Lucas is working on it. Has a story idea what is “crazy but great.” shudder
Harrison Ford wasn’t bad in Indy 4 given that he’s 90 years old now but the story was horrible. I’m actually a little surprised Spielberg bought in to the whole alien angle.
On the plus side, it’s hard to imagine another one being worse than Crystal Skull because of that.
Hivemind forgets that Temple of Doom is the worst Indiana Jones film. News at 11.
Worst of the original 3? Unquestionably. Worse than Crystal Skull? Negative.
Although I have argued in the past that part of the reason Crystal Skull is so bad is the similarities it has to Temple of Doom.
If this is what it takes to bring the Indy 4 defenders to their senses, I’m all for it.
When I first saw Crystal Skull, I ranked it higher than Temple of Doom but now I can’t. I think the story in Crystal Skull is better (not by much but it is better) and I think Ford does a great job again but Temple of Doom is a much much better looking movie. Real sets, matt painting for backgrounds, better lighting, and just better shots make Temple of Doom more pleasing to watch. Watching Crystal Skull on Bluray and it looks really crappy. Some scenes feel like I watching a made for TV movie. Then the last 3rd of the movie becomes a CGI crap fest. My eyes hate me after watching it.
Okay… so with Indy 4, they moved to the 50’s and Lucas changed the tone of the films to be less like the semi-swashbuckling nazi fighting of the original to sort of a Red Scare/Sci-Fi angle which he claimed was more in line with the era… given that logic, when he sets Indy 5 in the early 60’s what will the film look like?
And Temple of Doom may be the worst of the original 3 Indy films… but Temple of Doom is still a great movie. Miles better than lots of garbage that makes its way to the screen.
Temple of Doom, for all its faults, was made by vigorous men in the prime of their creative power hacking their way through primeval jungle just to get their movie made.
Crystal Skull was made by old men who didn’t want to travel further than the Paramount lot, and it really, really shows.
Indiana Jones 5 is still going to be better the new film Harrison Ford is making the rounds for. The trailer makes Hallmark movies-of-the-week look profound.
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull occurs entirely in Indiana Jones’ mind–he hallucinates the whole goddamn mess while slowly dying from radiation poisoning in a lead-lined fridge.
Temple of Doom is better than Crystal Skull. I personally prefer it to Last Crusade as well, because in my opinion Last Crusade tips too far into comedy, while Temple of Doom retains a darkness that I find compelling. But I can see, given the enjoyable Ford/Connery chemistry, why some would prefer Last Crusade.
I also think Temple of Doom benefits from having a score that is almost the equal of Raiders’, whereas neither of the other sequels’ music even comes close. But the gap in quality between Raiders and all of its sequels is greater than the gap between any two of the last three films.
I dunno, I really like the Grail Theme. I never found Temple to have a particularly memorable score.
I liked the physical stunts in Crystal Skull, like the motorcycle part in the beginning, but then it started to rely too much on CGI and that’s where it fell apart. And let’s not talk about the end. That was dreadful. It’s like midway through the movie they decided to ditch the stunts. And the forest… ugh. it looked linear. That’s the major difference between the other movies and Crystal Skull. At least, when they were in the desert, it was the desert. And the insects. The CGI ruined that. They were no longer creepy venomous insects, but rather stupid CGI. And what the heck was up with that groundhog? No place for it in the movie.
And I don’t know if it’s just me, but I felt HD actually hurt the movie. As far as the theme, I found the movie lacked one, which was surprising. It was almost as if it was a subtle reference that they knew this movie wouldn’t fit in with the others and didn’t push the memorable theme onto it much. Instead, it was more like the theme was a cameo.
The Oxford chase is probably the best part of Crystal Skull. You know your Indiana Jones movie has problems when the United States is the setting for the most interesting action scenes.
I can’t even remember the Grail theme, but I whistled the Temple of Doom theme the moment it got mentioned. Weird.
They play it just about every time the Grail diary is shown or when a major clue is discovered, and also I believe when Sean Connery is healed. The only clip featuring it I could find in a quick YouTube scan is this one.
At :20 in, when Indy consults the diary, that’s the Grail Theme.
Edit: :40 in on this clip, you can hear a more pronounced version, played when Indy sees the Grail Knight as the temple collapses.
I’m with you. I prefer Temple to either Skull or Last Crusade. I didn’t like Last Crusade at all–it felt more like a parody of an Indy film than the real deal. Honestly, I may even like it less than Crystal Skull, but it’s a hard call, since I didn’t like Skull, either. Matt Keil’s description of Skull pretty much sums it up.
Of course, none of them even comes close to Raiders.
I hope Shia, the monkeys, and the gophers are all back. Also, Cate Blanchett’s singularly awful performance, since she gives so few of those.
-TomYeah, get rid of Willie, or at the very least recast her, and ToD is the least unnecessary Indy sequel. The score was great, though. Way to pick the wrong nit guys.
It seems like more than anything else the sequels just fucked up the tone of the original, exponentially so with each new film. Raiders didn’t need any sequels, anyway; it was perfect :(
Spielberg and Lucas peaked in 1981.
My instinct is to disagree with this, but my rational mind finds I cannot.