Scariest Spielberg moment? (spoilers)

[ShyViolet]

Spielberg's reputation is often labeled as directing only "sweet movies" or "kiddie films" or attaching only "happy endings" to every film. People often forget that his films have some of the most terrifying moments in cinema history.

Mine is the human sacrifice in Temple. How about you?

*FYI these are my scariest moments, but I realize there are others. You can also name the ones I haven't mentioned.

[Ben]

The Nazis melting at the end of Raiders and the whole "what the heck is going on...oh my God they just melted!" atmosphere in the first screenings when no-one really knew who or what "Indiana Jones" was has to be up there more terrifying than the same trick being repeated without the same shock or production value in Crusade.

And nothing from Jaws!!!!????

Surely still Spielberg's biggest "shock" moment has to be when Ben Gardner's head comes floating out from under the boat Hooper is inspecting late at night.

Funny story: I used to have an old footstool kind of chair that I would sit and watch TV on from time to time as a kid. And I'd seen Jaws a million times before; knew every jump, every cut, etc. For some reason, I had been distracted in the room and was only half-watching the movie, paying attention to it every now and then. Hooper goes under the boat and I started to watch, waiting for the inevitable. And then the head comes, a bit quicker than I had remembered or anticipated, and I went "whoosh!" - flying right back off my chair and onto the floor! It literally made me jump (or fall!) out of my seat like nothing before or since!

[ShyViolet]

Yeah, there are some I left out because I tried to pick one from every film, kind of spanning his whole career. There's others that scared me quite a bit but they're quite numerous so I tried to just pick the top ten.

I didn't see Jaws until I was a little bit older, so it never scared me that much. My expectations of it being scary were also very high, so maybe I didn't have the right mindset. Crusade was the only one I saw in theaters, so for me it made more of an impression. But TOD is hands down the scariest; it seemed every scene was more frightening than the last. (kind of like Jurassic Park.) I don't think anyone can do that better than Spielberg!

Again these are just my personal ones; I know there are many others that were quite scary as well (all the raptor scenes in Jurassic, bugs scene in Temple). Basically, I tried to span his whole career, but it might have been better to pick more from the same films.

Crystal Skull shows just how much he lost his touch. There was pretty much nothing that was disturbing in that film other than how bad it was. The critics who praised it said how good it was because Indy is supposed to be a "fun adventure"--they totally forget that one of the reasons the originals are so popular is because of how terrifying they could be. Now it's like: "Oh they Indy films were never supposed to be all that good, just mindless fun." If they were just mindless fun no one would remember them now; they would just be one of those forgotten 80s films.

[EricJ]

Crystal Skull shows just how much he lost his touch. There was pretty much nothing that was disturbing in that film other than how bad it was. The critics who praised it said how good it was because Indy is supposed to be a "fun adventure"--they totally forget that one of the reasons the originals are so popular is because of how terrifying they could be. Now it's like: "Oh they Indy films were never supposed to be all that good, just mindless fun." If they were just mindless fun no one would remember them now; they would just be one of those forgotten 80s films.

Crystal Skull was literally made so it could be FINISHED--
They took the best highlights (Aliens, Area 51, South America) from twenty years of discarded scripts, and tried to string them together into an A-B storyline that would wrap the whole thing up for good.
And why? Because you wanted one. If they took their lumps and finally went home after twenty years, they knew the fans would howl and protest about Steve and George being "mean" about not making it after all, and keep spinning tales that they'd "someday" make it anyway, like Ghostbusters 3.

So, here's the lesson: Next time, learn to give up.

[American_dog_2008]

David's discovery in AI.

But the worst are Raiders!

[Ben]

"Learn to give up"...or make it better for Indy 5.

[ShyViolet]

Crystal Skull was literally made so it could be FINISHED--
They took the best highlights (Aliens, Area 51, South America) from twenty years of discarded scripts, and tried to string them together into an A-B storyline that would wrap the whole thing up for good.
And why? Because you wanted one. If they took their lumps and finally went home after twenty years, they knew the fans would howl and protest about Steve and George being "mean" about not making it after all, and keep spinning tales that they'd "someday" make it anyway, like Ghostbusters 3.

Well, no one "made" them do anything. It was their choice to make Indy 4, their choice to wait 20 years, their choice to set it in the 1950s and shift much of the focus onto the uninteresting character of Mutt Williams/Jones.

Sure, fans wanted one, but no one forced Spielberg and Lucas to make it. And they certainly had enough success by that time that there was no need to re-visit a 20 year old franchise that everyone already loved and that had already run its course.
They already did wrap the whole thing up for good--just ask Spielberg.

No one forced them to create an incredibly disjointed, glib and disposable 21st-century style CGI sequel masquerading as an Indy film. About the only thing this film got right was the theme music and Indy's hat.

[EricJ]

Well, no one "made" them do anything. It was their choice to make Indy 4, their choice to wait 20 years, their choice to set it in the 1950s and shift much of the focus onto the uninteresting character of Mutt Williams/Jones.

(drinkspray!!!!) "Choice"?...."CHOICE to wait 20 years???"

Friend, just how much do you know about how many scripts the darn thing went through?
Would you like me to rattle off a list--practically from memory by now--of how many scriptwriters each auditioned their own sequel? We've got them going back as far as Temple of Doom.
Chris Columbus was offered the job after Gremlins, Meeno Meyjes was offered the job after Color Purple, David Koepp was offered the job after Jurassic, Frank Darabont was offered the job after the fake-30's movie he made for "The Majestic"...It almost became a tradition (and a joke with the fans) that if you became Steve's pet favorite script genius of the week, guess what was the first thing he would ask you to do.

(All except for Jeb Stuart, who contributed the aliens, the Russians and Area 51 bit after being flavor of the week for "The Fugitive", while Jeffrey Boam contributed the skull after getting the job from "Innerspace", but Koepp liked Darabont's "Lost city in the Amazon" story better.)

About the only thing this film got right was the theme music and Indy's hat.

And the late-80's film stock that Spielberg used, as a "tribute" to make it look as if the film hadn't been made two years after Last Crusade--
But it was being made twenty years after Last Crusade, and Steve was more conscious of that fact than George was: He wanted to END it. He brought in the "family" plot of Marian and Mutt, and offered a few "in memoriams" of Denholm Elliott, Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw to bring the entire canon full circle. As Steve wanted it, this would be Indy's Last Case, and riding off into the sunset would be the sunset this time. And as Spielberg doesn't usually do sequels unless there's a darn good reason, this was his Darn Good Reason.
Is it a good movie?--Dear gods, no. Mostly because it felt like we were watching a highlights compilation of other movies, which, in fact, we were.

[Ben]

But...he doesn't ride off into the sunset.

And the theme music wasn't right either, after Williams tried painfully to interject a little Mutt Jones reply over the old Raiders March.

[ShyViolet]

Yeah, all I could remember was the basic theme in the begnining; I didn't quite notice it was off.

(drinkspray!!!!) "Choice"?...."CHOICE to wait 20 years???"

Friend, just how much do you know about how many scripts the darn thing went through?
Would you like me to rattle off a list--practically from memory by now--of how many scriptwriters each auditioned their own sequel? We've got them going back as far as Temple of Doom.

Yeah, I understand there were a lot of scripts, but still it was their responsiblity to find one that they liked and make it. Just because there were so many scripts doesn't mean none of them were good. Lots of movies go through many scripts and don't take 20 years to make.

And no one said they had to make it...no one made them do anything. It was their choice to make another one, and they did.

And as Spielberg doesn't usually do sequels unless there's a darn good reason, this was his Darn Good Reason.

Like Ben said making the sequel wasn't about tying up the franchise because he already did that--and he mentioned that in several interviews for Skull.
It was all about extending the franchise and making more money. The story was bad because they allowed it to be; they had the choice to make it better, and they didn't.

[estefan]

Well, Spielberg and Ford were apparently very partial to Darabont's script, but George Lucas gave it a big "no" stamp, so there went that.

[LotsoA113]

For some reason, TOD freaks me out whenever I see it, though Ark and Jaws are mean competition.

[Sunday]

So, no bites for the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park? Or the power compound after Sattler makes her run? I swear those raptors have it in for me.


And in E.T., how about the scenes where you aren't sure at first who's hunting the little guy, keys dangling, vans eavesdropping, and those cords snaking through the house, pulling the chair to the wall? Such imagery stands out in a young mind, yes?

[Vernadyn]

I wouldn't say Spielberg has lost his touch yet; I'll wait until he dies and then judge his last films. And I liked Munich. The "You're only good as your last picture" mentality is a little disturbing and disheartening. Sure, it's only natural to expect the best from Spielberg after all the excellent films he's made, but it's no reason to write him off. At risk of saying the obvious, just because Crystal Skull stank doesn't mean that everything he does in the future is going to suck. Before Raiders of the Lost Ark was the wonderful 1941. And before the double-whammy of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in 1993 was the double-whammy of Always and Hook (though I kinda like Hook.) So maybe Spielberg sold out with Crystal Skull. Well, there's still hope that he learned from it.

But maybe I'm, if you'll excuse the cliche, preaching to the choir.

[Randall]

Spielberg still has another few great films in him, methinks, depending on how much he wants to still make films over the next few years.