Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Perd Hapley on September 17, 2009, 12:37:12 AM
-
I heard that the movie went overboard on stunts. I knew there were aliens. But I had no idea it was so flagrantly and fragrantly awful. I wouldn't have minded the alien angle, trite thought it may be. And by now we've all learned to accept that Hollywood can't make an action film without the hero running through a hail of bullets that never hit him, or even affect his hearing.
I usually don't even notice things like character development. But I guess this movie stunk so bad, and had so little to offer, that I just couldn't help but notice that Indy's son, and Indy's old war-buddy, were paper-thin.
And why can't they just make a good adventure flick anymore, without having the characters survive certain death in every single scene. IF A TRUCK LANDS ON TOP OF YOUR OPEN-TOP VEHICLE, AT LEAST ONE OF THE PASSENGERS WILL SUFFER A MAJOR INJURY. But no one was hurt. IF YOU GO DOWN THREE SIZABLE WATERFALLS IN A ROW, SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET HURT. But no one was hurt. IF YOU INSIST ON USING THE MOUTH-END OF A VERY LARGE SNAKE AS A ROPE, IT WILL BITE THE EVER-LOVIN' OUT OF YOUR HAND. REPEATEDLY. But no one was hurt, and somehow the snake was not ripped in two. Edit: I forgot to add the bit of idiocy that set the tone for the rest of the film. Perhaps because the rest of the movie taught me to accept the idea that a common household refrigerator would have shielded Indy from an atomic bomb, and that the lead lining was soft, so would protect and cushion him, when he was flung a mile-and-a-half through the air and tumbled to a stop on the dirt.
And Indy's baby-momma has to have the world's worst survival instinct. When she saw the massive circular saw blade about to cut her truck in half, what did she do? She leaned TOWARD it. When she noticed that she was heading straight for the cliffs of insanity, did she stop, slow or turn? No, she floored it, and aimed for a scraggly tree that she somehow knew; a) she would able to park the vehicle on, b) would actually slow them down, rather than being swept aside, and c) would let them gently down into the water, rather than leaving them as low-hanging fruit for the Ruskies. But why were they going the same direction as the Russians, anyway? They had the Skull and all the friendlies, why not go the other direction?
One could go on.
-
So, quit beatin' around the bush.
Is it a thumbs-up or thumbs down? :|
DD
-
IF A TRUCK LANDS ON TOP OF YOUR OPEN-TOP VEHICLE, AT LEAST ONE OF THE PASSENGERS WILL SUFFER A MAJOR INJURY
Oh, the stories I could tell.
-
The only action scene that I liked was the one with the nuclear blast and the refrigerator.
-
Thumbs down. Two of 'em. South Park even did an episode on the whole deal.
NSFW
Clip
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/187266
Episode
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/187260
-
I would like to chime in to say that the suckacity coefficient of KotCS (and the rest of the Indy movies actually) does in no way diminish the overwhelming awesomeness of The Last Crusade.
-
I would like to chime in to say that the suckacity coefficient of KotCS (and the rest of the Indy movies actually) does in no way diminish the overwhelming awesomeness of The Last Crusade.
I have to disagree, The Lost Ark was excellent.
And the Crystal Skull was a GOOD movie... right up until they got captured by the Russians.
The plausibility had been stretched before then but not any further than other Indy or action movies. Good fights, chase scenes, figuring out ancient puzzles- it was great!
AND then they started with the CGI. And the swordfight across two driving vehicles. And the monkeys AND the ants AND the waterfalls.....
And then the aliens showed up. At that point, they'd already jumped the shark, so Hey, LET'S JUST PILE THE CRAP ON!
-
IT'S. A. MOVIE.
-
IT'S. A. MOVIE.
Yeah, but there's a point where the "willing suspension of disbelief" gets turned off and you have to say: Oh, COME ON!
-
Raiders of the Lost Ark - thumbs up.
Temple of Doom - thumbs down. (The best scene was the formal dinner.)
Last Crusade - thumbs up.
Crystal Skull - thumbs down. (In regard to the "actor" - and I use the term loosely - that played Indy's son: Did Spielberg lose a bet, or owe the kid's father a big, BIG favor or something?)
I'm seeing a pattern here . . . odd numbered movies are good, even numbers are crapola.
-
Raiders of the Lost Ark - thumbs up.
Temple of Doom - thumbs down. (The best scene was the formal dinner.)
Last Crusade - thumbs up.
Crystal Skull - thumbs down. (In regard to the "actor" - and I use the term loosely - that played Indy's son: Did Spielberg lose a bet, or owe the kid's father a big, BIG favor or something?)
I'm seeing a pattern here . . . odd numbered movies are good, even numbers are crapola.
Star Trek works similarly, however it's the evens that are good. (Disclaimer: I have not seen Nemesis)
-
Indy was always lucky, never a superhero. In Crystal Skull he became some kind of invincible cartoon character.
For example, if the fridge scene had happened in Raiders, he would have landed on the downslope of some sandy hill and plowed to a stop over 100 yards and your thought would be "Wow, that was lucky he landed just right." Instead he comes crashing down out of the sky and tumbled to a stop and when the fridge opens all you can think is "That fridge should be full of Indy soup."
-
Raiders of the Lost Ark - thumbs up.
Temple of Doom - thumbs down. (The best scene was the formal dinner.)
Last Crusade - thumbs up.
Crystal Skull - thumbs down. (In regard to the "actor" - and I use the term loosely - that played Indy's son: Did Spielberg lose a bet, or owe the kid's father a big, BIG favor or something?)
I'm seeing a pattern here . . . odd numbered movies are good, even numbers are crapola.
Star Wars disproves this.
Ignoring the blasphemy of the new pathetic additions to the Trilogy that defined the concept of Trilogies, SW1 was mediocre at best, Empire was awesome and must have been the first film to leave people at a cliff-hanger for 3 freakin' years, and RotJ was pathetic.
The inverse of the Indy trilogy.
I agree that KotCS was a pathetic attempt to resurrect the Indy franchise. In the two best movies, Indy has been a knight-errant holy crusader. When your American audience knows the judeo-christian tradition better than Roswell conspiracies or Hindu folklore, you cater to that. Hence the success of the launch of the franchise with the Ark of the Covenant and Nazi bad guys. And the resounding popularity of the 3rd installment, with the Crusade for Christ's chalice and... Nazi bad guys.
Ruskies may have made good enemies in the 80's, but today's audience is less likely to accept that.
I think better bad guys would have been Nazi escapists who fled to Argentina after the war, and were seeking for a way to do something evil and mysterious and Judeo-christianly evil with a holy relic.
Space aliens and Ruskies just was too much departure for me. Add to that, the backdrop was essentially science (or cult paranoia) rather than religion, and the resolution of the movie itself, and it was just a pathetic attempt.
-
I still want to see an Indy movie where he's fighting the Great Old Ones. :lol:
-
I think better bad guys would have been Nazi escapists who fled to Argentina after the war, and were seeking for a way to do something evil and mysterious and Judeo-christianly evil with a holy relic.
Sums it up pretty nicely.
Also leads to another question. When will the Nazis cease to become one of the favorite frameworks upon which to hang conspiracies in the movies? I mean an indie movie is coming out soon that has Space Nazis returning from a secret base on the moon. WHAT GIVES?
-
I think better bad guys would have been Nazi escapists who fled to Argentina after the war, and were seeking for a way to do something evil and mysterious and Judeo-christianly evil with a holy relic.
In western pop-culture, judeo-christianly evilness is over, though. Watch old vampire movies and you get things like "the prince of darkness is his ally" and "bats out of hell" and "demons" and so on. Nowadays, zombies are all the rage; they are the atheistic/secular humanist manifestation of demons.
-
& on that note there are at least two zombie movies than use Nazis as the undead.One Japanese & the other ...Scandinavian...I think.
Frozen zombies. :cool:
-
I think the problem with KotCS is that Indy never seemed to be in danger, or a least he never suffered from it. In the other movies he was beaten to a pulp. Literally. In KotCS he never seemd to get more than a scratch.
IMHO they were trying too hard. There was too much of just about everything plus it all being waaaaaay over the top in terms of, well, everything. Everything except the humanization and actual story of Raiders and Crusade. (I actually enjoyed Temple, just not as much as the other two).
Brad
-
Also leads to another question. When will the Nazis cease to become one of the favorite frameworks upon which to hang conspiracies in the movies? I mean an indie movie is coming out soon that has Space Nazis returning from a secret base on the moon. WHAT GIVES?
"What Gives" is that a) there's no "pro-Nazi" pressure groups with any traction; and b) Nazis are white guys.
Why do you think the villains who nuked Denver in the screen version of Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears were changed from Islamofascists to Euronazi-type white guys?
-
In western pop-culture, judeo-christianly evilness is over, though. Watch old vampire movies and you get things like "the prince of darkness is his ally" and "bats out of hell" and "demons" and so on. Nowadays, zombies are all the rage; they are the atheistic/secular humanist manifestation of demons.
Van Helsing.
Darkrider [sp?].
Constantine.
-
Yeah, but there's a point where the "willing suspension of disbelief" gets turned off and you have to say: Oh, COME ON!
....because melting Nazis, Thugee heart-ripping, and 600-year-old knights are something that we see everyday.... ;/
Star Trek works similarly, however it's the evens that are good. (Disclaimer: I have not seen Nemesis)
NEMESIS blows your theory (and chunky chunks) out of the water....but I'm not a fan of STIV either....
Darkrider [sp?].
Do you mean GHOST RIDER? ???
-
Not certain. It involves Nick Cage on a flaming bike, fighting Satan.
-
Not certain. It involves Nick Cage on a flaming bike, fighting Satan.
Ghost Rider.
-
....because melting Nazis, Thugee heart-ripping, and 600-year-old knights are something that we see everyday.... ;/
NEMESIS blows your theory (and chunky chunks) out of the water....but I'm not a fan of STIV either....
Do you mean GHOST RIDER? ???
Melting Nazis, Thugee heart-ripping, and 600 year old knights are plausible within the framework of the story.
They exist as supernatural events caused by supernatural powers. They are specifically fantastic as the purpose of the story.
Swinging through the CGI vines that happen to lead you back to the CAR CHASE, swordfighting across cars, etc... are also fantastical, but no supernatural powers are involved. The purpose of a good story is to base it in its own reality.
The Indy stories basis is the normal physical world, at times acted upon by forces outside the physical world.
For this reason, the Matrix works when physics or biology are defied because that's the reality of the movie. When physics and biology are defied in the Crystal Skull (outside of the extra-natural powers of the skull), it breaks its own reality.
When you go into a movie, you suspend disbelief that your current reality applies. When the movie is not internally consistent, that disbelief is broken.
Movies can be unrealistic, but they cannot be inconsistent if they are to be good.
-
makattak nails it. Give him a cigar.
IMHO they were trying too hard. There was too much of just about everything plus it all being waaaaaay over the top in terms of, well, everything. Everything except the humanization and actual story of Raiders and Crusade. (I actually enjoyed Temple, just not as much as the other two).
That's the nut of it right there, and why so many action flicks annoy me. They all think their chase/fight scene has to be more spectacular than everyone else's, so they pile on one unbelievable stunt after another. This substitutes for good story, etc.
-
ok, i'm gonna point out that i liked the story. yes, the CGI and the stupid ants and monkeys were horrid, but i liked the alians and russian enemys. unfortuantly, i think they got to caught up in crap effects and silly stupid stunts and didn't catch the pulp genre they were trying to emulate quite right.
and that was the point. in the 1940's pulp litature and all was based around nazi's and great adventure stories, whereas in the 50's it moved towards evil russians, nuclear war and si-fi. the idea was that was the logical evolution for the indy movies over the time period, since those movies where call backs to that tradition in the first place.
but yeah, KotCS sucked. and for the record i liked ToD.
-
Wait. There was a story? They could have at least started out properly, by showing us the back story of Indy and Mac in the war. There's really no point in having a back-stabbing friend, if you don't show them being friends in the first place. Instead, they just gave us a lot of action, with references to back story, and one character after another from Indy's past showing up on cue. "Hey, he just happens to be in a trunk with some guy he knew in the war!" "Hey, now he's talking to a kid that will turn out to be his son!" "Hey, now the Russians have inexplicably gone and rounded up the chick he hasn't spoken to in two decades! How did they know he would suddenly start to care whether she lives or dies?" "Hey, there's an old professor guy he used to know!"
I watched some featurette thing on the DVD, and they mentioned that they were going for a fifties B-movie feel. I don't know if they succeeded or failed, but the result was not good. I would have been fine with Russians and aliens and atom bombs. Or maybe just two of the three. It's the fail that I didn't like.
-
I would have been fine with Russians and aliens and atom bombs. Or maybe just two of the three. It's the fail that I didn't like.
I truly think I wouldn't have minded all three if the the emphasis had been on integration rather than exaggeration.
Brad
-
Suspension of disbelief is fine, but most action movies now require "hanged by the neck until dead" type suspension of disbelief. =D
-
Sums it up pretty nicely.
Also leads to another question. When will the Nazis cease to become one of the favorite frameworks upon which to hang conspiracies in the movies? I mean an indie movie is coming out soon that has Space Nazis returning from a secret base on the moon. WHAT GIVES?
A Nazi moon base is not a new contrivance. I recall reading a short story in one of those scifi anthologies edited by J.E. Pournelle in the Eighties that had a Nazi spaceship, Dora, IIRC running from aliens that they had been at war with since WWII. In the story, the moon base had been lost and the ship's captain saw the writing on the wall and passed the info on to some civilian skeptic.
Anyway, since the story is in an anthology it may well be much older than the Eighties and my impression of the writing style is that it is from the Fifties.
-
& on that note there are at least two zombie movies than use Nazis as the undead.One Japanese & the other ...Scandinavian...I think.
Frozen zombies. :cool:
Dead Snow.
Watch it.
-
Huh... now, where did I put that damn thing. I know it's around here somewhere...
*rummaging through boxes*
AH HA! I knew it was around here somewhere!
*puts on "weird stuff geek" hat*
What bothered me about the whole "alien thing" in KotCS is that it wasn't needed. There are PLENTY of oddities in CA, that could've been used to base the story around. Instead, they went with "nuke the site from orbit".
Doing the alien thing ruined the movie, IMNSHO. It was WAY too far over the top, as well as causing problems for the first three movies (by switching from "gods" to "technologically advanced aliens").
Heck... with only minor tweeking of known history, they could've had one awesome storyline. Instead, Spielberg let down his fans (which seems to be happening alot lately)...
Thanks, but I think I'm done with Spielberg's products...
-
A Nazi moon base is not a new contrivance. I recall reading a short story in one of those scifi anthologies edited by J.E. Pournelle in the Eighties that had a Nazi spaceship, Dora, IIRC running from aliens that they had been at war with since WWII. In the story, the moon base had been lost and the ship's captain saw the writing on the wall and passed the info on to some civilian skeptic.
Anyway, since the story is in an anthology it may well be much older than the Eighties and my impression of the writing style is that it is from the Fifties.
Heck, Heinlein did Nazi Moon Base in 1947 with Rocket Ship Galileo.
-
And the Crystal Skull was a GOOD movie... right up until they got captured by the Russians.
I think I realized it was going downhill when those Russians showed up to take over the army warehouse and 10 guys with automatic weapons were lined up right behind the lady and the guards couldn't see them. That was when I figured the movie would be full of cartoonish crap. It reminded my of old nightmares like trying to watch The Shadow.
-
For me, it was over at the magnetic gunpowder.
-
Suspension of disbelief is fine, but most action movies now require "hanged by the neck until dead" type suspension of disbelief. =D
My suspension of disbelief hasn't quite been hanged. It was held at gunpoint and forced to perform unnatural acts a few times. :O
-
I think I realized it was going downhill when those Russians showed up to take over the army warehouse and 10 guys with automatic weapons were lined up right behind the lady and the guards couldn't see them. That was when I figured the movie would be full of cartoonish crap. It reminded my of old nightmares like trying to watch The Shadow.
Yeah, I think there is a line between "Suspension of disbelief" and "Suspension of Parallax"... :lol:
-
...right up until they got captured by the Russians.
Getting captured by Russians seems to ruin just about anything, doesn't it?... :police: =( :police:
-
My suspension of disbelief hasn't quite been hanged. It was held at gunpoint and forced to perform unnatural acts a few times. :O
And those unnatural acts are illegal in nearly every southern state!!
Did anyone watch the southpark clips?
-
FWIW,this thread reminded me that I own a copy & have never seen it.Until last night.
I liked it overall.
I dis-liked a few things.
-The fridge
-waaaay to many scenes that looked like an indoor set w/bad lighting (all the scenes in "ruins" looked like overly lighted,painted styrofoam-which it probably was)
-the magnetic gunpowder/buckshot.
-too many references to past movies(The Ark,the scorpions when going into the hole[spiders in the first movie],the snake in the sand trap[& he grabbed it!WTF?]
Then theres the biggies,the re-hashes,the un-original stuff.The vehicle fight scene was the underground mine car scene from Temple of Doom above ground.The ant attack was seemingly robbed from The Mummy/Mummy Returns(scarab beetles)-so was the whole disappearing alien city(from Mummy Returns,that is).Even the trip over the waterfalls brought to my mind the leap from the airplane & subsequent ride on a inflatable that was in T of D.I think there's another but...who cares,stick a fork in it!
I had no problem w/the alien angle.That part actually seems plausible to me(the magnetic alien/skull part-not so much).Nice tie in with the Indian tribe that bound their kids heads too.
What I liked:
-Cate Blanchett-----Woof!She's a beautiful woman & those eyes!
-The ending.The kid is picking up Indy's hat & I thought NO!,not a sequel w/a different Indiana!,& was relieved when Indy took his hat back.
-The McCarthy references.It was good to see the storyline brought forward & to get a little reasoning behind the story's undercurrents.That the hottie Ukrainian was just a rehash of the hottie Austrian was...O.K.(Boring,BUT o.k.)
Oh yeah,IIRC,Marion had been married prior.She was spoken of by her maiden name @ the wedding though.Not period correct-or at least unlikely,that.
-
Not to dis Cate Blanchett, but she just wasn't any kind of hot in that movie.
-
To the OP: If it wasn't Indiana Jones, I think I would have thought it was an OK movie. But since it was Indiana Jones, I thought it was horrible, because they could have done so much better.
I feel the same way about Wolverine.
-
"What Gives" is that a) there's no "pro-Nazi" pressure groups with any traction; and b) Nazis are white guys.
Why do you think the villains who nuked Denver in the screen version of Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears were changed from Islamofascists to Euronazi-type white guys?
Just like it was Evil White anti government guys in that most recent Die Hard abortion.
"Let's ramp a tractor trailer off a collapsing overpast and have our hero jump from the cab and land on a Harrier!!"
It's just like the Indiana Jones thing. In the other movies, John McClain was just a hardcore badass. In the last one, he's some kind of comic hero, complete with cheesy family baggage and lame teenage sidekick.
I really thought better of Bruce Willis up until that one.
-
And those unnatural acts are illegal in nearly every southern state!!
Did anyone watch the southpark clips?
I watched the whole episode online. The Indiana Jones hysteria was comical and sad at the same time. The rape scenes were gross, disturbing, and slightly funny. I enjoyed the subplot about the Chinese takeover, especially Cartman's final line about unethical dick shooters.
As for the movie, I didn't particularly enjoy it, especially the illogical and completely over the top impossible action sequences. If the action is unbelievable in a movie it ceases to be cool. Like the Last Diehard movie. That Asian chick wasn't remotely human!
-
All the Indy movies where awesome.
"Let's ramp a tractor trailer off a collapsing overpast and have our hero jump from the cab and land on a Harrier!!"
That was obviously a call back to the first one, and it also was an awesome movie.