Indiana Jones...Crystal Skull

[Poppy]

i can't really rate it since the last time i saw it was in theaters, but i know i was not overly impressed back then

the truth is that the gulf of quality between raiders and all the other indy films is so large (imo) that it's basically pointless for me to even think about it

i dont like temple of doom but it has some good scenes. last crusade also does, but i find it pretty boring a lot of the time. they're all fine films

but raiders is one of my favorite movies of all time and i can watch it any amount of times and not get bored. so if we rank the 3 non raiders movies side by side indy 4 doesn't look all that bad i guess

 

[Dingens]

After having been to the atomic bomb museums in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I actually believe it may be possible to survive early bombs inside a fridge or a similar bulky piece of furniture. Ofc this is highly dependent on the surrounding circumstances but I don't think it's that crazy. There's definitely more crazy shit in (other) Indiana Jones movies.

 

[Megatron]

Speaking of Indiana Jones, Total Film recently surveyed 8000 families to find the top 100 movie characters. Indy is number one. For the win!

1. Indiana Jones

2. Batman

3. Han Solo

4. Ellen Ripley

5. James Bond

6. Travis Bickle

7. Hannibal Lecter

8. Gandalf

9. The Joker

10. Princess Leia

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I had to google Travis Bickle. Funny how that cover has 11 characters in it and still leaves off 4 characters from the top ten.

I am not sure I agree with counting Batman, Joker, Bond, Gandalf, Golum, etc as they weren't created in the movies.

 

[Sir_Caffeine]

Seen it just the one time, not sure if it was a feber dream or an actual Indiana Jones movie... Haven't rewatched since. Ending is baaad in my opinion.

 

[jokingbird]

That vine swinging scene was pure cringe though.

 

[Typhon]

At least it wasn't Temple of Doom bad.

The Last of Crusade
Crusaders of the Lost Ark
Crystal Skull
Temple of Doom

 

[jokingbird]

At least it wasn't Temple of Doom bad.

The Last of Crusade
Crusaders of the Lost Ark
Crystal Skull
Temple of Doom

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At least Temple of Doom was fun. Crystal Skull is ranked last by a large margin.

 

[-JD-]

"Part time!"

 

[Aztechnology]

Lucas can never be allowed near this franchise again.

NEVER FORGET.

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Now that's a Maytag.

 

[davepoobond]

It was bad

 

[nihilence]

This one felt a lot more over the top then the other films. When my wife and I watched it, it felt very much like the writers were discussing it and just kept saying "and then this happened, and then and then and then and then..."

"And then there was a nuclear bomb, and then there was a killer crocodile and then there was monkeys, swinging with the hero. And then there was this and then there was that..." It just kept going and going and going.

 

[Typhon]

At least Temple of Doom was fun. Crystal Skull is ranked last by a large margin.

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If you like stereotypes and borderline racism, sure. It really hasn't aged that well. Nazis and communists are classic villains, I'm not saying an Indian villain couldn't have worked but it wasn't exactly well executed. And that's not even getting into the dinner scene.

 

[Mivey]

I wonder how high Lucas was, that he thought ending it literally with

was a great idea.
I'm not complaining, I just want some of it too.

 

[gforguava]

Let us not forget that Short Round and Willie are terrible characters who are as annoying as anything in Crystal Skull.

If Temple of Doom ended at "Nice try, Lao Che!" it would be the greatest thing ever but unfortunately the rest of the film does indeed happen.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

I wonder how high Lucas was, that he thought ending it literally with

was a great idea.
I'm not complaining, I just want some of it too.

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They're not aliens. They're interdimensional beings. Totally different. This was lifted in a fairly liberal fashion from Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, the game where Lucasarts were told that they couldn't make a game about aliens.

 

[Mivey]

Saucer, check. Looks like alien, check. The particulars of their extraterrestrial origin (to which I include being outside the particular "dimension" in which our Earth and life on it resides) are surely important to these aliens, but don't really make them something else but life from outside our Earth.
They're aliens. Look, as I said, I'm not angry about it, I just want to find out what exactly he was smoking or drinking. Must have been heavy stuff.

 

[gforguava]

The use of aliens actually makes perfect sense, Indiana Jones, the character and the series, was now older and so Lucas shifted the influences to match. So you have Russians(and a psychic Russian at that), aliens, and the atomic bomb, it is 50s scifi in place of the adventure serial.

 

[Laser Man]

Didn't work for me, for a long time I thought it was all the cheesy CGI and unbelievable action scenes that pulled me out of the movie but maybe it really is as simple as Indi can't be old
Seen the movie in theatres once and I doubt I will ever see it again.

 

[Mdk7]

It was so unimpressive, so horrible and so downright offensive to me as a fan that I never, ever had the strength for a rewatch.
I still perfectly remember the feeling of utter disappointment when coming out of the theater (and consider that I didn't really have any expectation of it to be any good), I think that I was never that disappointed by a movie.

 

[eXistor]

Its suposed terribleness has been typically and predictably overblown. That said, it is the worst in the series, but it's got enough good in ti to make it worth a watch. It didn't destroy the franchise or the characters, it was simply a disappointing follow-up like so many others. Very much looking forward to Indy 5.

 

[nekkid]

I quite enjoyed it too, OP.

I've got a pretty high bar for shiny new sequels, though. I genuinely like ID: Resurgence, for example.

 

[Symphony]

I remember that I watched the film with my family and halfway through my mum said "I'll bet that aliens are behind everything", to which I replied that I'd walk out of the room if they force aliens into the story. Such an awful film, but at least it gave the world fridge nuking to mock.

 

[ghostandgoblin]

maybe it really is as simple as Indi can't be old

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There's that but the murder of the character is hard to watch overall. He's old so he can't jump that well or use his whip like before and falls on the Russian truck, ok. He finds out he has a son, ok. Aliens, for my personnal tastes it is too radical from the other stories about magical artifacts but ok, why not.
But he getting married in the end ? If you look at Old Logan, he is old and still has this grit and look, old Indiana is just an old man you don't want to follow anymore in the adventure of marriage. You want him to punch and run around the world, he is not his father, we saw him try to avoid all the boring work he had to do during his other adventures.

The whole film tasted like fan fiction :p

 

[mantis]

Still have not seen it. Even planned to watch it in the theatre. But did not feel too well that day and decided to skip it. Guess my body tried to warn me.

 

[H.I.V.E.]

Just threw this on tonight and man, I really enjoy this movie! I know I'm in a huge minority on this one, but I think it's damn good, and better than Last Crusade -- which I think gets a bigger pass than it should just because of the Ford/Connery chemistry.

Shia sucks, but this feels like an Indiana Jones movie to me. Nuked fridge and all.

Flame away.

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[Bor Gullet]

At least it wasn't Temple of Doom bad.

The Last of Crusade
Crusaders of the Lost Ark
Crystal Skull
Temple of Doom

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Something tells me you haven't see these films in a long time.

 

[Bor Gullet]

Let us not forget that Short Round and Willie are terrible characters who are as annoying as anything in Crystal Skull.

If Temple of Doom ended at "Nice try, Lao Che!" it would be the greatest thing ever but unfortunately the rest of the film does indeed happen.

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Short Round is awesome. Haters gonna hate. The scene where he and Indy exchange hats and hug is really touching.

I like Willie more than bland Elsa in Last Crusade.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

The problem with the love interests is they started with the perfect in Raiders, so Willie and Elsa could never live up to the original. Marion herself in Crystal Skull couldn't.

 

[Akalance]

I remember walking out of the theater going "Huh. That was a movie" and promptly forgot it.

 

[Bor Gullet]

If you like stereotypes and borderline racism, sure. It really hasn't aged that well. Nazis and communists are classic villains, I'm not saying an Indian villain couldn't have worked but it wasn't exactly well executed. And that's not even getting into the dinner scene.

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Raiders has sterotypes and "racist" bits too. It's quite clear by the time Last Crusade rolled around, Spielberg had become soft when it came to blockbusters (with the exception of War of the Worlds, but even then he drops the ball on the ending). His early stuff like Jaws, Raiders, Poltergiest, Temple, even E.T. all had some edge to them.

Last Crusade is more closer in tone with Crystal Skull than the first two films. I often wonder if Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade might not have been as warmly received if it had directly followed Raiders of the Lost Ark as opposed to coming eight years and one sequel later. It so closely follows Raiders' structure — prologue adventure, classroom, meeting explaining the item in question, off we go — that people may have grumbled that Spielberg was simply treading the same ground if this had come along in 1984. But after the darkness of Temple of Doom and a five-year wait, Last Crusade's adherence to the Raiders formula feels more like the welcome return of an old friend than a stale repeat.

 

[Possumowner]

This movie doesn't exist,nope never got made.There is only 3 Indiana Jones movies

 

[Bishop89]

Just threw this on tonight and man, I really enjoy this movie! I know I'm in a huge minority on this one, but I think it's damn good, and better than Last Crusade -- which I think gets a bigger pass than it should just because of the Ford/Connery chemistry.

Shia sucks, but this feels like an Indiana Jones movie to me. Nuked fridge and all.

Flame away.

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[Deleted member 3876]

It's not a matter of making sense (although the film does a really bad job at explaining its whole crystal skull/alien mythos). Inter-dimensional aliens are sci-fi while the other stuff you mentioned is magic/fantastical. I think the difference is pretty obvious.

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Nah. "Inter-dimensional" is itself complete faux-science bullshit. That's not how dimensions work. Still mumbo jumbo.

 

[Punchline]

This movie has a couple of genuinely good scenes like the motorcycle chase that goes through the university

 

[Bor Gullet]

This movie has a couple of genuinely good scenes like the motorcycle chase that goes through the university

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The first hour is pretty solid, but it veers off a cliff (literally) during the jungle chase scene and onward.

Still a lot better than any of the star wars prequels (except maybe Revenge of the Sith).

 

[Punchline]

The first hour is pretty solid, but it veers off a cliff (literally) during the jungle chase scene and onward.

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I wont argue that but it still manages to be entertaining to me. Theres some bad writing like Mac (his motivation and other characters trusting him after the second heel turn is dumb) but it's still got stuff going for it I feel. The actual Crystal Skull plot, if written tighter, could have been really engaging.

 

[AlmostMilk]

I watched it for the first time a few months ago and found it enjoyable. Definitely felt like an Indian Jones movie. It got way more hate than it deserved. The only real thing that brought it down for me was Shia Lebouf. I just don't like him as an actor and his character kinda sucked. Everything else in the movie was a nice throwback to the originals.

 

[BlackAdder]

Its a pretty terrible movie that felt uncharacteristically lazy from Spielberg.

The nuking of the fridge should not be a of criticism though. The series always enjoys unrealistic b-movie flights of fantasical action. See also using an inflatable raft to escape a plane crash. Actually, the nuking of the fridge was the second best thing about that movie. The only good scene was the diner scene.

 

[Abe Lincoln’s Ghost]

A bad Indiana Jones movie is still better than a lot of other ones, but Crystal Skull was a disappointment. I saw it in the theater and gave it one more shot when it came out on dvd, but at this point, I kind of pretend it doesn't exist.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

I watched it for the first time a few months ago and found it enjoyable. Definitely felt like an Indian Jones movie. It got way more hate than it deserved. The only real thing that brought it down for me was Shia Lebouf. I just don't like him as an actor and his character kinda sucked. Everything else in the movie was a nice throwback to the originals.

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Then you're lucky because Lucasfilm confirmed last month that Indy's son will (somehow) not return in Indiana Jones 5.

 

[Bor Gullet]

Its a pretty terrible movie that felt uncharacteristically lazy from Spielberg.

The nuking of the fridge should not be a of criticism though. The series always enjoys unrealistic b-movie flights of fantasical action. See also using an inflatable raft to escape a plane crash. Actually, the nuking of the fridge was the second best thing about that movie. The only good scene was the diner scene.

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It's still not as lazy as the lost world though!

 

[Biestmann]

I also wanna say something, Temple of Doom>Last Crusade. Though I love both films.

Temple of Doom is one of the greatest action/adventure movies of the 80s. It's fun and kinetic and a great adventure popcorn movie. Following Raiders, any movie they made would have suffered by comparison, but in retrospect it was a good prequel/sequel to the Indy's intro movie. If anyone other than Spielberg had made it, they would have been instantly recognized as a major new director.

Detractors can bag on Temple of Doom all they want, but at the very least it had the balls to be something radically different from its predecessor, something sorely lacking in the pervasive "more of the same" school of thought regarding movie franchises.

Temple of Doom also features some of the most quintessential Indy moments for me. The best is the scene on the rickety bridge. The look on Ford's face when he realizes he has to cut it down followed by his expert delivery of "Oh Shit" is perfection. Then there's a very tiny moment in the mines toward the middle of the film that I just love: a heavy is whipping the child laborers, but then suddenly he gets his ass kicked off screen and is thrown into the frame; cut to low-angle shot of Indy as the camera pushes in. Spielberg's composition is classic, and Ford's posture and expression is that of a genuine hero. Whenever anyone mentions Indiana Jones, I think of that one shot from Temple.

With Last Crusade, as good as it is, it's pretty clearly Raiders Lite. It has almost none of the first film's edge, and some of the broad comedy undermines the suspense. Instead of being the badass anti-hero of archaeology, Indy has fully converted into cinematic hero mode. Doesn't mean the ride isn't fun, but I'll take a morally ambiguous, flawed human being over a wise-cracking superman dragging along a coterie of sidekicks (even if one of them's Sean Connery).

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You are a man of taste.

 

[Nappuccino]

The first hour has some of my favorite Indy moments. The rest could have been fine if, like others have said, the script we're tighter and motivations we're more clear.