I loved almost everything about this friggin movie up until the very end.

Highlights:

Shout outs to Marcus and Henry Senior
Marion is the only one to call him Indiana
The chases were fantastic
Obligatory shot of the Ark of the Coverent
So much more!

Things I wasn't so thrilled with:
Ending was a bit predictable
The way that Spalko dies seemed like a pale immitation of the end of Raiders
Snake as a Rope bit
I think the whole story line was lifted from an episode of Ducktales


So what did you think?

Click to view attachment

INDY'S OLD!


Thank you Ollie.

Wow, I came away with the exact opposite reaction. Saw it Friday night. HATED IT. Most disappointing film of my life, especially after 20 years. Worse than Phantom Menace. Seriously.

I saw it yesterday.

It's my least favorite of the franchise, but it's got some strong moments, and I had a better time than I did at Iron Man - which isn't to say I hated Iron Man or anything. I just had a really good time with KOTCS despite the film's problems. Mutt as Tarzan can lick my balls. Damn you, Lucas!

I enjoyed the film a great deal - but I agree the ending was kind of strange and strained and PhantomMenace'D - or something.

Its funny because while watching you can almost pick exactly which moments Spielberg thought up and which ones Lucas did - and all the Lucas bits were

I didn't mind the Tarzan bit but the snake as rope bit was really forced.

I also didn't like
The end - WTF happened??? Why did Spalko Die? The Aliens granted a "gift" to whoever returned the skull right, they should be grateful but why did they blow up the city and melt everyone (only villians mind you) in the chamber??


Also when the whole city explodes - and Indy is standing on the top of the mountain - shouldn't there be some debris or wind or something blowing around? He seemd pretty untouched by it all...

Ants section - lame - Yeah Lucas we all watched the Mummy also ...

Loved the chases though especially the one with Mutt and Indy on campus.

Also -
what was with all the "now we sit down and tell you backstory" scenes?? I thought Lucas didn't write this one?? Actually thats my biggest complaint with the film - most of the dialogue felt so forced - like Star Wars Prequel bad.

But it does remind though that even sleep walking Speilberg is leauges better than most Action directors out there.

...I like Ike.

See, reactions like these above are why we can't have nice things anymore, people.

I can get why people are disappointed, let down, etc., because the Great Nerd Wars have left us all shell-shocked and no one is ever gonna be 100% pleased with a new adventure featuring an old deity dusted off for a new go-round.

But to say you hated it? That's a damn lie and you must not be pleased by anything.

And any scene with Mutt > any scene with Short Round. Period.

So far there is only one post in this thread that said they didn't enjoy the film... so you might want to watch the kneejerk reactions and stuff...

I refer to the nit-picking and all. The specific "hated it" comment was directed specifically at the one who said they hated it.

And don't you know we all have to pick sides in this war?

It could also be that it's not that great a movie as a stand alone film, and not that great a movie in comparison to others in its series.

I'm not even going to attempt to understand those of you who hated this movie. You're the type who can't be satisfied with most things in life. This was a perfect Indiana Jones movie and even trying to relate to Raiders in impossible because Raiders was in a different time and was brand new back then. You can't expect this to be JUST LIKE RAIDERS. Geez

Saw it this afternoon. Lotta Spoilers BTW.

Damn fun movie with some spectacular action bits thrown in.

The direction this one went in reminded me a lot of the brainless fun thrown into The Lost World. Just there to be dumb fun and I was fine with that.

Visually I was quite impressed with the old school feel of this movie. Indy 4 had the same gritty practical special effects feel of the first which is what IMO the prequel movies were really missing. The prequels felt way to updated, and extravagant for the b budget series they originally in but Spielberg goes back to everything that made the first Indy movies so much fun without trying to make it too pretty/polished. Overall I felt this could very realistically be made sometime ten/twenty years ago.

Harrison Ford may be hella old but like Bruce Willis he's still hella fun to watch. Some of the stuff, well most of the stuff they do in this movie is so ridiculous and over the top one can't help but laugh at all the slapstick silliness. Early on after escaping Area 51 Indy finds himself in a full scale mock 50's era town and right away discovers it's a bomb test site. He survives by hiding in a refrigerator unit and being blown across the desert. After a tumble landing he emerges virtually unscathed. So yeah apparently Indy can survive a nuclear blast unharmed. The chase scenes are no less silly but damn were they fun. The truck chase nearing the three quarter mark is very reminiscent of Raiders and about the same tone and has Indy, Mutt, and Marion battling the Russians for some kind of alien artifact. Yes the crystal skull is an alien, it's obvious from the start even with the spoilers already circulating. Throw in it a scene involving Shia swinging through the vines with monkeys and fire ants that viciously eat most of the bad guys and you have one sequence that won't be forgotten by movie goers anytime soon.

Now comes the really hard question. Is this worthy enough to be an Indiana Jones movie or is it just a stand alone that you really don't need if you want to enjoy the originals? IMO it can be seen either way. Like Lethal Weapon, and Die Hard 4 Indy 4 is not a necessary film but at the same time it's not a bad film that tarnishes the feel/love of the originals. Unlike Star Wars the continuity still remains intact everything is just in a different era. The back stories were pretty useless and after three movies where Indy has only been an archeology teacher who goes after artifacts didn't do a whole lot to deepen the character. If anything the dialog was just scripted to build and solidify the whole military Area 51 conspiracy subplot in the films beginning. After that the military or anything military is even mentioned or even later resolved. The marital spat between Indy and Marion was also pretty painful and felt the most forced aspect of the movie. Thank God Spielberg knew when to pull back and make things interesting/exciting again. Loved the snake bit. Didn't feel as forced as people said. Thought it was hilarious that Shea would just grab a snake of all things with no fear of it whatsoever. A real badass.

The end is truly bizarre and feels in line with what you'd expect from a Tomb Raider movie opposed to an Indiana Jones movie. (Played Tomb Raider 3 which carried many of the same themes) Also everything feels rather anti climatic when compared to the wonderful buildup through the film. Basically Blanchet returns the skull to the one alien and then the temple collapses with Jones and company barely escaping. Also was anybody else thinking ascension when Blanchet got particularized and pulled into the dimensional gateway?

Overall Spielberg is overall while Lucus remains complete and utter

Funny this is exactly how I felt at the end of Temple of Doom.

Just got back. Dunno... it was.. okay.

I love this entire series. I wanted to love this one too, as I'm sure all other fans did. Strangely enough, I thought the story elements themselves were quite okay. I liked the tidbits, the references to Indy's dad, what happened with Marion in the intervening years, the Pancho Villa stuff which I remember from one of the Young Indiana Jones eps, and so forth.

But, like a lot of modern movies, it felt like a bunch of pieces of varying quality all spliced together and lacked the cohesion of not just the older Indy films, but older films in general. Despite that I certainly like Mutt as a character much better than Short Round, Temple of Doom is a lot more fluid. The pacing of the tension, humor, and action makes it all come together more. A lotta the dialog here seems like it coulda been refined, and it gives the whole film a feeling like it was a bit rushed and those tidbits above came off as a bit stilted when they seemed like they woulda been really nice otherwise.

I almost wish I'd been able to go into the movie blind without knowing anything about what they'd been doing or who was gonna be in it, to see what my sincerest reaction woulda been.

Okay, I really did like the "dungeon crawl" part. That was always more o' what I wanted to see. hehehehe.. In fact, I'd say I liked about half of the movie, that half being the action, the overall elements, all the references, and what they tried to recreate for everyone, but "rushed" and "stilted" really describe the other half, and since those are all the key transitions, that ended up affecting the first half.

Yeah, that's right. I hated it. I didn't think it was a good movie. I dislike bad movies. It's not a lie to say I hated something. When can someone's opinion ever be a lie? I thought the dialogue was bad, I thought the plot was bad, and I thought the effects were bad (in the sense that they were unnecessary and detracted from what the movie should have been about). The direction was good, the acting was good, and the soundtrack was good, but the script was bad enough that I don't believe anything could have saved it, short of a total rewrite.

It wasn't a good stand-alone film and it wasn't a good Indy movie, it was just your typical run-of-the-mill 21st century blockbuster, complete with crappy writing and hokey CGI. And I like plenty of movies. I wanted to like this one. I said I was disappointed, and that's true. I said it was worse than Phantom Menace, and I stand by that statement. The reason being I wasn't all that disappointed in Phantom Menace, as I rightly assumed it would be awful and was simply along for the ride. I thought this might actually be a good movie, but I was mistaken. I actually postponed buying the trilogy DVD for years because I thought this movie would be good enough that I would want to own all four, but it wasn't.

I don't have any one specific overarching gripe, and I thought there were good parts (the cemetery scene, for instance), but as a whole the movie didn't work for me. It just felt like one contrived, pointless scenario after another. If you like I can actually break it down on a scene-by-scene basis and tell you all the problems I had with this movie, but the whole post would have to be spoilered.

Let's just say it wasn't the type of movie that I was expecting and didn't feel like an Indiana Jones movie to me - in the sense that the prequels didn't feel like Star Wars - but if you're the kind of person who enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean 2 or 3 then you'll probably love this movie.

I enjoyed it. There was only one part in the movie I was a little about: Indy comes out of a Lead fridge that just took a severe punishing throw from a Nuclear Bomb and he's A' OKAY!!!! There must've been a glitch in the matrix or something....

Otherwise, good flick. I won't be buying it on DVD but it was worth the single watch.

FWIW I just realised Indy's son being nicknamed "Mutt" is a reference to Indy being named after the dog. MAN I'M SLOW

The movie was good, but the nuclear blast was a bit too Wile E. Coyote for me. What was that? Indiana Jones written by Chuck Jones?


I think it doesn't help that, in the end, one can't help but think, "It took 19 years to make this?"

Except that it didn't.

Just because the last one came out 19 years ago, it doesn't mean they spent 19 years on making this one.

Okay, okay, first they were literal with the Last Crusade's title and made the "last" movie, but then they changed their mind during the mid-90s. George Lucas was then interrupted by his Star War prequels, so that delayed it even further. And after several attempts at getting a script, the movie was finally made, with the result being a movie that's good but not great. So, finally, I just wonder why they didn't make something like this years ago?

Because they were all busy doing other stuff.

They probably spent as much time making this movie as they did making any of the other ones - probably about a year and a half to two years from pre-production to release, recognizing that in that time they're attention is focused on other things as well, such as EPing Transformers or planning Star Wars Television projects.

If you're going to criticize the movie, at least be fair to it and don't twist the timeline to make things seem worse than they are.

I'd rather have had another Indiana Jones movie than the Lost World: Jurassic Park II. I think American film history could also do without Seven Days, Seven Nights and Hollywood Homicide.

Okay, now either that's a lie, or you are a fortune teller, or hindsight is rearranging your memory. People who expected Phantom Menace to be awful didn't exist. Period. Again.

What kind of point are you even trying to make? This movie wouldn't have been magically better if they released it in 1994 instead of 2008.

You just said it. The movie really wouldn't have been better, so there was really no point in waiting all of this time to make another one.

Is anyone else's head about to explode?

The filmmakers didn't wait 19 years to make the movie better, they waited because they had other stuff they wanted to spend their time on. The movie is what it is. If you found it lacking when compared to 19 years of expectations, it's your problem for spending 19 years building yourself up - you should've taken a cue from Lucas and Spielberg and focused on something else during that time.

That's what all this boils down to.

Okay, fine. I'm a liar. There WAS an internet back then, you know. There were reviews, and there was a novelization which proceeded the movie (which I skimmed, hence spoiler'ing myself and knowing 99% of what was going to happen going in, not that it mattered). It was 1999, not the stone age.

And what was so good about it? The fact that almost every scene was either shot in a sound stage or was green-screened? The fact that there were only two men guarding Area 51? The fact that the uber-magnetic box was only magnetic when it needed to be? Indy running on 2x4's spaced 4 ft apart? Indy riding a rocket sled? Indy surviving a nuclear blast? The CGI prairie dogs? Marcus Brody's head falling off into the bad guy's lap? The gear/saw that managed to bounce multiple times, hitting every car on the road? The fact that Marian's car continued to function after the hood was cut in half? The fact that there was miraculously more road on the other side of the road building machine? Mutt getting hit in the balls by bushes? Mutt swinging on vines like Tarzan? Mutt teaming up with CGI monkeys to fight the commies? The CGI ant swarm that was lifted directly from The Mummy? The ants/scarabs pouring in the commie's mouth (again lifted from The Mummy)? The ants building a gravity-defying ladder to reach airborne prey? The fact that the anthill had an opening larger than a human body? The fact that Ox was treated as a plot device and was only as crazy as he needed to be for each particular scene? The fact that the ending made absolutely no sense? The fact that the skeletons nonsensically combined into one living CGI alien? The fact that it was the alien from Close Encounters, but instead of just using one of the costumes from Close Encounters they made it CGI just for the hell of it? The fact that there was an "interdimensional portal" in the ceiling for no apparent reason? The fact that the alien killed the commies for no reason, and without provocation? The fact that the saucer takeoff ending was lifted from X-Files: Fight the Future? Or the fact that Short Round didn't bother showing up to Indy's wedding? Note I didn't mention the snake/rope scene, because I liked that

It wasn't ALL bad, but it's definitely a Prequel/Pirates-style 21st century CGI-fest. And I understand that a lot of people enjoy these types of movies, but I prefer something less cartoony (unless it's something like Sin City or 300, which basically IS a cartoon). If you're going to call me a hater/liar/whatever at least tell me what you liked about the movie.

I expected TPM to suck, based on reviews, based on interviews Lucas gave, based on the Special Editions of the first movies, based on stills released during production, then finally based on friends who went to see it. No, I didn't start out expecting it to suck. It slowly built up as all of that happened.

I do think Indy 4 woulda been better had it been done 19 years ago and they not gotten sidetracked with other projects of interest. Maybe 2 - 4 years after Last Crusade and roughly in line with the first 3. But since they kinda gave Last Crusade a dramatic ending with an air of finality, there was no reasonable expectation for them to have done an Indy 4 back then, and Lucas's and Spielberg's other projects were understandable (even if I personally thought more Indy movies woulda been better than more SW movies).


sertile: I liked what they tried to do. I actually expected to be more put off by the transition from the adventure pulp theme of the '30s to the sci-fi pulp theme of the '50s than I was. So I think they did pretty well with that, all things considering. I just think it coulda been worked on a little more -- more thought and zing given to some of the dialog in the key scenes that're supposed to bridge the audience from one clear mood to the next, some of that was pretty bland, and a slightly more just-in-the-realm-of-plausibility-ness to the action sequences. I thought the jungle ants, the survival-in-a-fridge, the tarzan, and the surviving 3 full waterfall drops without anyone getting inadvertently crushed by that huge vehicle they were riding was a bit-too-much to swallow (and I bought the aliens/UFO scene without a problem).

All right, so liar is a bit harsh. But none of the stuff you hated about the movie really stacks up as more or less stupid than anything that came before it.

If you wanna nitpick about leaps of logic like the abundance of roads for the chase scene, the destructive bouncing gear, the ants stacking on top of themselves, and the human-sized ant hole, then I'll counter that you should be pissed that all these ancient tombs and temples seem to be mechanized (some with slicing saw blades!), that the "temple of doom" had a violent pool of magma swirling directly beneath it where some sort of foundation should be, that Mola Rom could rip the heart out of a man's chest and said man could continue to live for a good long time, considering he has no heart, and any of the various other acts of hocus-pocus that have been central to the plot of each of the movies in the series. For whatever reason you seem to be fine with those...and seem to be picking on the new guy for including the exact same things.

Plus, you seem to be crapping on the CGI in this movie, which seems unfair (though I will agree the prairie dogs were kinda odd). I mean, what the heck do you expect the filmmakers to do, dust off an optical printer so the matte lines in this one would look just as crappy as the matte lines in "Raiders?" Fake is fake, whether its a model or a set or a something added in later with CGI. Things evolve, and filmmakers are allowed to use the tools available to them to ease or expand the storytelling. Hating on CGI has become shorthand for "the filmmakers should've paid more attention to the story instead of shiny effects," which I totally understand...but that doesn't apply to this movie.

As for what I liked: I thought the tone fit perfectly with the other films in the series, loved inclusion of a sidekick not of the "cute kid" variety, dug that Indy was on the outs with the government, that they gave us just the hint of a wink to previous movies instead of one looooong call back to what came before, and the fact that it felt fun and unforced. It was a good time.

I didn't even think about a new Indiana Jones movie. I just find it funny that they were so uptight about making one for all this time, what with no one agreeing on a script, and then end up with something that really could have been made years ago.

Okay...but you do realize it wasn't 19 years of disagreeing on a script, right? It was mostly 19 years of not thinking about it.

And with regard to what disagreeing and thinking about it there was, it's a matter of public record that Spielberg and Ford had at least one script (but likely more than that) that they were happy with, but that Lucas was the one holding things up with his wacky ideas for what he wanted the film to be, and it was only after Spielberg and Ford gave in and let Lucas have his way on some things that the project was able to move forward. So, with that having been said, we always knew the film would have some problems, Lucas made it inevitable.[/ravenwood]

But, despite it's problems, it's still a fun flick and a worthy addition to the franchise.

Of course I know that a third sequel wasn't planned for 19 years. I already said that The Last Crusade was supposed to be the end of the movie series.

Yes, it is a good movie. However, I think it really should have been the fifth Indiana Jones movie by now.





Now, I hope you realize that you should not take things so seriously. Why did you have to turn a cheap joke into such a serious brow beating?

You were joking? Okay, next time, here's how this conversation should go:

You really shouldn't assume the worst of people, especially in regard to something as lite as this.

I do think part of what's missing here is that we're most of us no longer kids awed by bizarre, creepy things we didn't fully understand at the time. I actually was bothered by the spinning saw blades powered by seemingly nothing, but the story was pretty tight with the interplay of the character motivations an' such.

Things like Mola Ram's heart-ripping are like the aliens/UFO -- they're things we accept as part of the story because the story itself has that element of being supernatural or sci-fi. Falling out of a plane about to crash and surviving by landing with an inflatable raft is "conceptually possible but pushing it" depending on things like the airspeed the plane was conceivably going at, how close they actually were to the ground, and then falling into that river.

Things like surviving a test nuclear blast shockwave that wipes out a town inside a fridge and falling over 3 successive waterfalls in a heavy vehicle without any of 5 people getting crushed by it are more like "pushing the already pushing it category". Perhaps we shoulda seen the fridges from the other houses and other possible solid lead objects land scattered about to suggest that it was possible "in the story" as a bit much as it was, or 5 people surviving going over 1 waterfall.

Regarding the CGI, Lucas stated that, while he wasn't opposed to switching from old methods to using CGI, he and Spielberg had agreed that they wouldn't use any in this film. The final parts didn't seem to use much other than those prairie dogs, ants, magnetic dust, entrance pillars, vine swinging, and the UFO of course ('kay guess that sounds like more than a few but they had very little screen time), but it does seem "Lucas-y".

Spielberg's no stranger to effects-heavy movies, and word on the web is that KOTCS has 450 or so effects shots, compared to Transformers' 600. So I'd say that's quite a bit. I think you are confusing the use of CGI with the report that Lucas tried to get Spielberg to shoot digitally, which he did not do.

That's not pushing it anymore than the Jones' Sr. and Jr. finding the only flock of seagulls more scared of an old man with an umbrella than they are of flying directly into the propellers of an aircraft. Come on, would they really fly directly into that plane when twelve feet up and twenty feet down the shore would've sufficed?

Of course not.

But Indy movies have always been about cartoony levels of heroism. People are hating on KOTCS for the exact same things that have made the other movies timeless classics.

It's an interesting phenomenon to witness - very similar to the folks who hated on Movie Prime for saying "My bad" when his lines from the cartoon were more often than not equally as cheesy or worse. But somehow the old cartoon scripts remain acceptable and "right" and the new thing is "wrong."

Think a lot of it just goes back to the "we're no longer kids" thing. I mean back then, we were less turned off things that didn't strict exactly to reality.

Reality sucks, hence we watch imaginations that other people have made...

I think this movie will become more accepted, in time. Hell, I already feel like seeing it again myself.

Still, the nuclear blast scene will always seem like Looney Tunes to me. Even for Indiana Jones, that was too much.

The Original INDY movies worked with adults too.

I personally didn't have problems with the stuff that we MEANT to be cartoony i.e the fridge, the tarzan, the rocket sled/prarrie dogs. the Water- oh wait the waterfalls were a bit much... but only because the expectation at that point would have been for them to "escape" with some wacky adventure and not just cut to "after the fact - hey look we're safe"

My complaints remain with the script and the dialog primarily, which REEKED of Lucas' interference.
Didn't they have some really talented people writing this thing and ended up going with Koepp's frankenstein of an effort.

It makes you wonder if people like Speilberg and Ford are aware of how nuts Lucas is and if they just accept it because he's "uncle george"....

I think it would be interesting to see what other stories and scripts were proposed before this version was settled on.

It'll be interesting to see how history treats this whole "old man" movie trend. Not just Indy, but Rocky Balboa, Rambo, Die Hard 4... hell, even Clerks 2. There have been some good ones, but I don't know if they'll ever be 100% integrated with the originals, if you know what I mean. They just have a different feel to them... like not just a sequel to a previous film, but a sequel to the series itself.

Lucas isn't crazy. Fans like to say he's nuts because he had a different vision for the "Star Wars" prequels than 90% of the fans did. But whatever, that's a battle we're all still scarred from. Bottom line, it was his call and his call alone, he made his money and fulfilled his vision. The end. No fanboy tears or screams will change any of that, ever.

As for this Indy film, one suspects the big three of Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford all had to sign off equally on what went on, otherwise what's the point? Obviously none of them are immune from making bad choices, as past projects make clear...but I have a hard time seeing Ford and (especially) Spielberg sitting back and listening to the ramblings of a crazy Lucas telling them how things are gonna be and them simply taking it. Mostly because that would never happen. They've both got better things to do than something they DON'T wanna do.

A vision with terribly HUGE plot holes and inconsistencies?

I don't really think Spielberg cared much either way. With everything that guy's in the middle of he probably just said **** it, let's get this thing done so I can move on and do Jurassic Park 4.

Seriously though my only complaint if any was the films lightness throughout. From what reviewers were saying initially I was expecting this to be Temple of Doom dark but instead it's the lightest/silliest installment yet. I can't help but feel Lucus was severely restrained throughout the production phase and this ended up being more Spielberg's film than anyone. Spielberg's a wonderful director yes but one also has to remember tis is the guy that gave us Lost World, and AI. Need I go on?

I felt a lot of potential for this to really get dark, and not so silly mid way through the film. The psychic mind link I though would lead to something but instead didn't really go anywhere and effect Indiana in any discernible way so basically a wasted plot device as was the crystal skull itself.

The ending for those who didn't get it made perfect sense. The woman made the mistake of asking to know everything there was to know and obviously the human body wasn't meant to at one time immediately receive all the answers to life the universe and everything. The ending result, complete melt down and the moral of the story "Don't ask an extraterrestrial life form who you don't know anything about or how they interpret, perceive knowledge the secrets of the universe. The spaceship taking off it definitely a bit wtf for any Indy film but at the same time it fit the era the film was placed so the B budget scifi theme running throughout the film worked for what it was.

Quick comment about the lead lined fridge. There was no taking this seriously not when the blast alone would have killed Indy. Aparently and this surprised but but the human body isn't designed/equipped to survive the explosive pressure blast of one stick of dynamite let alone a nuclear explosion. Mythbust'd btw.

As critical as I'm being I'm to empathetic to really care if it was a good/bad movie. All I do know is it was fun, entertaining and everything most movie goers during the Summer months go to see. In that respect I wasn't disappointed in the least, of course movies are just that to me, movies. If I want to exercise my mind and be thought provoked I'll read a book. Movies are just there to be fun. People really need to stop making them out to be more.

This is the second time in two years that you and I completely agree. one more time and the earth explodes.

I'm waiting for the Mythbusters where they rip a guy's heart out of his still living body, and he keeps living. And the one where they see if a vengeful God will melt a Nazi's face.

I liked AI. Lots of people Liked AI - It may not have been the most successful experiment but it certainly wasn't with out merit.

I also don't have a problem with the ship taking off perse. What I have a problem with is Indy standing on the mountain top watching it take off, and watching the entire city/canyon explode and not feeling a shockwave, or heck even a breeze. No dust. No nothing.
It was like "Hai I'm on Ur greenscreen blowing up Ur city" which was just dumb.

The Oscar Winning Director of E.T., Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Schindler's List has four words for you:

"Jar Jar. Pod Race."

The worst scenes in this film reeked of Cutesy Lucas Syndrome, and I think the problems with this film rest mightily on the shoulders of Lucas. Probably doubly so for making Ford and Spielberg throw out the Darabont draft a couple of years back.