Indana Jones and the Dial of Desitny, pleasantly surprised

[Brad Johnson]

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny dropped on Disney+ on Friday. SWMBO and I gave it a watch Saturday evening. After all the hoopla about wokeness and other miscellaneous meanderings, I was prepared to be disappointed. To our surprise, it's a good movie. Not quite Last Crusade good, but head and shoulders better than Temple or Crystal Skull. Good story, nice callbacks, plenty of action ... well, as much as an 81 year old Harrison Ford can provide. Sure, it felt a little rushed at times, but it was mostly solid and enjoyable to watch. Good use of practical effects, and digital effects were used to support the film, not play above it. To me, it had the feel of Ark and Crusade, something decidedly absent on Temple and Crystal Skull.

I'll probably go ahead and get it on disc before someone goes in and mucks it up. Plus, reviews universally say the disc's picture/sound quality are noticeably better than the streamed version. As the streamed version is no slouch in it's own right, "noticeably better" must mean it's a real stunner.

Brad

[AZRedhawk44]

Hard disagree here.  Certainly not better than Temple of Doom.

The villain made no sense.  He got his head caved in and killed on the train scene that SHOULD have been the plot for the Indy 4 movie:  Nazis and the Spear of Longinus.  Then he's magically alive in the 1960's to bother Dr. Jones again.  How?  Don't know. 

The fact the plot wasn't the Spear of Longinus, and was instead something entirely agnostic like the Antikethera Mechanism, is your proof of its wokeness.

And then they went and bastardized the Antikethera Mechanism and turned it into a time travel device.  And the device is unable to explain the death/resurrection of the villain in the story.

Now they've gone and tainted the film legacy of Indiana Jones by having Harrison Ford already have dealt with the Spear.  So they can't re-cast Jones and give him a series of pulp adventures with a new face and use that talisman as a plot device.  I've got nothing against recasting him and having him fight Nazis or Revolutionary Guard ChiComs or Imperial Japs or the dark hordes of inner Africa in his search for mystical talismans of great power.  He's best suited in the 1920's to 1940's period, and recasting just makes sense.

[MechAg94]

I recall hearing about a time travel device that takes you to the time of Archimedes.  My question is how many historians of today would give quite a bit to travel to that time to study the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians first hand.  Maybe even see if they could get into the Library of Alexandria. 

[230RN]

Don't you mean the Dial of Density?

Tee-hee-hee.

I still suspect Da Vinci actually was an accidental time traveler from mid-twentieth century.

Possibly others, too.

Terry runs and hides.

REFs (Among many others --cue Twililght Zone theme):

     

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment (Some say the Eldridge DE173 went back in time, then snapped back to almost the present, but not the place.)

[MechAg94]

Personally, I think Da Vinci was just a man with a very vivid imagination, a talent for art, and the freedom to indulge that imagination rather than work all day on a farm or something.  There was also the fact that we have records of Da Vinci.  How many other clever and imaginative people were out there who we have no record of?  That and I do not recall any of his sketches that showed the use of materials outside of his time. 

Most of the bigger things we have today have been imagined for quite some time, though maybe not in the exact form they are in now.  People have been dreaming of flying for a very long time, as an example.

And also if someone from current day went back in time, I wonder if they could function or know anything without their phone.

[HankB]

. . . How many other clever and imaginative people were out there who we have no record of? . . .

I'd like to know who designed & built the antikythera mechanism.

[WLJ]

I'd like to know who designed & built the antikythera mechanism.

[RoadKingLarry]

We watched about half last night and decided it was Bedtime.  We'll watch the rest this evening.
Not quite as good as 1 & 3 but better than 2 & 4.

[MechAg94]

I'd like to know who designed & built the antikythera mechanism.

Do you think it was one person?

I figure it was a something developed.  Surely that wasn't the first and only one, just the only surviving example we know of.  Maybe developed by a series of master craftsmen who understood the math and such. 

[Doggy Daddy]

Not quite as good as 1 & 3 but better than 2 & 4.

How odd.   

[230RN]

^ LOL

There are lots of examples of out-of-their-time-period-as-we know-it.  I was using Da Vinci as a "prop" to the concept.  I first thought of that as an early teen reading some S-F  magazine or another instead of doing my homework.

Another fun one was "The Baghdad Battery," which has been debunked as possibly being a storage device for scrolls. Ayup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

I'd be willing to think maybe it was the result of some dude's workshop experiment to make gold that ended up in his trash.

"Honey, come to dinner and stop playing with my kitchen jars and utensils out there! And bring back my bottle of vinegar!"

G-d knows there's a crap load of my experiments that ended up in city dumps... or five miles out in the Atlantic Ocean where New York City  dumps its trash.  Mostly from my experiments to make ytterbium out of stainless steel since ytterbium is more valuable than gold.

Terry, 230RN

[MechAg94]

Lots of alchemy people were very secretive.  Something I read years ago mentioned there were a number of examples of things that could be considered batteries of sorts.  If the information was close held by a few people, it would be easy for it to be lost.  From everything I have heard, expert knowledge was generally close held by the masters and the guilds prior to the modern era. 

[230RN]

I was thinking maybe the guy was plating copper onto some iron and his first impression when the first monolayer got plated was "GOLD !  YAY !"

Not sure, I'd have to review my EMF series schoolhausen, but it might be that copper would plate itself onto iron in an electrolyte all by itself, no external electrical source necessary.

Copper EMF +0.34 to + 0.24 volts
Iron EMF - (minus) 0.44 volts
Compared to the defined neutral hydrogen electrode EMF at 0.0 volts.

If he was making a battery, I think that would give him about 0.8 volts....?

? ? ? Anyone remember how that works? I'm too lazy to re--learn that and mired in other deets right now.

[dogmush]

What are you guys talking about?

There are only three Indiana Jones moves. And one TV show.

[Big Hairy Bee]

... and one TV show.

That was such a great show!