The Indiana Jones Franchise (Steven Spielberg/James Mangold, 1981-2023)

[knives]

I'm certain you can find dozens of examples of that sort of thing if you tried hard enough. Just because something's been done before doesn't mean it shouldn't be done again.

[Brian C]

Lucas seemed very present from the moment an overly cute gopher turned up at the opening of the film (only Caddyshack has been able to use that animal correctly!)

But this was the only real self-aware moment in the movie. With Raiders the Paramount logo became an actual mountain. With KOCS opened with a gopherhill. I might have used a mole myself instead of a gopher, given the occasion, but if there's any better metaphor of the relative merits of the two films I don't know what it could be.

[stroszeck]

So is he also going to blame the dreadful ending of War of the Worlds on his buddy George too?

[knives]

How is that ending bad? I thought it was fairly generic and indistinguishable from dozens of other similar sci-fi.

[colinr0380]

I think stroszeck is talking about bringing back the teenage kid (and showing the rest of the family alive) at the end for a totally happy reunion, though this does fit in with the idea that young men are desperate to run off and join the army at the first opportunity to get some 'pay back' for an attack, while the father figure simply has to not be so protective and let them go off and do it (and is in some senses rewarded for their actions of 'letting go' by reaching that final reunion scene), which is part of what fits War of the Worlds into Spielberg's supposed '9/11 trilogy/trilogy of purgatory and retribution' along with Munich and The Terminal as first suggested in a Sight & Sound article.

[MoonlitKnight]

I never understood why the fridge thing was such a no-no.

Yeah, I still don't get why that was such a big deal. Sure, it was an extremely elaborate set-up for what was ultimately a fairly minor gag, but it was still funny -- particularly after the cut where it then shows Indy getting scrubbed down.

If I were to analyze the Indy movies in baseball terms, it would be as follows:

- "Lost Ark" was a grand slam
- "Last Crusade" was a 2-run triple
- "Temple of Doom" was an RBI single with the hitter advancing to second on the throw home
- "Crystal Skull" was a bunt single... but at least it wasn't an out (though I'm sure many people would disagree)

[Brian C]

- "Last Crusade" was a 2-run triple
- "Temple of Doom" was an RBI single with the hitter advancing to second on the throw home
- Crystal Skull" was a bunt single... but at least it wasn't an out (though I'm sure many people would disagree)

- More like a leadoff double with the runner thrown out trying to stretch to a triple
- More like a grounder to short that failed to advance the runner on second
- More like a bunt during a hit-and-run with two runners on base that was popped up and led to a triple play

[Tom Hagen]

KOCS was a rally-killing, game-ending double play. But I fully endorse the rest of your metaphor.

[swo17]

It's more like the first three movies are baseball and the fourth one is curling. (This is the most detailed sports analogy I can muster.)

[Brian C]

You mean that the fourth is kinda fun as long as you only watch it every four years during the Olympics?

[domino harvey]

More like I want to watch the fourth film even less than I want to watch sports

[Mr Sausage]

I find it hard to dislike the fourth film, even with its immense flaws, simply because I don't think much of the other two sequels. KOCS seems part and parcel with their collective failure to live up to Raiders.

But then I'm the guy who thinks Raiders (along with Jaws) is the best thing Speilberg's ever done.

[Brian C]

I find it hard to dislike the fourth film, even with its immense flaws, simply because I don't think much of the other two sequels. KOCS seems part and parcel with their collective failure to live up to Raiders.

But then I'm the guy who thinks Raiders (along with Jaws) is the best thing Speilberg's ever done.

I don't think the two sequels are very good either, and I like Raiders as much as you or so it seems ... but it hasn't stopped me from hating KOCS. In fact, I think I hate it even more because the other two were not so awesome, since it makes it just that much more obvious how far short of 'mediocre' KOCS falls.

At least ToD had the opening sequence, which was pretty good, and at least Last Crusade had a story that, while not all that well executed, showed some understanding of the appeal of the first film. I don't remember anything that KoCS had going for it, and in fact it seemed to be actively trying to kill good memories of the first film. But then that's what Lucas does these days, I guess.

[Mr Sausage]

I guess for me it was more there was no way I could be disappointed since I was already willing to accept its failure. So I was able to find some small enjoyment in it because I'd already accepted that it would be flawed.

Temple of Doom is, for me, the most interesting of the sequels. It has so much going for it: the opening, the Gunga Din atmosphere, the score, the incredible set-pieces. But it just has such bad taste. The humour is awful, the side-kicks annoying, the writing full of groan-inducing cliches--it's strikingly immature in the worst ways. Last Crusade is more solid and yet less interesting. It does everything well, but nothing distinguishes it.

[knives]

Connery does take down a plane with umbrellas. Otherwise I agree. There's nothing to be upset over since it's very much a piece with the sequels especially the equally sterile Last Crusade.

[Jeff]

Spielberg thread

[MyNameCriterionForum]

If I were to analyze the Indy movies in baseball terms, it would be as follows

Crystal Skull is like the Dock Ellis-on-acid no-hitter : Spielberg is Ellis; Lucas is the LSD; we (the audience) are the losing team.

[stroszeck]

Why couldn't they have just brought back Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman to bang out a decent script? I mean Kasdan alone wrote some incredible blockbustery stuff in the 80s and since they were attempting to take a more nostalgic route with this outing i don't get why they put all their eggs in David Koepp's crappy basket.

[Napier]

If I were to analyze the Indy movies in baseball terms, it would be as follows

Crystal Skull is like the Dock Ellis-on-acid no-hitter : Spielberg is Ellis; Lucas is the LSD; we (the audience) are the losing team.

Fixed

[colinr0380]

Why couldn't they have just brought back Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman to bang out a decent script? I mean Kasdan alone wrote some incredible blockbustery stuff in the 80s and since they were attempting to take a more nostalgic route with this outing i don't get why they put all their eggs in David Koepp's crappy basket.

I'm not sure that I would be quite so harsh on David Koepp - anyone who (albeit co-wrote) the fantastic Apartment Zero along with Panic Room has a definite flare for teasing out character through action.

[hearthesilence]

Why couldn't they have just brought back Lawrence Kasdan...since they were attempting to take a more nostalgic route with this outing i don't get why they put all their eggs in David Koepp's crappy basket.

Indiana Jones & The Big Chill?

[stroszeck]

How about Indiana Jones and the Continental Divide? Has a nice ring to it at least...

[domino harvey]

Clearly I like Cate Blanchett lacked the psychic wherewithal to recognize what the future held in store for me, as I did see this for some reason. After being floored in the Alt Oscars project by how much better Raiders of the Lost Ark was compared to my memory, I decided to give the sequels another shot as well. Temple of Doom fared pretty well, with the darkness of the material matching my memories and leaving the bellyachers who find it the worst of the series more inexplicable than ever. But boy, I was not prepared for how much I hated the Last Crusade, a film I know I liked as a kid but which now seemed bound and determined to be as bland a xerox copy of Raiders as possible-- the settings are often indistinguishable from the first film and everything just feels so tired. Plus it doesn't help that the movie keeps turning into Forest Gump with Indy meeting Hitler, &c. So perhaps it was lowered expectations that made KOCS surprisingly fun. After a deadly misguided opening half hour or so, where Spielberg and company waste perfectly good opportunities to better utilize Area 51, the Red Scare, and atomic testing, the film settles down into far more successful territory. The South American material is far more in line with the series' highpoints (and seems more in touch with the Saturday morning serial structure than the third film) and though the CGI grew tiresome, I thought the ridiculous non-stop chase through the jungle (an extended sequence that surely must account for a full third of the film's running time) proved more entertaining than anything in Last Crusade.

[colinr0380]

I do agree with your points domino. Last Crusade isn't quite as good as I remembered it on original viewings, although I still love it for the more extended integration of Denholm Elliott into the action (a premonition of Judi Dench's M in Skyfall?), the River Phoenix opening and the Venice section of exploring the library.

The final section does feel a little anticlimactic though with its series of tests compared to the opening of the Ark in Raiders - perhaps emphasising how much Last Crusade is a relationship film rather than a pure action adventure. The emphasis is on whether Indy has died after the tank battle (even though it is played for laughs) or whether Marcus or Indy's dad will be OK, or whether the love interest will stay true or betray (and if betray pay for her betrayal) rather than the object itself in some ways. The grail then is much more of a true MacGuffin rather than an important object in itself, as the Ark was.

I actually like the Hitler cameo though, with the amusement that even during a book burning rally he still responds to a book thrust into his face by giving his autograph for posterity! (As well as being a funny example of the ultimate form of 'acceptable' or 'authorised' writing in the worst possible book, suggesting that Hitler might also not read the fine print in any contracts he might sign!) It might anticipate the meeting-a-celebrity horrors of Forrest Gump but Zemeckis's film never really uses its historical figure cameos for anything more than 'Hey look who it is!' amusement, and an illustration that the only important things in life are those things (Apple stocks, Nike trainers) or people who are famous and stand apart from the masses (It proves that Forrest might not be the sharpest tool in the box but has had a worthwhile life because of the people he associated with). The Hitler cameo throws in some obvious but quite barbed (celebrity) politics into the midst of a popcorn action film.

On Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I don't think it is terrible and it manages the tone better than Temple of Doom did (my favourite part was the chase through the grounds of the University and of course it was great to see Karen Allen back), but it really felt that the film during the South America sequence was channelling a lot of stuff from the The Mummy films (specifically the extras getting consumed by angry bugs, which might be more of a comment on the way that all CGI sequences end up looking alike, or going through similar beats, as a paucity in imagination of the wider filmmakers), which is unsurprising given that the Mummy films stole a lot from Indiana Jones originally!

That brings up the question of how to make an unique and surprising Indiana Jones film nowadays, given that it has inspired the tone and structure of so many action films and heroic characters in its wake, let alone all the Tomb Raider and Uncharted computer games. Although I guess at least Harrison Ford must be aware of that fact if only because of that Japanese commercial where he plays a level of Uncharted 3!

EDIT: On my David Koepp 'teasing out character through action' comment above, I caught his recent directorial effort Premium Rush a few weeks ago and that fits in too. The actual thing being chased after is nothing more than a MacGuffin (it is even just a symbolic object in the world of the film) but the bike courier service is portrayed as a community where individuals may have their differences but they all come together to overcome the odds eventually (I don't think the film is stunningly original, but that is only because that James Cameron produced TV sci-fi series starring Jessica Alba, Dark Angel, used almost exactly the same bike courier setting and interactions between the characters inside it, as the hub/home base/area for comic relief for its characters! I had to get over quite a strong sense of deja vu for the first twenty minutes or so of Premium Rush because of that!)

[dx23]

Disney to Release Any Future Indiana Jones Movies