Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Discussion - SPOILER ALERT!

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Just saw the trailer of the fourth Indiana Jones movie!

I'm a huge fan of Spielberg, and I thought the trailer really looked good!
Only thing I didn't like was the one-liner "I thought that was closer", broke the illusion very much, and was a bit too cartoonish. Loved all the rest!

[Sean Skube]

There were a lot of shots in that trailer that I hope are still WIPs, cause they looked really fake. Like when they are driving along the cliffside, it looks very much like set lighting and a CG background. Same when they are all running out of the temple. I don't know why they don't just shoot them outside instead of trying to mimic saylight in a studio.

[Carl Middleton]

Because they'd really hate to have hundreds of people show up to film... and it be raining. Cheaper to do CGI and lighting than risk missing production days.

[Terry Lee]

I'm not so sure money is an object when you have such a popular movie at stake. Although, Beowolf was a very well known and popular epic that got destroyed by CGI...In my opinion anyway..

[Kelly Goden]

At first I wondered where the original music went..I heard synthesizer and freaked out...lol

I cant say i was blown over. Will probably be diverting but...
I dont trust Lucas...and its his story. Amusing to see the warehouse, and I like the 50s style evil Russian costumes. Very retro serial-esque.

I assume they will improve the effects as it gets closer to release date.
For something like this you would think they might go more traditional but it costs so much more.

Raiders was around $20 million to make and it had a lot of big sets and location shooting with 100s of extras.

[Charles Papert]

So I was watching the sequence where Indy swings through the air in the warehouse frame by frame to suss out if it was face-replacement CGI or actually Harrison Ford doing the stunts, and I saw something rather surprising: check out the frontal shot of him swinging through the air where the camera is mounted on the jeep. The last ten frames or so reveal a gaggle of flags and c-stands! They are motion blurred but clearly recognizable--the light source behind them that is keying Harrison is pretty apparent (you can just glimpse the back of the unit in the final two frames of the shot). Obviously the shot was meant to be cut before all this was revealed.

Just a bit surprising that this snuck through the QC at Lucasfilm...

(oh no, have I suddenly turned into one of those guys who pore over movies frame-by-frame so that they can post in the "goofs" section on IMDB? The ones with clearly too much time on their hands? Really, I just stumbled across this; honest!)

[Richard Alvarez]

You're right Charles - you do have too much time on your hands! My son says he heard a review that said Harrison Ford does MORE of his own stunts on this than on Raiders. Heck, he's only sixty something, right? Still a young pup.

"Not as easy as it used to be."

I think the whole feeling of the film will be one "I'm too old for this" joke after another - fun for guys like me who are still doing stunts on horseback in their fifties... but probably boring for the younger set. In fact, the main audience might just be baby boomers, instead of kids. That's a thought.

[Kelly Goden]

Originally Posted by Richard Alvarez

I think the whole feeling of the film will be one "I'm too old for this" joke after another - fun for guys like me who are still doing stunts on horseback in their fifties... but probably boring for the younger set.

**it seems like there will be some of that--although they have the Transformers kid in there--maybe as something for the teens.

The government warehouse stretching into infinity looks awfully familiar.

[Paul Mailath]

I found a script of Indi 4 some years ago while trawling the internet - It introduced his son. It'll be interesting to see how close it was, certainly was a great read at the time.

[Afton Grant]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

The last ten frames or so reveal a gaggle of flags and c-stands!

Yes, good catch indeed. And now we all know the term for when flags and c-stands assemble! Just bustin' chops, Chas. Happy b'day.

[Kelly Goden]

Originally Posted by Paul Mailath

I found a script of Indi 4 some years ago while trawling the internet - It introduced his son. It'll be interesting to see how close it was, certainly was a great read at the time.

**is that Indiana Jones and the Sons of Darkness?
It was an interesting idea. The skeleton of a the first evil man or something.
And I could have sworn soviets were the villains in that too.

[Paul Mailath]

Originally Posted by Kelly Goden

**is that Indiana Jones and the Sons of Darkness?

Yep! - I just checked. Good script, I could hear the music starting up as I read :-)

[Kelly Goden]

Bump.
Surprised no one has commented on it yet.

I have yet to see it.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I am the original poster of the thread and seen it in the meanwhile, in a midnight screening on the night of tuesday to wednesday.
And to be honest: really dissapointed...

To copy my own reviews of the Spielberfilms forum:

"yep, Indy 4 was definately a dissapointment for me too. Went in with good expactations, but not impossible expectations.

So:
- no cleverness and no imagination or inventivness in the action sequences.
They just weren't good or special (yeah, just punch someone, and move on. No sense of danger. The stairs are dissapearing!!!! Don't worry, just fall down in the water and move on).

- a little bit too much CGI

- humor wasn't always very good, although the snake scene was hilarious!

- the Macgufin?? You couldn't follow the plot anymore! Like others said, they go from here to there, but you don't get a sense of moving forward.

- bad script... characters underused.

Indy4 had some good things going for it, but it's hard for me to believe that they really thought this script was so fantastic..."

Another, more detailled review:

"Hi,

I've went to the midnight screening of Indy 4, finally yesterday.
I've inserted SPOILER and END OF SPOILER warnings beneath because I don't know how to put text invisible here.
Beneath I've put a conclusion without spoilers. If you want to skip all the spoilers, you can just look at the conclusion.

Okay, to break it down simple:

THINGS THAT I LIKED
- The acting is good over the whole line.
- The jungle chase scene (no it doesn't look plastic... nowhere!)
- The ants! Really freaky and nice visual fx
- The winks to Last Crusade were genius!
- WARNING SPOILER COMING
The scene were Marion tells Indy he's Mutt's father is hilarious, and the way how they handled Indy's fear of snakes is sooooo immensly funny!
- I quite liked the saucer theme. I wasn't fond of the idea before the movie, but it's handled pretty well, and the scene with all the skulls merging and is pretty nice and scary.
- The ending, with the hat... nice shot!
END OF SPOILERS
- Indy still is Indy... for the most part. The grin of Ford in the first shot we see of Indy is priceless!

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
WARNING PRETTY MANY SPOILERS BENATH
- Some CGI... It felt a little bit much for an Indiana Jones movie sometimes, although it never went completely overboard. But the monkeys weren't neccissary.
- The waterfall scene... As in Temple of Doom, it was too much over the top.
Indy can go over the top, but this...
- Some scenes didn't feel Indy-like. The interrogation scene in the beginning, after the opening? Indy didn't feel too much like Indy there, also how it was shot, and lit. Normally Spielberg can bring life to these simple scenes, but this one was very dry, you really felt Spielberg didn't care much for this scene.
- Some cuts were different, and better in the trailer ("Always glad to help" is much funnier in the trailer then it is in the movie).
- Some things were badly written... The scene were Indy suddenly says that HE will return the skull because "it asked him"... Just didn't fit, and wasn't build up good.

- This is a huge factor for me: I really had the feeling that they have rushed the movie... I know, they took 19 years, but I the action scenes aren't as good as they were in the original trilogy, especially in cleverness. To try to explain it, because English isn't my native tongue: in an original Indiana Jones movie, you had an action sequence, something went wrong, then good, then wrong again, then even more wrong, even more wrong, and you were losing breath by the minute! (especially, for me, the Tank sequence in Last Crusade). Here, some action scenes are just too rushed and weren't as witty scripted. For instance: in The Last Crusade, when Indy and his father are tied up, they try to burn the rope with a firelighter. Then the whole house burns, then they get loose, but nazi's are behind them. Then they find the boat, but go with the motorcycles, and suddenly someone goes towards them, but Indy grabs a stick like a knight. It's just very clevery written. Here, for instance, in the opening scene, Indy 'just' punches a guy and takes his pistol. (Okay, where he run in the warehouse, once he was 'loose' was nice). In the beginning of the jungle sequence, they 'just' punch a guy, take a knife and cut loose. It isn't as imaginitive as the old ones.
Compare the old motorcycle scene with the new one... This one could have been great, but fell too short. It didn't build or so, just a quick chase, that ended very suddenly. Then for instance, the scene with the stairs at the end. Such a great things, the stairs that dissapear, in the circle! And what happens? Nothing imaginitive, they just fall down in the water, get up again, and go further...
That made me feel, personally, Spielberg rushed some of these sequences.
The ants scene, and some parts of the jungle scene were nice though.
- The action scene with Ford in the fridge, was nice, but tooo much also, and a bit too CGI too.
- I liked the climax, but I thought Cate Blanched should of suffered an even more horrible death.
END OF SPOILERS
-The music was good, but didn't has such good themes or wasn't as present as in the old movies. Maybe I'll like it better on the album. Sometimes, Williams' scores have to grow on me.


CONCLUSION
I enjoyed Indiana Jones 4. Some parts were genius and some winks to other movies were very nice..
But it could have been much much better:

Some scenes aren't greatly written. My biggest problem is that many action scenes aren't always as imaginative as they could have been, and feel too rushed.
And in comparison with the old movies, this time the MacGuffin is way too complicated. In the old movies you could get it very quickly; the lost ark, hidden there. The stones, for the village. The holy grail who gives eternal life. Here it was sooo many talk talk about it, that sometimes you almost lost track of what it was that they were searching. But the basic idea of the MacGufin, and the climax, were pretty good.

So, Indy 4 is nice! I will look at it again, and again. Indy still is Indy.
But it could have been much better and much more exiting to my opinion.

Feedback welcome."

[Tom Vandas]

Originally Posted by Mathieu Ghekiere

the MacGuffin is way too complicated.

Good review, Mathieu. Regarding the MacGuffin, I would simply add: I just didn't care...

I'd heard rumors of mixed reviews from the pre-screenings and I went yesterday with the expectation to at least enjoy a Spielberg film; walking out I wasn't sure I actually saw one. Indy 4 felt very paint-by-numbers to me, anyone could have directed it.

I'm left feeling entirely neutral about the film, which is vaguely disappointing.