What the heck is he talking about!?
"George Lucas says he's already identified the one person who can keep the Indiana Jones franchise going: Harrison Ford"
- Yeah, no surprise there, Sherlock.
"you'd have to call it 'Mutt Williams and the search for Elvis"
- Um, wouldn't Williams now be a Jones? It's still lame, but it seems Lucas didn't really pay attention to his own movie either.
"The franchise really depends on me coming up with a good idea"
- As James says, yay! Not gonna happen. Sadly, it will happen but it still won't be a good idea.
"Meanwhile, the 64-year-old has another popular franchise to nurture: "Star Wars"
- Says it all. 64. Star Wars. The guy has nothing left to do other than make Indiana Jones and Star Wars projects. That's it. Creative, huh?
"he's also looking into re-releasing the six "Star Wars" films using new 3-D technology"
- Make the same point again, why dont'cha? How come this hasn't happened yet? Too expensive. Ol' George doesn't want to spend the money...just rake it in. Maybe he couldn't get Fox to shell out for these the way they did for the 1997 updates?
"Like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, I'll go out and adopt twins if they'll pay me $14 million to do it"
- Where did that come from? What is he saying? Lot a lot, other than admitting he'll do anything for money!
I have a bad feeling about this. No, wait, not I'm confusing the two Ford/Lucas series with each other as badly as the filmmakers did!
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
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Ha ha.Ben wrote:I have a bad feeling about this. No, wait, not I'm confusing the two Ford/Lucas series with each other as badly as the filmmakers did!
Actually, having Indy say: "I like Ike," was almost, if not quite as, bad as that moment.You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!
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Thanks Whippet! 
What, like a fan commentary? I did partake in a commentary track once, asking the questions and motivating a lovely old gentleman through one of his old films he produced.
Commentary taping is interesting...they don't always just literally sit and talk through the movie. We went through scenes a couple of times for some moments and probably went through the movie twice. They take all that away and cut the comments about to use the best bits and make up the best value.
I was there purely for motivation, and actually was cut out of the finished track! My job was to pull out the information and, in some cases, actually simply feed him facts that he basically repeated back to the microphone. He sounded like he had a <I>great</I> memory!
I'd love to do a proper commentary sometime, if one of my own projects ever makes it off the ground.
What, like a fan commentary? I did partake in a commentary track once, asking the questions and motivating a lovely old gentleman through one of his old films he produced.
Commentary taping is interesting...they don't always just literally sit and talk through the movie. We went through scenes a couple of times for some moments and probably went through the movie twice. They take all that away and cut the comments about to use the best bits and make up the best value.
I was there purely for motivation, and actually was cut out of the finished track! My job was to pull out the information and, in some cases, actually simply feed him facts that he basically repeated back to the microphone. He sounded like he had a <I>great</I> memory!
I'd love to do a proper commentary sometime, if one of my own projects ever makes it off the ground.
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Sitting back and enjoying the ride with a bad movie is fine. One of my favorite movies is considered one of the worst of all time. What you guys who are taking the criticism of this movie so personally are missing is that this isn't just any movie. This is Indiana frickin Jones! The first three films are classic and are considered one of the best movie trilogies of all time. I have to assume a lot of you were too young to have seen these films in theatres and so this film was "good enough". Too bad for you.
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I'm an "old guy", but oddly never watched the original trilogy until it came to DVD. I didn't find KOTCS any more over the top than parts of the earlier ones, and liked it just fine. I appreciated the different tone as a byproduct of setting the film in the fifites and having the actors naturally older.
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My main problem with the movie was during the chase scene through the Amazon jungle (where apparently there was a neat road for them to use) they find themselves driving next to a giant waterfall gorge (looked like Iguazu Falls which is way down on the southern end of Brazil). That was just too jarring for me as I'm a geography nut. However, I did find the movie somewhat enjoyable, if not forgettable. As James said, it doesn't compare to the other three originals though in quality of story. It was weaker.
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The drab opening, then 40+ minutes of <I>nothing happening</I> in the middle after they get to Peru and up to the Jungle scenes, then an ending that, when you actually look at it, makes no sense, is what killed it for me.
The first three films were fantasies, yes, but they set up their logic, stuck to it and winked at the audience. This one just tried to pack everything they <I>think</I> we wanted to see...and it didn't match together as a whole.
I didn't hate it as much as Superman Returns, which I think is an honestly stinking turd of filth, but Indy IV didn't smell much better, in terms of disappointment. Anyhoo, I think I said everything I wanted to say about this in my mega-long review on the main page.
The first three films were fantasies, yes, but they set up their logic, stuck to it and winked at the audience. This one just tried to pack everything they <I>think</I> we wanted to see...and it didn't match together as a whole.
I didn't hate it as much as Superman Returns, which I think is an honestly stinking turd of filth, but Indy IV didn't smell much better, in terms of disappointment. Anyhoo, I think I said everything I wanted to say about this in my mega-long review on the main page.
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No, first they had to use a giant tree-cutting machine to get to that road. Luckily for the Ruskies Jones coincidentally destroyed the machine right when they didn't need it anymore!Rodney wrote:My main problem with the movie was during the chase scene through the Amazon jungle (where apparently there was a neat road for them to use)...
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Yes, story is the film's biggest flaw. The Frank Darabont screenplay (IJ and the City of the Gods, at simplyscripts.com) wasn't exactly Raiders, but it would have made a much better movie. However, the thing is, Lucas did come up with the basic story, and there were weird things we were gonna get no matter who wrote it. There was still the "nuke the fridge" moment, and there was still the misguided alien angle. Darabont's finale may have been a little over the top (with Oxley becoming a mouthpiece for the aliens as they begin to kill all the bad guys), but at least it was an attempt on Darabont's part to explain the ending.
For those who complained (rightly) about the film's lack of action, Darabont's screenplay did contain a lot more action sequences, including a somewhat Hitchcockian museum fight, a much extended warehouse chase (where Indy actually does fight on the rocket sled instead of just sitting there), an airplane sequence, and others. There were also more villains and double crosses that, admittedly, reminded me a bit of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Best of all, no Shia LaBeouf.
In the end, what may have doomed Darabont's screenplay for Lucas (other than the fact that there was no Mutt,) was that it seemed to be so ingratiating toward Spielberg, with more Raiders references. Darabont is clearly a fan of Indiana Jones, and he wrote the script as a fan. Indy is over his fear of snakes at the start of the film, then in a bizarre episode is swallowed by a giant snake, and his phobia returns. Sallah has a cameo at the end. When he is fired from the college, Indy redoes the whole fertility idol thing from Raiders, only now it's in a museum display case with pressure detectors. During the warehouse chase, Darabont actually wrote "allowing Mr. Spielberg to stage the most outrageous close calls ever put on film." Maybe that made Lucas jealous?
Despite Lucas's poor creative decisions in the last decade and more, though, I don't want to demonize him as a bitter old man. He probably wanted something "more different" than the three original Indy films. Problem is, he went that way with the Star Wars prequels as well and look where that got us. In trying to create something "new," he throws out the old stuff that made the originals good in the first place. Like good storytelling.
With some judicious revision, the Darabont screenplay could have been good, maybe even a worthy successor to the originals if it had been executed well. Ultimately, though, the film would have had the same central conceit of crystal skulls and aliens.
Still kind of liked parts of the final film, though I'd be hard pressed to say why.
For those who complained (rightly) about the film's lack of action, Darabont's screenplay did contain a lot more action sequences, including a somewhat Hitchcockian museum fight, a much extended warehouse chase (where Indy actually does fight on the rocket sled instead of just sitting there), an airplane sequence, and others. There were also more villains and double crosses that, admittedly, reminded me a bit of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Best of all, no Shia LaBeouf.
In the end, what may have doomed Darabont's screenplay for Lucas (other than the fact that there was no Mutt,) was that it seemed to be so ingratiating toward Spielberg, with more Raiders references. Darabont is clearly a fan of Indiana Jones, and he wrote the script as a fan. Indy is over his fear of snakes at the start of the film, then in a bizarre episode is swallowed by a giant snake, and his phobia returns. Sallah has a cameo at the end. When he is fired from the college, Indy redoes the whole fertility idol thing from Raiders, only now it's in a museum display case with pressure detectors. During the warehouse chase, Darabont actually wrote "allowing Mr. Spielberg to stage the most outrageous close calls ever put on film." Maybe that made Lucas jealous?
Despite Lucas's poor creative decisions in the last decade and more, though, I don't want to demonize him as a bitter old man. He probably wanted something "more different" than the three original Indy films. Problem is, he went that way with the Star Wars prequels as well and look where that got us. In trying to create something "new," he throws out the old stuff that made the originals good in the first place. Like good storytelling.
With some judicious revision, the Darabont screenplay could have been good, maybe even a worthy successor to the originals if it had been executed well. Ultimately, though, the film would have had the same central conceit of crystal skulls and aliens.
Still kind of liked parts of the final film, though I'd be hard pressed to say why.