indiana Jones in general is that the line between "cheesy" and "homage" is pretty thin, depending on how familiar you are with the source works and if you're viewing it the way the director wants you to. Some movies (Galaxy Quest, True Lies, the first Scream) can manage a homage/parody and STILL make a perfectly serviceable genre piece even if you didn't get the jokes.

Indiana Jones isn't parody, it isn't genre, it's some sort of mash-up of the two, and the line veers wildly back and forth. I used to loathe Temple of Doom and have really come around on it after watching it more recently.

We sat through the full credits just to listen to it. Just great stuff.

No shit, it's stressful on the actors. That's what makes it fun to watch. It's much more fun to watch an actress waist-deep in a pool foaming with hundreds of rats than it is to watch a woman pretending to be waist deep in rats in front of a green screen.

Will Ferrell grappled with a live bear in "Semi Pro." The least Spielberg could have done was throw some real scorpions on Shia.

Indiana Jones and Expectations Game.

Well as to live animals i completely agree, lucas and spielberg seem to have a hard on for CG and that really turns me off. Iron man would be a good example of cg done right where sometimes you get the cg but other times you see an actual suit to give definition,

Fear not my friends, it's over. 

http://arnoldendsit.ytmnd.com/ (http://arnoldendsit.ytmnd.com/)

That bear killed one of its trainers recently.

Probably when they told him they needed to free up time in his schedule to shoot Semi Pro 2.

So I went to see it yesterday.

I was not really expecting much, but I was also not overly impressed with what I did get.

The whole aliens made slaves of the meso-american cultures schtick annoyed me, but meh.


What bothers me the most is that I was sure Michael Bay was going to rape my childhood memories like I was forced onto the pinball machine in The Accused with the Transformers movie last summer. And I actually really liked that movie. I expected Spielberg to at least give me something on par with Temple of Doom, and was not given that.

People in Hollywood have lost touch with the artform.

I always though that those duck and roll yourself in bed sheet was to make body disposal and identification easier (they wouldn't have to use body bags).

I don't know where you're from but duck and cover doesn't mean roll yourself in a sheet.  It means get under a solid object.

Although there was some silly parts to the new Indy movie, I still was pretty entertained all the way through. I don't think it was as good as the other stuff, (for me it falls around the Tomb level in quality) I am still happy I saw it and I would still buy it when it comes out to complete my set. It was one hell of a popcorn flick.

I didn't go in with really high expectations and the things that really annoyed other people didn't really get to me in the slightest. I think the alien stuff could have been better done and implied in  a way that was not so silly, but it was all still enjoyable for me.

Oddly enough, I had heard that the aim of this was to get new youth fans and my kid who really like Indy said he still really enjoyed this one and immediately went back to watch the other ones and said that he felt the movie fit in pretty decently.


On another note, for the toy collectors out there, is it me or are the new Indy toys fucking god-awful? Really they suck like no tomorrow, and they are really popular amongst many toy collectors. It is really crazy. Nasty looking little action figures they are... 

I saw it yesterday. It was an Indiana Jones movie with George "There is never enough CG" Lucas shit all over it. Holy fuck can we please stop with the ultra wide shots with the over-processed colors and overwrought CG? The whole secret of the skull thing was pretty retarded as well. It wasn't terrible IMO but it felt like...half an Indy movie. I don't know how to put my finger on it, it wasn't bad IMO, but it felt like I had watched a 30 minute episode of an Indiana Jones TV show instead of a 2 hour movie.

I feel like this movie was the polar opposite of the first three Star Wars movies (by number) - Phantom Attack of the Sith was a good concept ruined by Lucas's terrible dialog and pacing; this Indy movie was a terrible Lucas-influenced story saved by decent writing and direction.

In "Temple" during the bug scene, Kate Capshaw was apparently drugged to the eyeballs to even go onto the set because she hated / feared the bugs so much. I'll leave you to create your own jokes about how it impacted on her performance.

I think Alison Doody in "Crusade" was a bit icked out at having rats in her hair, but she wasn't phobic about them.

Also having seen "Crystal Skull" and "Transformers" in close relation, I really, really, really don't get the Shia buzz. He comes across to me as a flat actor who isn't even that pretty to look at. I can at least see the appeal of Josh Harnett, even if his performances should attract termites.

People think he is "funny" in a young Tom Hanks kind of way. (He really isn't, but I have actually heard people compare him to the younger Tom Hanks).

He comes across as a dork to me.

Have you seen Bosom Buddies?  Dork is exactly what a young Tom Hanks was.

Yes, and Bosom Buddies was good stuff.

But Shia is no Tom Hanks. I should have put "unfunny" before "dork" in my original post I suppose.

Big > transformers

shotgun to the face > transformers

The toys are fun though.

Constantine > Transformers

Oh god, I agree.

Yep.

It's just occurred to me that John Constantine is like an occult version of Dr. Who.

The real Constantine, I mean, not the Keanu one.

I need to pick up more of the Hellblazer collections....

My problem with Hellblazer was where to start.  Haven't they been publishing him forever?

Every time I go to a bookstore with any sort of comic section I do a quick scan for any Hellblazer trades that I don't have yet.  I've got about a whole shelf full of them by this point.  Luckily, they don't generally suffer for being read out of sequence.  The trades aren't even numbered (I still have yet to go through my collection and try to organize it by issue).

Do you have the Brian Azzarello trades? Man, I have to pull those out of the shelf and re-read those. Easily my favorites from the series.

Yup, I think I started with a couple of his.  I think at this point I've got nearly every Hellblazer trade ever published.  Like I said, when I see one I don't have I pick it up.  And I've been doing that for a few years now, at places that have pretty good selections.   :grin:  Once I get into a series I tend to not stop until I have everything I can possibly get.

I'd like to see Lucas try to do an "Indy" movie but with just LeBouf.  Because I think it would flop, and that would be interesting.  I mean people look at Lucas as this hack who just spews out whatever he likes and ignores all criticism, but then what else would he do?  Pretty much everything he's ever been involved with has been of the "nobody says they liked it but somebody bought a billion dollars worth of tickets" variety.  I mean the best-reviewed Star Wars was Revenge of the Sith, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.  That has to skew one's perspective.

Wikipedia is your friend. Comic book geeks have thankfully rounded up all the Hellblazer stuff in order. :)

I predict in two days time, someone will make this same topic, except with The Happening in the title in place of "the new Indiana Jones".

I've been suspicious of that movie more and more ever since I saw a commercial where apparently it was important enough for the narration to mention this is the First R-Rated Movie By M Night Shyamalan.

It's one of the shittiest movies I've had to sit through in quite a while.  By the end I was envious of all the people on screen that had killed themselves throughout the course of the movie.

That's a shame.  I love Zooey :grin:.

I suggest you stay away from this movie then.  Her acting in this is so fucking horrid that it will make you hate her.  It felt like they flew Lucas in to be her personal director or something.

Well done on bring this back O/T  :grin:

:heartbreak:

On the upside I came away from the Indy movie in no doubt that I had seen an Indiana Jones movie: every box was ticked, every trope referenced.  But it was as if there were two lists of Things That Must Occur.  One was the satisfy-the-Indy-fans set, with stuff like "Indy must retreive an item then have it taken away by baddies just as he seems to have escaped".  That left one with a feeling of utter predictability, as the outcome of every scene ceased to be in doubt immediately upon recognition of the template it derived from.  This was just not necessarily bad in itself, but the implementation was lazy.

The second list was the more pernicious influence: as with Lucas, the film was packed with elements clearly intended for the game, and which were not, in themself, useful or appropriate additions to the movie.

And the ending... ack.  Clearly done "because we can".

I am the worst movie critic in the world.  As long as it has cool sfx and a chick with a nice rack I am usually pretty happy with a film.


But man did this movie suck.  Ever notice that you can usually tell within the first ten minutes if a movie is gonna be good or not?  The dark, clumsy hand of Lucas was everywhere, not even Spielberg could defeat the Sith of Shit.

Let's see...
The script was garbage, Indy was 'out of character' the whole movie.
Shia Lefag was horrid, it's like he's a kid pretending to be an actor pretending to act in a movie.
No eye candy...I spent most of the film crotch-spotting Cate Blanchett.
The climax was lame.
I could go on, but fuck it.  I really wish I'd seen The Hulk but I am behind on my summer movie viewing.

As hard as it may be to believe, The Incredible Hulk is even worse.

SPOILARZ!!!11



The most life TIH had, apart from a neat Lou Ferrigno cameo, was right at the beginning of the movie between Bruce Banner and a sweet girl working at the same factory as him.  Truth be told, the only times the movie was interesting was when it was Bruce Banner and not the green munchkin-bullshit that is Hulk.  The CGI was sometimes good, sometimes "eh", but never Good Enough.  The movie as a whole was so fucking bland that not even the RDJ cameo at the end could evoke emotion in me.  I wouldn't even watch this bullshit on cable, and I've knowingly watched movies on the motherfucking Lifetime Channel.

That invalidates your opinion and requires immediate surrender of your man-card as well.

In my defense, that movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137156/) was a B/C-grade sci-fi flick that seemed awfully out of place on the channel and had some recognizable actors.

Don't judge me too harshly, I'm retarded for asian women.  Can I please keep my man-card, I promise it won't happen again?  It was either that or Becker!

Given that choice the correct option is "put on some porn and masturbate"

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Abridged Script (http://www.the-editing-room.com/indianajones4.html)

You mean Spielberg's daughter?  I suppose he could be.

Ew.

Heh.