Indiana Jones meets the X-Files
Jun. 12th, 2008 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feliciakwSo. Last weekend, Geo and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (or whatever it's called. How sad is it that I don't remember?). And it will be easier for me to list what I like than what I didn't.
Okay. So. It's taken George Lucas somewhere in the vicinity of 19 years to come up with a script that Spielberg and Ford would agree to work on. My opinion? He should have left well enough alone. This can't even hold a candle to the original (but then again, what can?).
What I liked:
* Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. He just is. Harrison Ford as Indy was on of my big Hollywood crushes back in the day. I won't even get into how, during the summer of 1981 my brother, my cousin, and I spent at least one afternoon a week at the theater watching Raiders for as long as it was running ("Held over for the 20th week!"). Ah, good times.
* The mentor/student dynamic that was going on between Indy and Mutt. Nice passing of the baton, so to speak.
* The character development on Mutt. Whereas Indy's weapon of choice is his bull whip, Mutt's is his knife. We get a little bit of background on him, and you can tell that if the franchise continues *insert subtle shudder here*, Mutt will be Indy, the next generation.
* The homages to the older movies, but those got to be a bit too much and too overdone, which leads me to . . .
What I didn't like:
* Too many call-backs to the original trilogy, purposely trying to re-create specific scenes, and in turn trying to re-create the magic. It doesn't work like that. One or two is fine, but any more than that, and it gets tedious.
* The whole crystal skull thing. As an archaeological artifact, okay, fine, but then it went all aliens-from-another-dimension, and the space ship at the end, and I kept wondering where Mulder and Scully or SG-1 were. (Particularly Daniel, as he's got a thing for shiny crystal skulls.)
And for some reason, I've found that the movies based on Judeo-Christian artifacts just work better. I don't know why--if it's because we're a predominantly Judeo-Christian culture, or if there's more awareness of these artifacts or what, but . . . Raiders and Last Crusade are just better movies. In fact, I'm convinced that Temple of Doom was a mass hallucination and never really happened. (I won't list here why I really did NOT like that one.) But anyway. Crystal skulls . . . no. (Geo even made the comment that Crystal Skull even made Temple look good.)
* WaywayWAY too much CGI. One of the reasons the first movie was so much fun and so amazing was that most of the effects were practical effects. The stunts were "real." It just felt more real. This one, with all the CGI and "amazing" effects was like watching a cartoon.
* Marion Ravenwood Williams (played by Karen Allen) served no real purpose to the forwarding of the story other than to be Mutt's mom and Indy's love interest. She wasn't the strong character that she was in the original. Ms. Allen did, however, look pretty darn good.
* There was waywayWAY too much stuff in the movie that did nothing to forward the story. The chases lasted too long, the ant thing was pretty much pointless (it reminded me of an episode of MacGyver, which in turn was taken off of another movie Geo recognized), and Mutt swinging through the trees with the monkeys? WT???
* Even the score paled in comparison to the original. Of course, this is coming from someone who thinks the score to the original Raiders is one of the best motion picture scores in movie history. So I might be a little biased.
All in all, I wanted to like it, and there were glimmers of fun to be had, and I'm glad I saw it on the big screen. But whereas I really did not like Temple of Doom, I found Crystal Skull to be rather forgettable. And that's not a good thing.
Okay. So. It's taken George Lucas somewhere in the vicinity of 19 years to come up with a script that Spielberg and Ford would agree to work on. My opinion? He should have left well enough alone. This can't even hold a candle to the original (but then again, what can?).
What I liked:
* Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. He just is. Harrison Ford as Indy was on of my big Hollywood crushes back in the day. I won't even get into how, during the summer of 1981 my brother, my cousin, and I spent at least one afternoon a week at the theater watching Raiders for as long as it was running ("Held over for the 20th week!"). Ah, good times.
* The mentor/student dynamic that was going on between Indy and Mutt. Nice passing of the baton, so to speak.
* The character development on Mutt. Whereas Indy's weapon of choice is his bull whip, Mutt's is his knife. We get a little bit of background on him, and you can tell that if the franchise continues *insert subtle shudder here*, Mutt will be Indy, the next generation.
* The homages to the older movies, but those got to be a bit too much and too overdone, which leads me to . . .
What I didn't like:
* Too many call-backs to the original trilogy, purposely trying to re-create specific scenes, and in turn trying to re-create the magic. It doesn't work like that. One or two is fine, but any more than that, and it gets tedious.
* The whole crystal skull thing. As an archaeological artifact, okay, fine, but then it went all aliens-from-another-dimension, and the space ship at the end, and I kept wondering where Mulder and Scully or SG-1 were. (Particularly Daniel, as he's got a thing for shiny crystal skulls.)
And for some reason, I've found that the movies based on Judeo-Christian artifacts just work better. I don't know why--if it's because we're a predominantly Judeo-Christian culture, or if there's more awareness of these artifacts or what, but . . . Raiders and Last Crusade are just better movies. In fact, I'm convinced that Temple of Doom was a mass hallucination and never really happened. (I won't list here why I really did NOT like that one.) But anyway. Crystal skulls . . . no. (Geo even made the comment that Crystal Skull even made Temple look good.)
* WaywayWAY too much CGI. One of the reasons the first movie was so much fun and so amazing was that most of the effects were practical effects. The stunts were "real." It just felt more real. This one, with all the CGI and "amazing" effects was like watching a cartoon.
* Marion Ravenwood Williams (played by Karen Allen) served no real purpose to the forwarding of the story other than to be Mutt's mom and Indy's love interest. She wasn't the strong character that she was in the original. Ms. Allen did, however, look pretty darn good.
* There was waywayWAY too much stuff in the movie that did nothing to forward the story. The chases lasted too long, the ant thing was pretty much pointless (it reminded me of an episode of MacGyver, which in turn was taken off of another movie Geo recognized), and Mutt swinging through the trees with the monkeys? WT???
* Even the score paled in comparison to the original. Of course, this is coming from someone who thinks the score to the original Raiders is one of the best motion picture scores in movie history. So I might be a little biased.
All in all, I wanted to like it, and there were glimmers of fun to be had, and I'm glad I saw it on the big screen. But whereas I really did not like Temple of Doom, I found Crystal Skull to be rather forgettable. And that's not a good thing.
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Yes, but our parents liked it.
Date: 2008-06-23 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-20 07:50 am (UTC)Mostly i agree with you. But nor completely cos *blushes* i love Temple of Doom. I know there's a lot to complain but i just love it - i love plane crash and elephants and 'eye-soup' and most of it i love to shudder every time when they put their hands to the holes in the walls and there are those ugly insects! I hate them esp millipedes and watched them crawling on charater's hands was like guilty pleasure :)
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. He just is.
That's just holy truth.
if the franchise continues *insert subtle shudder here*, Mutt will be Indy, the next generation.
And that was exactly the reason i don't like Mutt. I hate it when they try to substitute characters we love in classic movies. I think if they want to creat something they have to creat something new for new generation and not use old school to emasculate it. Plus i din't see Shia as strong enough actor to be next Indy *shudders*. For comic relief - yes, he can be good, for more complex character? No.
I've found that the movies based on Judeo-Christian artifacts just work better
Agree. And i think that sort of artefacts are more believable hence the whole story is more believable.
Too many call-backs to the original trilogy
Agree again. Even the enemies and their costumes - if it worked with nazies cos they were at war and were on occupies territory it didn't work for russians (sorry, biased here) cos there's no point for them to be in 'original' uniforms in the middle of South America (if i remember it right).